How do political narratives about immigration and refugees impact our communities? How much do words really matter?

I am currently working on my dissertation, which focuses on the following questions:

1. What is the nature of the political discourse around migrants and refugees in post-9/11 United States, and how has this discourse changed over time?

2. How do immigrants and refugees make sense of and respond to securitizing discourses, and how do their intersectional identities and social connections influence their understandings and experiences of securitization?

I am currently doing critical discourse analysis work and working on a chapter that shares immigrants’ and refugees’ perspectives about political narratives and their impacts, as well as counternarratives.

This project focuses on immigrants’ and refugees’ experiences developing relationships and community building in the Boston area, and their experiences processing and responding to political narratives about migration-related issues. One goal of the project is to shed light on immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker voices as counter-narrative to common political discourses and amplify their storytelling and advocacy efforts.

The Restorative Justice Project within the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development at UMass Boston seeks to improve restorative justice practices to approach conflict and harm on campus and in the surrounding community.

I have been involved in various aspects of research and programming over time, including:

• Facilitating restorative justice accountability circles with incarcerated men in Massachusetts.
• Conducting a program assessment by interviewing the men in the group about their experiences.
• Developing a participatory assessment and participatory curriculum design process within the group.
• Designing a proposal for campus-based programming to address campus sexual harm, racial justice, and more.
• Contributing to a research project around restorative justice systems on campuses, for which I interviewed various members of the campus community at UMass Boston about their restorative justice-related work and their ideas and understandings of restorative justice.

My restorative justice efforts span across campus and community involvement, and I have worked to develop expertise in this area.

The MAP Network aims to strengthen and connect migrant service providers in the Boston area. Through connecting service providers, creating and compiling tools and resources, and conducting research, the organization serves as a networking platform and resource hub, facilitating more holistic services for immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker communities. I was the executive director of the organization from 2018-2022 and am currently on the advisory team.

One effort I am still engaged with is our Community-Engaged Needs Assessment (CENA) Project, which employs a survey and subsequent community conversations/focus groups to better understand the challenges of service providers in the Boston area and map the connections and collaborations between organizations.

Learn more about this project on the MAP Network’s website.

While pursuing various degrees, I have worked as a tutor and mentor, teaching assistant, teaching fellow, and professor for several programs. I have experience working with international students, ESOL students, adult learners, first-generation students, and women of color, among others, to strengthen their writing skills. I enjoy equipping students with the tools and knowledge to be successful and reach their goals.
I believe the editing process can be empowering, strengths-based, and even inspiring when writers are given clear feedback and coached through their challenges. I am currently editing theses and dissertations with Latinx Education Coach, and it’s been wonderful working with this amazing team to empower students!