PhD candidate in the Department of Black Studies at Northwestern University

His scholarly and pedagogical interests seek to provide a more robust understanding of the symbiotic relationship between imperialism, transnational policing, global prison development, and racialized governance. Jose’s current project examines how the Salvadoran state and US law enforcement agencies have responded to the emergence of transnational Central American youth gangs in the wake of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war. His research has received prestigious awards, including Northwestern University’s Council for Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) Graduate Fellowship and Transformative Justice Grant. Additionally, he is a Mellon Rhetoric and Public Culture Cluster Fellowship recipient at Northwestern University. Before attending Northwestern, José earned his BA in American Literature and Culture from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) after transferring from West Los Angeles Community College. His work is not only a reflection of his training in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, but more importantly, it is driven by the political imperative to attend to the myriad of ways in which racially marginalized people have been subjected to various forms of state repression.