Olivia Jean Hernández was raised in the Yakima Valley and now calls Seattle home. She is a PhD candidate in English Literature and Language at the University of Washington and is writing a dissertation on the uses of Chicanx narrative in the college writing classroom. As a predoctoral instructor in Composition and Chicanx studies at UW, Hernández focuses on supporting students as they engage in critical assessment of popular culture and representation of marginalized identities.

"Chicanx Punk Pedagogy"
This presentation draws from the contributions of Chicanx and Latinx artists, scholars, and activists to explore the ways that contemporary Chicanx punks extend not only the work of Chicanx feminist scholarship but also the possibilities of punk rock politics. I review the ways that punk music and the punk ethos is rooted in the influence of people of color and how the power of punk today is indebted to the voices of punks of color that engage and unite audiences in spaces of decolonial thinking and activism. By focusing specifically on Chicanx artist-activists, specifically Downtown Boys and Fea, this presentation will engage an emergent pedagogy that might center Chicanx punk performance as the next wave of feminist scholarship and activism both within and beyond the confines of the academy. Crucial questions for students engaged in this Chicanx punk pedagogy include: How do we consider punk performance as a historical artifact of the larger Chicano movement? How have Chicanas found a place in punk music and how are their struggles in music and in the punk scene reflective of the larger institutional challenges faced by women of color? How might students use Chicanx punk in order to trace the lineage from Gloria Anzaldúa’s reclamation of a bilingual, bicultural, serpent’s voice in 1987 to Victoria Ruiz’s proclamation that “Yo vuelo con mi tongue” in 2017? Further, this presentation will also examine how Chicanx literature and other expressive texts have begun to tell the story of Chicanx punks in a way that inscribes punk feminism and punk experiences into imaginative and critical possibilities for young and college readers.