Araceli Gonzalez is a PhD candidate in the School Organization and Educational Policy program in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. She was born and raised in a rural community of Jalisco, México and migrated to California’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley at the age of 13. Araceli holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science/Political Theory from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from California State University, Fresno. As the daughter of migrant farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley, Araceli examines education equity and access in rural school districts as it relates to socio-political racialization of farmwork and the regional political economy. More specifically, her research centers the experiences and education leadership practices of Latinx farmwork dependent mothers of immigrant background as they actively seek access to a quality education for their children in K-20 systems. This research addresses the dearth of knowledge on rural education and illuminates the historical legacy of racialized labor, gender, class, and power relations in and outside of educational settings.
