Tania Trejo-Mendez

2024 SELI Intern

Tania Trejo-Mendez is a first-generation Chicana who was born to Mexican immigrants to the United States and raised in central Florida. Tania holds a master's degree in Latin American studies from the University of Florida and a bachelor's degree in history from Emory University. She is passionate about uplifting the history of Latinx student activism and is currently serving as a co-curator for the Disruptors Project, which is working to record the history of undocumented and working-class student activism at California State University, Los Angeles. At Emory University, Tania was a student organizer in the Consciousness is Power movement which fought for the development of Latinx Studies academic offerings. During her time at Emory, she also served on the executive board of the Latinx Student Organization, worked as a Programming Intern at the Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement, and was the Social Media Director for the Recognizing, Empowering, and Affirming Latinas Conference. Tania is passionate about diversifying educational curricula and making sure that young Latinx students and other students of color see their histories and cultures represented in the classroom. Her dream is to become an ethnic studies educator and to help establish robust ethnic studies offerings in K-16 classrooms across the U.S. South.