Marcela Omans is a Sociocultural Anthropology PhD student at Michigan State University. She completed her B.A. in Anthropology and Three Languages (Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic) in 2013 and then was a grant writer for a regional non-profit of the Washington, DC area before beginning her graduate education.

Her research is focused on the Chinese community of Tijuana, Mexico and how this community negotiates the concept of Chineseness in relation to its own members, Mexican society and the Chinese (PRC) and Mexican States.

Marcela's dissertation fieldwork will take place in Tijuana, Mexico and will primarily focus on the Chinese community there. She is investigating how a nebulous concept like Chineseness is deployed at multiple registers of individual, community and state interactions.