Lydia Chávez is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Journalism and Chair of the Executive Committee for the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a former reporter for the New York Times in Latin America, where she served as bureau chief in San Salvador and Buenos Aires. She has written for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine and contributed op-ed pieces to the New York Times and San Francisco Examiner. She is the author of The Color Bind: California's Battle to End Affirmative Action.