Mariano Nava Botello is a 4th year graduate student in the Department of Chicana and Chicano [Xicanx] Studies. Working at the intersections of aesthetics, local and national Black/Latinx media representation, and U.S. history, MNB strives to re-shape educational and media landscapes by way of blurring the two in and through various mediums (including film, photography, music, and theatre; just art).

His work analyzes temporal-graphical representations of citizenship in U.S. history textbooks as they form hegemonic Western conceptions and understandings of citizenship.

Mariano considers himself a scholartivist [scholar/artist/activist], leveraging his 21st century cultural tool kit of entertainment technology to critically examine and challenge the existing neo-liberal colonial imaginary of citizenship and education. His most recent project, Harvesting Fire: California’s New Normal, focuses on the 2017 Santa Barbara Thomas Fire and shares the devastating impacts of California’s second largest wildfire on some of its most vulnerable communities: farm workers and undocumented families. Harvesting Fire is a short documentary about the impacts California’s fire season has had on these marginalized folks and how everyday citizens are stepping in to support them. In examining the ways in which class and language access negatively impacted farmworkers and community activists, Harvestiing Fire also highlights the structural and racial inequalities low income communities of color (especially historic Mexican barrios), undocumented field workers, and Spanish speakers have and continue to be exposed to under neoliberalism and the Trump’s administration.

A first generation millennial, cultural critic and trained historian, Mariano has more dimensions that [something Nahuatl related] than the Cebia Tree has branches in the Earth. Not having his his first instructor of color until undergrad, Mariano knows he is here now because of that professor's belief in his abilities. Now he seeks to ignite and inspire that same belief in others. “Teamwork make the dreamwork.” Just need to include your job with GLP.