Associate Professor, English & Communications
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2014
M.A., University of Michigan, 2010
B.A., Williams College, 2008
(Honors, cum laude)
ENGL 150: College Writing II
ENGL 250: Introduction to Literature
ENGL 210: Essentials of Film
ENGL 211: Introduction to Mass Media
ENGL 490: Senior Seminar, Media and Immigration
I teach courses in mass media, media and cultural studies, comparative ethnic studies, intercultural communications, and racial theory. My courses focus on developing student writing and I encourage my students to think beyond “common sense” or traditional ways of thinking while promoting a bridge between theory and practice. I am an affiliate faculty in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
At MCLA I am honored to serve on the faculty association; as an Internal Review Board
member; Director of Human Heritage; as a Curriculum Committee member; Interim Coordinator
of First-Year Writing; Hartmann Co-Professor; and as founding director of the American
Ethnic Studies Minor.
In addition, I am a member of the American Studies Association and the Latina/o Studies
Association and present my scholarship annually at conferences.
My research interests include media and cultural studies, race, ethnicity, new racism, and immigration. My first book on race and social media activism is forthcoming from the Ohio State University Press.
Deflective Whiteness: White Rhetoric and the Cooptation of Black and Latinx Identity Politics. Forthcoming from Ohio State University Press, Race and Mediated Culture Series.
“Deflective Whiteness: White Rhetoric and Racial Fabrication.” Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies. Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 2018. (Forthcoming)
“Imagining Postville: National Public Radio and the Discourse of Latina/o Representation.” The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Media. Edited by María Elena Cepeda and Dolores Inés Casillas. New York: Routledge Press, 2017.
“Branding Guilt: American Apparel Inc. and Latina Labor in Los Angeles.” Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Journal Published by the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. Special Issue: Reframing Immigration in the Américas. Volume 18, Number 2, Fall 2015.
"Deflective Whiteness: Latinxs and Racial Fabrication." Latinx Studies Association, Washington, DC. 2018
“Where have we been? Where are we going? Understanding the Rise of Trumpism, the Alt-Right, and Developing Strategies of Dissent.” American Studies Association. November 9-12, Chicago. 2017
“Obama’s Immigration Legacy: Representations of Belonging and the Criminalization of the Undocumented.” American Studies Association, Denver, Colorado. 2016
“Straight Shooting: Colorblindness, Latinos, and the Representation of Post-9/11 Political Correctness.” Latina/o Studies Association, Pasadena, California. 2016
