I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas.  I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Masters in Library Science from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, School of Information and Library Science.  I also have a second Masters of Arts degree in Border Studies from the University of Texas at El Paso History program where I am currently Part-time Faculty member in the Department of History.  I also work as a Part-time faculty member in the Department of ESL, Bilingual Education and Social Sciences at El Paso Community College, Valle Verde Campus where I teach History.

From 1998 to 2014, I worked as an academic librarian at the State University of New York at Buffalo; at the University of Arizona and at the Center for Contemporary Photography; at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX; at the Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) at UCLA; and at the University of North Texas.  I have published two books: Colors on Desert Walls: the Murals of El Paso (1997, Texas Western Press), a bilingual book, chronicling El Paso’s region's rich mural movement and its artists, as well as an edited volume (with Rebecca Hankins, Associate Professor at Texas A&M) titled: Where are all the Librarians of Color? The Experiences of People of Color in Academia (2005, Library Juice Press).