Note: If you are interested in attending this event, please RSVP here or select the "Register" button on this page.

The seventh Faculty Pub Night of the 2022-23 season features Sylvia Zamora, assistant professor of sociology (Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts). She will discuss her recent book,  “Racial Baggage: Mexican Immigrants and Race Across the Border.” This Pub Night is co-sponsored by LMU Global-Local Affairs.

About Faculty Pub Night: 

Students, staff, faculty, alumni, and members of the public are all invited to the 2022-2023 series of Faculty Pub Night at the William H. Hannon Library. Eight LMU professors are selected annually to discuss their latest publication or project in a comfortable setting and format that welcomes diverse perspectives for an inclusive conversation aimed to educate the entire community. All Faculty Pub Nights are free and open to the public.

About the Author's Work:

Upon arrival to the United States, Mexican immigrants are racialized as simultaneously non-White and "illegal." This racialization process complicates notions of race that they bring with them, as the "pigmentocracy" of Mexican society, in which their skin color may have afforded them more privileges within their home country, collides with the American racial system. "Racial Baggage" examines how immigration reconfigures U.S. race relations, illuminating how the immigration experience can transform understandings of race in home and host countries.

Drawing on interviews with Mexicans in Los Angeles and Guadalajara, sociologist Sylvia Zamora illustrates how racialization is a transnational process that not only changes immigrants themselves, but also everyday understandings of race and racism within the United States and Mexico. Within their communities and networks that span an international border, Zamora argues, immigrants come to define "race" in a way distinct from both the color-conscious hierarchy of Mexican society and the Black-White binary prevalent within the United States. In the process, their stories demonstrate how race is not static, but rather an evolving social phenomenon forever altered by immigration.

About the Author:

Sylvia Zamora was born and raised in South East Los Angeles. She is an assistant professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA and comes to LMU from the University of Chicago, where she was a provost’s postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Sociology. At LMU, she teaches "Race and Ethnicity in Latin America," "Blackness in Latin America," "The Politics of Latinx Identity," "Latino L.A.," and "Qualitative Research Methods." Her research is broadly guided by questions concerning how Latino immigration is changing social, political and racial dynamics in the U.S., particularly African American and Latino relations. Her award-winning research appears in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Latino Studies and the volume, “Just Neighbors?: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States.” Her book, "Racial Baggage: Mexican Immigrants and Race Across the Border" (Stanford University Press 2022), examines racialization as a transnational process that not only changes immigrants themselves, but also everyday understandings of race and racism within the United States and Mexico.

About Global-Local Affairs

The office of Global-Local Affairs facilitates collaborations and professional relationships among LMU faculty, staff, alumni, and other institutions on efforts related to comprehensive internalization (global) and strategic community engagement (local). Our office provides ways to engage your "global imaginations" to intentionally incorporate global and local learning experiences into your teaching, research, and service. For more information, go to the Global-Local Affairs webpage.

About the William H. Hannon Library:

The William H. Hannon Library fosters excellence in academic achievement through an array of distinctive services that enable learners to feed their curiosity, experience new worlds, develop their ideas, inform their decision-making, and inspire others. More information can be found at http://library.lmu.edu

For more information about this event, contact the Outreach and Engagement team at the William H. Hannon library via email at library.outreach@lmu.edu or call 310-338-5234.