Dr. Andrew Jolivette - Opening Keynote

Dr. Andrew Jolivette is an accomplished educator, writer, speaker, and social/cultural critic. His work spans many different social and political arenas - from education reform and LGBT/Queer community of color identity issues to mixed-race identity, critical whiteness studies, gay marriage, and AIDS disparities among people of color. Jolivétte is currently an assistant professor in the American Indian Studies Department and also teaches in the Ethnic Studies Program at San Francisco State University. He recently completed a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship through the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Jolivétte is a mixed-race studies specialist with a particular interest in Comparative Race Relations, Creole studies, Black-Indians, critical mixed-race movement building, and mixed-race health disparities. He is the author of, Cultural Representation in Native America (AltaMira Press, July 2006) which is a part of the Contemporary Native American Communities Series and Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed Race Native American Identity (Lexington Books, January 2007).

Dr. Jolivétte is currently working on a third book, Mixed Race Gay Men and HIV: A Community History. Jolivette is the guest editor a special volume of the American Indian Cultural and Research Journal at UCLA entitled, "Indigenous Landscapes Post-Katrina: Beyond Invisibility and Disaster" which examines the state of Native American tribes and communities two years after Hurricane Katrina. He is currently completing work on The Multiracial Health and Wellness Resource Guide for Youth (Spring, 2008). Professor Jolivette's work has also appeared in the Ethnic Studies Review Journal, in the anthology, Crash Course: Reflections on the Film Crash for Critical Dialogues About Race, Power and Privilege (2007), Hurricane Katrina: Response and Responsibilities (2005) edited by John Brown Childs, and in the new anthology, Color Struck: Essays on Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective (Spring, 2008). He is the Board President of the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture-Speak Out and also serves as Board President of iPride, a national organization for mixed heritage and transracially adopted youth and their families. Jolivette is a Creole of Opelousa, Choctaw, Atakapa-Ishak, Cherokee, French, African, and Spanish descent.