Michael Reyes Salas is a PhD Candidate in the Program in Comparative Literature, with a portfolio in African Diaspora Studies, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a proud descendant of Mexican immigrants. He grew up in several Southern Californian cities within the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. He also lived three years between the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, and the pueblo of Tequila, Jalisco. After completing high school in Mexico, he returned to California and obtained his GED certificate in 2009. Michael enrolled in Citrus Community College in the city of Glendora and after two years of coursework transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated in 2014 with a BA in English and a minor in French. He earned a MA in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016 as a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. He has written op-eds for The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times. His forthcoming journal article on Negritude poet Léon-Gontran Damas will appear in Dalhousie French Studies. For 2020-2021, Michael will remain at the University of Texas at Austin as an Andrew W. Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow. He tweets as @mreyes_salas.
