Research & CV

CV_Méndez (2019 version)

Publications

• “Academic Ableism: Fighting for Accommodations and Access in Higher Education.” (Sep 23, 2019). Disability Visibility Project. 

• “The Banana Files: Empire vs. Resistance.” (2017). Hernández Linares, Leticia, Rubén Martínez, & Hector Tobar. Eds.  The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. San Fernando, CA: Tia Chucha Press.
  • Hybrid, historical and personal creative essay on U.S. imperialism in Honduras and my own mixed upbringing between worlds. See unpublished version here.

• “The militarized border city: Towards a critical geographical study of the cities of Tapachula, Chiapas and San Diego, California.” (Oct 28, 2015). IV International Congress of Border Cities (Congreso Internacional de Ciudades Fronterizas): Research Abstracts. Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez.

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Essays and Other Writings

Race, Security, and Geopolitics

• “Drug War Capitalism from Central America to the United States: Examining the Militarization of Everyday Urban Life.” (2018). Qualifying Specialty Paper Approved by UCSD Ethnic Studies Doctoral Committee.

• “The Trump Regime and the U.S. War on Central American Refugees.”  (2018)
• “From Chiapas to Gaza: Transnational Movements and the Geographies of Liberation.” (2014)

Social Justice in New York City

• Policy Statements I took a lead in authoring, editing, and publishing for then-City Council Candidate Kristin Richardson Jordan:
  • “YOU ARE IN HARLEM: 11 Steps to getting back to a homegrown solidarity economy for Harlem’s small businesses.” (Apr 27, 2021)
  • “This May Day, Let’s Keep Fighting for Economic Justice in Harlem.” (May 1, 2021)
  • “Cannabis Legalization in Harlem: Why We Need an Alternative Three-Strikes Plan for Restorative Justice.” (May 2, 2021)
• Brown University Senior Thesis: “Right to Housing, Right to the City: Civil Society Activism and Anti-Gentrification Resistance in New York City.” (2010)

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Syllabi and Curricula

Sample Undergraduate Syllabus: “Racial Politics and the Neoliberal City.”

Democracy School Curriculum (Fuerza Laboral) for Fuerza Laboral (Power of Workers) (2010)

• Module 1: The Aims of a ‘Democracy School’ [PowerPoint]
• Module 6: Proposals for Immigration Reform [PowerPoint]
• Module 7: Brief History of the U.S. Labor Movement [PowerPoint]

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Speaking Engagements

• “Anti-Migrant Militarization and Pro-Migrant Movements Along the Northern and Southern Mexican Borders” |Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences | Cambridge, MA (Dec 2020) | [PowerPoint Slides]
• “Addressing Access and Ableism in Academia: Towards a Disability Justice Framework” | Promoting Social Justice for Persons with Disabilities in Our Communities | Raza Resource Center – UC San Diego |  La Jolla, CA (Apr 2019) | [PowerPoint Slides]
• “Drug War Capitalism and the Militarization of Everyday Urban Life: The New Military Urbanism from Central America to the United States” | Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Conference | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Mar 2018)
• “The Militarization of the Southern Mexican Border & the Northern Triangle of Central America” | Migration, Militarization, and Imprisonment in the Context of the Central American Diaspora | Central Americans Raising Awareness in Solidarity (CARAS) Week | Raza Resource Center | La Jolla, CA (Jun 2017) | [PowerPoint Slides]
• “The Militarization of Everyday Urban Life: An Urban Ethnographic Study in Southern Mexico” | Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS) Tinker Grant Symposium | La Jolla, CA (Apr 2017) | [Synopsis]
• “Urban Security Regimes and Border Militarization in Southern Mexico: Preliminary Findings from Tapachula, Chiapas” | Militarism and Migration Conference | San Diego, CA (May 2017) | [Synopsis & PowerPoint Slides]
• “Urban Securitization Regimes in the Southern Mexican Borderlands” | American Studies Association 2016 Conference | Denver, CO (Nov 2016) | [Research Abstract]
• “Border Cities and the New Military Urbanism in San Diego, CA and Tapachula, Chiapas”| El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) Symposium 2016 | Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico (Aug 2016)
• “Tapachula, Chiapas and the Militarization of the Southern Mexican Border” | Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2016 Conference | San Francisco, CA (Mar 2016)
• “The Militarized Border City: Towards a Critical Geographical Study of the Border Cities of Tapachula, Chiapas and San Diego, California” | XV International Congress on Regional Integration, Borders, and Globalization in the American Continent, in conjunction with IV International Congress on Border Cities | Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico (Oct 2015)
• “Space, Race and the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) in Liberal Academia”| Inclusion in Academic Environments Discussion Panel | Scripps Institute of Oceanography | La Jolla, CA (Feb 2015)
• “From Rent Strike to Cop Watch: The Intersections of Immigration, Incarceration, and Gentrification in Sunset Park, Brooklyn” | Left Forum 2014: Reform and/or Revolution: Imagining a World with Trans-formative Justice | New York, NY (May 2014)