sentences:  She received a bachelor's in 1980 and a master's in 1983 in English from the University of Texas at El Paso, and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1994 from the University of New Mexico.To her students she is known as La Profe or Gaspar and currently teaches classes on border consciousness, bilingual creative writing, Chicana Lesbian literature, barrio popular culture, and graduate courses on Chicana theory.In 1994, she was one of six founding faculty members of the then César Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicana and Chicano Studies at University of California, Los Angeles.