Arturo Aldama

Dr. Arturo J. Aldama, born in Mexico City and grew up in Sacramento, California, serves as an Associate Professor and served as Associate Chair of Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder and recently served as Director of CSERA (Center for Studies in Ethnicity and Race in the Americas). He received an MA and PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley in 1996. 

What's New

As we are in 2025, the work we do in critical Ethnic Studies is even more vital given how white supremacy, toxic masculinities, transphobia, xenophobia and misogynoir continues to be a determinative force in electoral politics in the US settler colonialist nation state. It is beyond outrageous how much an antisemitic theory of the Great Replacement has been deployed by the growing fascism in the United States to drive the demonization of BIPOC migrants as “replacers” for white Christian Americans. A May 2022 shooting of African American shoppers in Buffalo, New York, evinces the impact and influence of these white supremacist discourses. According to reports, the eighteen-year-old shooter’s 180-page manifesto has recognizable tropes of replacement theory.  The shooter felt compelled to murder the shoppers to stop the “replacement” of white Christian families and—given the huge support of these racist conspiracy theories in the Republican Party—white Christian Republican voters. The replacement theory parallels the ongoing racist hype of protecting the southern border from “invasion” by nonwhite folks, a refrain heard in Trump’s political rallies and from many elected officials. Replacement theory and the racist hype of “invasion” were also seen motivators in the horrific mass murder of Latinx people in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019.

The time for community, solidarity and coalition building is never more present challenge the ever-growing archipelago of white supremacist, transphobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic laws and statutes at state and federal levels. Republican-led states feel emboldened to outlaw critical race theory, pass transphobic legislation, abolish attempts at gender inclusivity in schools and public offices, and pass extreme anti-abortion legalization that criminalizes women’s right to choose and doctors' Hippocratic oaths. We welcome all students to take out classes that center BIPOC lives, histories, epistemologies and world views with an intersectional frame.

Here is the url for the most recent book that was a collaboration with another ethnic studies faculty and featured some Ethnic Studies/CU Boulder scholars

https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/resistance-and-abolition-in-the-borderlands

Here is an excerpt of the CFP for the current book project titled, “Towards Educational Liberation for Latine/x/o Youth: An Intersectional Approach.” This refereed, edited volume seeks to build a scholarly and activist community of folx committed to liberatory educational practices for Latine/x/o youth grounded in an intersectional episteme that considers the categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, and dis/ability justice. Latinx youth make up the largest population in the US after non-Hispanic whites (almost 30% in 2023). However, one must question if the social and cultural needs of Latinx youth are being supported in the classroom and within school experiences. Do Latinx youth see themselves, their assets, imaginaries, and social justice needs reflected in the ever-shifting curriculum and pedagogical practices?

Additionally, it is also important to examine whether schools view Latinx families and communities as co-partners in a child’s educational journey and as assets to the school environment. This perspective not only fosters educational empowerment but also decolonizes white supremacist understandings of identity, community, and education.

"What's New" updated February 2025

Selected Publications

Books

Aldama, Arturo. Disrupting Savagism: Intersecting Chicana/o, Mexican Immigrant and Native American Struggles for Representation, Duke University Press (Latin American Otherwise Series).

Aldama, Arturo. Violence and the Body:  Race, Gender and the State, Indiana University Press, 2003.

Edited Volumes

Aldama, Arturo J., and Aldama, Frederick Luis, eds. Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities, The University of Arizona Press, 2020.

Aldama, Arturo. Ed, Decolonial Voices: Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century, Indiana University Press, 2003.

Aldama, Arturo, Lourdes Gutierrez-Najera, and M. Bianet Castellanos, eds. Comparative Indigeneities of the Americas. Introduction (co-author) and a single author chapter in book, not a reprint on US nativism and criminalization of immigrants. The University of Arizona Press, 2012. Inaugural book in Critical Indigenous Studies.

Aldama, Arturo. Performing the US Latino Borderlands. Principal Editor. Indiana University Press (2012).  Introduction and a single chapter will be published in this book.

Refereed Articles

Aldama, Arturo. “Cognition, Fear and Praxis: A Response to Children of Men.: World Narrative Fiction. Austin. UT Press, appeared in print October 30, 2011.

Other Editorial Experience

He served as the popular culture, art and film editor of Encyclopedia of Latina and Latino Popular Culture (Greenwood, 2004), a 400,000 word, multi-volume project that is the first of its kind.

He served as Editor for CU press book, Enduring Legacies: Colorado Ethnic Histories and Cultures (2011).

Special issue, Biopower and Racial Politics in the Arizona Borderlands and beyond. Bad Subjects (UC Berkeley). Lead Editor and contributor. July 2011.

He also served as an associate contributing editor for Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education. Executive Editor. Gary Keller. Bilingual Review Press, 2003.