Early-Career Scholar Series Presenter: Kyle Halle-Erby Ph.D. and Advanced-Career Scholar Facilitator John Rogers Ph.D.

In this session, the focus will be a research talk about an in-progress paper from my dissertation study called “New Trouble: The Construction of Newness and the Imperative to Find Solidarity with Insurgency.” Based on an ethnographic study of specialized high school programs for recently-arrived immigrant young people, I argue that the construction of “newness” is a strategy for dominating, structuring, and having authority over Indigenous and Latinx children as part of the ongoing project of U.S. state formation through conquest. This argument relies on in-depth analysis of Gedeón Sacalxot Tepaz’s story, which include his migration from Guatemala to Los Angeles, his experiences with work and immigration court, and with attending, leaving, and returning to school. These arguments draw conceptually on abolition and relationality. Abolition is engaged to think about praxis in this context and to identify students’ goals as a practice of futurity around which solidarity can be forged between educators and immigrant communities.

Kyle Halle-Erby, PhD., is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Education. He studies language policy and planning using critical Black and Indigenous frameworks. His research focuses on educational language policy in public schools for young people who have recently immigrated into the United States. 

Refreshments will be served. Please direct questions to Dr. Deborah Southern, desouth@ucla.edu