The Latin@ Sociology Newsletter

Jose Calderon
Pitzer College

I want to thank all our members who voted on the proposals to honor the legacy of Norma Williams and to elect graduate students as members of the section’s council. Our membership voted to use funds for the development of a Norma Williams Mentorship Committee that can organize a yearly event at the ASA to match up graduate students with faculty mentors. This will include a faculty mentor-graduate student luncheon at ASA. Our membership also voted to change the by-laws so that Graduate Student representatives can be formally elected to the council. From the data gathered in this experiment at electronic voting, it was also revealing that the majority of our section’s members have joined during the last five years. This is a testament to the organizational efforts carried out by the section’s council and members in the last few years. It is important to continue these efforts. I recently sent a call for all our members (students, faculty, and graduate students) to make a special effort to increase the number of members in our section. As a result of the changing demographics and the recent marches around immigrant rights, Latina and Latino Sociology has become one of the most prominent areas of study in Sociology. Hence, it is a good time to reach out to students, faculty, and graduate students to become members of our section. It is also a good time for our departments to sponsor the membership of undergraduate students both in ASA and in our section.

This is also a good time to begin thinking about nominating deserving individuals for our section awards. I urge you to send in your nominations for the following awards: the best book written in the previous 3 years in the area of Latino/a Studies, the best article published in the previous 3 years in the area of Latino/a Studies, the Lifetime Distinguished Contributions to Research, Teaching and/or Service Award, and the Cristina Riegos Student Paper Award. Please take the time to think about the many Latina and Latino scholars around us who deserved to be honored. We are asking you to carry out a sincere act of service to our section and our community by writing up a nomination and sending it in. Often, in the rush of academia, these acts of nomination seem trivial. Nevertheless, they mean a lot to the development of our section and to the individuals who are carving out new frontiers of scholarship in Latina/o Sociology. Let us take this opportunity seriously. At the same time, I would like to promote the idea of our members taking an active role in nominating some of our Latino and Latina scholars for the overall ASA awards such as: the Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology, the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award, the Distinguished Book Award, and the Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award. Throughout the ASA’s history, there has only been a handful of Latinos/as who have received these awards. That is why, in the last ASA at Montreal, we celebrated the ASA’s honoring of section member Eddie Telles (in the category of Distinguished Book Award) for his book Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil... We congratulate Eddie. Further, we congratulate the individuals who took the time to nominate him. This is an example for all of us to follow.

Our work in building the Latina/o Sociology section should be seen as part of creating democratic spaces of inclusivity, spaces that represent the type of society that we would like to live in. The work of our Latino and Latina scholars has historically been manifested by a scholarship that has bridged the gap between the academic world and our Latina/o diverse communities. Now, as part of this tradition, we have the opportunity to play a critical role in the transformation in ASA. This too is part of being a public intellectual. In 2005, a Task Force on Institutionalizing Public Sociologies acknowledged that “despite the long-standing tradition of American Public sociology going back to the nineteenth century, the work of public sociologists traditionally has not been recognized, rewarded, or encouraged in many of our sociology departments.” A step in this direction is the task force’s call to academia for recognizing, validating, evaluating, and rewarding public sociology as both an applied and scholarly enterprise. Our work in the Latina/o Section and in ASA should be understood as part of this endeavor.

ARTICLES AND BOOKS BY SECTION MEMBERS

Cecilia Menjívar. 2006. “Family Reorganization in a Context of Legal Uncertainty: Guatemalan and Salvadoran Immigrants in the United States.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 32 (2): 223-245.

Elizabeth Aranda, University of Miami, is the author of a new book entitled Emotional Bridges to Puerto Rico: Migration, Return Migration, and the Struggles of Incorporation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). The book examines the experiences of incorporation among two groups of middle-class Puerto Ricans: one that currently lives in the U.S. mainland and one that has resettled in Puerto Rico. This study illustrates the conditions under which various patterns of attachments to place-or emotional anchoring-develop, and how these feelings impact future Puerto Rican settlement. For more information, please visit the following website: http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/ISBN/0742543242

Jose Munoz. December 2006. “International Opportunities and Domestic Protest: Zapatistas, Mexico and the New World Economy.” Social Movement Studies 5(3):251-274.

