Research
I am an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in qualitative interview methods, community-based engaged methods, and digital ethnography to examine structural inequality and resilience among racialized gender and sexually non-conforming Latinx communities. I employ Chicana & Latina feminist theory, queer and trans-of-color critique, and trans studies to explore gender, sexuality, and collective action in the face of social and legal violence for racialized trans Latinx immigrants in Los Angeles, California.
Trans*formative spirituality and self-preservation in the lives of Trans latinxs
Latino Studies, 2021
Drawing on surveys and in-depth interviews with trans Latinxs in Los Angeles, I argue that spirituality is a source of resilience when trans immigrants face marginalization stemming from racism, xenophobia, and transphobia precipitated by factors rooted in cisgendered policy and social norms. Taking a grounded theory approach, the author offers the concept of trans*formative spirituality, which is a spirituality that trans Latinxs perform by living their truth in their bodies, and also in their journey to their own truth, they are able to transform and convert others around them.
Validation through documentation: Integrating activism, research & scholarship to highlight (validate) Trans Latin@ immigrant lives
Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Illegalization, Detention, and Deportation, 2020
Co-authored with Bamby Salcedo, President of the TransLatin@ Coalition. In this article we discuss the importance of collaborative research between scholarly researchers and community
organizations and members. Additionally, we discussed the finding from our report, The State of Trans Health: Trans Latin@s and Their Health Care Needs.
Centering the “T”: Envisioning a Trans Jotería Pedagogy
Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 2020
In this article I begin with a spoken word piece called "Dear Mama" that I wrote in 2018. The poetry captures the journey toward my own trans-conocimiento. Then I draw on foundational work of Chicana/Latina Feminist pedagogies and transpedagogies to envision a trans jotería pedagogy that centers trans migrants—and trans women and people of color—that is grounded in disruption and vulnerability through the unsettling of borders and binaries tied to systems of power.
Straddling the school-to-prison pipeline and gender non-conforming microaggressions as a Latina Lesbian
The Journal of LGBT Youth, 2018
The article focuss on five case studies of formerly incarcerated Latinas in the juvenile justice system. I argue that for Latina lesbians—or lesbian-perceived Latinas more specifically, whose gender and sexual non-conformity is visible—punishment is more severe than for their cisgender Latina counterparts. In this article, I conceptualized “gender non-conforming microaggressions,” to identify the everyday mistreatment gender non-conforming Latina girls experience in juvenile hall.
The State of Trans Health
Video: Courtesy of the TransLatina@ Coalition and the California Endowment. You can download full report at www.translatinacoalition.org