Dr. Yadira Perez

Ethnographic and archival research on Japanese immigration to the Dominican Republic and the state project of blanqueamiento, whitening the nation through settlement, land and law. The foundation for all the identity work that followed.

PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, 2009.

Based on long-term fieldwork, this article shows how whiteness, national identity and belonging are read through everyday sensory experience: how people look, sound and are felt to belong.

Transforming Anthropology 22(2), 2014, 63–76.

Examines the Dominican constitutional court's 2013 decision, which retroactively removed citizenship from people born to parents deemed "in transit" since 1929, most of them of Haitian descent. Drawing on more than fifteen years of research with Japanese immigrant communities, it shows how the state applies "foreignness" selectively and reads the ruling as a public spectacle that consolidates power.

Memorias: Revista Digital de Historia y Arqueología desde el Caribe Colombiano 12(28), 2016, 136–166.

A Spanish-language essay on whiteness and national identity in the Caribbean.

Revista Asia América Latina 3(5), 2018.

Written after arriving in Naarm, this essay for Transition magazine explores how First Nations and diaspora communities in Australia claim, spell and contest Blackness, and what solidarity looks like between them.

Transition 126, 2018, 59–67.

With Lili Shi, this introduction frames a special issue of WSQ on how feminism is located, translated and lived across Asian diasporic communities.

WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 47(1&2), 2019, 13–28. With Lili Shi.

Drawing on our own narratives as Latina junior faculty in New York, this article shows that universities recruiting diverse faculty rarely support them to stay, and calls for structured, culturally aware mentoring as key to retention and success. Written with Maria Susana Pagan and Kaliris Y. Salas-Ramirez.

Policy Futures in Education 20(7), 2022, 812–827.

Research on gathered storytelling and witnessing, the scholarly seed of the Moss Move practice. Full citation coming soon.

Documents the design of a pragmatic trial in rural Nepal to increase women's uptake of eye health services, and the continuous knowledge translation behind it: formative research, collaborative redesign with Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, and an ongoing advisory group guiding the work in real time. Lead author.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(1), 2020, 345.

Exit interviews with 308 women across eight eye facilities in Nepal. Satisfaction was high, and what mattered most was a thorough examination, kind staff and a clean facility, while most women still paid for care out of pocket.

"Female Clients Satisfaction towards Primary and Secondary Eye Health Facilities and Cost of Eye Care in Nepal." Nepal Journal of Ophthalmology 13(26), 2021, 186–189.

A study protocol for measuring real-world quality of refractive error care in Cambodia, Malaysia and Pakistan using unannounced standardised patients, who purchase glasses and record the care they receive, because the truest measure of a health system is what happens when nobody knows a researcher is in the room.

BMJ Open 12, 2022, e057594.

A scoping review of 39 studies from 16 low- and middle-income countries. Outreach services, teleophthalmology and health financing showed the most promise for reaching women and rural residents, while major gaps remain for older people.

Frontiers in Public Health 13, 2025, 1578848.

Held under the full moon as part of the 2026 Birrarung Riverfest with the Yarra Riverkeeper Association. A guided walk where women share and witness stories of place and belonging beside the river.

Umoja gathers Melbourne's diaspora communities for connection that outlasts any single event: shared meals, intergenerational friendship and the slow work of belonging to each other.

A long conversation on The Confidence Chronicles between two Boricuas who found each other in a city with almost none of their people: growing up between the Bronx and the island, raising children with cultural pride far from home, and building community from scratch.