McNair Scholar 2024 - Joci Salguero
Joci Salguero is a senior at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, majoring in Chicano/Latino studies, with a minor in Spanish. Her research interests are Chicano/Latino studies, American Studies, Immigration, U.S.-Mexico borderlands, ethnic studies, settler colonialism, and Chicano/Latino art history. She plans on getting her Ph.D. in American Studies.
Quote from Joci Salguero
My dream has always been to empower and give back to my community, whether that is through directly partaking in activism, community-engagement, contributing to scholarship, or making an impact on others in the same way my professors did with me. I aspire to pursue higher education with a decolonial lens, that keeps in mind those that came before me and those that will come after me.
Research project
Understanding the Present Through the Past: Contextualizing Contemporary U.S. Immigration Issues
Abstract
Immigration discourse in the United States shifted following the 9/11 attacks, notably further subjugating migrants through increased criminalization. This project will construct a historical narrative from 9/11 in order to fully conceptualize the contemporary immigrant debate. This conceptualization will contextualize research on Union del Barrio as a primary pro-immigrant organizations to compare and contrast their understandings and approaches with other organizations. Critical Discourse Analysis will be used to reveal differences and similarities within the realm of migrant rights organizing, particularly their position on reform. If they think it validates some ‘Illegal” migrants, upholding the border and it’s logic of deportation, or that reform of the immigration system as the way to advocate migrants. This research seeks to provide an understanding of the current immigration debate which has framed migrants as foreign invaders threatening the nation’s safety and economy, obscuring how US foreign policy has created migration while criminalizing human movement.
Faculty mentor
Dr. Jimmy C. Patiño, Jr is currently an associate professor and historian at the University of Minnesota in the department of Chicano/Latino studies. His first book Raza Sí, Migra No: Chicano Movement Struggles for Immigrant Rights in San Diego, published in 2017, focuses on the Chicano movement, and how activists approached the issue of immigration in the 60’s and 70’s. His research and teaching interests are Comparative Ethnic Studies, Chicano/a-Latino/a History, diaspora/transnationalism/borderlands, social movements and political mobilizations, and Cultural Studies. Dr. Patiño received his PhD in United States history at University of California, San Diego in 2010.