Leisy J. Abrego. 2006. “’I can't go to college because I don't have papers’: Incorporation Patterns of Latino Undocumented Youth.” Latino Studies 4(3):212-231. This is the same paper that received the ASA Latina/o Section's Maria Cristina Riegos Distinguished Paper Award in 2004.

María Luisa Amado. 2006. Mexican Immigrants in the Labor Market. The Strength of Strong Ties. New York: LFB Scholarly. The book is useful for those teaching and/or doing research on recent immigration from Mexico (especially to the Southeast), immigrant networks, and labor markets.

Mary Romero. 2006. “Racial Profiling and Immigration Law Enforcement: Rounding Up of Usual Suspects in the Latino Community.” Critical Sociology 32 (2-3): 449-475.

Tanya Golash-Boza's article, “Dropping the Hyphen? Becoming Latino(a)-American through Racialized Assimilation” appeared in the September 2006 issue of Social Forces. Havidan Rodriguez and C.N. Russell. 2006. “Understanding Disasters: Vulnerability, Sustainable Development, and Resiliency.” In Judith Blau and Keri Iyall-Smith (Eds.). Public Sociologies Reader. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, pages 193-211.

Havidan Rodriguez, E.L. Quarantelli, and R. Dynes. (Eds.). 2006. Handbook of Disaster Research. New York: Springer.

Havidan Rodriguez, and B.E. Aguirre. 2006. “Hurricane Katrina and the Healthcare Infrastructure: A Focus on Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Resiliency.” Feature article in FRONTIERS of Health Services Management, Vol. 23, No. 1:13-24.

Havidan Rogriguez and D. Marks. 2006. “Disasters, Vulnerability, and Governmental Response: Where (How) have we gone so wrong?” Corporate Finance Review, Vol. 10, No. 6:5-14.

Havidan Rodriguez and J. Barnshaw. May 2006. “The Social Construction of Disasters: From Heat Waves to Worst-Case Scenarios.” Contemporary Sociology. Vol. 35, No. 3:218-223.

Havidan Rodriguez, T. Wachtendorf, J. Kendra, and J. Trainor. March 2006. “A Snapshot of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: Societal Impacts and Consequences. Disaster Prevention and Management. Vol. 15, Issue No. 1:163-177.

Havidan Rodriguez, J. Trainor, and E.L. Quarantelli. 2006. “Rising to the Challenges of a Catastrophe: The Emergent and Pro-Social Behavior Following Hurricane Katrina.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Special Issue: Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina. Vol. 604:82-101.

Carla Howery and Havidan Rodriguez. 2006. “Integrating Data Analysis (IDA): Working with Sociology Departments to Address the Quantitative Literacy Gap.” Teaching Sociology. Special issue on Cultivating Quantitative Literacy, Vol. 34, No. 1:23-38.

Richard Verdugo, Senior Research Scientist, National Education Association, reports the following publications: (1) English Language Learners: Key Issues. Forthcoming. Education and Urban Society; (2) The Demography of the Hispanic Population and Education: Framework, Analysis, and Implications. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA (3) The Demography of the Hispanic Population and Education: Pre-K and Elementary School. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA; (4) The Demography of the Hispanic Population and Education: Middle School. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA; (5) The Demography of the Hispanic Population and Education: High School. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA; (6) The Demography of the Hispanic Population and Education: Higher Education. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA; and (7) A Report on the Educational Status of Hispanics: Overcoming a History of Neglect. 2006. Washington, DC: NEA.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Havidán Rodríguez was recently named Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Delaware.

Cecilia Menjívar, Arizona State University, is part of a research team that received a $1 million grant from the NICHD for a 4-year study on “Religious Organizations and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care” in Mozambique. Principal investigator for the project is Victor Agadjanian with Menjívar and Scout Yabiku serving as co-PIs.

