Hector teaches interdisciplinary and engaged approaches to academic knowledge production on colonialism, Indigeneity, and the environment. On interdisciplinarity, he shows students how to situate knowledge within specific fields, particularly ethnic studies, anthropology, and area studies. On engaged research, he demonstrate how to create knowledge with communities and community-based organizations that centers the experiences and perspectives of racial minorities, including Indigenous peoples and migrants.

Hector's teaching is effective. His courses attract broad student interest. At Stanford, his courses in the Department of Anthropology have had relatively high enrollment by students from various departments and programs. At UC Berkeley, his teaching in the Department of Ethnic Studies won the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award from the Teaching and Resource Center in 2022.

Hector can teach the following courses at all levels of the curriculum:

Fields

• comparative ethnic studies, including Native American and Indigenous studies and Chicanx/Latinx studies
• sociocultural anthropology, including political, legal, and public anthropologies
• area studies, including Central American studies, Latin American studies, and American studies

Methods

• ethnography
• theory, including critical, social, and anthropological theories
• collaborative research, including decolonial methodologies
• ​public engagement

Select topics

• race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity

• modernity, colonialism, and decolonization
• globalization, neoliberalism, and development
• sovereignty, transnationalism, and the state
• political economy, racial capitalism, and class
• inequality, identity, and social movements
• law, politics, and governance
• domination and resistance
• ​environmental racism and justice​
• violence, history, and memory
• race and ​tourism
• ​Indigeneity and religion
• ​immigration and citizenship
• human rights