Margaret Cantú-Sánchez, Ph.D.

University of Texas at San Antonio, Ph.D.
St. Mary’s University, M.A.
St. Mary’s University, B.A.

Rhetoric and Composition
Multi-Ethnic Literature
Literature and the Immigrant Experience
Advanced Research and Writing for Publication
Special Studies: Latino American Literature
Women Authors
Approaches to Teaching Multi-Ethnic Literature
Women of Color, Writing as Memoir and Resistance

U.S. Latinx/Chicanx Literature
Chicanx Literary and Cultural Studies
Native American Literary and Cultural Studies
Border Studies
Women’s Studies
Multicultural Children’s Literature
Multi-Ethnic Literature
Postcolonialism
Chicanx/Latinx Education
Chicanx Feminist Theory

Margaret Cantú-Sánchez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She is an alumna of St. Mary’s University’s English undergraduate and graduate programs. St. Mary’s holds a special place in her heart for numerous reasons including the fact that her aunt, brother, sister-in-law, and husband graduated from there. St. Mary’s was the place where Margaret honed her teaching skills in preparation to teach high school, and it was the first place where she taught college-level courses. At St. Mary’s, Margaret also had the opportunity to take part in the London Study Abroad Program and the 5-Year English Degree Teaching Certification Program. St. Mary’s is where Margaret met her husband and they now have 2 rambunctious children together.

Margaret has been teaching at St. Mary’s since 2015 and enjoys exposing her students to Multi-Ethnic and Chicanx/Latinx literature, authors, and cultural studies. Her approach is one that simply asks students to contemplate the importance of their identity and place in the world in relation to the literature they read.

Her book, Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldúa, is a pragmatic and inspiring offering of how to apply Anzaldúa’s ideas to the classroom and in the community rather than simply discussing them as theory.

Cantú-Sánchez’s latest book, Empowering Latina Narratives: Navigating the Education/Eduación Conflict, addresses how Latina students employ strategies to maintain ties to their cultural identities while succeeding in school. 

Mexican American Studies Summer Symposium

Cantú-Sánchez organized St. Mary’s University’s inaugural Mexican American Studies Summer Symposium which addressed the passage of the Texas State Board of Educations Mexican American Studies/Ethnic course at the secondary levels. During the symposium, attendees participated in a variety of workshops and lectures on Mexican American history, cultural studies, literature, pedagogy and activism facilitated by St. Mary’s faculty, Mexican American studies experts and community activists.

Cantú-Sánchez also penned an op-ed based on the topic of the symposium, Mexican American Studies fills the gaps of our history, which was featured in the San Antonio Express-News.

To view a list of helpful resources from the conference, visit lib.stmarytx.edu/mas or view a recording of the event.

The Symposium continues to be offered every other spring, visit the Mexican American Symposium page for more information.

Peer-Reviewed

Margo Echenberg and Raúl Verduzco, “En Memoria: Celebrating Gloria E. Anzaldúa and ‘Doing Work that Matters’ Con pan y cafecito, te recordamos en todo, tanteamos sin tapaojos, desde los márgenes, como mestizas en Nepantla mientras practicamos magia, the path of conocimiento”. Humanística: Revista de Estudios Literarios, 2021.

Jorge Valdez, “Antiracism, Anzaldúa, and the Path of Conocimiento.” Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, Issue 3.1. 2021.

Colectiva, Margaret Cantú-Sánchez, “Chicana/Latina Studies” The Journal of Mujeres Actias en Letras y Cambio Social, 2019-present.

Margaret Cant­ú-Sánchez, Candace de León-Zepeda and Norma Cantú, “Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Pedagogy and Practice for Our Classrooms and Communities” The University of Arizona Press, Fall 2020.

Jorge Valdez, “The #MeToo Movement and the College Literature Classroom: Creating Safe Spaces of Expression, Healing, and Consciousness.” Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, Issue 2.1. 2019.

Elizabeth Martinez, “Norma Elia Cantú’s Canícula (1997) and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, La Frontera (1987) in a Multi-Ethnic Literature Classroom. Teaching Mexicana and Chicana Writers of the Twentieth Century.” MLA Options for Teaching, 2018.

Michele Shaul and Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez, “The Fourth Choice” Journal of Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Latino Literary Production, 2018.

“In/civilities of the American Classroom: A Clash between a Chicana Teacher and an Anglocentric School System” El Mundo Zurdo 5: Selected Works from the Meetings of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa 2015.  San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 2016.

“A Mestizaje of Epistemologies in American Indian Stories and Ceremony.” Nakum Journal. Vol. 1-2.  San Marcos, TX: Indigenous Cultures Institute, 2011.

Cantú, Margaret. “Embracing Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera as Multicultural Pedagogy,” El Mundo Zurdo: Selected Works from the Meetings of The Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa 2007 & 2009. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 2010.

“Teaching Anzaldúa: Pedagogies for our Classrooms and Communities Roundtable.” Love in the Time of La Corona, NACCS. 2021.

“Opening Spaces for Immigration Reform in the College Composition Classroom: An Examination of Social Justice-Guided Curriculum.” Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference 2020.

“Resisting Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric in Mexican American Literature: Approaches to Immigration Reform in the Multi-Ethnic Literary Classroom.” Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference 2019.

“Interdisciplinary Approaches to Identity: An Examination of Indigenous and Chicanx Identity in the Multi-Ethnic Literature College Classroom.” National Association of Chicano and Chicana Studies (NACCS), “Indigenous Knowledge for Resistance, Love, and Land: Lecciones for our Children, for our Future. 2019

“Re-Shaping American Patriotism and Raising Consciousness in the “Ideal Soldier:” An Examination of Military Students in the Multi-Ethnic Literature Classroom.” Conference of College Teachers of English (CCTE). 2019.

“Teaching Borderlands: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Gloria Anzaldúa.” South Central Modern Language Association (SCMLA). 2018.

“Reaching Conocimiento: Personal Stories as Healing and Coping with Cultural Identity Conflict in the Literature Classroom.” El Mundo Zurdo: International Conference on the Life and Works of Gloria Anzaldúa. 2018.

“Bridging American and Mexican Cultures and Reinforcing Chicana/o Identity in the Nepantla Classroom.” El Mundo Zurdo: International Conference on the Life and Works of Gloria Anzaldúa. 2016.

“In/civilities of the American Classroom: A Clash between a Chicana Teacher and an Anglocentric School System,” El Mundo Zurdo: International Conference on the Life and Works of Gloria Anzaldúa. 2015.

“Transformative Praxis: A Mestizaje of Epistemologies y Barrio Consciousness,” 2014

NACCS Tejas Regional Conference, Feb. 2014.

“Chicana Education Testimonios as a Methodology of a Mestizaje of Epistemologies,” NACCS XL, Mar. 2013.

“’Healing the Split:’ Reconciling Cultural and Academic Epistemologies in Latina Testimonios.”  Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) Summer Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Jul. 2012.