Kevin Escudero (PhD, UC Berkeley; MSL, Yale Law School) is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies and affiliated faculty in the Department of Sociology, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Population Studies Training Center at Brown University. Professor Escudero's research and teaching interests include immigration and refugee studies; comparative racial and ethnic studies; social movements; law and society; and critical human geography. His current book manuscript, Organizing While Undocumented (under contract with NYU Press) examines undocumented Asian, Latinx, queer and formerly undocumented activists' strategic use of an intersectional movement identity. This book draws on more than five years of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews conducted with immigrant rights activists in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.
His second project, "'Education, Not Deportation': Immigrant Students' Experiences in Law and Medical Degree Programs," examines the experiences of immigrant students along the educational pipeline, paying particular attention to the role of legal status in this process. In doing so, he pays particular attention to the transition from college to graduate school and experiences once enrolled in professional degree programs. Employing the use of a mixed methods approach, this project draws on a national survey and in-depth interviews with students to shed light on the ways students with various immigration statuses navigate professional degree education and the U.S. labor market.
As a Public Voices Fellow at the OpEd Project Professor Escudero has published pieces in Latino USA, The Hechinger Report and Truthout applying his academic research to pressing issues facing immigrant community members today. From 2016-2017, he served as Special Advisor to the Provost for Undocumented and DACA Students offering campus-wide workshops and trainings regarding approaches to supporting undocumented students. His research has been supported by the American Sociological Association, AcccessLex Institute, the National Science Foundation, the UC-MEXUS Institute and the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Law and Society.
