The primary purpose of the Fund for Latino Scholarship is to encourage and support the recruitment, retention and promotion of Latino/a political scientists. A secondary goal is to support research on Latino/a politics. More information about the program can be found at http://www.apsanet.org/PROGRAMS/Diversity-Inclusion-Programs/Fund-for-Latino-Scholarship. Please join APSA in congratulating the 2016 recipients.
DAVID CORTEZ, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
David Cortez is a doctoral candidate in the department of government at Cornell University whose research centers on ethnic and racial identity with particular focus on intersectional and situational identity salience. His dissertation explores the emergence of a disproportionately Latinx immigration law enforcement workforce as a metaphor for the minority experience in the United States. Drawing on interviews with and observations of more than 100 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across Texas, Arizona, and California, his research engages questions of belonging, obligation, and liminality to reveal the careful negotiation of cross-cutting social group memberships of Latinx immigration agents caught between two worlds: the police and the policed. David is an alumnus of the APSA Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, and his research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Cornell University’s Latina/o Studies Program, and the APSA Minority Fellowship Program. Support from the Fund for Latino Scholarship will assist in David’s travel to the 2016 APSA Annual Meeting, where he will present a chapter of his dissertation entitled, “Broken Mirrors: Identity, Duty, and Belonging in the New La(tino) Migra.”
IVELISSE CUEVAS-MOLINA, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST
Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina is a PhD candidate in the department of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst specializing in American politics, survey methodology, and political psychology. She will use the APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship award to fund travel to the 2016 APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia where she will present part of her dissertation research in her paper “Liar Liar: Response Latencies and Voter Turnout Overreports” at a panel titled “Latino/a Scholars Transforming Political Science.” Ivelisse currently works as a research assistant on the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for which she has collected supplemental data for public use. She is an alumna of the 2006 class of the APSA Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, holds a masters degree from the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Her research focuses on voter turnout, particularly Latino turnout, and issues of diversity in congressional representation. Her dissertation, “The Deceptive Nature of Voter Turnout Overreports in Survey Research,” examines the social desirability hypothesis of turnout overreports and contends that survey respondents who overreport turn out do so intentionally.
ANGELA GUTIERREZ, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
Angela Gutierrez is a political science graduate student in the fields of race, ethnicity, politics, and American politics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work is primarily focused on the Latino electorate in the United States and Latino identity and political behavior. She will be using the Fund for Latino Scholarship award to pay for boarding expenses at this year’s APSA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia where she will be presenting her work on Latino voters as issue publics and the importance of immigration policy on partisanship.
DANIELLE LEMI, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
Danielle Lemi is a PhD candidate in political science at University of California, Riverside specializing in political behavior and race and ethnic politics in the American context. In her mixed-method dissertation, “The Consequences of Multiracial Identity for Elected Officials,” Danielle examines the how the media portrays multiracial elected officials, how voters evaluate multiracial candidates, and how multiracial legislators view their identities. Thanks to the support from the Latino Scholarship Fund, Danielle will be conducting an experiment that examines how skin color affects evaluations of Latino candidates. Danielle is on the job market for the 2016–2017 cycle.
ANGELA X. OCAMPO, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
Angela X. Ocampo is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Angela’s general research interests focus on the political behavior of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the United States. Specifically, she investigates the political behavior of Latinos/as both at the individual and elite level. Angela’s dissertation examines how feelings of belonging to US society—or lack thereof—condition the experiences of Latinos and influence their level of political engagement. Angela’s research also examines the process by which Latinos become elected officials. Specifically, she investigates how electoral, institutional, and contextual forces as well as policy demanders, shape the path of Latinos to elected office. Support from the APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship will help Angela finance part of the data collection for her dissertation. The data will be collected as part of a nationally representative post-election survey of Latinos. Angela’s dissertation advances the goals of the fund as it builds on the established findings on Latino political behavior and develops a novel framework for understanding how perceptions of membership and belonging in the US influence Latino political participation. Angela’s ability to collect original data would not be possible without the generous support from APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship.
LIANA EUSTACIA REYES-REARDON, RICE UNIVERSITY
Liana Eustacia Reyes-Reardon is a graduate student at Rice University, where she is currently earning a PhD in political science. Liana is also a visiting research fellow at National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations. Her research is focused on conflict and cooperation, with particular emphasis on armed non-state actors (alliances, territorial control, governance, strategic behavior). She holds an MA in politics from New York University and an MA in global affairs and JD from Florida International University. The APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship will assist Liana in attending her first APSA Annual Meeting by providing the funds necessary to cover hotel, transportation, and/or registration costs. The assistance will allow her to present her research and engage the APSA community. It will also allow her to attend relevant panels on methodological and theoretical approaches and findings in her area of interest. Hispanic political scientists, let alone Hispanic women, are marginally represented within the field of international relations, and even fewer within its subfield of international security. As a Hispanic woman focused on international security, Liana’s presentation and participation at APSA furthers the objectives of the APSA Fund for Latino Scholarship, which is to encourage and promote Latino/a political scientists.
