Cecilia Menjívar
Biography
In general, I focus on the structural roots of inequalities and on how individuals’ social locations shape their responses to such conditions. The theoretical strand connecting my work centers on the state and its actions: how state power manifests–through legal regimes, bureaucracies, and formal institutions–in the microprocesses of everyday life in various contexts. This thread links my two empirical areas of work: contexts that immigrants (mostly Central Americans) encounter (mostly) in the United States and the judicial system failures that sustain gender-based violence in Central America.
Degrees
Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Davis
M.A., Sociology, University of California, Davis
M.S., International Education, University of Southern California
B.A., Psychology and Sociology, University of Southern California
Publications
Books
2016 Cecilia Menjívar, Leisy Abrego and Leah Schmalzbauer. Immigrant Families. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
2014 Cecilia Menjívar. Eterna Violencia: Vidas de las mujeres ladinas en Guatemala. Guatemala: Ediciones del Pensativo & FLACSO-Guatemala. (Adapted from Enduring Violence)
2011 Cecilia Menjívar. Enduring Violence: Ladina Women’s Lives in Guatemala. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2000 Cecilia Menjívar. Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Edited Books (past two years):
Cecilia Menjívar and Krista Perreira. (Eds.) 2022. Undocumented and Unaccompanied: Children of Migration in the European Union and the United States. London: Routledge (based on the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies special issue)
2019 Cecilia Menjívar, Marie Ruiz and Immanuel Ness. (Eds.) 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises. Oxford University Press. (Listed in “Election 2020 Resources from Oxford University Press.)
Articles
Cecilia Menjívar and Leydy Diossa-Jiménez. Forthcoming. “Blocking the Law from Within: Familyism Ideologies as Obstacles in VAW Laws in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.” Latin American Research Review
Eugenio Sosa, Cecilia Menjívar, and Paul Almeida. 2022. “Elections and Social Movements in Honduras in the Central American Context.” Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior, 122 (enero-abril): 43-61
Cecilia Menjívar, Victor Agadjanian, and Byeongdon Oh. 2022. “The Contradictions of Liminal Legality: Economic Attainment and Civic Engagement of Central American Immigrants on Temporary Protected Status.” Social Problems, 69 (3): 678-698
Cecilia Menjívar. 2022. “Possibilities for Sociological Research to Reduce Inequalities: Observations from the Immigration Scholarship.” (Editors reviewed) Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 8: 1-6
Irene Bloemraad and Cecilia Menjívar. 2022. “Precarious Times, Professional Tensions: The Ethics of Migration Research and the Drive for Scientific Accountability.” International Migration Review, 56 (1): 4-32 (lead article)
Victor Agadjanian, Byeongdon Oh, and Cecilia Menjívar. 2022. “(Il)legality and Subjective Well-Being: Central Asian Migrant Women in Russia.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48 (1): 53-73
Adrian Bacong and Cecilia Menjívar. 2021. “Recasting the Immigrant Health Paradox through Intersections of Legal Status and Race.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 23: 1092-1104
Cecilia Menjívar. “The Racialization of Illegality.” 2021. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 150 (2): 91-105
Cecilia Menjívar. “Policing and Violence: 2021. The Less Visible Harms of Policing Practices.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 27 (2): 49-60
William P. Simmons, Cecilia Menjívar, and Elizabeth Salerno Valdez. 2021. “The Gendered Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement: Latinas’ Social Isolation in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.” International Migration Review, 55 (1): 108-134
Walter J. Nicholls, Cecilia Menjívar, and Daniel Alvord. 2021. “No Tyson in Tongie!”: The Battle to Protect a Rural Way of Life in Kansas.” Sociological Forum, 36 (1): 29-50
Awards & Grants
Awards
2020 Distinguished Career Award, International Migration Section, American Sociological Association
2021 Social Justice Hero honoree, Museum of Social Justice, Los Angeles, CA (recognition for scholarship on and advocacy for Central American immigrants)
2018 2017 Feminist Criminology Best Article Award for “”Humane” Immigration Enforcement.”
2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
2017 Elected to Sociological Research Association
2017 Louis Wirth Best Article Award, Honorable Mention, ASA International Migration Section for “Transformative Effects of Immigration Law.”
2014 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
2013 Fragmented Ties, listed as one of the 12 most influential books on the family since 2000 (Contemporary Sociology)
2015 Public Sociology Award, International Migration Section, ASA
2013 Best Article Award, Latino/a Studies Section, Latin American Studies Association, for Legal Violence
2012 Distinguished Scholarship Award, Pacific Sociological Association, for Enduring Violence.
2012 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society, for Enduring Violence.
2011 Hubert Herring Book Award, Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies, Enduring Violence.
2011 Outstanding Doctoral Mentor Award (Arizona State University, university-wide award)
2010 Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award, Latinos/as Section, ASA.
2007 Distinguished Contribution to Research Award, Latinos/as Section, ASA.
2002 Outstanding Mentor Award, Graduate Women’s Association, Arizona State University.
2002 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles in Social and Behavioral Sciences for Fragmented Ties.
2001 William J. Goode Outstanding Book Award, Section on the Family, ASA, Fragmented Ties
2001 Honorable mention, Thomas and Znaniecki Book Award, International Migration Section, ASA, Fragmented Ties.