Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez is an Afro-Puerto Rican writer, teacher, and scholar from Hoboken, NJ. She is Professor of Africana, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies and is the Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at CUNY Hunter. She is the author of the award-winning book Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2020; translation, Editora Educación Emergente, 2023), and the book, The Survival of a People (Duke University Press, forthcoming). Her published work can be found in Hypatia, Decolonization, CENTRO Journal, Small Axe, Frontiers Journal, Hispanofila, Contemporânea, Diálogos, and Feminist Formations.

Keyla Marquez is a Los Angeles native, born in El Salvador, whose work sits at the vibrant crossroads of fashion, culture, and storytelling. As the Fashion Director-at-Large for LA Times Image magazine, a fashion stylist, and creative consultant, Marquez brings an instinctive eye for style and narrative featured in numerous editorials, music videos, runways, commercials, television, short films, and campaigns. Rooted in her Los Angeles upbringing, Marquez committed to spotlighting historically marginalized voices, using fashion as a language to tell stories that are bold, authentic, and unapologetically human.

Arlene Dávila is a Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at New York University, and is the author of Visualizing Latinx: Creative Practices in Fashion, Film, and Beyond (Duke University Press, 2026). She is the author of multiple books focusing on Latinx cultural politics spanning the media, urban politics, museums and contemporary art markets including Latinx Art: Artists, Markets and Politics (Duke University Press, 2020) and the founding director of The Latinx Project at NYU.