Ithaca College

CSCRE would like to welcome Miranda Cady Hallett as the new Assistant Professor for Latino/Latina studies at Ithaca College for 2009/2010.

Miranda is particularly interested in the ways that social elites hold on to positions of power and wealth through ingenious mechanisms, both material and ideological.  For this reason she likes to study elite cultures and the way that dominant political and media discourses define certain groups as cultural "others" or even a threat to public safety. Her past research project include work comparing the US "War on Terror" to El Salvador's "War on Gangs," legal-historical research on native nations' land claims in upstate New York, and campaigns for voting rights among Salvadoran transnational migrants.  She has also participated actively in social justice movements, particularly around refugee issues, prisoner's rights, and labor justice.

Miranda holds a degree in Cultural Anthropology from Cornell University, with concentrations in Latino Studies, American Studies, and Development Sociology.  Her doctoral research concerns immigrant communities in rural Arkansas and the local ramifications of federal immigration policy.  She looks not only at the lived experiences of Salvadoran immigrants, but also the ways that discourses of the "illegal alien" circulate and take on specific cultural meanings that justify exclusion and exploitation.

Professor Hallett is married and has a five-year-old daughter, Delia, who served admirably as 'research assistant' during her fieldwork.  She is also a card-carrying member of the Tompkins County Worker's Justice Center.