by Sarah McCall ’26 on February 26, 2026
News
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Kara Cebulko, a professor in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Providence College. Dr. Cebulko has worked at PC since 2009, and most of her research centers around international immigration and 1.5-generation Brazilian immigrants in Boston. She is currently Interim Department Chair of the Global Studies Department and teaches courses with a focus on the construction of borders and the greater impacts and inequalities.
Dr. Cebulko’s interest in immigration started during a trip to the Amazon Rainforest in college. She described this experience as “transformative” and cited it as the origin point for her post-graduate research project. This research centered around Brazilian internal migration to the Amazon region. As she spent more time in Brazil, she began to switch her focus to international immigration. This research started in 2006 and was her primary focus for 15 years.
Recently, her research has shifted to focus on migration as a human right. Migration as a human right includes the right to migrate, the right to stay, the impact of global tourism spaces on a community, and the belonging and identity of immigrants in both their adopted countries and countries of origin.
Dr. Cebulko’s research of 1.5-generation Brazilian immigrants in Boston followed a group of 18–24 year olds for 15 years. It documented how they navigated the world as emerging adults in a culture where they were forced to grapple with their race, gender, and legal status. What made this group of individuals so important to study was their classification as white in Brazil, but as a racially marginalized group in the United States. Additionally, many of those interviewed were undocumented or had a complicated legal status as U.S. residents.
Since 2011, Dr. Cebulko has taken a group of students to the U.S. and Mexico border, Tijuana, and San Diego. Through a Feinstein Institute partnership with Esperanza International, which predates Dr. Cebulko’s involvement, students build homes through a community empowerment model and to see how people on the ground are building community.
This experience has developed into a course offered every spring semester; GST 371: Globalization, Borders, and Human Rights. This is an application-based course with a wide variety of majors and disciplines enrolled. Dr. Cebulko highlights the importance of this experience by saying students can “learn more in one week through experience in Tijuana than in class. To see the wall, to smell the ocean, to hear helicopters, to meet the people. That cannot be taught in a classroom.”
Shannon Kelly ’26, a student who took Dr. Cebulko’s course in spring 2023, said this about her experience: “The people I was able to meet, the collective resistance that was exemplified through the art that we saw, and both the connections and conversations will remain with me forever.” This is the experience that Dr. Cebulko wants to encourage through GST 371.
When discussing the important themes of the course, Dr. Cebulko highlighted humanity and its association with the mission of PC. Through this course, students develop an understanding of the tangible impact that policy has on a community. This experience also encourages people to care for other communities. Caring, according to Dr. Cebulko, is the key to building communities.
Dr. Cebulko also referenced the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions and emphasized that these actions are not new, but the scale, intensity, and use of social media are making things scarier. These horrors are not new, Dr. Cebulko said, but there is always resistance. Right now, there is underground mutual aid forming in Minnesota and communities are coming together across the country to protest. At PC, Dr. Cebulko recommended to join organizations such as Providence Immigration Rights Coalition, take more classes centered around the topic, and get to know the Smith Hill residents.