I am currently serving a three-year term as a Research Associate of the John Goodwin Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Tower Center from 2017-2020. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut in May, 2017.
My work uses multi-sited methods to examine the intersection of legality, morality, and wellbeing in transnational migration. My article, "Navigating Legality: Transnational Mixed-status Families and the U.S. Family-Based Immigration System" was recently accepted for publication in JEMS - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. I am currently revising my dissertation for publication as a book manuscript, tentatively titled “Lawful Permanent Migrant: Legality and Mobility in Transnational Mexico.” The book draws on my multi-sited dissertation fieldwork in Connecticut and rural Guanajuato to trace the transnational social impact of US immigration policy.
My research contributes to anthropological understandings of how categories of legal inclusion and exclusion traverse geopolitical borders. Scholarship on im/migrant illegality has focused on how the categories of exclusion encoded in immigration law produce social and material realities for im/migrants and their communities. My work shows that categories of inclusion are equally important to consider. The work also presents a novel transnational approach to the study of im/migrant il/legality, which will enable anthropologists to analyze the ways in which state power acts beyond the borders within which it is juridically relevant.
My next project examines the everyday practices through which legality and morality are linked in conversations about im/migration in the im/migrant advocacy community. The project will involve multi-sited ethnographic research with formal and informal networks of volunteers helping immigrants with family preparedness documentation and pro se asylum cases. This project will examine how advocates and allies engage with ideas of legality and morality as they interface with im/migrant populations.
I teach interdisciplinary and anthropology courses on Latino immigration and cultural diversity in the U.S., as well as college-level writing.
In addition to my academic work, I have experience developing and managing events, volunteer programs, and community-university partnerships. I also work in an applied capacity on issues related to labor rights in the agricultural and electronics manufacturing industries.
My work uses multi-sited methods to examine the intersection of legality, morality, and wellbeing in transnational migration. My article, "Navigating Legality: Transnational Mixed-status Families and the U.S. Family-Based Immigration System" was recently accepted for publication in JEMS - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. I am currently revising my dissertation for publication as a book manuscript, tentatively titled “Lawful Permanent Migrant: Legality and Mobility in Transnational Mexico.” The book draws on my multi-sited dissertation fieldwork in Connecticut and rural Guanajuato to trace the transnational social impact of US immigration policy.
My research contributes to anthropological understandings of how categories of legal inclusion and exclusion traverse geopolitical borders. Scholarship on im/migrant illegality has focused on how the categories of exclusion encoded in immigration law produce social and material realities for im/migrants and their communities. My work shows that categories of inclusion are equally important to consider. The work also presents a novel transnational approach to the study of im/migrant il/legality, which will enable anthropologists to analyze the ways in which state power acts beyond the borders within which it is juridically relevant.
My next project examines the everyday practices through which legality and morality are linked in conversations about im/migration in the im/migrant advocacy community. The project will involve multi-sited ethnographic research with formal and informal networks of volunteers helping immigrants with family preparedness documentation and pro se asylum cases. This project will examine how advocates and allies engage with ideas of legality and morality as they interface with im/migrant populations.
I teach interdisciplinary and anthropology courses on Latino immigration and cultural diversity in the U.S., as well as college-level writing.
In addition to my academic work, I have experience developing and managing events, volunteer programs, and community-university partnerships. I also work in an applied capacity on issues related to labor rights in the agricultural and electronics manufacturing industries.
