Teaching: APD

In Spring 2025, the theme of my course on American Political Development (APD) was “Latinos and American Political Development: Revisiting APD Through the Experiences of Latinos across Time and Place.” Building on my “Latino APD” course, in Fall 2025, the theme of my APD course is: “The Violence of Path Dependence and the Power of Path-Makers.”

Fall 2025 – “The Violence of Path Dependence and the Power of Path-Makers”

The theme of my Fall 2025 APD Course is: “The Violence of Path Dependence and the Power of Path-Makers.” The course draws on relational frameworks and restorative methodologies.

Below is a look at our weeks ahead:

Week 1: The Political Violence of Path Dependence
Week 2: Citizenship: A View from the Territories
- Guest Lecture by Dr. Maye Henning
Week 3: The Not Weak American State: Lynching and Expulsions
Week 4: Weapons of the State: Criminalization and Surveillance
Week 5: State Power, Data, and Archives, I
Week 6: Deportations and Weapons of Mass Dis-Organization
Week 7: Nation-State Border-Making Technologies
Week 8: Land and Place as Method
- Guest Lecture by Dr. Elise Blasingame
Week 9: People Power, Data, and Archives, I
Week 10: Disciplining Movements
Week 11: Relational Deviance
- Guest Lecture by Dr. Kaneesha Johnson
Week 12: People Power, Data, and Archives, II
Week 13: Hemispheric Rebellions and Alternative Paths
Week 14: In-Class Research Conference

“This is an intense course that will make students really think about current events and their historical roots. I remember calling in to federal court proceedings of Guatemalan children who were almost deported. It made the real-world implications of everything we were learning so vivid and tangible. I appreciated that the professor exposed us to these realities and did not just describe what we were learning in the abstract.” –Anonymous Student, Fall 2025 Course Evaluations

Spring 2025 – “Latinos and the American Political Landscape”

In Spring 2025, the theme of my APD course was: “Latinos and the American Political Landscape: Revisiting APD Through the Experiences of Latinos across Time and Place.”

My Latino APD class revisits some of the biggest questions in the field American Political Development through the experiences of Latinos across the United States. The class progresses in four stages: I: Retool, II: Recover, III: Revisit, and IV: Research.

By the end of the course, students will be able to engage with and provide answers to some of the most pressing questions regarding the relationship between Latinos and American political development.

How did American state building, American racial capitalism, and American empire create a varied set of racialized citizenship regimes that shaped the legality and membership of Latinos, and how are these related to domestic racial hierarchies and international projects?
What do the lives of Latinos tell us about the entanglements between the American welfare state, the American migration state, the American carceral state, and the American settler imperial state?
How did the regulation of Latino immigrants and asylum seekers from Latin America and the Caribbean serve as an engine for the American administrative state – including the making of border bureaucracies, networked policing that harnesses the institution of federalism, and the development of ocean-spanning detention infrastructure?
How did Latinos become racialized as ‘illegals’ and the prime targets of state action? How have these state efforts led to a varied set of processes and effects – at once suppressing Latino political agency, mobilizing Latino collective action, and even conscripting Latinos into the enforcement apparatus?
How do groups of Latinos – in relation with and to, and in coalition with Black, Indigenous, and Asian organizing – cultivate and assert political and policy influence in the face of compounding crises, including climate change, policing, detention, and gentrification, all while navigating institutional constraints?
How do those most marginalized among the Latino population – including Black, Trans, Queer, Immigrant, and Undocumented Latinos – contend with intra-group and inter-group hierarchies, and what do their movements tell us about the deployment of state regulatory action?

Topics by Week

Part I: Retool

Week 1 – Latinos and American Political Development
Week 2 – Time and Policy Feedback

Part II: Recover

Week 3 – “The Latino Threat” and Racialized Illegality
Week 4 – The Entangled Welfare State, Carceral State, and Deportation State
Week 5 – Detention and American Empire
Week 6 – Restorative Methods: Theory and Practice
Week 7 – Racial Capitalism and Colonial Relations of Power
Week 8 – Technologies of Control
Week 9 – Spring Break
Week 10 – Threat, Mass Mobilizations, and Containment

Part III: Revisit

Week 11 – Racial Orders and Hierarchies
Week 12 – Expansion and Mass Removals
Week 13 – Social Movements and State Institutions
Week 14 – In Class Research Conference