Contact Information
Office Hours
Research Areas
Biography
Ileana was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas to a Mexican family that previously lived along the border of U.S. and Mexico. In high school she had the opportunity to go on a service trip to Peru where her passion of travel, culture, and justice began. She wanted to be a Catholic missionary in El Salvador but began focusing on politics and social-economic justice as she worked through her undergrad. Eventually she realized that the only way to enact systemic change was to become political, which is something the Catholic church shields itself from being in public. After she received her BA in Human Geography and Sociology from Sam Houston State University in 2021, she moved to Dallas, Texas for two years. In Dallas Ileana was a community/youth organizer for two political nonprofits that primarily work with Latinos and migrants. Her credits her experiences, both as a Catholic missionary and political organizer, as a foundation for her interest and research in graduate school.
Research Interests
Ileana is interested in political and urban geography; power structures of cities and their ability to affect distribution of community resources; capitalist geography; and feminist geographies.
Research Description
Ileana's MA research focuses on analyzing the methods of political organizing of a nonprofit within Dallas, Texas. Ileana is arguing that this organization has used feminist approach to political organizing and has therefore has been able to conjure and harness more political power. She also uses the concept of slow justice to discuss the importance on banal acts that exhibits power, rather than larger performative acts of power. The title of her MA thesis is I've Got the Power!: A feminist take on slow justice and power in Dallas, Texas.
Education
BA Sam Houston State University
Awards and Honors
Aspire Fellow 2023
Courses Taught
GGIS 204: Cities of the World Summer 2025