Qianyun Wang

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Qianyun Wang is a PhD student in Social Welfare in her first year. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Beijing Normal University and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Calgary. She did community development fieldwork and received social work education in a variety of contexts, including India, Korea, the Philippines, Canada, and China. These events sparked her interest in taking action and doing research to address social exclusion, ageism, racism, and migratory injustice, among other issues.

Qianyun has been an active community practitioner and advocate, working in solidarity alongside marginalized people, including those living with poverty, TFWs, immigrants, the elderly, and others.

Qianyun’s research experience involves both quantitative and qualitative approaches, with the latter being her particular focus. Her master thesis explored the lived experiences of spousal bereavement among older Chinese immigrants in Canada. Before coming to UCLA, she worked with multidisciplinary research teams from the University of Calgary, Tsinghua University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Project-China, where she led and/or coordinated various research projects, including antiracism and anticolonization teaching and learning, social and psychological well-being among older immigrants during the pandemic in Canada, sexual health and services among older adults in the UK and China, HIV self-testing experience among gay men via Photovoice in China, and so on.

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Qianyun-Wang-3

Kelly Lytle Hernandez

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Kelly Lytle Hernandez is a professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA where she holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History. She is also the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). City of Inmates recently won the 2018 James Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, 2018 Athearn Prize from the Western Historical Association, the 2018 John Hope Franklin Book Prize from the American Studies Association, and the 2018 American Book Award. Currently, Professor Lytle Hernandez is the Director and Principal Investigator for Million Dollar Hoods, a university-based, community-drive research project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. The Million Dollar Hoods team won a 2018 Freedom Now! Award from the Los Angeles Community Action Network. For her leadership on the Million Dollar Hoods team, Professor Lytle Hernandez was awarded the 2018 Local Hero Award from KCET/PBS and the 2019 Catalyst Award from the South L.A. parent/student advocacy organization, CADRE. In 2019, Professor Lytle Hernandez was named a James D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow for her historical and contemporary work.

For speaking requests, please contact Rolisa Tutwyler at CCMNT Speakers Bureau at info@ccmntspeakers.com

For media requests, please contact Jessica Wolf (UCLA Media Relations) at jwolf@stratcomm.ucla.edu

 

Awards

2010 Clements Prize for Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol

Honorable Mention, 2011 Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association

Honorable Mention, 2011 John Hope Franklin Book Prize, American Studies Association

Finalist, 2011 First Book Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

2007 Oscar O. Winther Award for the best article to appear in the Western Historical Quarterly.

2007 Bolton-Kinnaird Award for best article on the Spanish borderlands.

 

Selected Publications

“Hobos in Heaven: Race, Incarceration, and the Rise of Los Angeles, 1880 – 1910,” Pacific Historical Review v 83, n 3 (August 2014)

“Amnesty or Abolition: Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement,” Boom: A Journal of California (Winter 2011).

MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010)

“An Introduction to el Archivo Histórico del Instituto Nacional de Migración,” co-authored with Pablo Yankelevich, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies v 34, n 1 (Spring 2009), 157-168.

“Persecuted Like Criminals”: The Politics of Labor Emigration and Mexican Migration Controls in the 1920s and 1930s,” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies v 34, n 1 (Spring 2009), 219-239.

“The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943-1954,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 2006), 421-444.

“Ni blancos ni negros: mexicanos y el papel de la patrulla fronteriza estadounidense en la definición de una nueva categoría racial, 1924-1940,” Cuicuilco v 11, n 31 (Mayo-Agosto 2004): 85-104.

Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1900 – 1999: A Sourcebook for Teachers, published by the National Center for History in the Schools (Fall 2002).

Lee Ann S. Wang

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Lee Ann S. Wang is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and Social Welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her current work is an ethnographic study of immigration law and enforcement at the site of gender and sexual violence, focusing on the work of service providers and legal advocates with Asian immigrant women and their communities. She examines how the law writes and maintains the meaning of protection under the Violence Against Women Act’s immigration provisions, the enlistment of the non-citizen legal subject towards policing, accumulative cooperation, and the visa petition’s role in neoliberal punishment practices. At its core, the work strives to take up the already gendered and racialized task of writing about people and life, without re-inscribing victimhood in legal evidence and the violences of legal archive. Dr. Wang is a former UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley School of Law and held faculty appointments in Law and Public Policy, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington Bothell and visiting positions at the University of Hawai‘i Mānoa.

Dr. Wang teaches the following courses: Asian Americans and the Law, Immigration Law and Public Policy, Gender Violence, Policing, and the Law, Foundations of Social Welfare Policy, and Critical Approaches to Emerging Issues in Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities.

