Emma Pérez is a research social scientist with the Southwest Center and professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Arizona. Born and raised in South Texas, Professor Pérez received her PhD in history from UCLA, and held faculty positions at the University of Texas, El Paso and the University of Colorado, Boulder before joining the University of Arizona's Southwest Center in 2017. She is widely regarded as a pioneer in Chicana Studies, whose scholarly work and novels have explored the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality. Her scholarly publications include: "Sexuality and Discourse: Notes From A Chicana Survivor" (1991); "Speaking From The Margin: An Uninvited Discourse on Sexuality and Power" (1993); Chicana Critical Issues (1993); The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas Into History (1999); "Queering the Borderlands: The Challenges of Excavating the Invisible and Unheard" (2003); "Decolonial Border Queers: Lesbian, Gay Men, Trangender Folk in El Paso Juarez" (2012); and "Between Manifest Destiny and Women's Rights: Decolonizing Women's History (2016). She works of fiction include: Gulf Dreams (1996), which is considered one of the first Chicana lesbian novels; Forgetting the Alamo, Or Blood Memory (2009); and Electra's Complex (2015). In this interview, Professor Pérez discusses: her family background and upbringing in South Texas; her educational journey from high school to attending UCLA; her graduate experience as a Chicana and getting established in the profession; her reflections on the state of Chicana/o Studies and how the field evolved over her career; the struggle to include gender and sexuality within the field; the aims and contributions of her scholarship and works of fiction; the reception of Chicana/o Studies at the universities she served; developing the comparative ethnic studies PhD program at the University of Colorado, Boulder; as well as her thoughts on important works, themes, and high points in the field's development over the last fifty years.