Jacob Blas

Jacob Blas is a senior studying Mexican American & Latina/o Studies and Rhetoric & Writing, with a minor in Business Foundations and a certificate in Human Rights & Social Justice. His research interests include the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class, as experienced by Mexican American and Latinx communities in the United States. He is working on an honors thesis centered on the threat of racialized political rhetoric, color-blind white dominance and white nationalism in the making of anti-Mexican violence. During the Spring 2020 semester, Jacob presented part of his thesis work at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Tejas Foco Conference in the Rio Grande Valley where he analyzed the dangers of white supremacy and its influence on shaping U.S. laws and policies. He served as the UT Student Government's Co-Director of Diversity & Inclusion during the 2019-2020 school year, organizing events to promote underrepresented voices and identities on campus. Jacob is committed to deconstructing systems of power that reinforce patriarchal hetero-whiteness in academic, political, and legal spaces and plans to attend law school and focus on critical race theory.