Suyapa Portillo Villeda is an associate professor in Chicana/o Latina/o Transnational Studies at Pitzer College. Her work broadly focuses on social movements in Central America with a focus on Honduras. She documents working-class history and lives and challenges stereotypes of the so-called “banana republics” in Central America.

Portillo Villeda’s new book is Roots of Resistance: A Story of Gender, Race, and Labor on the North Coast of Honduras, which focuses on the working-class culture of resistance on the Honduran North Coast and the radical organizing that challenged U.S. and foreign intervention at the onset of the Cold War.

Expertise: Chicana/o Latina/o transnational studies, labor, Honduras, Central America, history of immigration and migration in Central America, LGBTQ community in Honduras, LGBTQ human rights in Central America

Location: Los Angeles, Calif.

Email: Suyapa_portillo@pitzer.edu

Twitter: @SuyapaPV

As Heard On KPCC’s Take Two: “Young Migrants From Honduras Fleeing Drug and Gang Violence”