Immigration

From the history of immigration in the United States and California to how immigration politics are playing out at the ballot box or courtroom, the following list of experts can address a wide range of related questions.

Lisa Garcia Bedolla
Associate professor of education
Office: (510) 643-9824
Email: lgarciab@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay, (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Immigration, ethnic issues, educational equity and political engagement. Garcia Bedolla has researched Latino civic engagement in Southern California. She is the author of “Latino Politics,” (2009) which focuses on how Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans have participated in U.S. politics to expand and improve their opportunities. Garcia Bedolla also has written Fluid Borders, a book about Latino power, identity and politics in Los Angeles. Her research indicates that Latina women are more likely than Latino men to vote and participate in political activities.

Irene Bloemraad
Associate professor of sociology
Phone: (510) 642-4287
Email: bloemr@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Yasmin Anwar, (510) 643-7944 or yanwar@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Immigration and political sociology. Author of Becoming a Citizen (2006), Bloemraad is conducting research that focuses on four key aspects of the immigration issue: citizenship and multiculturalism; immigrant community organizations; political socialization in families whose members have different legal statuses; and diversity and democracy.

Bloemraad notes that 1 in 8 U.S. residents and 1 in 4 California residents are foreign-born. She is helping to expand the profile of immigration studies at UC Berkeley and regularly presents her work to policymakers, academics and the general public.

Cybelle Fox
Assistant professor of sociology
Phone: (510) 642-7601
Email: cfox@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Yasmin Anwar, (510) 643-7944 or yanwar@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Immigration, race and ethnic relations, political and historical sociology, the American welfare state, public opinion research and health policy. Fox is working on a book about race, immigration and the American welfare system, and is researching the politics of extending or withholding social welfare help to non-citizens.

Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Professor of Gender & Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies and founding director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender
Phone: (510) 643-8487 or (510) 643-8488
Email: englenn@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Yasmin Anwar, (510) 643-7944 or yanwar@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Nakano Glenn’s teaching and research focuses on immigration, including family and household formation, racialization processes, struggles over rights,  work/labor issues (especially for immigrant women in domestic work), undocumented students in higher education, and skin color politics in immigrant communities. 

She is the author of "Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters" (2009); "Unequal Freedom, How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor" (2002); "Shades of Difference:  Why Skin Color Matters" (2009); and "Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America" (2010).

Kurt Organista
Professor of social welfare
Office: (510) 643-6671
Email: drkco@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Yasmin Anwar, (510) 643-7944 or yanwar@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Acculturation and adjustment of ethnic minorities to American society; minority mental health; cognitive-behavioral therapy; depression in Latinos; and HIV prevention with Mexican migrant laborers. Organista teaches courses on psychopathology, stress and coping, and social work practice with Latino populations. He is the author of Mexican Migration for Dummies: What Social Workers and the Public Need to Know, an article in the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity (March 2008).

Harley Shaiken
Chair, UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies and professor of geography and education
Office: (510) 642-2088
Email: hshaiken@berkeley.edu
Media Relations contact: Kathleen Maclay, (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu

Expertise: Shaiken is a UC Berkeley professor and an expert on labor and globalization. He and Beatriz Manz, a professor of ethnic studies and geography, regularly co-teach “The Southern Border,” a course that explores immigration reform, education, trade, and politics as well as new cultural and political identities in the border regions.

Sarah Song
Professor of law and associate professor of political science
Phone: (510) 643-5637
Email: ssong@law.berkeley.edu
Berkeley Law media relations contact: Susan Gluss, (510) 642-6936 (office) or (510) 705-3366 (cell) or sgluss@law.berkeley.edu

Expertise: Theories of citizenship, race, ethnicity, and immigration law.