Elisa (Linda) Facio

Associate Professor
B.A., University of Santa Clara
M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley - Sociology 

Elisa Facio is an associate professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she teaches course on Chicana Feminist Thought, Critical Issues on Age, Aging, and Generations, Chicana-Indigena Spiritualities, and Globalization and Transnational issues related to gender, race, and sexuality. Elisa is the recipient of research and teaching awards, including a National Institute of Mental Health fellowship and a National Institute of Aging postdoctoral fellowship. She was also awarded an American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship and the Chicana Dissertation Fellowship at UC Santa Barbara. Additionally, Elisa was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship hosted by Washington State University, Pullman. She has also received a Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Award at CU Boulder, one of the most distinguished teaching awards granted to university faculty. Professor Facio has recently received a Boulder Faculty Assembly Service Award.

Elisa's publications include a book on older Mexican women titled Understanding Older Chicanas: Sociological and Policy Perspectives (SAGE 1996) and other articles focusing on Chicanas in the US. The American Sociological Association as an Outstanding Scholarly contribution recognized her work on Cuban sex workers. Elisa is currently completing a manuscript titled Jineteras: Cuban Sex Workers in Post-Soviet Cuba. She is also co-authoring a book with Professor Emeritus Adaljiza Sosa Riddell (UC Davis) focusing on the influence of Chicana feminists involved or associated with leftist organizations on the Chicana/Chicano Movement. Elisa is also co-editing an anthology with Professor Irene Lara (San Diego State University) on Chicana, Latina, and Native American/Indigenous Women's spirit, spiritualities and spiritual activism.

Elisa serves on a number of organizations and committees at CU Boulder and in Denver where she resides. She is also active in international efforts, which includes the Venceremos Brigade. She has taken nearly 100 people to Cuba with the brigade and student groups that participate in Havana's International Woman's Conference. In 1995, she worked with Archbishop Samuel Ruiz collecting testimonies of the Mexican army's destruction of Chicapaneca Zapatista revolutionary sympathizers in La Sultana and Patihuitz. During the last few years Elisa has done radio talk shows, local television programming, a PBS special on Mexican immigration, and a two-week news special focusing on Cuba (Families of the Revolution) for the ABC affiliate in Denver, which was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Selected Publications:

• "The Queering of Chicana Studies: Philosophy, Text and Image," in Reversing the Lens, Ethnicity, Race, Gender and Sexuality Through Film (Eds). Jun Xing and Lane R. Hirabayashi. University Press of Colorado, 2003: pgs. 185-195.
• "Jineterismo during the Special Period," in Global Development Series. Vol. 1, Numbers 3-4, 1999; pgs. 57-78. Reprinted in Cuban Transitions at the Millennium (Eds). Eloise Linger and John Cotman. International Development Options, 2000: pgs. 55-74.
• Understanding Older Chicanas: Sociological and Public Policy Perspectives . Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, 1996.