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Carolina Apodaca-MoralesCarolina (Caro) Apodaca-Morales is an M.A student with the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, Riverside. She received her B.A in History and Chicano/a/x Studies at Cal State Channel Islands in 2022. Research Interests: Examining the cultural history |
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Eliana BuenrostroB.A. Chicana/o Studies and Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles Eliana Buenrostro is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She received her M.A. in Latin American and Latino Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2020. Her M.A. paper entitled “Destined to Fuck Up: Los Illegals, Chicano Punk and the Immigration Politics and Art of 1980s Los Angeles” uses oral history to recount the activist cultural production of the Chicano punk band Los Illegals, during a period of mass deportations in the United States. Her ongoing research examines the criminalization, immigration, and deportation of Chicanes and Latines through the lens of music and other forms of cultural production. She is a recipient of the Cota Robles Fellowship and the Crossing Latinidades Mellon Fellowship. As a member of the Latinx Sound Culture Studies Working Group through the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Initiative, she moderated a talk on “Chicana Punk Epistemologies” with scholars who are redefining the field of punk studies. Research Interests: punk music, alternative subcultures, youth subcultures, immigration, state violence, oral history |
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Guadalupe Arellanes CastroB.A. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Guadalupe is a P.h.D. student in Ethnic Studies at the University of California Riverside. She received her Master’s in Latin American Studies at California State University Los Angeles and her Bachelor’s in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at California State University Long Beach. She is a leading member of Critical Anti-Violence Research and Action (CARA) at UCR, an abolition-feminist research centre. Guadalupe’s research uses transspecies ethnography to examine human and more-than-human kinship, memory and resistance in response to environmental injustice. Her dissertation is an intergenerational, transborder analysis of immigrant ecologies as a (re)turn to decolonial ontologies rooted in relationality. She is a recipient of the Cota Robles Fellowship and Crossing Latinidades Mellon Fellowship.
Research Interests: critical refugee studies, memory studies, diaspora studies, felt theory, affect studies, Women of Color feminisms, abolion geographies, Latinx futurism, and decolonial theory
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Valerie M Chacon |
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Sneha George
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Pedro A Freire |
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Morayma Flores-HiginioB.A. Human Development |
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Jazmin GarciaA.S Paralegal/Legal studies |
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Sung Kim |
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Michael MadrigalB.A., Social Relations, University of California, Riverside |
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Jenni MartinezJenni Martinez is a Ph.D. student in the department of Ethnic Studies. She is a proud & devoted daughter of deported Mexican parents, a first generation college graduate and an award winning teaching assistant 💁🏻♀️ Jenni seeks to better understand the ways in which deportation as a form of state violence permeates through every facet of the lives of those affected. Her work focuses on exploring the ontological changes of deportees, deportee specific trauma & its temporalities and how deportation is an active necropolitical agent of the state. Research Interests: deportation, temporalities, necro politics, death, immigration, affect, ontology, phenomenology, Mexican/ Chicanx feminist epistemologies, art-based ethnographies |
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Beyaja NotahBeyaja Notah is a Diné (Navajo) PhD candidate in the department of Ethnic Studies focusing on Native American Studies. Her dissertation explores the history and experience of Diné people as they made their way to the urban areas of Southern California. Beyaja grew up in the Inland Empire in San Bernardino, Ca. Research interests: traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous education, and decolonial methodologies |
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Nathaly L OrtizM.A., Women & Gender Studies, San Francisco State University Nathaly Ortiz is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She was raised in Pittsburg, California and received her Master’s in Women & Gender Studies from San Francisco State University. Her M.A. thesis looked at how structural racism and exploitative labor during World War II shaped the East Bay Area landscape. The Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Concord, California—the largest weapons facility on the West Coast during WWII—served as the site of examination. She analyzed archived oral histories, court proceedings, naval service records, a memorial, and WWII propaganda posters. Her research builds upon this work by looking at historical resistance to U.S. militarism and how it has shaped the restructuring of state power and the landscape. |
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Carol K. ParkB.A., English Carol K. Park is a first-generation college graduate and a first-year student in the ethnic studies Ph.D. program at UC Riverside. From 2010-2020, Park was a research assistant at the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at UCR under the guidance of its director, Dr. Edward T. Chang. At the Center, Park studied Korean and Asian American history, social and political issues, race relations, and more. She worked on and completed several projects: two documentary films; a Korean American Oral Histories record; assisted in the designation of Pachappa Camp – the first Koreatown USA – as Riverside’s first Point of Cultural Interest; edited and worked on articles, books, and more. In 2014, she was part of a team that received a $135,000 Academy of Koreans Studies Grant. Park is also the author of Memoir of a Cashier: Korean Americans, Racism, and Riots, and co-author of Korean Americans: A Concise History. Park’s preliminary dissertation research involves looking at Korean diaspora in the U.S. during the early 20th century, examining nationalism/transnationalism, imperialism, geopolitical, educational, and socioeconomic issues, and how Asian immigrant identities were constructed. Prior to pursuing an academic life, Park was an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in various newspapers, magazines, and journals. As a hobby, Park practices karate and is a licensed USA National Karate referee. She is also the proud mother of her dog Gamja (Potato in Korean). Research Interests: Korean and Asian American identities, race relations, diaspora, critical race theory, civil unrest, nationalism, transnationalism, colonialism, imperialism, and decolonization. |
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Ramon PinedaB.A. Anthropology, San José State University |
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Larry W Smith |
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Takahito TanakaM.A. Sociology |
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Michelle C RawlingsB.A. Ethnic Studies, University of California Riverside Research Interests: Ethnogenesis, ethnic heterogeneity, and biracial/multiethnic identity, cultural and social adaptations, ethnography, biracial/multiethnic identity expression through art and textiles. |
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Kelvin VillaltaB.A. Central American Studies, California State University of Northridge Research Intrests: Central American Literature (Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, Film, Music, Art), Race, Ethnicity, Identity, Gender, Sexuality, Class, Labor, Spirituality, Migration, Transnationalism, Assimilation, Colonial, Capitalist, and Neoliberal contradictions and exploitation, State and Corporate Repression and Violence, Social Movements, Revolutions, and Civil Wars, Historical and Dialectical Materialism, Dependency Theory |