Floridalma Boj Lopez

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Floridalma Boj Lopez

Floridalma Boj Lopez

Assistant Professor
Core Faculty

Office: 7361 Bunche Hall

Email: fbojlopez@chavez.ucla.edu

Biography

Floridalma Boj Lopez is an Assistant Professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. Dr. Boj Lopez’s work uses a transborder approach to analyze the experiences of Maya migrants as they cross settler colonial borders and encounter distinct racial logics in the United States. Her research examines cultural production among the Guatemalan Maya diaspora with a particular emphasis on intergenerational relationships, gender, and the production of Indigenous migrant community in Los Angeles, CA. She is particularly interested in how these communities respond to structures of state violence and understand their relationship to indigeneity in ways that account for distinct experiences across generations. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled Mobile Archives of Indigeneity: The Mayan Diaspora and Indigenous Cultural Production whichexamines how Guatemalan Mayan migrants and youth in Los Angeles challenge notions of Latinidad through material objects such as digital photography, Mayan regional clothing, and children’s literature. Her work has been published in the Latino Studies Journal, the International Journal of Human Rights Education, and in the book U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance.

Education

  • PhD, American Studies and Ethnicity, USC (2017)
  • MA, Chicana and Chicano Studies, CSUN (2010)
  • BA, Latin American and Latina/o Studies and Ethnic Studies, UCSC (2008)

Research

  • Central American Studies
  • Indigenous Studies
  • Latinx Los Angeles
  • Mayan Migration
  • Transborder Indigenous Studies

Selected Publications

  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. “Discovering Dominga: Indigenous Migrants and the Politics of Indigenous Displacement.” Forthcoming.
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma and Grande, Sandy. (2019). “Decolonizing in Unexpected Places,” International Journal of Human Rights Education, 3(1) .
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2017. “Mobile Archives of Indigeneity: Building La Comunidad Ixim through Youth Organizing in the Maya Diaspora.” Latino Studies Journal, 15(2), pp 201–218.
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2017. “Critical Latin@ Indigeneities: Inquiry at the Crossroads of Interdisciplinary Fields.” Latino Studies Journal, 15 (2), pp 126–137. Co-authored with Maylei Blackwell and Luis Urrieta.
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2017. “Weavings that Rupture: The Possibility of Contesting Settler Colonialism through Cultural Retention among the Maya Diaspora.” In U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance edited by A. I. Estrada, E. Hernandez and K. Oliva-Alvarado. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2017. Indigeneity and Criminality in the Américas: Review of Multiple Injustices: Indigenous Women, Law, and Political Struggle in Latin America by Aida Hernandez Castillo, Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, 17(1).
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2015. “Maya Youth and Cultural Sustainability in the United States.” In Latinos and Latinas at Risk: Issues in Education, Health, Community, and Justice edited by G. Gutierrez, 151-170. Santa Barbara: Greenwood.
  • Boj Lopez, Floridalma. 2015. “Mobilizing Transgression: Red Pedagogy and Maya Migrant Positionalities.” In Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought, 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, edited by S. Grande. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.