SPACExRACE: The Physical Frontiers Defining Race In America

By Tara Graham

May 20

SPACExRACE is a website produced by U.C. Berkeley undergraduate student Nishant Budhraja during the 2013 spring semester.

The overall concept behind SPACExRACE is one that embraces and delves into complexity. As such, readers who are perhaps less familiar with concepts related to spatiality and race (and even those who are familiar) may find it helpful to get some background information on the topics at hand. The research pages I have developed are meant to help readers understand the theory and history behind the concepts discussed on this blog.

Housing Segregation and the Foreclosure Crisis – The study of housing segregation is a key area of study for many prominent sociologists and race theorists. This research page will take readers through the early history of housing segregation and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It will then address the effectiveness of the Fair Housing Act, and conclude with an in-depth look at the foreclosure crisis of the Great Recession (2007-2009) from a housing segregation perspective.

Marin County and the Canal District – My experiences as a child growing up in Marin County, Calif., have played an instrumental role in developing my interest in the relationship between race and space. This research page will explain why that is the case, walk through a brief history of Marin and one of its districts, and then explore issues related to inequality within Marin.

What is Ethnic Studies? – At their core, the topics discussed on the other research pages and in blog posts on this site are ultimately connected to the academic discipline of Ethnic Studies. This research page will explain the origins of Ethnic Studies, its growth as an academic field, and the challenges that it faces currently.

Student Work

The Narrative #Selfie

Lose the shirt off my back? Nah.

When life got dicey, I opened my closet doors, bypassed the blouses, and earned a (modest) payday by selling used hangers in 25-pack bundles.

More recently, I put my hustle into play at 500 Startups, the world’s most active venture capital fund and startup accelerator, where I led content, branding, marketing, operations, and corporate partnerships for business development and global programs.

Before transitioning into tech, I worked in higher education, teaching online research and media production classes across a variety of disciplines at the University of California, Berkeley. During that time, I also worked as the Director and Executive Producer of Digital Media Projects at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, where I co-founded and led The #GlobalPOV Project, a mixed-media approach to thinking about poverty, inequality, and undertaking poverty action.

In addition, I was the Director of Media at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, where I had the opportunity to interview Bashar al-Assad in his presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, in late December of 2010. I asked Assad if he considered himself a dictator. He dodged the inquiry, but his actions in the immediate weeks, months, and years to follow answered the question . . . and then some. Sadly.

Before that, I was a practicing journalist and graduate fellow at the University of Southern California. During that time, I worked as a web reporter and photographer for KCET’s “SoCal Connected,” as an online editor for the London-based New Statesman magazine, and as the co-editor-in-chief of USC Annenberg’s award-winning digital news website. I got my start in journalism as a full-time associate editor (and employee #20!) at P✪PSUGAR, a Sequoia-backed content and commerce startup turned global media empire.

My freelance reporting has been featured in NBC, CBS, and ABC news broadcasts and in online publications, including The Huffington Post. I have also done manuscript editing for various authors with recognized commercial and university presses.