G. Cristina Mora

G. Cristina Mora is an American sociologist and Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines the social construction and institutionalization of racial and ethnic categorization, panethnicity, and immigration politics in the United States. She also serves as co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

Early life and education Mora grew up in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County, California. She is a child of immigrants and the daughter of Mexican American heritage. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University in 2009 with dissertation titled "De Muchos, Uno: The Institutionalization of Latino Panethnicity, 1960–1990". In the dissertation she examined the historical construction of the Hispanic/Latino panethnic category in the United States. Before returning to UC Berkeley as faculty, Mora was a Provost Postdoctoral Scholar in Sociology at the University of Chicago from 2009 to 2011. She has since been promoted to Chancellor's Professor, the highest faculty rank at UC Berkeley. She holds a courtesy appointment in Chicano/Latino Studies.

Research and scholarship Mora's research focuses on racial and ethnic categorization, panethnicity, organizations, immigration, and racial politics in the United States and beyond. Her work examines how racial and ethnic categories are socially constructed, institutionalized, and contested through the interactions of government agencies, activist organizations, media institutions, and individuals.

Major publications Mora's first and most widely cited monograph is Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American (2014, University of Chicago Press), which provides the first comprehensive historical account of how the Hispanic/Latino panethnic identity emerged in the United States between the 1960s and 1990s. The book is based on extensive archival research, oral histories, and interviews tracing how activists, bureaucrats, and media executives in the 1970s and 1980s worked to construct a unified identity across previously distinct Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American populations.

The book received endorsements from prominent scholars including Edward Telles (Princeton University), Paul DiMaggio (Princeton University), and Hayagreeva Rao (Stanford Graduate School of Business).

Mora has also authored significant peer-reviewed articles, including: "Cross-Field Effects and Ethnic Classification: The Institutionalization of Hispanic Panethnicity, 1965 to 1990" (2014), published in American Sociological Review, which has been cited over 171 times "Panethnicity" (2014), co-authored with Dina Okamoto, published in the Annual Review of Sociology, providing a comprehensive review of panethnicity as a form of ethnic identification globally "Pandemic Politics: Political Worldviews and COVID-19 Beliefs and Practices in an Unsettled Time" (2020), co-authored with Hana Shepherd and Norah MacKendrick, published in Socius, examining how political ideology shaped COVID-19 health beliefs and behaviors in California "Who identifies as 'Latinx'? The generational politics of ethnoracial labels" (2022), co-authored with R. Perez and N. Vargas, published in Social Forces, exploring generational differences in adoption of the term Latinx

Teaching and curriculum development Mora is noted for her commitment to undergraduate and graduate teaching. She developed Latino Sociology, a course examining the historical and contemporary experiences of Latinx populations in the United States, designed for students who had limited exposure to scholarly material centered on the Latinx experience. The initiative provides fellowships, research grants, and community partnerships to develop the next generation of Latino-focused social scientists and policy researchers. 2015: Latina/Latino Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association for her article "Cross-Field Effects and Ethnic Classification: The Institutionalization of Hispanic Panethnicity, 1965 to 1990" published in American Sociological Review 2018: Early Career Award from the Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities (SREM) of the American Sociological Association, recognizing distinguished contributions to research on race and ethnicity in sociology 2020: Latinx Service Recognition Award from the Alianza Latinx Staff Association recognizing her contributions to Latinx advancement at UC Berkeley