Episode 39: Spotlight: Tamara Isaac Activist in Residence 25/26

In this episode, we talk to FCRJ's Activist in Residence Tamara Isaac about her project on language justice across South–South migration, bringing together experiences from Haiti, Brazil, and beyond.

Tamara explores how language intersects with race, gender, legal status, and disability to shape migrants', and particularly Black women migrants', access to rights and services. She discusses what it means to design spaces that centre participants' preferred ways of communicating, and how the toolkits, training resources, and policy recommendations coming out of her project aim to shift how service providers, advocates, and policymakers think about language justice.

BioTamara Isaac is a Haitian lawyer, language justice practitioner, and published poet with 14+ years of lived migration experience across Haiti, Costa Rica, and Brazil. She specializes in intersectional advocacy supporting Black immigrants and marginalized communities through trauma-informed, community-centered approaches. Tamara has worked with over 10 international NGOs including AfroResistance, Fenomenal Funds, and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, providing translation, interpretation, and language coordination services across five languages. Currently based in São Paulo, she serves as a Caribbean and Central America Political Violence Researcher at a non-profit organization while maintaining her independent language justice practice. Her creative work includes several published literary works exploring migration, language, and Black diasporic experiences. Tamara holds a law degree, with a dissertation focused on refugee protections in Costa Rican immigration law.

Credits

Interviewees: Tamara Isaac

Interviewer: Nadia Asri

Produced by: The Feminist Centre for Racial Justice

Sound design, editing, production: Samuel Oduor

Music: Grateful by audiolibraryinfinite from Pixabay