JESS CHAPIN has a long history of academic research and activism around the struggles of women, immigrants and gender minorities on the U.S.-Mexico border and within in the U.S.  Her doctoral work for a PhD in cultural anthropology addressed issues of gender and border industrialization in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She taught as an adjunct professor for many years, at the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. Her courses focused on gender and sexuality, the family, and the cultures of the borderlands.  For the past several years she has worked with asylum-seekers detained at the Karnes County Residential Center in south Texas and, and at Posada Esperanza in Austin. She is very excited about linking her hands-on work with immigrants to the broader educational reach and community-building potential of Women on the Border. She hopes that by giving voice to the stories of people fleeing gang violence, sexual violence, and the violence of extreme poverty, and by providing the public with access to meaningful resources and information, WOB can counter the misinformation that feeds hatred and xenophobia.