Research and Writing

Areas of focus

My work uses multi-sited ethnography 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. 

My book project, "Lawful Permanent Migrant: Legality and Mobility in Transnational Mexico," examines the ripple effects of US immigration law - specifically the family-based immigration system - on Mexican transnational families. 

My dissertation uses multi-sited ethnographic methods to examine the relationship between legal migration and social mobility as it plays out in a transnational community of Mexican migrant farmworkers in Connecticut. Specifically, it aims to develop a nuanced picture of migrant agency in the face of restrictive immigration policies, by examining the ways migrant families deploy legal U.S. immigration status and citizenship as instruments of intergenerational social mobility. From a theoretical perspective, my dissertation examines the interaction between the agency exercised by marginalized populations (in this case, migrant farmworkers), and the transnational social, political, economic, and legal structures that guide and constrain their life opportunities.  

I am currently in the process of revising the dissertation for publication as a book manuscript, tentatively entitled "Pathway to Mobility: Legal Migration in Transnational Mexico."