Gretel H. Vera-Rosas

Associate Professor
Office: AL-372
Email: [email protected]

Born in Mexico City and raised in South Los Angeles, Gretel H. Vera-Rosas is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work analyzes gendered power, migration, and expressive culture to trace the social worlds of those who exist outside the boundaries of legality and at the margins of global capitalism. Her research interests can be classified as three interrelated feminist projects: cinematic representations of motherhood and illegality; deportation, transborder community formations and aesthetic practices; and security regimes, visual culture, and social justice in Mexico.  

Vera-Rosas studied photography and creative writing at El Camino Community College and has a B.A. in literature with a focus on modern literary studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies and ethnicity from the University of Southern California. Her poetry and academic work are published in The Acentos Review and “The Chicana Motherwork Anthology,” as well as in scholarly journals such as American Quarterly, Feminist Formations, e-misférica, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures and Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana.

She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the limits and opportunities offered by visual cultural production to think critically about the social worlds destroyed and produced by the drug wars and security and immigration policies in the hemisphere. This book project centers film, silk-screening, performance, and photography to analyze the visual economies of deportation, migration, and the war on drugs in Mexico. In addition to this, with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, Vera-Rosas is co-editing the anthology “Between Object & Subject: Autotheory and the Aftermath of Deportation and Forced Return.” 

Prior to joining SDSU, she taught at: California State University, Dominguez Hills; California State University, Northridge; and CalArts. Throughout her career, Vera-Rosas has been an active mentor and advocate of undocumented students and student moms.