Coalition Building for Collective Liberation: Ethnic Studies, Abolition, & Cross Movement Solidarity

Session Submission Type: Skills- and Resource-Sharing Session

Abstract

Building long-term power in movements for mass liberation requires forging coalitions between immigrant justice and racial justice efforts, aligning strategies to disrupt systems of incarceration, detention, and deportation simultaneously. This discussion explores the necessity of cross-movement collaboration, emphasizing the shared struggle against the late-stage American empire and the importance of forming coalitions in movements for collective liberation.

How can we build meaningful coalitions that transcend academia to advocate for social justice? Ethnic Studies methods, pedagogy, and community-engaged work are critical to resisting the late-stage American empire. This roundtable session will explore how we can build solidarity as authors, academics, and organizers in ways that extend beyond our academic institutions.

Since its inception in 1968, Ethnic Studies has been attacked for its commitment to racial and social justice. Under the current administration, it is imperative that, as scholars and activists, we continue to advocate for racial and migrant justice and utilize the field of Ethnic Studies as a mechanism to achieve this change.

Coalitions that transcend academic spaces are necessary for building collective and inclusive movements that recognize our shared struggles in resistance against interlocking systems of oppression. We will explore foundational elements of movement building, how we can articulate new modes of knowledge production, and imagine futures made possible through shared solidarity.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• alberto pulido, University of San Diego

Panelists

• Maria J Plascencia, University of San Diego

• Silky Shah, Detention Watch Network

• Jesse Mills, University of San Diego

• Jessica Tjiu, University of San Diego

• Allison R Madia, University of San Diego

Biographical Information

Alberto López Pulido, Founding Chair and Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego
Dr. Alberto López Pulido is the founding chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies and has been on the faculty at the University of San Diego since 2003. He grew up in the South Bay and lived a life between borders and Fronteras that highly influenced his fronterizo ways of understanding the world. He received degrees in Sociology and Chicano Studies from the University of California, San Diego, and represents one of fifty-seven students who would graduate from the Mexican American Graduate Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Pulido aligns himself with several community organizations, none more important than the Chicano Park Steering Committee who serve as the stewards of Chicano Park in San Diego, California. He learned a great deal about community organizing through collective struggle and self-determination, which inspired him to direct and co-produce an award-winning documentary on the history and value of lowriding as a cultural expression in the borderlands of San Diego and Tijuana. Dr. Pulido’s scholarly commitment to relevant education rooted in a community epistemology guides his work as Director of the Turning Wheel Mobile Classroom Project – a project that provides a mobile space for supporting the urgent needs and challenges of our local communities. The Turning Wheel Project represents a partnership between the University of San Diego and the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center. Dr. Pulido also serves as Vice-Chair of the CPMCC’s Board of Directors.

Jesse Mills, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego
Dr. Jesse Mills is an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego. His research, artistic and activist work focuses on Black liberation, immigration and refugee communities, social movements, decolonization, and Ethnic Studies education. In San Diego’s Somali community, the primary site for his research, Mills has served as an organizer, advocate, ESL teacher, youth mentor, educational consultant, organizational advisor and board member, and community member. At the university, Mills teaches courses in Comparative Ethnic Studies and Black Studies including diversity in Black communities, civil rights, Black music and culture, health disparities, and oral history.

Maria Jose Plascencia, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego
Dr. María José Plascencia is an interdisciplinary scholar who explores placemaking, social movements, and cultural production at the U.S.- Mexico border. Plascencia grew up in the Tijuana - Chula Vista border region, and her background informs her community-engaged methods. She received her B.A. in American Studies from USC, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University. As a first-generation college graduate, fronteriza, and Chicana scholar, she is committed to mentoring students from diverse backgrounds.

Allison Madia, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Effron Center for the Study of America, Princeton University
Allison Madia (Tohono O’odham) is a painter, poet, and historical sociologist committed to protecting O’odham stories and relationships to water. Madia is completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Effron Center for the Study of America and will be joining the University of San Diego’s Department of Ethnic Studies as an assistant professor in fall 2025.

Jessica Tjiu, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies PhD Candidate, The Ohio State University
Jessica Tjiu (She/They)is a PhD Candidate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. She is also an incoming assistant professor at the University of San Diego in the Department of Ethnic Studies. Her research focuses on the discourse around sex trafficking, sex work, and sexual violence, specifically analyzing how Asian/American women become visible and legible as “deserving victims.” Her research project examines how Asian/American women's experiences with sexual violence are represented in archival materials.

Silky Shah, Executive Director, Detention Watch Network
Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the US. She is also the author of the recently published book Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024) and has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over twenty years. Her writing on immigration policy and organizing has been published in Truthout, Teen Vogue, Inquest, and The Forge. She has also appeared in numerous national and local media outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC.