Arlene Fernández

Arlene Fernández studies critical cultural and visual communication, discursive identity formation with a focus on Caribbean Latinx communities, migration and diaspora, and urbanicity. Her current work interrogates the ways in which mediated narratives about the American dream, ethno-racial and colonial politics, socioeconomic precarity, and technology are entangled in Latinx-owned corner stores. Fernández also studies culture, racialization, and discourse in Latinx digital spaces and their counter-hegemonic possibilities and limitations. As a mediamaker, she is committed to a multimodal ethnographic research praxis that can serve as a potential vehicle for public engagement and translation, and as an opportunity for cultural reimaginings that center those at the margins.

Fernández holds a Master of Social Work and B.A. in Urban Studies, both from the University of Pennsylvania, and she brings a variety of professional experiences primarily in the nonprofit and higher education sectors. She is a long-time Philadelphia resident originally from Queens, New York.