Daisy Hernández

Daisy’s work is at the intersection of culture, identity, social justice and media representation. Winner of the Pen Book Award for The Kissing Bug which turns a critical eye to a devastating infection, Chagas disease, affecting predominantly impoverished and marginalized communities.

  • WINNER OF THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD for The Kissing Bug, and the inaugural title for the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Program
  • Top 10 Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 — TIME magazine
  • SELECTED FOR NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION’S SCIENCE & LITERATURE PROGRAM
  • Co-editor of classic feminist anthology, Colonize This! Young Women on Today’s Feminism and former editor of ColorLines, a newsmagazine on race and politics
  • Daisy has written for a range of publications race, immigration and broadening lines of feminism – The Atlantic, Slate, The New York Times and NPR’s All Things Considered. 
  • View Daisy’s conversation on C-SPAN about her book, The Kissing Bug, where she explains Chagas, a rare disease that affects the heart and digestive system, and the impact it has had on her family.
  • Her speaking topics include: Feminism, Race and Gender Issues, LGBT,  Media, and Immigration. She reframes our understanding of what it means to be an American, her book Citizenship is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude.
  • Hernández unpacks citizenship not as a fixed legal status but as a living, breathing story shaped by race, gender, immigration, and power, and exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people.

  Daisy Hernandez A Cup of Water Under My BedDaisy Hernandez Colonize This  

Video: Daisy speaks at California State University Sonoma

I hope Colonize This! makes it onto Women Studies 101 syllabi nationwide . . . it can help ensure that race is an integral element of feminist dialogue--and keep women from leaving the women’s studies classroom when discussions of race begin.

- Bitch Magazine

… people absolutely loved her--they are still talking about her lecture and how it has influenced their thinking. That is pretty wonderful feedback coming from a wide range of folk: young, middle-aged, white, people of color, men, women. Daisy was a hit in Minnesota!

- University of Minnesota

Daisy was FABULOUS! ...such a delight to have speak ... she truly showed her interest, care, and knowledge about her topic. ...(W)e all took something very powerful from it--three of my own professors scribbled notes with the vigor of a student cramming day before finals. It was beautiful!

- Sonoma State University

Lyrical, unflinching ... Hernández expertly skates the line between memoir and science tome, showing the personal effects of a disease perpetuated by a cascade of systemic failures.

- The Washington Post

Hernández raises damning questions about which infectious diseases get attention and whom we believe to be deserving of care.

- NPR Books