Maria is a Latina scholar from a little town in Colorado who graduated in 2019 with a degree in听International Affairs.听She was part of many student groups and fellowship during her听time at 彩民宝典. Maria hopes to become an example for her听younger brother and other minorities to show them that it鈥檚 possible to be successful despite being first-generation students. In her听free time, she watches听The Office, and works out and hikes with her听dog. She听intends to get her PhD in public policy for cyber defense strategies and information science from Stanford, University of Washington, or UCSD. She听looks forward to entering the field where she听can become a mentor for other McNair students.
Her research project focused on understanding immigration discourse and its effect on Undocumented Latinx populations. For this, Maria and her team听interviewed Undocumented day laborers from College Station/Bryan, Texas before and after the 2016 presidential election. Through semi-structured surveys, ranging from the years 2015 to 2017, they听analyzed the听responses to questions involving racialization, as well as their knowledge on policy and created indices from these. Preliminary findings suggest that having strong local institutional networks is related to day laborers鈥� perceptions of increased labor abuse, criminalization, and racialization post-presidential election.听These, in turn, result in day laborers lowered attachment to the area.听Future research should examine the increase of citizen day laborers on the corners.听Study limitations include not being able to measure the immigration discourse available to the day laborers.
Maria's McNair Scholars mentor was Sydney Ulliman. Her faculty advisor was , professor at Texas A&M University.听