"In this thesis I explore three main questions through an ethnographic lens. First, what information do applicants have to produce in order to apply for legal status, residency, or citizenship? How are notions of family, the individual-the idea of the citizen-written into the questions of immigration applicants? And finally, what can the encounters between immigrants and professionals providing immigration legal assistance tell us about what kind of subject the law is based on? I focus specifically on the difference of the foreigner and on sexual difference in the context of encounters between immigrants and asylum seekers and immigration law. My question about this topic emerged from my fieldwork at the IRRP, a non-profit organization based in Portland, Oregon, that provides immigration legal assistance to low-income residents of Oregon.
By bringing the work of each of these authors (Jacques Derrida, Carole Pateman, Ranjana Khanna, Shoshana Felman, Cathy Caruth, Joan Scott, and Talal Asad) to bear on the examples from my fieldwork, I address questions about how representation in a liberal democratic legal framework constitutes subjects."
After Graduation:
Fronterizx Fianza Fund (Founding member and Board member)
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (Texas, Managing Legal Assistant)
Contract Crimmigration Specialist (Miles Immigration Law)
MA UT-Austin (Latin American Studies and Information Studies)