Publications:

News:

Amada Armenta

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Amada Armenta’s research examines the connections between the immigration enforcement system and the criminal justice system, and the implications of this connection for immigrants, bureaucracies, and cities.

Her award-winning book, “Protect Serve and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement” (University of California Press, 2017), analyzes the role of local law enforcement agencies in immigration enforcement in Nashville, Tennessee. Currently, she is working on her second book project, an examination of the legal attitudes of unauthorized Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia.

Dr. Armenta’s research has been published in journals of sociology, law and society, and policy. She has received research funding from the American Sociological Association, the National Science Foundation, the American Society of Criminology, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Prior to joining Luskin as a faculty member, she was an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Randall Akee

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Randall Akee is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Public Policy and American Indian Studies. He is also Chair of the America Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program. He completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in June 2006. Prior to his doctoral studies, Dr. Akee earned a Master’s degree in International and Development Economics at Yale University. He also spent several years working for the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs Economic Development Division.

Dr. Akee is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Labor Studies and the Children’s Groups. He is also a research fellow at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a faculty affiliate at the UCLA California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA and a faculty affiliate at UC Berkelely Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA). His main research interests are Labor Economics, Economic Development and Migration.

Previous research has focused on the determinants of migration and human trafficking, the effect of changes in household income on educational attainment, the effect of political institutions on economic development and the role of property institutions on investment decisions. Current research focuses on income inequality and immobility by race and ethnicity in the US. Dr. Akee has worked on several American Indian reservations, Canadian First Nations, and Pacific Island nations in addition to working in various Native Hawaiian communities.

From August 2006 until August 2009 he was a Research Associate at IZA, where he also served as Deputy Program Director for Employment and Development. Prior to UCLA (2009-2012), he was an Assistant Professor at Tufts University and spent AY 2011-2012 at the Center for Labor Economics at University of California, Berkeley.

In June 2013 he was named to the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations.

Google Scholar Citations

Published and Forthcoming Papers:

“Estimating Institutionalization and Homelessness for Status First Nations in Canada: A Method and Implications,” forthcoming in International Indigenous Policy Journal. (with Donna Feir)

“Socioeconomic Outcomes for Indigenous Students attending a High Performing School” forthcoming at Journal of American Indian Education.

“How Does Household Income Affect Child Personality Traits and Behaviors?” (with E. Simeonova, J. Costello, and B. Copeland) American Economic Review, 108(3), 775-827.

“The Role of Race, Ethnicity and Tribal Enrollment on Asset Accumulation: An Examination of American Indian Tribal Nations”. (with Sue K. Stockly, William Darity Jr, Darrick Hamilton, and Paul Ong), forthcoming in Ethnic and Racial Studies.

“Critical Junctures and Economic Development —  Evidence from the Adoption of Constitutions Among American Indian Nations.” (with Miriam Jorgensen and Uwe Sunde), Journal of Comparative Economics, 2015, Volume 43, pp. 844-861.

“The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Its Effects on American Indian Economic Development” (with Katherine Spilde and Jonathan Taylor) Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2015, Volume 29, No. 3, pp. 185-208.
Press: American Economics Association

“Social and Economic Changes on American Indian Reservations in California: an Examination of Twenty Years of Tribal Government Gaming” (with Katherine Spilde and Jonathan Taylor) UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 2014, Volume 18, No. 2.

“Investigating the Effects of Furloughing Public School Teachers on Juvenile Crime in Hawaii” (with T. Halliday and S. Kwak), Economics of Education Review, Volume 42, 2014, pp. 1-11.
Press: KITV News, Hawaii News Now, Honolulu Star Advertiser, West Hawaii Today

“Property Institutions and Business Investment on American Indian Reservations” (with M. Jorgensen), Regional Science and Urban Economics, Volume 46, 2014, pp. 116-125.

“Transnational Tracking, Law Enforcement and Victim Protection: A Middleman Tracker’s Perspective” (with A. Basu, A. Bedi and N. Chau), Journal of Law and Economics, May 2014, v. 57, pp. 349-386.

“Young Adult Obesity and Household Income: Effects of Unconditional Cash Transfers.” (with Emilia Simeonova, J. Costello, W. Copeland, and A. Angold), American Economics Journal: Applied Economics, 2013, 5(2):1-28.
Press: New York Times
Blog Posts: Daily Kos, The Economist, The Washington Post

“The Persistence of Self-Employment Across Borders: New Evidence on Legal Immigrants to the United States”,  (with David A Jaeger and Konstantinos Tatsiramos) Economics Bulletin, Vol. 33 No. 1 pp. 126-137, 2013.

“Skin Tone’s Decreasing Importance on Employment: Evidence from a Longitudinal Dataset, 1985-2000.” (with Mutlu Yuksel) Industrial and Labor Relations Review, V. 62, No. 2, 2012.

