Meet the fellows: UC President’s and Chancellor’s postdoctoral fellows begin new award year
“Julio Orellana, English
President’s Postdoctoral Fellow
A child of Guatemalan migrants who left Guatemala under dire structural conditions, Orellana joins UC Santa Barbara with a doctorate from UC Riverside. His research in Central American studies looks at forced migration in Guatemala.
“The study examines Guatemalan labor migrants from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, primarily Maya and mestizo/a/x ladino/a/x,” he said. “My family was part of these large migration streams that arrived in the U.S. beginning in the late 1960s and throughout the 1980s and 1990s during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. People were forced to leave Guatemala for various reasons including those in search of dignified material conditions, along with those fleeing political violence, persecution and in the case of Mayan communities, state sponsored genocide.”…”
