Hello friends and colleagues, as this calendar year comes to a close I’d like to take the time to share some of my accomplishments from the past few months that I’ve been too busy doing to stop and write about. Graduated UC Santa Cruz After almost five years of study (I took an almost one-year leave of absence at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic) I graduated from UCSC with a B.A. in Latin American and Latinx Studies. My grades must have been good because I graduated cum laude. I was honored to be asked to speak at the LALS […]
UC Symposium on Digital Investigations
On Monday, I presented at the UC Symposium on Digital Investigations along with my co-researchers in the Human Rights Lab (housed in the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas) at UCSC. Anushka Shah and I spoke about some of the challenges and lessons learned in regards to resiliency and the ethics of bearing witness to violence as human rights researchers. We had our colleagues from UCLA’s Promise Institute for Human Rights and UCB’s Human Rights Center join us on campus for the conference. It was truly a gift to get to meet with our fellow researchers and hear about the amazing work being done in […]
Cultural Survival’s annual report on murdered Indigenous defenders in Latin America
Our team at the Human Rights Investigations Lab contributed research to Cultural Survival’s 2022 report on murdered indigenous defenders in Latin America. The report, published this week, seeks to “raise awareness about this systemic persecution of Indigenous defenders” and to provide a more detailed look at the circumstances surrounding each murder. The purpose of this publication is also to honor the life of each individual, to remember and to memorialize. Cultural Survival is an Indigenous-led organization “that advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures, and political resilience.”
Publication of “Unido/xs Contra la Sobredosis”
I am truly humbled to have been a part of the team along with Julia Casas, Isabella Permenter, and our tireless coordinator and study author Carlos Martinez. The report publishes findings from the first harm reduction needs assessment of Spanish and Mayan-speaking people who use drugs in San Francisco, and is a collaboration of the National Harm Reduction Coalition and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, with support from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Read the full report here.
Visiting Don Tomás in Tláhuac
Our group of UC students here in Mexico City to study at UNAM visited Don Tomás at his farm in Tláhuac last week. He explained to us some of the challenges he faces and showed us a bit about his cultivation techniques. His family has been growing food here for many generations.
Another housing protest at UCSC
In a protest that drew nearly 200 students Friday afternoon at UC Santa Cruz, the Student Housing Coalition and its supporters marched to Clark Kerr Hall and taped a list of demands to the locked doors. They included more transparency in the housing assignment process, building more housing, and a four-year guarantee of housing for all students. The protest comes after students signed up for on-campus housing this week, and many were left perplexed when, despite being on the priority list, their preferred housing type was not available — and many believed they would not get the on-campus housing that […]
The Santa Cruz Rollers’ search for a home
My latest article at Lookout Santa Cruz is about the highs and lows of local roller skaters’ attempts to carve out a piece of Santa Cruz for their community. As both journalist and photojournalist I had my work cut out for me on this one. I attended multiple Santa Cruz Rollers meetups, interviewed the mayor of Santa Cruz, spoke with the police chief of Capitola and someone from the Santa Cruz Roller Palladium, interviewed Richard Humphrey of San Francisco’s Golden Rollers, and got a behind-the-scenes peek at the 418 Project’s new performance space which is designed to double as a […]
“Good trouble” at UCSC’s dedication of John R. Lewis College
Hillary Ojeda, education correspondent for Lookout Santa Cruz, and I covered the celebration of the renaming of College 10 as John R. Lewis College yesterday in the Quarry Amphitheater. We had got a tip that there was “someone in the audience” that we would need to get a photo of and that we should get front-row seats. As it turned out, it wasn’t a someone, but a something. When Cynthia Larive, chancellor of the university, took the stage, approximately fifty students in the audience quietly stood and held up signs reading “We can see your greed UC.” They remained standing […]
Welcome to my website
This is a place where I will keep the world updated with my projects and latest work. I have been working on a large research project with the Human Rights Lab at UCSC’s Research Center for the Americas and I look forward to its publication in June. Thanks for reading.