About

My mother is Ibaloi and Ilocano from Tublay, Benguet, Philippines, and my father was born in Canada with parents from the Netherlands. I’m proud to have the role of community Tita/ Tato (Auntie).

My aim is to build from community knowledges and systems of care toward transformative social work practice, including clinical and community practice. As such, I draw from and write about decolonial, transnational, feminist, queer and trans, and Filipina/x/o theories, epistemologies, and ontologies.

I hold a Masters in Social Work (MSW) from Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and a PhD in Social Work from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

I have over a decade of experience and training in social and community work direct practice, organizational development, and policy analysis. I use qualitative, action-oriented methods to make research useful and meaningful through healing, collaboration or group practice alongside participants. My work is local, national and international.

My pedagogy and practice is inspired by healing, collectivity, care, narrativity, and storytelling—gifts that I’ve learned from mutual aid and community care spaces and knowledges. I have extensive skills in using artistic, creative and community-based methods in research, education, and direct practice. I draw from transformative pedagogies, facilitation, and adult and peer-education methods that I’ve developed in my work with multilingual and diverse communities and students. I aim to build critical and inclusive spaces in the classroom to question power and knowledge, and build solidarities and anti-oppressive clinical and community practice.

I teach at the university level in English and French on topics of critical thought and ethics, migration and social work, direct practice, anti-oppression, community organizing, and other social work and critical studies topics. I also supervise social work placement students through various community and social work roles I hold.

CURRENT WORK

I am an FRQSC-funded (Fonds de recherche du Quebec en société et culture) post-doctoral fellow at the University of Montreal’s School of Social Work and the Sociology Department, affiliated with Clinique Mauve. Clinique Mauve is a social innovation lab training researchers, students, and multidisciplinary service providers to support LGBTQ+ migrants and racialized peoples in Montreal and across Quebec.

Community-led archiving, oral histories, and community care mapping among queer and trans diasporic and migrant communities:

This post-doctoral project preserves and celebrates stories of gender, sexuality, migration, home, belonging, family, identity, kinship, and friends through The Refugee States project, challenging state-led reductive and dehumanizing narratives of migration.

I am working in collaboration with Kapwa Centre in Montreal around the histories, resistance, and community care of Filipina/x/o, migrant, diaspora and queer and trans communities.  I also have ongoing partnerships in the Philippines and in Australia.