Jael Vizcarra

Jael Vizcarra is a PhD student in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. Her dissertation research addresses urban informality, migration, gender, and race/ethnicity in the post-industrial cities of Berlin and Los Angeles. She is interested in the ways in which "good" and "bad" migrants are produced in both Germany and the United States in the context of multicultural discourses of difference and shared histories of guest-worker recruitment. By looking at racial formation processes in both sides of the Atlantic, Jael analyzes how the reproductive labor of racialized immigrant women sustains marginalized communities in hostile urban environments. Jael was raised in the Tijuana-San Diego region and her research interests reflect her experiences growing up along a militarized border zone in the NAFTA era.