Yolanda Broyles-González was among the first Chicana Yaqui scholars to attain a doctorate degree and to achieve rank of full professor at a major research university, at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  She received her doctorate degree in German Studies from Stanford University in German Studies and lived in Germany for 12 years where she helped bring Chicana/o and Latin American literature to a European readership.  She corresponded extensively with German intellectuals and also engaged in photojournalism and feature writing while living in Germany.  Her photographs from this period in Germany are part of the collection.  Dr. Broyles-González has held academic appointments at the University of Texas (in Modern Languages), and at the University of California (Chicana/o Studies and German Studies).  She is chairperson/ professor emerita of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. She also served as chairperson of the Women Studies Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 2004-08. Since 2008 she has been appointed in the Mexican American Studies Department at the University of Arizona. In 1996 she received the  Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies. After her pay equity lawsuit against the University of California she was honored by President Clinton in the White House.

Dr. Broyles-González’s publications span many areas of borderlands popular culture/performance studies.  Her book publications include:

Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music.  La historia de Lydia Mendoza. Norteño Tejano Legacies (2001, 2004, 2006 Oxford University Press);   El Teatro Campesino, Theater in the Chicano Movement(1994, UT Press); Re-Emerging Native Women of the Americas: Native Chicana Latina Women’s Studies(2001, Kendall/Hunt); Earth Wisdom. A California Chumash Woman(2011, University of Arizona Press); The German Response to Latin American Literature and the Reception of Jose Luis Borges and Pablo Neruda(1981, Heidelberg) . 

Francisco González is a musician, composer, and specialist in Mexican and Chicano music.  González was born and rasied in East Los Angeles surrounded by multiple Mexican musical traditions such as Norteño, and Jarocho music, as well as by jazz, rock, and salsa.  During the last four decades he has worked in many capacities within Chicano/Mexican music; in performance around the world as a string musician specializing in Mexican harp; a recording artist; as a composer for films; doing lecture demonstrations; and in theater as a musical director for many professional theater productions.  He founded, led, and composed the music for Los Lobos in the 1970s.  Thereafter, he did award-winning musical direction and composition in Chicano theatrical productions, including five years of musical direction for numerous productions with the legendary El Teatro Campesino.  González’s work in musical direction and performance gained widespread recognition.  For outstanding musical direction and arrangement he was awarded the San Francisco Chronicle’s Circle Award “for outstanding achievement in the theater.”  In the last ten years, González has also written and performed music for various films, such as for Cormack McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. Among his recordings are _The Gift/El regalo_and _Viejas Canciones para viejos amigos (Old Songs for Old Friends)._In 2011 González was honored by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation with the Pearl Chase Award honored Gonález for his “lifelong dedication to historic preservation and conservation”—as director of the Santa Barbara Pastorela and for his revival of early California musics. In Tucson, Arizona he has been active establishing a Jarocho harp school for youth.

In addition to theater and film work, González regularly performs Jarocho and Norteño music at clubs, fiestas, and other social gatherings.  He also offers workshops for musicians, and lecture demonstrations on Mexican/Chicano music at universities, schools, and for community groups.  González, under the name of Dueto Guadalupe, plays Mexican harp music within the jarocho and ranchera traditions.  He performs throughout the country accompanied by his daughter Esmeralda Broyles-González on jarana.  In June 2004, González received national recognition from the Smithsonian.  He was recognized at the American Folk life Festival for his contributions as a music string craftsman.  His custom-made strings produced at Guadalupe Custom Strings in Santa Barbara, California (now in Los Angeles) are distributed internationally.