The XDC Speakers Bureau (XDCSB) offers some of the most exciting, controversial, and challenging voices that the Midwest currently has to offer. Presenting from a multiplicity of perspectives and addressing a variety of topics related to the Chicano, Latino, and Indigenous experience, XDCSB speakers educate, inspire, and empower academic and community audiences. Throughout each and every lecture will be the powerful conviction in the continued struggle for social justice.

Available to lecture on specific topics or those selected by the client, the XDCSB offers an affordable way for community organizations to hear directly from a group of young activists, artists and intellectuals. Committed to justice at all levels of society, the XDCSB encourages critical and imaginative thinking through exciting and interactive presentations. XDCSB speakers offer a range of topics, from political organizing to bilingual education to arts and culture. Prices are always affordable.

Speakers List

Dylan AT Miner, PhD

BIO
Dylan A.T. Miner teaches Chicano/Latino and American Indian Studies at Michigan State University. As artist and historian, he has recently exhibited at the Institute for American Indian Arts, National Museum of Mexican Art, Native American Rights Fund, La Galería de la Raza, and countless other galleries and museums in the US, Canada, and Mexico. He has also published articles in academic journals, contributed numerous encyclopedia entries, written for Indigenous and Latina/o newspapers, and has various articles and book chapters forthcoming. He has lectured and taught in the US, Canada, and Mexico, with an invitation to the United Kingdom pending.

PREPARED LECTURES
Somos de Aztlán: Aztlán as Site of Resistance and Liberations
Chicana/o and American Indian Solidarity: Shared Oppressions, Common Identities
Indigenous Love as Revolutionary Love
Nunca Olvides tu Fragilidad: Art against the (Fragile) State

ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Art and Social Justice
Printmaking Workshops
Latina/o Art History
American Indian Art History

CONTACT INFO
Email: dminer@msu.edu
Web: http://www.dylanminer.com

Ernesto Todd Mireles, MSW

BIO
Ernesto Todd Mireles has worked for the past two decades as a community, union, political organizer and journalist. He currently holds a Masters of Social Work with an emphasis in organizational and community practice and is a PhD candidate in Michigan State University’s department of American Studies – where he is developing his theories around low intensity organizing models and the development of revolutionary identity in communities.

As a consultant on electoral campaigns from the local to the federal level Mireles has been involved in helping candidates understand the issues particular to the Xicano/Latino community in the Midwest and also in developing educational materials and field plans to increase GOTV and community participation in key elections.

As the first executive director of the Xicano Development Center which was a political education and organizing center in the barrio of southwest Detroit Mireles worked as a public action manager for the United Farm Workers, organizer for the United Steelworkers and the American Federation of Teachers. Mireles has presented across the country on community organizing and how to build successful community campaigns. Beginning his organizing work around issues of education, gentrification and police brutality.

PREPARED LECTURES
Methodology of Mobilization – Basics of community mobilization and discussion of hegemony in community organization.
Methodology of Mobilization II – Basics of community coalitions and continuation of hegemony discussion in community organization.
Organizational Planning Sessions – A weekend long seminar directed toward progressive organizations. Will help create short and long range goals for building campaigns and organizational infrastructure.
Xicano: An Autobiography – lecture covering the etymology of the word Xicano and the historical etymons the word is derived from.

CONTACT INFO
Email: mirelese@msu.edu
Web: http://www.americanstudies.msu.edu/students/student-bio.php?page=mireles

Estrella Torrez, PhD

BIO
Professor Torrez’s work centers on language politics and migrant farmworker education. Having worked in the fields, Estrella attended migrant summer programs as a child and has worked as a migrant educator, including research for the Office of Migrant Education. Since childhood, she has continuously demonstrated her strong commitment to the migrant and Latina/o communities. Her interest in language politics stems from her struggle to maintain her heritage language (Spanish) and pass it on to her children.

This Midwest Xicana has taken an active role in multiple Latina/o organizations, ranging from working within grassroots organizations to establishing graduate mentorship programs at the university level. She has a BS in Elementary Education from Western Michigan and an MA in Early Childhood Multicultural Education and Bilingual Education from New Mexico, and she recently completed her doctoral dissertation in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies with a concentration in Bilingual Education, also from New Mexico.

In her free time, Estrella enjoys vegan baking and running, in addition to practicing traditional Danza Mexicayotl (Aztec Dance).

