Ep 3: A Conversation with Ma. Eugenia Hernandez and Cynthia Bejarano, Professors and Collaborators Across Borders
In the third episode of Gathering Whispers, we talk to Ma. Eugenia Hernandez (Prof. of Art, Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez) and Cynthia Bejarano (Prof. of Gender and Sexuality Studies, New Mexico State University) about their cross-border collaboration and transborder friendship praxis (TFP) as a mode of radical love in the face of radical violence. We also discuss their involvement in this year’s gathering as members of the steering committee, and their highlights and recommendations from this year’s program!
Ma. Eugenia Hernández Sánchez (left in photo) is a professor at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez. Her research revolves around feminist theory, forced migration, creative methods and radical friendship. She teaches in the UACJ departments of art, creative processes in design and art, and the doctoral program in urban studies. She is the recipient of the 2025 Sistema Nacional de Investigadoras y Investigadores (SNII) status in Mexico and a recognized faculty member in the coveted Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT). Her recent publication includes Geographies of friendship and embodiments of radical violence, collective rage, and radical love at the U.S.–Mexico border’s Paso del Norte region (2022) with Dr. Cynthia Bejarano.
Cynthia Bejarano is a Regents Professor in gender and sexuality studies and the College of Arts and Sciences Stan Fulton Chair at New Mexico State University. Her scholarship and advocacy center on the U.S.-Mexico border. She authored Qué Onda: Urban Youth Culture and Border Identity (2005), and co-edited with Rosa Linda Fregoso, Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas (2010), Frontera Madre(hood): Brown Mothers Challenging Transborder Violence and Oppression at the U.S.-Mexico Border with Cristina Morales (2024), and recently co-edited with Margo Tamez and Jeffrey Shepherd as second editor, Gathering Together, We Decide Archives of Dispossession, Resistance, and Memory in Ndé Homelands (2025). Since 2002, Bejarano has served as the founding principal investigator for the NMSU College Assistance Migrant Program, where 675 farm working students have been recruited to study at NMSU. Read more >>>
One of the site visit recommendations from Prof. Bejarano is to the Fabian Garcia Chili Pepper Institute, where attendees will have an opportunity to meet with students from NMSU’s College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) program.
Prof. Bejarano is also organizing a special post-IA National Gathering experience, Along the River and to the Wall Detour, offered at an additional $120 fee for 50 participants (scroll down registration options to purchase this add-on), with lunch and dinner provided. The experience will follow historic Highway 28, stop at the Doña Ana Community College (DACC) for a panel discussion, and end at the unique Ardovino’s Desert Crossing Italian family restaurant for dinner and a creative reflection moment to “speak to the wall”.
Funding has been provided by California Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
