Cecilia Menjívar

Cecilia Menjívar, born and raised in El Salvador, is an American sociologist who has made significant contributions to the study of international migration, the structural roots of inequalities, state power, gender-based violence against women, and legal regimes. Menjívar is currently Distinguished Professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles where she is the Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Chair.

Education Menjívar received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Southern California in 1981, and a Master of Science in International Education from the same university in 1983. Menjívar then completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Davis graduating in 1992 with a PhD in sociology. Menjívar completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of California, Berkeley and RAND Corporation.

Career Menjívar worked at Arizona State University from 1996 to 2015, initially as an assistant professor before becoming an Associate Professor and finally Cowden Distinguished Professor and associate director in the School of Social and Family Dynamics. Menjívar then moved to the University of Kansas where she was Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sociology and co-director of the Center for Migration Research. Since 2018, Menjívar has been Professor and Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her second book, Enduring Violence received the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Pacific Sociological Association, the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society, and the Hubert Herring Best Book Award from the Pacific Council on Latin American Studies. Her articles also have been recognized with multiple awards and, like her work in general, have been read around the world.

Selected Books Menjívar, Cecilia. Fragmented Ties: Salvadorian Immigrant Networks in America. University of California Press (2000). Menjívar, Cecilia, Nestor P. Rodríguez. (Eds.) When States Kill: Latin America, the US, and Technologies of Terror. University of Texas Press (2005). Menjívar, Cecilia. Enduring Violence: Ladina Women's Lives in Guatemala. University of California Press (2011). Menjívar, Cecilia and Daniel Kanstroom. Constructing Immigrant "Illegality": Critiques, Experiences, and Responses, Cambridge University Press (2014) Menjívar, Cecilia. Leisy Abrego and Leah Schmalzbauer. Immigrant Families. Polity, (2016). Menjívar, Cecilia, Marie Ruiz and Immanuel Ness. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises. Oxford University Press (2019).

Award

Jessie Bernard Award, American Sociological Association (2024) Public Understanding of Sociology Award, American Sociological Association (2024) Elected W.E.B DuBois Fellow, American Academy of Political and Social Research (2023) Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017) John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2014) Distinguished Career Award, International Migration Section (2020), American Sociological Association Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award (2010), Latinos/as Section, American Sociological Association