“Errors in Self-Reported Wages: The Role of Previous Earnings Volatility and Individual Characteristics.” Journal of Development Economics, V. 96, No. 2, Nov. 2011, pp. 409-421.

“‘Counting Experience’ Among the Least Counted: The Role of Cultural and Community Engagement on Educational Outcomes for American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Students.” (with Tarajean Yazzie-Mintz), American Indian Culture and Research Journal, V. 35 Num. 3,  pp. 119-150, 2011.

“Parents’ Incomes and Children’s Outcomes: A Quasi-Experiment with Casinos on American Indian Reservations,” (with J. Costello, W. Copeland, G. Keeler and A. Angold), American Economics Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 2, No. 1, January 2010, pp. 86-115.

Working Papers:

“Land Titles and Dispossession: Allotment on American Indian Reservations,”

“First People Lost: Determining the State of Status First Nations Mortality in Canada using Administrative Data,” (with D. Feir) revise and resubmit at Canadian Journal of Economics.

“Racial and Ethnic Income Inequality and Mobility from 2000 to 2014: Evidence from Matched IRS-Census Bureau Data.” (with M. Jones and S. Porter), revise and resubmit at Demography.

“Family Income and the Intergenerational Transmission of Voting Behavior: Evidence from an Income Intervention,” (with E. Simeonova, J. Holbein, E. Costello and W. Copeland)

“Reservation Nonemployer and Employer Establishments: Data from U.S. Census Longitudinal Business Databases,” (with Elton Mykerezi and Richard Todd)

Research Reports and Books:

“Access to Capital and Credit in Native Communities: A Data Review,” Native Nations Institute Report, with Miriam Jorgensen.

“American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change from 1990 to 2010,” 2014, with Jonathan Taylor.

Research Report for the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. “Migrant Households In India: A Comparison Of The Average Migrant Household And Migrant Households With Non-Resident Accounts In Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra And Punjab.” A Joint Report of Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 2012, with Devesh Kapur.

Research in Labor Economics.  “Child Labor and the Transition between School and Work”  2010. Vol. 31, edited with Eric Edmonds and Konstantinos Tatsiramos, Emerald Publishing.

Institute for the Study of Labor Prize Book.  “Wages, School Quality and Employment Demand David Card and Alan Krueger” 2011. edited with Klaus Zimmermann, Oxford University Press.

Popular Press:

“Credit Scores & Indians: Recent Evidence on the Prevalence of Low Scores & Borrowing”

Indian Country Today Media Network, April 10, 2016

“The Good(?) and Bad of Boarding Schools”

Indian Country Today Media Network, March 3, 2016.

“Manufacturing Consent for the Living AND the Dead in Hawai’i” with

Noelani Arista. Indian Country Today Media Network, November 20, 2015.

 

Abel Valenzuela

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Abel Valenzuela is Professor of Chicano Studies and Urban Planning and Director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.  He has authored numerous research articles, books, and reports on immigrant settlement, work, and urban poverty.  His research on day labor and immigrant labor markets have helped frame national public and policy narratives on immigrant and low-wage workers.

Los Angeles occupies a central focus of his research and teaching and guides the Institute’s research directions. Abel was born and raised in Los Angeles, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his M.C.P. and Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has published numerous articles and technical reports on low-wage workers, including co-editing (with Lawrence Bobo, Melvin Oliver, and Jim Johnson) Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2000, Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence (with Ramiro Martinez Jr.). He has also published in American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Annual Review of Sociology, New England Journal of Public Policy, Working USA: A Journal of Labor and Society, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and Regional Studies.

Abel lives in Venice Beach with his wife and three sons.

 

Selected Publications

Paul Apostolidis and Abel Valenzuela Jr.  2014.  “Cosmopolitan Politics and the Migrant Day Labor Movement.”  Politics, Groups, and Identities.  Vol. 2(2):222-244.

Valenzuela Jr., A.  2014.  “Regulating Day Labor: Worker Centers and Organizing in the Informal Economy.”  In The Informal City: Settings, Strategies, Responses (Eds) Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sidris.  Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press.  Pgs 261-276.

Bostic, R.W., A. M. Kim, and A. Valenzuela Jr. 2016.  Guest Co-editors.  Symposium: Contesting the Streets.  Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research. Volume 18, Number 1: Pgs, 3-122.

Theodore, N., D. Blaauw, C. Schenck, A. Valenzuela Jr., C. Schoeman, E. Melendez.  2015.  “Day Labor, Informality and Vulnerability in South Africa and the United States.”  International Journal of Manpower.  Vol. 36 No. 6: 1-18.

Areas of Expertise: economy, jobs low-wage workers, day labor, immigration, urban poverty, urban planning, inequality