Teresa Ramos

I am a fifth year graduate student in cultural anthropology. My research focus is on racism and the anthropology of education. Although my current focus is on higher education, I am interested in the k-16 education system. My current research project investigates competing definitions of racism on campus as they are understood through the controversy surrounding “Tacos and Tequila”- a racial theme party held at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in fall 2006 that encouraged party-goers to depict stereotypical representations of Mexican immigrants. By focusing on “Tacos and Tequila” this project demonstrates how racism and anti-racism are understood and expressed by students, faculty, and administrative staff. I will investigate cultural representations and expressions are revealed both through the lens of corporate values and in opposition to these values. My preliminary research with the “Ethnography of the University Initiative” (EUI) shows how definitions of racism are deeply inflected by corporate values; both corporate values and racial meanings are simultaneously negotiated in the public and private practices of students and administrators. How corporate influence governs the multiple domains of the University that construct the moral and ethical understandings of racial meanings have consequences that extend well beyond the University of Illinois toward the ongoing struggles for democracy, decolonization, and radical transformation.

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