U.S. Central Americans and Isthmians continue to be underrepresented and invisibilized in nearly all Latine spaces, research, and media. My scholarship is developed from a political framing of epistemological resistance to systemic Central American and Isthmian non-belonging (Padilla, 2022). Through my scholarly ethics, I actively work against hegemonizing the broad diversities of the Isthmus and, rather, approach the isthmus and its diasporas as a regional constellation with independent social and cultural locations with opportunities for collective liberations built on solidarities.
In April 2024, I co-led the first Central American & Isthmian Studies conference on the East Coast, the Central American Futurities Conference, alongside María de Los Angeles Aguilar and Maryam Parhizkar at Yale University. The conference rejected and reimagined traditional academic formats through the engagement of various languages, centering Black and Indigenous Isthmian epistemologies and perspectives, and provided opportunities for intergenerational dialogues.
As a part of investing in Central American futurities, my dissertation project examines three conditions of (in)visibilites–visibility, hypervisibility, and invisibility– as experiences of Central American and/or Isthmian faculty in the U.S. academy. This study is a part of my larger interdisciplinary research agenda that examines the colonial and imperial technologies of the academy and how they reproduce within the structures of the modern-day academy, including college admissions, affirmative action, research ethics, and technological academic censuring. My current sites of study include the U.S. academy, Central American and transisthmian research methodologies, and the role of Central American academies in the formations of resistance–such as literary revolutions.
This research agenda has been shaped in community with scholars and mentors, that also include Central American and Isthmians from across the diaspora. Thinking and learning within community is critical to me as a person, and my work is inspired by, co-constructed with, and dedicated to them.
To read some of my writing, you can check out my latest publications here.
References
Padilla, Y. M. (2022). From Threatening Guerillas to Forever Illegals: US Central Americans and the Cultural Politics of Non-Belonging. University of Texas Press.
