Rate My Professor Cynthia Melendrez

Cynthia Melendrez is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Language Studies at California State University, San Marcos (CSUSM), a position she has held since 2015. She serves as the Interim Chair of the department and is affiliated with the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. Prior to her appointment at CSUSM, Melendrez taught in the Hispanic Studies department at the University of Northern Colorado. She earned her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the University of New Mexico. Her academic background positions her as a scholar focused on literary and cultural analyses within Spanish-language contexts.

Melendrez's research specializations include Chicana/o, Latina/o, and Mexican literature and film from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her work examines Chicana/o, Latina/o, and Mexican identity and subjectivities, national and transnational community formations, and Chicana/o and Mexican queer identity through cultural and film representations. She has authored several peer-reviewed articles, such as 'Nuevos/as sujetos sociales como producto del narcocorrido' published in 2011 in Divergencias: Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios, 'Two Narratives of Memories Between Borders: The Flourishing of a Transnational Identity' in 2018 in Contemporary US Latinx Literature in Spanish: Straddling Identities, 'El cuerpo femenino, un paisaje de violencia en Gulf Dreams' in 2020 in Rocky Mountain Review, 'Enfoques contextuales dentro de la enseñanza de cultura, literatura y gramática: cursos intermedios de español como segunda lengua nivel 300’s' in 2017 in Decires, and 'El No Regreso del Regreso' in 2012 in Diálogo. She has also published short stories and poetry. At CSUSM, Melendrez contributes to university governance as a member of the Academic Senate and has held fellowships including Faculty Fellow for the Faculty Mentoring Program and Faculty Fellow for Quality Online Learning and Teaching. She received the Faculty Advocate Award from TRIO Student Support Services. As a first-generation college graduate from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, she actively mentors students, drawing from her experiences navigating higher education as a second-language English speaker.