Yamil Avivi (he/him) holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Michigan. He was a 2023-2024 Research Postdoctoral Fellow in Latina/o/e/x History at Pennsylvania State University. A Latinx Studies scholar, he revises and amplifies narratives of youth, queers, and immigrants. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Avivi’s research and scholarly interests have focused in the area. He is a queer, cis-male second generation Colombian American immigrant with quarter Arab and Muslim ancestry.
In 1999, he conducted an independent oral history project on the Elizabeth Colombian community and published a 2003 essay entitled, “Recuperando la Historia de los Colombianos en Elizabeth: Redefiniendo la Historia de la Ciudad” in Sociedad y Economía. No. 5, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia. From 2005-2008, Avivi was a graduate research fellow with the Newark Public Library’s New Jersey Hispanic Research Information Center (HRIC) lead by Dr. Olga Wagenheim, Rutgers Emeritus Professor of History. As a fellow, Avivi conducted statewide community profiles of Dominicans and Colombians, doing oral history interviewing for each.
Avivi’s publications include: “Latinx LGBTQ Students and Placemaking in School: Voguing and Ball Culture at Elizabeth High, 1989-1994,” in Latinas/os in New Jersey: Histories, Communities, and Cultures with Rutgers University Press, 2025; “‘Temos Muitas Coisas Para Fazer:’ Market Identities and Queer Community Building in the Brazilian Ironbound and Greater Newark,” in Queer Newark: Stories of Community, Love, and Resistance with Rutgers University Press in 2024; “Remembering Andre “Angel” Melendez: Rave Subculture’s Contested/Conflicted Memory of a Racially Motivated Murder,” in Researching Subcultures, Myth, and Memory with Palgrave Macmillan, 2020; “Puerto Rican Muslims in Post-9/11 Documentaries: Authenticity, Cultural Identity, and Communal Belonging” in Reframing Muslims: New Approaches to Islam in Film Routledge, 2021 and “¿Y qué de Andrés? On the Need for Queer-Centered Asylum Laws and Histories,” in the journal Latino Studies in its 2020 special issue on U.S. Colombianidades. His book manuscript, Young and Brown in New Jersey: Latinx Youth Subcultures is under contract with Rutgers University Press.