Gabriela Leon-Perez
Doctoral Student, Department of Anthropology
Mapping Immigrant Communities in Nashville
Nashville has the fastest-growing immigrant population in the United States. Nashville’s percentage of foreign-born residents rose from 2% in 2002 to 12% in 2012. Gabriela will work to create a series of digital maps illustrating the residential settlement patterns and languages spoken by the immigrant groups living in the areas served by each of the Nashville Public Library branches. These maps will help inform decisions related to collections development and library programming to ensure that the needs of the immigrant community are taken into account.
Gabriela is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology. Her research focuses on issues pertaining to international migration, the experiences of immigrants in the U.S., and health disparities. Her dissertation uses longitudinal data to investigate whether return U.S. migration, internal migration, and no migration experience have different effects on the health trajectories of Mexicans. Other projects explore the effects of stress, legal status, and state policies on immigrants’ health and socioeconomic outcomes.