PREPARED LECTURES
Women of Color Talk about Whiteness
Educating Michigan’s Latina/o Students
En Defensa de Nuestros Hijos: Becoming an Advocate for your Child

ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Latina/o Education
Bilingual Education
Migrant Education
Latina/o Parenting and Advocacy

CONTACT INFO
Email: torrezjs@msu.edu

Jose Moreno, MA

BIO
Jose G. Moreno is a PhD Candidate in American Studies and Chicano Latino Studies at Michigan State University. He was a Chicano Studies and History lecturer at California State University, Channel Islands (CSUCI) and Oxnard College. He has a BA in History and Chicano Studies and MA in Chicano Studies both from California State University, Northridge (CSUN). He has organized, presented and participated in various professional conferences, and forums all over the United States. Also, he has given guest lecturers on various topics at various universities and colleges around the United States. He has published various scholarly and popular articles and book reviews for student, professional, and community publications.

PREPARED LECTURES
Organizing a Successful Radical and Leftist Local Electoral Grassroots Campaign
Building a Grassroots Organization in Modern America
Mexican and Latino Migration and Immigration in the United States
Building a Community Oral and Public History Project
Activist Scholarship in the Field of Chicano Studies
Media and Film Theory and Dominant Representation in American Mainstream Society

ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Mexican/Latino Labor and Activism
Political and Social Movements
Mexican/Chicano Educational Segregation
Alternative Educational Theory in the Classroom

CONTACT INFO
Email: morenojo@msu.edu

Luis Moreno, MA

BIO
Luis Moreno is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Chicano Latino Studies at Michigan State University. He received a B.A. in Chicana/o Studies from San Diego State University and a M.A. in Chicana/o Studies from California State University, Northridge.

His areas of research are Labor, Migration, and Working-Class History, Community-Based Organizations/Community Activism, Social and Political Movements, and Archival Preservation & Museum Studies.

He was an Assistant Archivist at California State University, Northridge where he oversaw the processing of Rodolfo F. Acuña Collection, Julian Nava Collection, Mother of East Los Angeles Papers, and other Chicano/Latino collections.

He has been active as a community organizer for over a decade with the Committee on Raza Rights (CRR) & Raza Press and Media Association (RPMA).

PREPARED LECTURES
(Re) Discovering Chicano/a History Through Archives
Community Grass-roots Electoral Politics: A Chicana/o Assessment
Searching for a Paradigm: Developing Activist-Scholarship in Chicano/Latino Studies

ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Labor, Migration, and Working-Class History
Community-Based Organizations/Community Activism
Social and Political Movements
Archival Preservation & Museum Studies

CONTACT INFO
Email: morenolo@msu.edu
Web: http://razapressassociation.org/sinfronteras

Dawn Ceballos

BIO
Dawn Ceballos is a School Counselor at East Lansing High School. Dawn believes that by creating experiences/opportunities helps our youth to expand their perspectives of realistic options so that they can ‘make their moves’ to live as extensively talented, effective, functional community members. She aids high risk students to cope with the realities of their situations so that the fear does not out way the animo that will lead a youth to a comprehensive identity. She has been strongly influenced by the her very large family of hard working former migrant workers , the hip hop elements, her students, and the amazing experiences, life-changing amistades and support that she has had in her path.

Dawn found her way back home on the East side of Lansing via Albuquerque, Tijuana, E ast Los Angeles, Merida, Yucatan and San Diego where her familia was born and grows. Dawn has been united with the Xicano Development Center since her youth. She is a participant in the XDC to create the opportunities to re-educate and aid our youth and community to efficiently walk in a path of self determination and self reliance. Dawn is enjoying life most when she is kicking it with her little ones, doing collages while listening to Pandora.com and watching the fruits of her labor grow.

PREPARED TOPICS
Study Skills: Navigating the Public School System to Graduation and Beyond
“Why am I so..brown?” Exploring Xicano/a Multi-ethnic Identity
Amistades and Youth Mentoring: The Outward Answer to Breaking the Colonized Cycle
“Living in a Tornado” Strategic Methods to Utilizing Our Coping Skills

ADDITIONAL TOPICS
Social Emotional Needs of Xicano/Latino/a Youth
Career Building with Latino/a Community
Social Cultural Identity Development
Healthy Relationships
Self Care
Deterring Substance Abuse
Self Determination and Assertiveness Training

CONTACT INFO
Email: mamaora@hotmail.com

To inquire about a specific speaker or about the prospect of having the XDCSB present in any capacity, please contact: info@xicanocenter.org