WASHINGTON, DC – The Im/migrant Well-Being Scholar Collaborative (“the Collaborative”) proudly announces a new scholar affiliate, Dr. Estefanía Castañeda Pérez. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. She is also a Women PeaceMaker Fellow at the Kroc School at the University of San Diego.
Her research investigates how Latinx communities experience the law through policing and surveillance systems, and the consequences of these experiences on their racialization, well-being, and legal consciousness.
She is author of The Talk in La Línea : Transborder Latinx Youths’ Protective Pedagogies, published in Migrant Children and Youth (2025). Her work has also appeared in academic blogs such as NACLA and the NYU Latinx Project Intervenxions. Her research is supported by the American Political Science Association, the National Science Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
Dr. Castañeda Pérez expressed her enthusiasm for joining the Collaborative, sharing, “Being part of the Im/migrant Well-being Scholar Collaborative offers the opportunity to engage with leading scholars conducting research advancing justice, equity, and sustainable futures for immigrant communities. I look forward to bringing research on transborder commuters’ well-being, border politics, and transborder justice to the collaborative.”
“Through my research, I aspire to highlight the connections between border violence, as it is experienced at land ports of entry, and the broader criminalization of immigrants across U.S. cities,” she added.
The Im/migrant Well-Being Scholar Collaborative is delighted to welcome Dr. Castañeda Pérez to our community of scholar affiliates that conduct multidisciplinary, empirical research on immigration. The Collaborative promotes scholars’ work and translates findings for use by policymakers and community organizations.