Janna Shadduck-Hernández is currently a project director at the UCLA Labor Center, where she has been for the past 15 years, and teaches for UCLA’s Labor Studies major and in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research and teaching focus on developing culturally relevant, participatory educational models with first- and second-generation university students, community members, and youth. Her research and policy work also examine the organizing efforts of low-wage immigrant workers to combat labor and workplace violations.
She has been on the Board of Directors of Building Skill Partnership’s (BSP) for over a decade. In 2022 she became Chair of the Board of Directors. “I enjoy collaborating with BSP programs because I value educating janitors as parents and workers,” says Janna who has been devoted to the organization’s Parent Engagement and Education programs for years, focusing on giving BSP participants and their children educational opportunities to support academic success.
In 2020 she was a co-author of a report on Union Values and LGBTQ+ Worker Experiences (picture right) which was based on a survey of workers in the US and Canada. She is also the co-author of a book Undocumented and Unafraid: Tam Tran, Cinthya Felix, and the Immigrant Youth Movement, published in 2012.
She reports that: I am also currently working on a multi-year research project on Workers and Learners in public higher education and I teach 1-2 classes a quarter for our Labor Studies major (first in the UC system) and I coordinate the undergraduate capstone research projects.
After finishing her Master’s degree and before returning to do her doctorate, Janna worked as the National Director for Immigrant and Refugee Rights with the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia where she coordinated national and international projects related to immigration, displacement and global migration. During her tenure (1999-2002) at AFSC she co-produced an educational video and curriculum guide with Third World News Reel. The video is titled, Echando Raices/Taking Root: Immigrant and Refugee Communities in California, Texas and Iowa. [1-21]
Email: jshernandez@irle.ucla.edu