Sociology Faculty

Research Interests

Labor and labor markets, political sociology, transnationalism, migration, racial formation, masculinity, Southeast Asia, community-engaged research.

Biography, Education and Training

2001 - Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin - Madison
1996 - M.A., Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin - Madison
1989 - B.A., Political Economy of Industrial Societies, University of California - Berkeley

Honors, Awards and Grants

Awards/Honors

• 2022. Koret Mentor Award, Koret Scholars Undergraduate Research Program, UCSC

• 2019. Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching, UCSC Division of Social Sciences

• 2017. Community Hero, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Community Assessment Project

• 2015.  Community Game Changer Award, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County
• 2012. UC Santa Cruz Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity.
• 2011. Visiting Senior Research Fellowship at the National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, Migration Studies Cluster.
• 2010.  Teaching: Award for Universal Design in Instruction from the University of California – Santa Cruz’s Disability Resource Center. 

Grants

• 2023-24. National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Humanities Projects, Exhibition Planning Grant - project: "Sowing Seeds: Filipino American Stories from the Pajaro Valley" - co-PI K. Gutierrez, $75,000
• 2023-34. UC Humanities Research Institute Engaging Humanities Grant. Project: "Watsonville is in the Heart: Mapping a Recuperative History of Filipino Farmworkers" -co-PI K. Gutierrez - $20,000
• 2022-23. University of California Worker Rights Policy Initiative, State of California - project: "UCSC Center for Labor and Community" - $500,000
• 2022-23. UC Community Links Grants Program - project: "We Belong Too" - co-PI Regina Langhout - $25,000
• 2022. UCSC Office of Research Seed Funding for Early Stage Initiatives - project: "Lost Stories of Asian American Labor: Research & Planning for an Integrated Exhibit of Arts and Oral History from the Pajaro Valley" - co-PI: K. Gutierrez $38,000
• 2021. Collaborative Projects Grant, Arts Research Institute, UCSC. Project: Watsonville is in the Heart: Art & The Oral History Archive - $5,000
• 2020. UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity. Project: We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice - $10,000
  
• 2019. Student Fee Advisory Committee, UCSC, Project: We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice - $45,000
• 2018. Service Employees International Union, Local 251, Project: “Affordable Housing Research Project” - $15,000
• 2016. Student Success Initiative Grant, University of California Office of the President,Project: “Community Engaged Research Practicum” - $100,000
• 2016. Engaging Humanities Project Grant, 2016-17, University of California Humanities Research Institute. Project: “No Place Like Home: Voices and Visions of the Housing Crisis in Santa Cruz County” - $27,000
• 2015. John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Culture, Andrew Mellon Foundation. project title: "Non-citizenship". CO-PIs: C. Ramirez, J. Poblete, S. Falcon and F. Amaya Shaeffer. $178,000.
• 2014-2015. Engaging Humanities Public Humanities Project Grant,  University of California Humanities Research Institute Project: “Working for Dignity:  Rural-Urban Stories in a Changing California.” $20,000.

Selected Publications

Books

• 2006. Satanic Mills or Silicon Islands?: The Politics of High-Tech Production in the Philippines. Cornell University/ILR Press. Co-published in the Philippines by Ateneo de Manila University Press. 

Edited Books

• 2021. Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship, Rutgers University Press, co-edited with Catherine S. Ramírez, Juan Poblete, Sylvanna M. Falcón, and Felicity Amaya Schaeffer. 
• 2012. New Routes for Diaspora Studies. Indiana University Press. Co-edited with S. Banerjee and A. McGuinness.

Contributions to Books

• 2021. “First Publics’ as Knowledge Producers: Integrating Students into Organic Public Sociology” co-authored with M. Greenberg, and R. London, in L. Hossfeld, E. B. Kelly, and C. Hossfeld (eds). The Routledge International Handbook of Public Sociology. London and New York: Routledge Press
• 2015. “'So They Remember Me When I’m Gone’: Remittances, Fatherhood and Gender Relations of Filipino Migrant Men,” in Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the Changing Family in Asia. Palgrave MacMillan Press.
• 2014. “Racializing the High Seas: Filipino Migrants and Global Shipping,” in The Nation and Its Peoples: Citizens, Denizens, Migrants. Routledge Press.
• 2012. “Masculinities Afloat: Filipino Seafarers and the Situational Performance of Manhood at Sea, in Port, and at Home,” in Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. Routledge Press.

Journal Articles/Reports

• 2023. "Building a Community Archive: Preserving and Uplifting Stories of Filipino Labor and Migration," co-authored with Christina Ayson Plank, Meleia Simon-Reynolds, Kathleen Gutierriez, and Olivia Sawi. Filipino American National Historical Society Journal volume 11, no.1: 161-170.https://doi.org/10.1353/fil.2023.a912941.

• 2023. "Belonging and Its Barriers: A Critical Perspective of Latiné and Mixed-Status Families’ Experiences" co-authored with Alberto Ganis, Leslie Lopez, Jennifer Aimee Martinez, Marlen Reyes, and Shivani Modha. Social Sciences 12, no. 6: 355.

• 2022. "New Trends in Community Engaged Research: Co-producing Knowledge for Justice." Social Sciences 11, no.5 (April); special issue co-editor
• 2022. "Critical Engagement: Deepening Partnerships for Justice", Footnotes:The Magazine of the American Sociological Association 50 no.1
• 2021. “No Place Like Home: Affordable Housing in Crisis, Santa Cruz County, CA—Final Report,” co-authored with Miriam Greenberg, James Sirigotis, and Thao Le, UCSC Institute for Social Transformation 

• 2021.“Navigating Race: Intersectional Boundary-Making onboard Multi-national Ships,” Ethnic and Racial Studies

• 2021 “The Right to the City and to the University: Forging Solidarity Across the Town/Gown Divide” co-authored with B. Ferman, M. Greenberg, and T. Le, The Assembly: A Journal for Public Scholarship on Education, issue 3, Spring: 10-34.

• 2020. Report from the Graduate Student Cost of Attendance and Living Calculator Project,” co-authored with J. Bowin, M. Greenberg, V. Hamilton, B. Schumm, A. Sharma, and N. Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz Academic Senate

• 2019. "The Vitality of Students for Public Sociology." co-authored with M Greenberg and R London. Contexts: Sociology for the Public.
• 2019. "Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Expanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology." co-authored with M Greenberg and R London. Teaching Sociology
• 2016. "Working for Dignity"- The Santa Cruz Low-Wage Worker Study: Final Report." UCSC Center for Labor Studies
• 2011. "Re-Masculinizing the Hero: Filipino Migrant Men and Gender Privilege." Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series 172 - National University of Singapore. 
• 2007. "Filipino Sea Men: Constructing Masculinities in an Ethnic Labour Niche." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
• 2006. "The Scalar Strategies of Capital, State and Labor in Evolving Philippine Economic Zones." Journal of Comparative Asian Development.

Selected Presentations