Jesica Siham Fernández

Jesica Siham Fernández serves as an Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department within the College of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University. Her academic profile centers on community-engaged research that bridges decolonial theory, critical race perspectives, and participatory action methodologies to investigate Latinx youth experiences with citizenship and belonging.

Dr. Fernández earned her PhD in social psychology with an emphasis in Latin American and Latino studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her scholarly trajectory demonstrates a consistent commitment to decolonial praxis that challenges Western-centric knowledge frameworks while centering Indigenous and Majority World epistemologies.

Her research interests focus on sociopolitical citizenship development among Latinx youth, decolonial community psychology, transformative justice frameworks, and healing-centered approaches to activism. She employs community-based participatory action research (PAR) guided by Third World feminisms, Critical Race and LatCrit theories, and decolonial methodologies such as testimonio. Her work particularly examines how young people navigate political identities in hostile climates while developing strategies for resistance and redefining citizenship.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong thematic focus on decolonial approaches to community psychology, with increasing attention to abolition frameworks, healing justice in youth organizing, and methodological innovations for participatory research. Her scholarship consistently bridges theoretical rigor with community application, often featuring collaborations with Latinx immigrant women in the Greater Silicon Valley and student activists.

• Dr. John B. Drahmann Advising Award (2018) by the College of Arts & Sciences for "extraordinary dedication to student welfare through wise, informed, effective, and caring counsel"
• Award for her book Growing Up Latinx: Coming of Age in a Time of Contested Citizenship (New York University Press)

Dr. Fernández maintains active advising relationships through the Sociopolitical Citizenship PAR Collective and Youth for Justice Project affiliated with the Environmental Justice & The Common Good Initiative at SCU. Her pedagogy emphasizes critically compassionate learning communities that foster "radical imagination/dreaming toward action and justice," drawing inspiration from bell hooks' educational philosophy. She approaches teaching with "humility and radical hope" while integrating spiritual activism to create re/humanizing classroom spaces.

Her research infrastructure includes the Sociopolitical Citizenship PAR Collective and Youth for Justice Project, which operate at the intersection of campus activism, education settings, and community organizing spaces in the Greater Silicon Valley. These collectives implement her conceptual framework of sociopolitical citizenship and sociopolitical wellbeing, creating spaces for community agency to identify systemic problems and facilitate structural change.