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Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez is a Yaqui-Chicana professor, writer, and activist. Her teaching and research focus on Native American culture in addition the popular performance genres of the US-Mexico borderlands.
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Early life and education
Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez attended the University of Arizona for her undergraduate degree and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She pursued a doctorate degree from Stanford University and was the first woman of color to receive a doctoral degree from this institution. Using the German Academic Exchange Service she was able to do research at 4 German Universities about popular culture, gender, oral tradition.
Academic career
Broyles-Gonzalez is a professor in the department of American Ethnic Studies at Kansas State University. As a professor she has enhanced the understanding of Latino, Chicano, Native American and German studies. She has published several books focusing in Chicano Latino women studies and latino literature. In addition to writing about the chicano latino experience she is also a community activist focusing on the lack of Chicano studies in elementary education. Broyles-Gonzalez has been acknowledged by numerous institutions and political figures as a significant icon to the Latino/a and Chicano/a movement.
Her research in Germany inspired her to write the The German response to Latin American literature and the reception of Jorge Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda (1979). She has also written El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement (1994) which focuses on women and performance. Her third novel Re-emerging Native Women of the Americas: Native Chicana Latina Women's Studies (2001) is an anthology focusing on native american women focusing on her Yaqui heritage. Earth Wisdom: A California Chumash Woman focuses on Pilulaw Khus which gives an insight about tribal, environmental and human rights issues from a Native woman’s perspective. Her most recent book is Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music/La Historia de Lydia Mendoza and focuses on the history of Lydia Mendoza as a traditional tejano music player. Broyles-Gonzalez’s books focus on empowering women and native heritage which are central to her identity.
Community Activism/Politics
In 1994, Dr. Broyles Gonzalez piloted the first Chicano Studies course ever taught at a Santa Barabara High School (San Marcos High School).
In May 1996, Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the University of California Santa Barbara and its regents that challenged the unequal payment of women and minorities within the university. The lawsuit resulted in an order for the university to pay in excess of $100,000 in damages and attorney fees. In addition, the settlement contained a court order securing permanent future protection for Broyles-Gonzalez against gender, race and political discrimination within the university.
Awards
In 1996, Broyles-Gonzalez received the Lifetime Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. This award recognizes Professor Broyles-Gonzalez’s “multiple and invaluable scholarly contributions and her advocacy for the Chicana/o Studies discipline.” In 1997 she received an award as Outstanding Faculty Member at UCSB “for her dedication and contributions to the education of UCSB students.”
Recognition
In 1985, Dr. Broyles-Gonzalez became the first woman of color to receive tenure at the University of California in Santa Barbara; she advanced to full professor in 1991.