Elizabeth Farfán-Santos is a Chicana author and medical anthropologist who grew up in a Mexican, immigrant, working class household led by women. She is the author of two nonfiction books. Her newest book, Undocumented Motherhood: Conversations on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing (2022 UT Press) is a hybrid ethnography, memoir, and testimonio centered on the courageous journey of a Mexican mother fighting for health and educational services for her hearing-impaired daughter. Read more about the book here.
A creative writer at heart, Elizabeth writes about the everyday human experience, the layered lives we live without thinking, life in the unplanned in-between, in the cracks, borders, and margins. Especially interested in identity formations and the ways in which we understand and experience health and illness, Elizabeth has published academic ethnographic articles, interdisciplinary books, poetry, and opinion essays that navigate the layered sedimentation of being human, racialized, gendered, marginalized, resilient. Elizabeth’s writing passionately demands that we feel something above all else.
Go over and play in the Publications page to read some of her works.
Elizabeth has a PhD and MA in Medical Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Anthropology from Trinity University.