Andrew Jolivétte

Biography

Andrew Jolivétte, former professor and department chair of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego (2018-2024) and American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University (2003-2019) is an accomplished internationally recognized researcher, educator, writer/poet, speaker, socio-cultural critic, and an aspiring chef. Jolivette currently serves as the Board President of the American Indian Community Center in San Francisco, California where he was also Interim Executive Director from 2016-October 2018. He is the author or editor of eight books in print or forthcoming: Cultural Representation in Native America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007); Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority (University of Chicago Press, 2012); Research Justice: Methodologies for Social Change (University of Chicago Press, 2015); Indian Blood: HIV and Colonial Trauma in San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Community (Indigenous Confluences Series, University of Washington Press, 2016); American Indian and Indigenous Education: A Survey Text for the 21st Century (Cognella, 2019); Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Tracing Post-Contact Afro-Indigeneity and Community (University of Washington Press Contracted, October, 2018) *Co-Editor; and Queer Indigenous Citizenship: Against Settler Violence and Anti-Blackness (University of Washington Press Contracted, March, 2019) and many journal articles, chapters, reviews and community studies including, A Report on the Health and Wellness of Multiracial Youth in the San Francisco Bay Area (2008) and guest editor of the American Indian Culture and Research Journal’s “Indigenous Locations Post-Katrina: Beyond Invisibility and Disaster” (2008).

Jolivette’s book, Indian Blood: HIV and Colonial Trauma in San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Community was a finalist for best book in the LGBTQ Studies category for a Lambda Literary Award in June 2017. The Lammys are the world’s most prestigious LGBTQ Book Award Ceremony. Professor Jolivette is the Series Editor of Critical Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Peter Lang Publishing in New York and he was the Indigenous Peoples’ Representative at the United Nations Forum on HIV and the Law in 2011 during his two-year fellowship as an IHART (Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training Program) Fellow at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle where he currently serves as scientific mentor to new fellows. He is a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow (2004-2005) and former Diversity Fellowship Panel Reviewer for Ford. He has also served as a peer review expert for SAMSHA and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Jolivette is an editorial board member for the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a founding editor of the Journal of Louisiana Creole Studies.

Active in both scholarship and community organizing he has served as the board president for the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture (Speak Out), iPride for Multiracial Youth and Families, and the GLBT Historical Society and Museum. He is the founder of the group, Black Men’s Space and a former board member of DataCenter for Research Justice (Vice-President), the African American Art and Culture Complex, the Circle of Healing Native American Health Center Advisory Board, the Center for Restorative Solutions, and SF Black Community Matters. Jolivette currently serves on the board of the Black Community Collaborative. He has been a member of the National Association for Ethnic Studies (NAES) serving twice as conference co-chair, the Pacific Sociological Association, the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association, the National LGBTQ Scholars of Color Network (2029 Conference Co-chair) and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association among other academic associations.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Jolivette is a Creole of Opelousa, Atakapa-Ishak, French, African, Irish, Italian, and Spanish descent. Professor Jolivette is the former tribal historian for the Atakapa-Ishak Nation located between southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas. As a national speaker he has spoken to thousands of college students, educators, government employees and private and non-profit sector organizations over the past decade across the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia. Jolivette received his Ph.D in Sociology from the University of California Santa Cruz with specializations in the sociology of race and ethnicity, the sociology of education, the sociology of Latin America, and the sociology of family. He also holds an MA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz, an MA in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State, and a BA in Sociology from the University of San Francisco.

Research Specializations

Native American and Indigenous Studies (Senior Specialist); Critical Mixed Race Studies; Two-Spirit, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Medical Sociology, Public Health and HIV; Research Justice, CBPR and Indigenous Methodologies; Decolonial Education; Queer Indigenous Citizenship and Knowledges; Creole, Black, Latinx and Comparative Critical Ethnic Studies.