Fellows Profile

Received Sylff fellowship in 2009 , 2010 ,2011
Academic supervisor: Steve McKay
Current affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz

Academic achievements, social engagement initiatives:
Rosa is a PhD student in the Sociology department at UC Santa Cruz with a Designated Emphasis in Latin American and Latinx Studies. Rosa has a BA in History from Portland State University and holds three master’s degrees. Her first MA is in International Human Rights Law from the American University in Cairo, where she focused on the right to self-determination of Indigenous peoples under international law. Before pursuing her second MA, she worked as a community organizer in immigrant rights in Portland and Chicago for nearly seven years. Her second MA is in Sociology from the University at Albany-SUNY, where her research focused on whiteness and mestizaje in Mexico. My third MA is from UC Santa Cruz, where her thesis focused on Whiteness and racism in Mexico. Rosa is currently working on her dissertation project that focuses on Indigenous Mexican farmworkers in the United States. Her research interests are broad, but mostly in critical mestizaje and whiteness studies in Mexico, Labor focusing on farmworkers and domestic workers, settler-colonialism in the US & Mexico, and Latinx Sociology.

Rosa is the proud daughter and granddaughter of Mexican migrant farmworkers in the US. She is the first in her family to attend college.