Paula Sofia Ayala

Paula Sofia Ayala

Graduate Student

Email: ayala.paulasofi@gmail.com

Biography

Paula Sofia Ayala is a doctoral student in the Chicana/o and Central American Studies department whose focus is on displaced Central American, African and Indigenous people. She is currently focused on the role that nationalisms and sub-empires perpetuate in identity formation, racism, solidarities and territoriality. She is an autonomous cultural and political education worker who has documented, exhibited and presented locally and internationally.  She holds her BA and MA in Latin American Studies from CSULA.

Education

  • AA – Fresno City College
  • BA- Latin American Studies, CSULA
  • MA- Latin American Studies, CSULA

Research

  • Contemporary Central America & Diaspora
  • Intergenerational & Anti-colonial Social Movements
  • Feminisms
  • Gender and Sexualities
  • Pluriversal Politics
  • Settler Colonialism and People of Color
  • Displacement
  • Nationalism
  • Hegemony
  • Sub-imperialisms
  • Imaginaries

Selected Publications

  • “The Central American Community of the Central Valley Will Not be Erased,” Latino Rebels, October 3, 2019 https://www.latinorebels.com/2019/10/03/centralamericaerasure/
  • “Imposed Tragedy, Pluriversal Dissent: Contemporary Central American Liberationist Thought, Language and Action”, August 2020, Master’s Thesis, ProQuest

Honors & Awards

  • 2017 Rios Scholarship, CSULA
  • Spring 2017 Outstanding Undergrad Oral Presentation at Creative Research and Writing Symposium at Cal State University for, “Clandestinity: Memoria Gráfica Y Trauma. El Salvador’s Civil War”
  • 2020 Fulbright Award, Brazil (DECLINED)
  • 2021 Eugene Cota Robles Award, UCLA