I am an applied anthropologist with a focus on linguistic and cultural anthropology. I am particularly interested in issues related to human displacement and forced migration, linguistic and cultural identities, disaster recovery and recovery cultures, and race and racism, with a geographic focus on the US Gulf South and Latin America. My dissertation research focuses on the post-Hurricane Katrina Latinx community in the Greater New Orleans area. Specifically, I examine how this community navigates and redefines citizenship and belonging while actively resisting discrimination in our city. Other projects I work on include collaborative research with the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe of coastal Louisiana and their tribal-driven resettlement plan, as well as community-based participatory research in Tallahassee, Florida that examines race, racism, and whiteness.
I am an educator at heart and encourage my students to take knowledge from my courses and apply it to our larger worlds outside the classroom. I have taught in departments of Anthropology, English Language and Literature, Spanish Language and Literature, and Sociology in higher education, as well as in secondary education in public schools. I am currently part-time faculty member in anthropology here at UNO.