Deborah Paredez holds a Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama Program at Northwestern University. She teaches courses about race and performance in the Department of Theatre, the Center for Mexican American Studies, and the Center for African & African American Studies. Her recent scholarship has focused on U.S. Latina/o performance and popular culture. Her articles, "Remembering Selena, Re-membering Latinidad," (Theatre Journal, 2002) and "Becoming Selena, Becoming Latina" (Women and Migration in the US-Mexico Borderlands, Duke University Press, 2007) comprise part of her forthcoming book, Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory (Duke University Press 2009), that explores the afterlife of the Tejana performer, Selena Quintanilla Perez. She is currently working on a series of articles about Ugly Betty, including "All About My (Absent) Mother: Latina Aspirations in Real Women Have Curves and Ugly Betty" for the anthology, Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America, under review with New York University Press. Her next project will focus on arts activism among communities of color in the Bronx.
In the fall of 2007, Deborah was appointed Director of Arts and Community Engagement (ACE) in the newly formed Vice President's Office for Diversity and Community Engagement. As part of her work for this office, Deborah created the Annual ACE Award that honors Austin-area individuals or organizations that have shown distinction in facilitating community exchange, engagement, and empowerment in and through the arts.
In addition to her work as a theatre scholar and performer, Deborah is also a poet. She is the author of This Side of Skin (Wings Press, 2002) and the recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Writing Award founded by Sandra Cisneros. Her poems have also appeared in Daughters of the Fifth Sun: A Collection of U.S. Latina Fiction and Poetry (Putnam, 1995), This Promiscuous Light (Wings Press, 1996), Floricanto Sí! A Collection of Latina Poetry (Penguin, 1998), and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2007). Beyond the university, Deborah has taught writing workshops with young people of color in a range of venues.
