Kevin Escudero (PhD, UC Berkeley; MSL, Yale Law School) is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, an affiliated faculty member in Native American and Indigenous Studies, and Co-Founder of the Migration Studies Initiative at Brown University. Professor Escudero's research and teaching interests include comparative studies of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity; U.S. imperialism, militarism, and settler colonialism; immigration and citizenship; social movements; and law. His book, Organizing While Undocumented (New York University Press, 2020) examines undocumented Asian, Latinx, queer, and formerly undocumented activists' strategic use of an intersectional movement identity. It received Honorable Mention for the American Sociological Association Section on Asia and Asian America's 2021 Asian American Book Award and was a Finalist for the Society for the Study of Social Problems' 2020 C. Wright Mills Award. He is also Co-Editor (with Rachel Freeman-Wong) of UndocuAsians: Lived Experiences and Social Movement Activism across the Diaspora (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming).
He is currently at work on two research projects. The first is a book manuscript on immigrant and Indigenous activists' participation in Guam's decolonization movement. The project grows out of a broader interest in the relationship between immigrant political activism and Indigenous movements for self-determination, particularly in the context of U.S. empire, military expansion, and settler colonialism. The second, "'Education, Not Deportation': Immigrant Graduate and Professional Degree Students' Experiences across Legal Status," focuses on immigrant students' experiences along the educational pipeline and into the U.S. workforce, paying particular attention to the role of legal status. Funded by an NSF CAREER Award, this project also includes the development of the Immigrant Student Research Project (ISRP) Lab to train students in the use of mixed methods research approaches with an emphasis on public facing, community engaged research practices.
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 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, American Sociological Association, AccessLex Institute, Institute for Citizens and Scholars, National Science Foundation, UC-MEXUS Institute, and UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Law and Society.
