Amanda Rivera (she/her/hers)

Amanda Rivera is a sixth year PhD Candidate in American Studies, pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Ethnicity, Race and Migration. She uses historical anthropology to analyze how Puerto Ricans in New Haven, Connecticut use education as a tool towards building community and negotiating their racialized, classed, and gendered belonging as minoritized citizen-subjects, from the 20th-century to present day. Amanda draws from a variety of methodologies, including ethnographic interviews, oral histories, and archival analyses. In so doing, she seeks an interdisciplinary approach towards fleshing out town-gown relations between Yale University, Puerto Rican New Haveners, and other communities of Color in the city; as well as towards addressing how Puerto Ricans utilize multiple educational projects (bilingual education, higher education, and cultural education) to demonstrate their visibility amidst shifting Latiné landscapes in the Elm City.

Alaa Hajyahia (she/her)

Alaa Hajyahia is a doctoral candidate in law and anthropology. She examines the operationalization of temporal frameworks within legal systems. Her research synthesizes interdisciplinary methodologies from anthropology and legal studies. She analyzes how institutional actors deploy temporal elements as strategic tools in legal processes. She also examines how various communities construct counter-temporal approaches to navigate these institutional frameworks. The fellowship will support ethnographic fieldwork and conference attendance and presentations.