I am a formerly undocumented writer and scholar of migration and religion. I grew up in the US South, the daughter of a baker and evangelical minister—learning from a young age the importance of ritual in the lives of migrants. My work traces sacred mobilities and fugitive routes that yearn for, as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson writes, “connection in the face of utter disconnection.” Currently, I am an Assistant Professor in Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, where I teach courses on Latinx religions, transnational migration, and undocumented-led social movements.
My book, Sanctuary Everywhere: The Fugitive Sacred in the Sonoran Desert, documents moments of care and intimacy on the migrant trail. My collaborators include migrants melting the border’s steel bars through curative touch, artists summoning the migrant dead, and activists leaving water in the Sonoran Desert—in defiance of prevention through deterrence, in celebration of life that exceeds walls and bans. The book also traces my journey to becoming an American citizen. I am currently working on two books: The Sanctuary Reader is a collaboration with Lloyd Barba, and the first primary source reader documenting sanctuary movements from the 1980s to the present. Siempre Estoy Llegando is a collection of essays on my father's conversion to Christianity, his work ministering to undocumented people in the rural south, and the reasons my family left Argentina.
My writing has appeared in The Nation, Bitch, Teen Vogue, and Remezcla among others. When I’m not writing or teaching, I serve as the Higher Education Director for Migrant Roots Media—a platform that centers the voices of migrants, children of migrants, and people struggling to stay and thrive in their homelands.