Sometimes leaving home allows you to make an impact on it--but at what cost? Exit and Voice is a compelling account of how Mexican migrants with strong ties to their home communities impact the economic and political welfare of the communities they have left behind. In many decentralized democracies like Mexico, migrants have willingly stepped in to supply public goods when local or state government lack the resources or political will to improve the town. Though migrants' cross-border investments often improve citizens' access to essential public goods and create a more responsive local government, their work allows them to unintentionally exert political engagement and power, undermining the influence of those still living in their hometowns. In looking at the paradox of migrants who have left their home to make an impact on it, Exit and Voice sheds light on how migrant transnational engagement refashions the meaning of community, democratic governance, and practices of citizenship in the era of globalization.

Using qualitative and quantitative methods, my research examines the consequences of international migration on democracy, development, citizenship and state-society relations in migrant countries of origin and destination. My first book, Exit and Voice: The Paradox of Cross-Border Politics in Mexico (2019, UC Press), studies the conditions under which organized migrant groups located in destination countries participate in the provision of social welfare in their places of origin and how this transnational participation affects local democracy. The book received the International Studies Association 2021 Distinguished Book Award for the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Section and the American Sociological Association Sociology of Development Section's 2021 Best Scholarly Book Award.

In my second book-length project, tentatively titled Naturalizing Under Threat: Citizenship in the Age of Immigration Enforcement, I study the underlying factors that explain who, among the eligible immigrant population, decides to become an American citizen through naturalization. Drawing on historical data, panel data, and in-depth interviews in four states, the book shows that sociopolitical threats including restrictive immigration legislation, anti-immigrant vitriol, and interior enforcement programs and policing, explain variation in naturalization.

My research articles have been published in leading peer-review journals including the American Sociological Review, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Social Science & Medicine, RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Latin American Research Review, and other outlets. Funding for this research has been provided by the Russell Sage Foundation and Carnegie Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the National Academies, the Tinker Foundation and the University of Chicago, and at UCLA the Hellman Fellows Program, the Center for the Study of International Migration, the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, and the Academic Senate. I was honored to receive the 2020-2021 junior faculty award from the Wayne State University Academy of Scholars.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and my B.A. in International Studies (with honors) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I also worked as an economic analyst for the Economic Research Service at the USDA and Nathan Associates, an economic consulting firm in Washington, D.C.. Most recently, I was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCLA (2013-2018) and a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow.

Source: Wayne State University