Melisa Garcia

Dr. Melisa Garcia is a poet and interdisciplinary scholar. Her research interests include: linguistic justice, the use of alternative discourses, and decolonial spaces that create the inclusion of BIPOC community discourses. She also researches the damaging rhetoric that shapes the Central American diaspora in the U.S. through the use of autoethnography, constellation identities, and decolonial imaginaries. Through her research, teaching, and community work, Dr. Garcia aims to bring stories about Central American identities as well as creative and innovative multimodal pedagogies to USF.

• Poetry
• Inclusion of Alternative Discourses in the composition classroom
• Rhetoric of Central American diasporic communities
• Inclusive Linguistic Justice
• Autoethnographic research methods

• UNM, PhD in English - Rhetoric & Writing, 2022
• UNM, MFA in Creative Writing - Poetry, 2016
• UC Riverside, BA in Creative Writing & Spanish Literature and Language, 2012

• Career Track Lecturer in English, University of Arizona
• Adjunct Professor in English, Central New Mexico Community College

• Garcia, Melisa N.. "Making Space for Central American Diasporic Decolonial Imaginaries: An Autoethnography of a 1st Generation Central-American-American" (2022).