linguistic anthropologist
Dr. Mike Mena is a Mexican American researcher and Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Mike focuses on the ideological perceptions of race and language in the context of American education.
Mike has been awarded two major fellowships: The NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship (2021) and the Carnegie Educational Technologist Fellowship (2021).
As an educational technologist and public intellectual, Mike has facilitated numerous digital pedagogy workshops, including at Columbia University (NY), The Graduate Center (CUNY), Arizona State University (ASU) and The University of London (UK). Mike helps educators and faculty create engaging audio/video educational resources. His award-winning YouTube channel, The Social Life of Language, serves as a contemporary and activist pedagogical model to those interested in producing accessible and engaging educational content designed to engage wider publics, with special attention paid to reaching students of color as well as promoting the work of marginalized scholars.
academic youtuber
The award-winning Social Life of Language is recognized as a premiere pedagogical, open-access resource for educators teaching in the fields of linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, critical race theory, and Latinx Studies.
Mike Mena founded The Social Life of Language in 2017, which currently houses 100+ video lectures that focus on theoretical approaches to race and/or language in the United States. Mike presents material through a witty, fast-paced public teaching persona that continues to help draw attention to marginalized scholarship.
Operating at the intersection of race and language has afforded Mike the flexibility to present transdisciplinary scholarship and has accumulated 200,000+ views with 5,000+ hours of audience engagement.