Matt (/Matthew/Mateo) Espinoza Watson was born and raised in Fresno, California, where he attended Slater Elementary, Edison-Computech Middle School, Bullard High School, Fresno City College, and CSU Fresno. He then moved to Oakland to study law at UC Berkeley School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctorate in 2003. After getting the opportunity to teach in Chicano-Latino Studies at CSUF and Fresno City College, Matt decided to re-enroll in school, and studied in the Mexican American Studies Graduate program at San Jose State University, the oldest graduate program in Chicano/Mexican-American studies in the nation, where he was particularly influenced by Profa Julia Curry-Rodriguez, Ph.D., and Profe Marcos Pizarro, Ph.D., two scholar-activist-maestr@s with very different approaches but with a whole lot to share with up and coming Chicana and Chicano scholar-activists.

Matt is happy to call Fresno his home once again, and he is currently the Program Coordinator and sole full-time instructor in Chicano-Latino Studies at Fresno City College, where he also helps to coordinate the Law School Pathway Program, a new statewide program connecting traditionally underrepresented students with guidance, mentoring, and resources to help make the study of law a more attainable goal for students in our community. (The State of California currently has a population that is approximately 60% Latino, yet Latinos make up only 6% of all attorneys in the state. Latino communities don’t need exclusively Latino lawyers to represent them, but being so drastically underrepresented demonstrates the current consequences of historic inequities and lack of access to institutions of higher education.) Matt is committed to breaking down barriers of all sorts in the arena of higher education, and in society generally. He is the proud adviser for MEChA de Fresno City College for the past 7 years, and proud to be a mentor and faculty participant in the PUENTE program at FCC as well.