CLS Core Faculty Dr. Estrella Torrez honored for work
September 4, 2025
Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union are proud to recognize Estrella Torrez for our Cafecito Caliente Culture & Arts Award for 2025. This award honors individuals or organizations for their significant contributions to culture and arts, often through their work in various fields such as music, visual arts, literature, and performance.Estrella Torrez, PhD, is a community-based scholar focused on Latinx and Indigenous education. She is a professor at Michigan State University (MSU), primarily teaching in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH). Dr. Torrez is also a core faculty member in MSU’s Chicano/Latino Studies and American Indian and Indigenous Studies programs.
As a child, Dr. Torrez attended schools for migrant farmworker children and began working alongside her family in the fields at the age of 12. She briefly taught within the migrant educational system and also worked for the Office of Migrant Education in Washington, D.C. She is a Gates Millennium Scholar, having received this prestigious award during its inaugural year.
In 2009, Dr. Torrez co-founded the Indigenous Youth Empowerment Program, an intergenerational community initiative that provides cultural and language-based programming. In 2013, she initiated the Nuestros Cuentos collaborative project with the College Assistance Migrant Program and the Lansing School District. This storytelling project brought together students from MSU’s RCAH and CAMP with 4th to 6th-grade Latinx youth in Lansing, and in 2017 students from the Lansing Community College. Nuestros Cuentos published four trilingual books.
For four years, she served as co-facilitator for the Lansing School District’s Latinx Leadership Program, which supports high school Latinx youth in grades 9 through 12.
From 2017 to 2021, she was co-chair of the Womxn of Color Initiatives at MSU, coordinating residencies for visiting authors, scholars, and artists. One notable initiative involved muralist Nanibah Chacon, who created the mural “Maawed Miijim: The One Who Provides” in Old Towne Lansing.
In 2023, Dr. Torrez's work with Latinx and Indigenous communities was recognized when she received the Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement Distinguished Partnership Award for Community Engaged Creative Activity.
The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.