He is a child of desegregation (Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, 1973) and a Chicano ethnographer and philosopher of education working in the scholarly tradition that emerged during the twentieth-century struggle against racism in the United States. Building on his work as a postdoctoral fellow with the National Academy of Education (2012–2013), he and his undergraduate research team are developing an empirical approach to the study of state action, capabilities, and educational dignity.