Meet Our Scholars
Jaden Morales
University of Southern California
American Studies and Ethnicity
They/Them
BIPOC
Jaden Morales is a doctoral student in American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Their graduate research examines the history of Puerto Rican labor migration to Hawaiian sugar plantations to interrogate shared histories of global racial capitalism, imperial dislocations, and settler colonialism that link Puerto Rico and the Caribbean to the Pacific. Jaden received their B.A. in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration from Yale University in 2019. At Yale, Jaden was the recipient of the Justice Carlos Prize for the best senior essay in Latinx Studies and the La Casa Community Outreach Award for dedicating countless hours to further developing the relationship between the Latinx New Haven community and Yale. Before USC, Jaden worked as litigation paralegal at Bredhoff & Kaiser in Washington, D.C. managing complex civil litigation matters representing major working-class labor unions across the United States. Previously, they worked as an organizing intern with the Bronx Defenders and Planned Parenthood of Southern New England on issues related to prison abolition, anti-gentrification, and deportation. An aspiring professor, Jaden hopes to teach university-level ethnic studies to promote a strong sense of self-efficacy and personal empowerment and offer the language for self- and community-based advocacy among students of color.