Education
PhD - The Graduate Center, City University of New York
MA - New York University
BA - California State University, Los Angeles
Bio/Affiliation
Dr. Wendy Barrales, PhD is a feminist ethnic studies teacher, artist, and founder of the WOCArchive, an intergenerational art-based digital project preserving the visual & aural stories of matriarchs of color. As a daughter of formerly undocumented Mexican immigrants and first generation college graduate, her family experiences and ancestral wisdom are at the root of her decolonial pedagogy, community organizing, and art praxis.
Wendy began her career as an educator working in LAUSD and spent the last decade as a public school educator in New York City teaching and learning alongside young women of color and gender expansive youth through the power of art and storytelling. Inspired by bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, and her own mami and abuelita’s invisibilized stories, Dr. Barrales’ research interests include feminist pedagogies, participatory archiving, women’s oral histories as knowledge production, and digital art exhibitions as intergenerational sites of learning.
Awards and Honors:
2023 Women of Color Leadership (WoCLP) Fellow, National Women's Studies Association, Baltimore, MD.
2021 The Social Justice Award, New Media Lab at the Graduate Center, New York, NY.
2015 Fostering Girl Empowerment in Malawi and South Africa, Fund for Teachers Grant, New York, NY.
Publications:
- 2025
- Mangual Figueroa, A., & Barrales, W. Ethics of Departure. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia on Social Justice in Education. Bloomsbury Publishing.
- 2023
- Barrales, W. Nuancing Latinidad Through Visual Testimonios in a Women of Color Archive: Latina Girls and Matriarchs as Knowledge Producers. Latinx Interdisciplinary Perspectives SAGE Publishing.
- 2021
- Mangual Figueroa, A., & Barrales, W. Testimonio and Counterstorytelling by Immigrant-Origin Children and Youth: Insights That Amplify Immigrant Subjectivities. Societies,11(2), 38. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11020038
- 2020
- Badhey K., Barrales, W., Guerrero, N., Connecting Through Time: Intergenerational Family Storytelling. Photoville.
- 2020
- Barrales, W. (Contributor). (2020, February 25). BIPOC: Navigating Grad School in Abolition Science Podcast BIPOC: Navigating Grad School in Abolition Science Podcast
Professional Accomplishments/Exhibitions
- 2021 Educator Exhibition Grant, dándoles sus flores (giving them their flowers), Photoville & PhotoWings, Brooklyn, NY.
- 2021 CUNY Community Ambassador, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY.
- 2018 primer país, CUNY Urban Education Program Spring Exhibition: Weaving Ways of Knowing, New York, NY.