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Title
Associate Professor, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University–Camden
Area of Study/Expertise
US literature and empire studies; Latinx literature, theatre, and television; children's and young adult literature and media; AfroLatinx youth literature; Caribbean narratives of youth and subjectivity; digital humanities and artivism; Ethnic Studies movements and methodologies; dynamics of race and empire in the US; race and canon formation; curriculum and race equity.
Email
marilisa.jimenez@rutgers.edu

Marilisa Jiménez García

Book Author

Marilisa Jiménez García is an Associate Professor of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University–Camden, where she teaches courses in Children’s and Young Adult Literary Cultures. She is a specialist in Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies. Before coming to Rutgers-Camden, she held faculty positions at Simmons University in Boston and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her book Side by Side: U.S. Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2021) won the Children’s Literature Association’s 2023 Book Award. She is also co-author, with Meg Medina, of She Persisted: Pura Belpré (Philomel, 2023), and of Ethnic Studies and Youth Literature: A Critical Reader (SUNY Press, 2025). She teaches courses on US Studies, youth media and television, fantasy and science fiction, youth literature and social justice, and Latinx literatures and media.

Publications

  • Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American Youth Literature and Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), Marilisa Jiménez García; foreword by Sonia Nieto, 2021

  • She Persisted: Pura Belpré, co-authored with Meg Medina (Philomel, 2023), Meg Medina and Marilisa Jiménez García; introduction by Chelsea Clinton; illustrated by Alexandra Boiger and Gillian Flint, 2023

  • Ethnic Studies and Youth Literature: A Critical Reader (SUNY Press, 2025), Edited by Marilisa Jiménez García and Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez, 2025

Awards & Distinctions

  • Children's Literature Association Book Award, 2023, for Side by Side.