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My dissertation, "Troubling Reproduction: Sexuality, Race, and Colonialism in New Mexico, 1919-1960," is an interdisciplinary analysis
of sexuality and reproduction in the U.S./ Mexico border state of New Mexico. More specifically, this project details how reproductive
health policies and education are inextricably linked, not only to ideologies of race, gender, and national belonging, but also to their
material effects evidenced in institutionalized racism, colonized health practices, and racially and economically stratified reproductive
health. Utilizing feminist and critical race theory coupled with Foucault's theory of biopolitics, my dissertation traces diverse women's
roles in the history of reproductive health and education in a region frequently overlooked in reproductive health histories. Chapters of
my dissertation focus on: relationships between Latina parteras (midwives) and white, female public health nurses; medical researcher
Sophie D. Aberle's work chronicling infant and maternal mortality in New Mexico's indigenous Pueblos; visual representations of racialized
reproductive bodies; and the Santa Fe Maternal Health Center and modern birth control activism and resistance. Next year, I am
thrilled to be joining the faculty in the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Sonoma State University as an assistant professor.
My dissertation, "American Cultural Fantasies: Racial Violence, Disenfranchisement and the Ethics of Recognition in the Post-Civil
Rights Era," investigates media, public and state representations of four contemporary instances of racial violence and disenfranchisement.
It demonstrates how racialized and gendered American cultural fantasies are central to the production of public consent for
contemporary state and institutional acts of violence, impoverishment or expendability. I define cultural fantasies as dominant race and
gender constructions that structure public intelligibilities, economies of affect, frames of reception and interpretation. I trace dominant
assumptions about Haitians, Arabs, Mexican immigrants and African Americans and examine the ways cultural fantasies often make
inequality and injustice appear natural, normal and necessary. Each case study reveals narratives of cultural resistance, political dissent,
and organizing efforts that seek to end dehumanizing practices. The dissertation chronicles counter-hegemonic discourses and practices
based in communities of color as a way to posit contemporary models of ethical recognition and political responsibility.
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I had the good fortune of being a Women's Studies Dissertation Fellow in 2004-05 along with Francisca James Hernández. Francisca
and I hit it off immediately and coalesced with a great group of pre and postdocs at UCSB that year. The faculty in Women's Studies
was amazingly helpful and supportive in assisting me with my teaching and enabling me to complete and defend my dissertation. I
moved from UCSB into a postdoctoral fellowship in Women's Studies at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Since much of my research
is about Hawai'i, it was fascinating to be in another colonized island nation where issues of colonialism, race and indigeneity are
also hot issues. Being in Europe was invaluable in providing me access to alternate academic models and refreshingly non-American
perspectives. From Ireland, I moved to Syracuse University (New York) where I served last year as one of eight new Postdoctoral Faculty
Fellows in the Humanities. My departmental homes were Women's Studies and Native American Studies, both with outstanding
faculty and growing programs. I returned to California this summer, coming full circle back to Women's Studies at UCSB, this time
as an Affiliated Research Scholar. This position will enable me the time and research support to complete a book I have under contract
with University of Hawai'i Press. The book, Haoles in Hawai'i, is part of an upcoming series on race and ethnicity in Hawai'i (haole is
a Hawaiian word commonly understood as white people or whiteness).
The year I spent in residence at UCSB, from 2004-05, was a turning point in a long journey toward the Ph.D. By the end, I had a nearcompleted
draft of the thesis. This was due to three key elements the fellowship provided simultaneously: time, money, and mentorship.
I earned a doctorate from the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University in August 2007. Equally
important to the area's infamous beauty and the fellowship's generous accommodations was the authentic feminist solidarity from those
at Women's Studies. The faculty, staff and students were a joy. As a result, my professional and personal network expanded considerably,
benefiting too from a small, robust community of dissertation and postdoctoral fellows and from sojourns to the Department of
Chicana/o Studies. I strengthened my research and writing skills, gained more self-confidence as a Chicana feminist scholar, and raised
my standards of scholarship and treatment in the academic arena. I left UCSB feeling there could be a university for me where growth,
healthy collegial relationships, and even happiness might be found along with rigorous, intellectual endeavor. The Women's Studies
Dissertation Fellowship at UCSB was critical the completion of my doctorate and, even, to my new position as a Mellon Postdoctoral
Fellow in the Humanities at the University of California at Berkeley.
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