OMI SALAS-SANTACRUZ

Dr. Salas-SantaCruz's scholarship foregrounds queer and trans Latinx/a/o experiences, theorizing Jotería Crit as an intervention into Critical Race Theory (CRT), LatCrit, and Queer of Color Critique. Their research explores the role of storytelling, cultural resistance, and decolonial desires in fostering educational spaces that center healing and transformation. Their work highlights how trans-Latinx students, particularly those from Afro-Latinx and Indigenous backgrounds, navigate higher education, drawing attention to the ways storytelling, cultural resistance, and decolonial desires serve as strategies for survival and transformation.

They have published widely on issues of trans theory in higher education, the racialized and gendered grammars of professionalism, and the epistemological contributions of nonbinary and Indigenous knowledge systems. Their current projects include a book manuscript on decolonial trans feminism and a critical engagement with María Lugones’ work on playfulness, resistance, and ontological plurality.