Research Interests

I am a mother of three wonderful children. I study the foundational inequalities of Texas education. I use a relational lens of how laws, policies, and practices institutionalized race. My dissertation recovers schoolhouse locations through GIS mapping—point data and spatial analyses, student demographic data, institutional development, and the relationship between race and education. The research is focused on the local development of education from 1850-1900 in Texas, extending the case study I completed on San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas for my Masters Thesis. While exploring the growth of schools in the top ten counties in Texas with the highest enrollment of African Americans and Anglos from 1850 through 1900, I recover the often hidden Mexican American community. Schoolhouse locations, enrollment, student exams, and dates of establishment and closures are a crucial part of the project indicating how race became institutionalized.