Research
Immigrant-origin youth are one of the fastest-growing demographics in U.S. public schools with some of the worst educational outcomes. My research raises questions about the inherently political nature of learning a new language and culture in a racialized and polarized society. I use ethnographic methods to explore exceptional schools and sites of possibilities for immigrant youth to uncover the creative, and sometimes covert, ways in which immigrant students and the educators that work with them have resisted U.S. education policies rooted in ideologies of monolingualism, white supremacy, and xenophobia. Scholars of immigrant education continue to find that subtractive practices and deficit views of immigrant students are as pervasive as ever. Fewer studies investigate models of schooling in which the cultures and languages of immigrant youth are sustained.
My work contributes to theories of social transformation by looking beyond classroom practices to identify institutionalized structures that give rise to school cultures that protect and empower immigrant students.
You can read my work in journals like Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Harvard Educational Review, and Leadership and Policy in Schools. Please contact me for the full text if you do not have institutional access.
Checks, balances, and resistance: The impact of an anti‐immigrant federal administration on a school for immigrant teenagers
From Protest To Protection: Navigating Politics with Immigrant Students in Uncertain Times
“What’s Going to Happen to Us?” Cultivating Partnerships with Immigrant Families in an Adverse Political Climate
Intersectional understandings of on-time high school graduation and college readiness for traditionally marginalized high school students
Segregation or sanctuary? Examining the educational possibilities of counterpublics for immigrant English learners
Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Examining School Practices That Support Immigrant Students’ Feelings of Belonging
Accountability Reform and Responsive Assessment for Immigrant Youth
When data use devolves into deficit talk: Creating the conditions for productive teacher collaboration using data