Jody Agius, UC Irvine, is the recipient of two dissertation grants along with her advisor, Jennifer Lee (PI). The first is an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant (for $7,004) for “Immigration and Trajectories of the Middle Class,” which investigates the Mexican-origin middle class. This research will detail the economic and sociocultural incorporation processes of 1.5, 2nd, and later generations of the Mexican origin middle-class population to determine if they are incorporating as middle-class whites or middle-class minorities. The second grant is a UC Mexus Dissertation Grant ($11,284) for “Brown Picket Fences: The Mexican-Origin Middle Class in Los Angeles.” This research, also part of the dissertation, examines patterns of giving back, ethnic identification, and the role of ethnic professional associations for the Mexican-origin middle class.

The website of the Mexican American and U.S. Latino Research Center (MALRC) at Texas A&M is now up and running. Ed Murguia, MALRC’s founding director, invites all Latina/o Section members to take a look at it. The URL is: http://malrc.tamu.edu.

Anthony A. Peguero completed his dissertation in August from the Department of Sociology at the University of Miami in Florida. The title of his dissertation is “School Routines and Broken School Windows: Race, Ethnicity, and Student Victimization.” Anthony also began a new tenure track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology at Miami University in Ohio.

The ASA has launched the Discusion Forums or Message Board available at the following URL: http://members.asanet.org/Forums. You will have to register. After this you can join any Discusion Forum. Of course, everyone is encouraged to start or join in a discussion in our very own Latino/a Sociology Discusion Forum.

Nadia Flores, Texas A&M, is a recent recipient of a Proof of Concept Grant along with Cecilia Menjívar, Arizona State University; Doug Massey, Princeton University ; and Jeannette Aguilar, Instituto Universitario de Opinion Publica, for “El Salvador Migration Project.” In addition to the $10,000 grant, the award carries the title of MALRC fellow for three years, and training from the VPR Office of Proposal Development to enhance grant writing skills.

Rogelio Saenz, Texas A&M, is also a recipient of a Proof of Concept Grant for his project, “Latinos in Louisiana: Sojourners or Settlers?”

Zulema Valdez, Texas A&M, received external funding for her grant application entitled, “Beyond Ethnic Entrepreneurship: An Embedded Market Approach to Racial and Ethnic Self- Employment in the United States” from the fund for the Advancement of the Discipline of the American Sociological Association.

Richard Verdugo, NEA, presented or will present papers at the following conferences: (1) The Invisible Minority: The Education of the American Indian Population. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, Canada; (2) The Education of the Black Population: 1840 to 1980. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Demography Association, Duke University; (3) Effective and Ineffective Schools: The Anna Karenina Principle. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement, Portoroz, Slovenia; (4) Country, School, and Student Effects: A Cross National Study of Student Achievement. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement, Portoroz, Slovenia; and (5) Social Integration and the Underclass: A Comparative Analysis of the Turkish Population in Germany and the Puerto Rican Population in New York City. Paper presented at the annual meeting on the status of the Turkish Population in Germany, New York, NY: Goethe Institute.

INFORMATION AND OPPORTUNITIES

Summer Research Institute for Undergraduates Disaster Research Center University of Delaware

The Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware is again offering a Summer Research Institute for undergraduate students to provide hands-on research training and mentoring on the social science aspects of disasters. Each summer, ten students from a wide variety of social science disciplines are selected to participate in the nine-week Summer Institute. All transportation and lodging expenses are covered for the student participants, who also receive a generous stipend for the summer. All students who will be entering their junior or senior year in the Fall, 2007, are invited to apply. Students who are underrepresented in graduate schools–minority students, women, students from poorer regions of the country, and students from institutions with limited graduate programs are especially encouraged to apply. The application deadline is February 1 and students will be notified of their acceptance into the program by March 1. Program details, guidelines, and application materials can be found online at: http://www.udel.edu/DRC/REU. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and the U.S. Department of Defense.

