Fernández was born in New York on December 2, 1970, to Dominican parents who had fled the Dominican Republic. Her own political education began early: as a Brown University undergraduate in April 1992, she was a leader of Students for Aid and Minority Admissions and one of 253 people arrested in the occupation of University Hall demanding need-blind admissions. She went on to a doctorate in history at Columbia and became an associate professor of history at Baruch College, City University of New York.
Fernández wrote The Young Lords: A Radical History and helped curate exhibitions about the organization’s work in New York.
Her research led to litigation over access to NYPD surveillance files. The records recovered through that work documented decades of police monitoring of political organizations.
Fernández also campaigned for Mumia Abu-Jamal’s release. Her work included the documentary Justice on Trial and the collection Writing on the Wall, which brought his prison writing to a wider audience.
