In July of 2016 I defended my dissertation entitled Pick Yourself Up By Your Broadband: Access, the Digital Divide, and Migrant Workers. In it, I combine my research in Critical Race Theory, Anti-Racist and Decolonial methodologies, Participatory Action Research, and Professional and Technical Writing as a way to build a new methodology–one that advocates for “invisible” populations such as migrant workers in the U.S. This project is informed by my experiences both as a teacher of Research Methods for Professional Writing Majors (ENGL 203), Technical Writing (ENGL 421) and Business Writing (420), and as a undergraduate/GEAR UP/AVID tutor in the Rio Grande Valley.

Growing up on the South Texas border, I saw how socioeconomic policies such as NAFTA changed the both the physical and metaphorical landscape–changes that affected the way humans moved between borders. Changes that affected the daily existence of the Mexican, the American, and the Mexican-American. Changes that I argue are reflective of the larger “global” realm. Changes that continue to influence my scholarship and teaching.