Welcome! I am the Fannie Gaston-Johansson Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. My work examines the dynamic interplay between the American state and racialized populations.
My book project, Exporting Borders, argues that border externalization was the method by which the United States carried out its latest intrusion into Latin America. >> Learn more about my transnational archive.
My collaborative work on the Latinx organizational terrain reveals how generations of Latinos have developed political capabilities in response to repeated targeting by exclusionary forces within the American polity. >> Learn more about the Latinx Organizational Archives (LXOA) Project.
In my course “Bureaucracy and the American Landscape,” we move through phases of American expansion to examine the operation of U.S. imperial administration and the development of U.S. federal authorities and capacities. In my course “Latinos and the American Landscape,” we examine the dynamic interplay between the racial-authoritarian American state and Latino political capacities.
My recent publications:
- >> “Hierarchy in the Politics of Migration: Revisiting Race, Ethnicity, and Power in the Migration State” in International Migration Review.
- >> “Community-Based Leaders and Civically Engaged Research: Lessons from the Remaking of the Latinx Organizational Archives Project” in Politics, Groups, and Identities.
- >> “The Power-Enhancing and Power-Diminishing Effects of Digital Technologies: Marginalized People and US Racial Authoritarianism” in the Annual Review of Political Science.
- >> “Civically Engaged Research in Political Science: A Methodological Guide” in Politics, Groups, and Identities.
I come from a family of women from San Luis Potosí. With guidance and support from educators and members of the Lockhart, Texas, community, and through fundraising, I was able to attend Rice University as a first-generation college student. I graduated from Lockhart High School in 2009, earned my BA from Rice University in 2013, earned my PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2020, and served as an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University from 2021 to 2024.
