Sandra Sanchez

Sandra Sánchez is a Ph.D. candidate working within the fields of Native Studies and Immigration History. Their dissertation, “Alien Nationhood: U.S. Immigration Policy, Border Enforcement and the Formation of Native Citizenship” examines the contested legal history and activism of Native communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A comparative study of immigration law across national borders, their work considers how categories of illegality and exclusion shaped both migrant and Indigenous people moving between settler territories. 

 

Sandra graduated with Honors in History, Chinese Language & Literature, and Indigenous Studies from the University of Kansas in 2018, and is currently a curatorial fellow in the Western Americana Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Previously, they worked for the Program in Latinx History & Culture at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the Kansas Geological Survey. In 2019-2020, Sandra was Co-President for the Yale History Department Andrews Society and continues to serve as a Graduate Affiliate for Timothy Dwight College.