About Jennifer Rose Najera

I’m an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. An anthropologist by training, my research interests lie at the intersections of race, immigration, and education. I am the author of The Borderlands of Race: Mexican Segregation in a South Texas Town (University of Texas Press, 2015) and, most recently, Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education (Duke University Press, 2024), which tells the stories of undocumented young people who leverage their education to become community advocates and activists during college. My research has been published in Chicana/Latina Studies, The Oral History Review, and Anthropology and Education Quarterly.

NBN Episodes hosted by Jennifer:

David-James Gonzales, "Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange County, California" (Oxford UP, 2025)

April 14, 2026

Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation

David-James Gonzales

On March 2, 1945, five Mexican American families and their Jewish American lawyer filed a class-action lawsuit against four school districts in Orange…