Barbara is a specialist in Chicano and Latino Studies. Her areas of interest include Chicana/o and Latina/o Literatures, Chicana Feminisms, Women of Color Feminisms, and Transnational Literatures. She is a bilingual speaker attentive to borderlands cultures and identities. Her scholarship focuses on the work of authors Sandra Cisneros, Helena Maria Viramontes, and Ana Castillo.

Barbara teaches core and elective courses for both CRGS and the English Department. These courses focus on Literary Studies, Writing Practices, Chicano and Latino Literature, Chicano Studies, Women’s Studies, Creative Writing, and American Literature.  She has served as the Director of the Ethnic Studies Program, is a member of several WS, ES and CRGS committees, and supervises Master’s Theses in the English Department.

Barbara is also a textile artist  and poet. Since the 1970s, she has published for domestic and international audiences, and has had her work featured in major collections of Chicana/o Literature.

Her publications include:

Mexican Jenny and Other Poems, Anhinga Press, 2013, Winner of the 2012 Philip Levine Prize, Anhinga Press

"Writing in the Disciplinary Borderlands" MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 54.2 (2008): 405-412.

"Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories." ReadingU.S. Latina Writers: Remapping American Literature. 51-60. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

"The General's Pants: A Chicana Feminist (Re)Vision of the Mexican Revolution in Sandra Cisneros's 'Eyes of Zapata'." Western American Literature 35.4 (2001): 403-427.

Speak to Me from Dreams. Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1989.