Her studies focus on the use of Spanish in the United States and how language and identity function together. Trillo’s research specifically looks at how heritage, native, and second language Spanish speakers create and represent the identity of Latino, Hispanic, and Chicano culture in the United States. Her work bridges linguistics and social sciences, and takes a look at Code Switching as a form of language retention and revival mechanism for many Spanish speakers (also see NPR’s Gene Demby’s ‘How Code Switching Explains the World’).