Keynote Speakers |
Lydia OteroOpening Keynote SpeakerThursday, October 23 8:00 AMOur opening keynote speaker, Lydia R. Otero, Ph.D. is Emeritus Associate Professor in the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. Their scholarship focuses on urban redevelopment and contested landscapes, with particular attention to how historical narratives are mobilized to legitimize power and dominance. Otero is the author of La Calle: Spatial Conflicts and Urban Renewal in a Southwestern City (2010), an award-winning study of a 1966 urban renewal project that targeted the most densely populated 80 acres in Arizona. While Mexican Americans made up the majority of residents in the area, it was also home to many of Tucson’s African American and Asian American communities. They have since expanded their work into memoir, publishing In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer (2019) and L.A. Interchanges: A Brown & Queer Memoir (2023), both of which merge personal narrative with archival research. Otero’s current project centers on María Navarette Cordova (1895–1975), whose downtown Tucson home, La Casa Cordova, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The forthcoming book, Storied Properties, will be Otero’s first interactive print publication, offering readers access to archival documents and photographs through embedded QR codes. The work continues their engagement with preservation, displacement, and how archives shape public memory. More information at: www.lydiaotero.com |
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