Biography
Jennifer B. Delfino is Associate Professor of Anthropology and the author of Speaking of Race: Language, Identity, and Schooling Among African American Children (2020, Lexington Books). She is a former Associate Editor of Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and has been a special issue editor for International Journal of Sociolinguistics and Language, Culture, & Society. Broadly, her research examines the connection between liberal democratic logics of governance, racialization, racism, and anti-racism through the ethnographic and digital ethnographic analysis of language and discourse and the role of schooling and education in facilitating these logics, with a focus on how racialized minorities attempt to grapple with the experience of being seen and heard (or not) as (in)visibly different. Her past and current projects include the schooling experiences of Black children during the 2008-2010 neoliberal education reforms in Washington, D.C., white allyship as an outcome of the normalization of liberal white supremacy, and the role language and colonialism play in Filipino American identity formations. Professor Delfino's next research project will be a comparative ethnography of Ethnic Studies programs and the role (post)-colonialism and neoliberalism play in their subordinated institutionalization in higher education.
Research Interests
language, race, and racism; liberalism and anti-racism; language and identity; language and schooling; language and gender; language and sexuality
Education
Ph.D., Anthropology, American University, 2014 (Concentration in Race, Gender, & Social Justice)
M.A., Anthropology, American University, 2012
B.A., Anthropology, Reed College, 2005
Grants
2021 Distinguished CUNY Scholar, Advanced Research Collaborative, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York ($18,000)
2020 Faculty Development Grant, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York ($5,000)
2017 Book Completion Award, The City University of New York Research Foundation ($1,000)
2017 Faculty Research Award, Professional Staff Congress – The City University of New York (PSC-CUNY) Research Foundation ($3,500)
2013 Dissertation Writing Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, American University ($10,000)
Courses Taught
ANTH 112 Language, Race, and Ethnicity in the U.S.
ANTH 504 Colonialism and Postcolonialism
ANTH 512 Language in Culture I
ANTH 515 Seminar in Anthropology: Semiotics
ANTH 518 Language in Culture II
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Special Issue Editor (with Chantal Tetreault and Sonia N. Das), Language, Culture, & Society, "Heritage Language, Racialization, and (Post)Colonialism" (2026)
Highlighted Publications
Delfino, J. B. (2020). Speaking of Race: Language, Identity, and Schooling Among African American Children. Lexington Books. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978728387