MA Candidate in Southwest Studies
Department of
Spanish and Portuguese
Biography
Jordan Ortega Aguilar holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Chicago. He is a current M.A. student in Spanish with a concentration in Hispanic Southwest Studies and a teaching assistant in the Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) program. His undergraduate thesis examined how Rafael Chacón’s (1833–1925) autobiography Memorias (1912) and his vision of legitimate Nuevomejicano identity were shaped by nostalgia for the patronal Hispano elite of nineteenth-century New Mexico. He is also a traditional New Mexican straw appliqué artist and author.