Chicanx Feminist, Writer, Geographer, and PhD Candidate.
From Nayarit to the South Bay of Los Angeles
Hello and welcome to my site. My name is Steph (they/them), and I am a first-generation college graduate from the Harbor Area/Harbor Gateway of Los Angeles County, occupied Tovangaar. I am currently a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in Critical Gender Studies and the Program for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research. Raised by my mother and extended family between Los Angeles County and Tepic, Nayarit, my love for the Pacific Coast is shaped by early experiences of movement across various borders.
Growing up in under-resourced communities, including places described as environmental justice communities, I am deeply aware of how spatial segregation acts as an alienating force. It not only separates humans from nature, but often places us in a perilous intimacy with industrial pollution. As a researcher, I study the systems of power that shape uneven geographies, and I focus on projects that center Indigenous resurgence and radical placemaking in response to ecological degradation.