2007 National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse Summer Research Training Institute University of Houston Office for Drug & Social Policy Research June 4-13, 2007

This training institute is designed to train promising graduate students in drug research methods. It aims to increase each student's knowledge of drug research issues, promote interest in, and professional commitment to Hispanic drug abuse, and to guide every student in the production of a publishable manuscript on Hispanic-focused drug research. The institute also aims to foster mentoring relationships between students and leading Hispanic drug abuse researchers. Selected students will attend a multidisciplinary 8-day training, taught by NIDA-funded scientists, revolving around a series of lectures and workshops on Hispanics and drug research. On the final day of the training, students will present a two-page abstract of a proposed research project. Each fellow will be required to submit a paper of publication quality on this same project to the University of Houston, Office for Drug & Social Policy Research within the next 12 months of completing the program. A minimum of 10 NHSN fellowships are available. Ten additional students may attend if selected, but must cover their own expenses. Information on costs may be obtained from NHSN Summer Research Training Institute. Applicants currently must be advanced graduate students in good academic standing who have an interest in drug abuse issues among Hispanics. Preference will be given to students who have previous research experience and knowledge of the Hispanic population. To apply submit via postal mail or e-mail the following: 1) application form; 2) a 500-word essay describing yourself, how you would benefit from participating in this institute and in a career on Hispanic drug research; 3) your application packet must include a résumé, listing your social security number, current address and e-mail, phone number, computer skills, and research software with which you are familiar; 4) two letters of recommendation, and 5) official transcripts from your currently enrolled institution or last completed degree. To download the application form visit: http://www.uh.edu/odspr/NHSN% 20Folder/NHSN%20Application%20Formv2.doc. All applications must be received by February 28, 2007. Applicants will be notified of award decisions by April 2, 2007. Please mail your applications to: NHSN Summer Research Training Institute Office for Drug & Social Policy Research University of Houston 237 Social Work Building Houston, Texas 77204-4013 Attn: Mr. Evelio Escamilla. For more information contact Evelio Salinas Escamilla at the above address or by phone at (713)743-8345 or email .

Crime and Justice Summer Research Institute: Broadening Perspectives and Participation Criminal Justice Research Center, Ohio State University July 9-26, 2007

Faculty pursuing tenure and career success in research intensive institutions, academics transitioning from teaching to research institutions, and faculty carrying out research in teaching contexts will be interested in this Summer Research Institute. Organized by Lauren J. Krivo and Ruth D. Peterson and funded by the National Science Foundation and Ohio State University, it is designed to promote successful research projects and careers among scholars from under-represented groups working in areas of crime and criminal justice. The 2007 inaugural institute will be held July 9-26, 2007. The Summer Research Institute will provide resources for completing a research project, senior faculty mentorship, networking opportunities, professional development workshops, and a culminating symposium. Travel and living expenses will be covered. Applications must be postmarked by February 9, 2007. For more information and to download an application, please see our web site: (http://cjrc.osu.edu/summerinstitute). If you have any questions, please e-mail cjrcinstitute@osu.edu.

Class Matters: Working-Class Culture and Counter-Culture Annual Conference of the Working-Class Studies Association Macalester College St. Paul, MN June 14-17, 2007

This conference will explore working-class culture in all its forms – activism, pop culture, the arts, storytelling, and more. Working-class culture can be a source of unity as well as division, and it is constructed in the workplace as well as in the realms of “leisure” and popular culture. At this conference, we hope to explore the relationships between "cultural workers" and their audiences, control over the means of cultural production (publishers, music producers, universities, etc.), and the commodification of working-class culture, among other issues. We are eager to provide a venue in which scholars of working-class culture using Humanities and Social Science frames and lenses can come together with each other, and with creators of working-class culture. How has working-class culture changed over time? Is there is a diasporic, transnational, global working-class culture? How do working-class people use representations, organizations, and everyday life to resist the dominant culture? How does working-class culture reflect divisions among working-class people? We invite proposals for presentations, panels, posters, roundtables, and performances. Submit 1- page abstracts with a brief biographical statement January 15, 2007 to: Peter Rachleff History Department Macalester College 1600 Grand Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota 55105. For more information, contact Peter Rachleff, rachleff@macalester.edu, or by phone at 651-696-6371.