Snap, crackle, pop.
JSIS 324: Human Rights in Latin America
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Years before I took it, countless friends had gushed to me about Professor Angelina Godoy’s course “Human Rights in Latin America.” She was one of the few professors that actively worked to decolonize the classroom, providing a learning environment structured around a group action project and omitting traditional term papers. In my small group, we chose to research and scrutinize the university’s indirect relationships with the U.S. Immigration Customs & Enforcement (ICE). Our project put us at odds with the university administration, and particularly the University Libraries, whose contracts with data analytic companies that supply ICE with consumer information pose unknown risks to undocumented students.
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And while I cannot put my finger on why, this project marked my complete disillusionment with the whole of Academia. I was sickened meeting with library administrators that spoke of diversity, equity, and inclusion one minute while defending their contracts that actively granted ICE the tools to identify and deport undocumented UW students. Though this was not the first time I had heard this corrupted logic, it was then that I finally understood the true mission of the university: to maintain and expand its corporate relationships to subsidize state underfunding, while legitimizing neoliberal and neoimperial interests of these corporations. And I refuse to be complicit any longer.
Comparative History of Ideas 496: Queering Anarchism
This 2-credit course, provided in coordination with the Q Center and CHID, explored anarchist theory and examples of praxis through a queer lens. I had never been invited into a space at the university in which I was asked to openly criticize the classist, ableist, and racist dimensions of the institution’s operations. It was refreshing to be in community with fellow students that came into the class with the assumption that the university was a facet of our neoliberal order-- that it existed to mold its students into weapons manufacturers, CIA analysts, and AI programers. Though on Zoom, it was one of the most comfortable educational environments offered to me during my time at UW.
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Attached is one of the texts we read in class, and it changed my understanding of queerness forever.
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University of Washington Center for Human Rights
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Experiential Learning Activity Reflection #2: University of Washington Center for Human Rights
This is my fifth quarter working with the UWCHR, and I can confidently say that I have finally found my stride in what I often considered anxiety-inducing research; the research conducted at the Center is of the utmost importance, and for the past year, I have often feared that I wasn't doing enough or not researching at the level that I should be. But this quarter I was able to deep-dive into two particular areas of research and have come to appreciate the value I can bring to the Center. As undergraduate researchers at the UWCHR, we engage with subjects that carry personal and political importance, |
requiring a high level of respect and care to be brought to every aspect of research. What I have appreciated about this past quarter's work at the UWCHR is that in digging through law enforcement policy manuals in search of use of force guidelines, every component of my research can be useful in combatting the abusive institution known as ICE. This is not just another job or opportunity-- the time I spend assisting the UWCHR in their research is another attempt to eventually abolish the federal agency that has inflicted brutalized thousands of detained migrants.
I have become increasingly resolute in my commitment to continue human rights research and/or organizing once I graduate. The UWCHR has been a stellar example of the kind of organization I hope to work for one day-- one whose work is actively and consistently informed by that of community partners and stakeholders and whose work is radical in nature. I hope to bring to bring forth the lessons I have learned from my time at the UWCHR to my future endeavors in anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist organzing, particularly lending my support in long-term research projects that many grassroots organizations do not have the capacity to maintain
I have become increasingly resolute in my commitment to continue human rights research and/or organizing once I graduate. The UWCHR has been a stellar example of the kind of organization I hope to work for one day-- one whose work is actively and consistently informed by that of community partners and stakeholders and whose work is radical in nature. I hope to bring to bring forth the lessons I have learned from my time at the UWCHR to my future endeavors in anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist organzing, particularly lending my support in long-term research projects that many grassroots organizations do not have the capacity to maintain
I want to maintain my involvement with the UWCHR through the summer and continue in the vein of immigrant rights research or organzing once I leave academia for the time being. The way in which the UWCHR integrates academic research into grassroots organzing against the Northwest Detention Center and across the country is something I deeply admire and hope to continue to support in the work of other organizations. Harnessing the financial and political power of a university institution to engage in radical organizing against a hugely bureaucratic governmental agency is powerful and hugely influential; I hope to support the UWCHR in the months to come and partner with a similar group in my future.
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My fellow researchers, Alex and Trevor, and me in front of Smith Hall.
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