Biography

Joana Chavez is a first-generation student raised in the Inland Empire. She attended Mt. San Jacinto College and then transferred to University of California, Riverside where she got her BA in Ethnic Studies and Spanish. She is currently a PhD candidate in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles where she researches gendered carceral spaces (youth group homes) and uses testimonios to uplift young women of color’s voices in these spaces. She has been part of Million Dollar Hoods Project since 2018—a community-driven and multidisciplinary initiative documenting the human and fiscal costs of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. Currently, she is part of Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration Initiative Project at UCLA where she is invested in abolishing violent systems that harm communities of color. She enjoys being surrounded by her community, family, and in nature to ground herself.