Marilisa Jiménez García is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in Latino/a literature and culture. She is an associate professor of English and Latino Studies at Lehigh University. She is also the founding director and principal investigator of the Taskforce on the Institute of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (https://wordpress.lehigh.edu/cres/) a research lab space co-led and co-founded by students and faculty of color at Lehigh. Jiménez García also chairs the institute’s Education Justice Initiative. She has a Ph.D in English from the University of Florida and a M.A. in English and B.S. in Journalism from the University of Miami. She was born in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
Jiménez García’s research on Latinx literature have appeared in Latino Studies, CENTRO: A Journal of Puerto Rican Studies, The Lion and the Unicorn, and Children’s Literature. Her forthcoming book, Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture (University Press of Mississippi, April 2021) examines the history of colonialism in Puerto Rico through an analysis of youth literature and culture both in the archipelago and the diaspora. Her dissertation on Puerto Rican children’s literature won the 2012 Puerto Rican Studies Association. She is also a Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color Fellowship recipient from the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE). She is also the recipient of Lehigh’s Office of Multicultural Affairs 2019 Change Agent Award.
Marilisa seeks to create pathways in her research between the multiple fields of Latinx Studies, Puerto Rican Studies, children’s and young adult literature, comparative literature, and education. Her work with Teaching for Change seeks to bring together research and practical tools for classroom teachers advocating for social justice. She has worked as a classroom volunteer in Miami and New York City public schools and with The Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School’s book selection committee and as a consultant on Sesame Street.
