Learn about oral histories your culture and borderlands and public history with Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana/ fronteriza historian. She is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at El Paso where she specializes in border history, Chicane history, and public/ oral history. Between 2015- 2026, she served as the Director of the Institute of Oral History, a bicultural/bilingual research center focusing on the lives of border people.

In 2010, she co-founded Museo Urbano, a community museum located in the Segundo Barrio, one of the most significant historic Mexican immigrant neighborhoods in the United States. The museum won the National Council on Public History "Best Public History Project Award" in 2013. In 2019, she co-curated “Uncaged Art from the Tornillo Detention Center,” which featured artwork created by Central American youth detained in an emergency influx center outside El Paso.