Isidro Zepeda

Isidro Zepeda was born and raised in the Coachella Valley. He is a husband and father of two beautiful children: Marisol and Eligio. His dedication to bring positive change to the Inland Empire, specifically in Education, inspired him to earn degrees in English Composition and Applied Linguistics & Teaching English as a Second Language from California State University, San Bernardino. He is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Crafton Hills Community College, where he teaches First-Year Writing, Chicanx Literature & History, and English as a Second Language Non-Credit courses. His artwork threads his cultural and academic identities into a series of digital experiential landscapes of resistance and negotiation against imperialist ideas, beliefs, and values that continue to develop, implement, and advance programs of oppression, exploitation, and erasure of Indigenous Cosmovisions in Southern California and beyond.

Isidro has submitted to both sessions, the roundtable “Contested and Re-visited Spaces and Sites” and the exhibition, “An Exhibition on Decolonial Transborder Art.”

His submission to the roundtable, entitled Examining the Indigenous American Identity and Cosmovision of Chicanx Peoples in Southern California, explores how cultures cross borders of coloniality, particularly between the Mexico-United States border, struggle to maintain their impact across hegemonic lines. Zepeda investigates how certain aspects of traditions, if not entire practices, are lost due to inequitable social relations and material conditions generated by both foreign and domestic powers.

Drawing inspiration from the mural created by artist Don Gray in 1998 titled “Desert Cahuilla Village,” through digital artwork, Zepeda communicate the continuous praxis of Chicanx Peoples reclaiming their Indigenous identity and cosmovision, and what that means within the current sociocultural, political, and geographical contexts of Southern California.