Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez (also known as Dr. Lichita) is an assistant professor of political science at Northwest Vista College. She earned a PhD in political science from Duke University in 2016. She has a BA in Spanish and Latin American studies (2005) and an MA in Spanish (2007) from Baylor University. She has published peer-reviewed articles in Social Science Quarterly; Politics & Gender; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education. Dr. Reyes-Barriéntez has also published in Conditionally Accepted, an online platform of Inside Higher Education. Her piece “A White Jesus Can’t Save a Brown Child” was one of the top ten most-viewed pieces of Baptist News Global in 2017. Her areas of interest for this project include identity poetics; cultural expressions; Tejanidad expressed through religion, culture, race, class, gender, and spirituality; and Tejanidad through literary approaches. Dr. Reyes-Barriéntez is a proud child of the US/Texas borderland colonias and a first-generation college graduate from a Mexican working-class immigrant family.
2025 Festival Session