Adan Martinez Ordaz| Research Program

Adan Martinez Ordaz is a PhD Student in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Irvine. 

He was born in the the state of Michoacan, Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. in the early 90s. Undertaking this journey as a seven-year-old had a significant impact in his life, not only in terms of his educational trajectory, but also regarding his social location. His passion for research is rooted in the experiences of navigating his own precarious identity and in trying to understand the complexities of transnationalism. 

As an undergrad, he was part of the UCLA Lemelson Anthropological Honors Program. His subsequent honors thesis examined mixed-status families’ use of Facebook Secret Groups as they navigated the legalization process. His research project culminated in a presentation of his thesis entitled “Immigration Portals: Social Capital and Community Formation on Facebook Secret Groups” at the UCLA Lemelson Honors Conference in May 2017 

Through his involvement with IDEAS (Improving Dreams, Equality, Access, and Success), and in collaboration with the Undocumented Student Program, He had the opportunity to co-found UCLA’s first undocumented-student retention program: Undocumented Students Promoting Access, Retention, and Community (USPARC). 

Recently, Martinez Ordaz collaborated with Otto Santa Ana, from the Chicano Studies Department at UCLA, on a report titled: Documenting the President’s Verbal Animus Against Immigrants to Defend DACA Grantees.

Adan is currently working on a project tentatively titled Rasquache Restaurants, in which he explores how Latinos/as/x operate informal micro-enterprice home kitchen operations. In this project he is is looking at the intersections of space, place and race.  

His research interests include: Immigration, Citizenship, Illegality, Online Communities, Cybersecurity, Informal Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance.