About

Catherine Sue Ramírez is a scholar, teacher, mentor, and leader in the field of ethnic studies, with a focus on the experiences of Chicano/Latino communities, particularly in the areas of assimilation, precarity and belonging, and the cultural significance of the zoot suit.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Linguistics
• Geography
• Computer Science
• Philosophy
• Gender studies
• Law
• Engineering
• Environmental science
• Biology
• Agronomy
• Economic geography

Selected publications

• "It's an Old White Boys' Club:" Faculty of Color's Perceptions of Policy Engagement

  Review of higher education/˜The œreview of higher education · 2025-03-01

  articleSenior author

  Abstract: Scholars of color remain underrepresented in policymaking contexts, and the absence of their expertise in policy processes can have significant consequences for society. In this study, we examine motivations for and perceived barriers to engagement in public policymaking among faculty of color. Using an institutional logics framework and interviews with 20 tenure-stream faculty of color at 20 research universities, we identify three main themes that elucidate their perceptions of public policy engagement: (1) the network-driven, racialized nature of public policymaking spaces; (2) communal motivations and perceived benefits of public policy engagement; and (3) the double-edged sword of engaging with public policymaking.

  PublisherDOI

• Framing Corequisite Reform: Examining Staff Perceptions and Buy-in of a Statewide Dev-ed Reform Mandate

  The Journal of Higher Education · 2024-04-16 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  States and colleges nationwide are adopting corequisite reforms, where students assessed as not meeting college-readiness standards concurrently enroll in developmental and college-level coursework. Leveraging frame analysis—an approach drawn from collective action research—and interviews with 49 actors at 16 community colleges implementing a statewide corequisite mandate, we examine how institutional actors construct meaning of the status quo and reformed dev-ed systems and how they assign responsibility for solving identified problems. Examining the microprocesses experienced by institutional agents may explain the lack of buy-in among college personnel responsible for implementing dev-ed reform—surprising given growing evidence of the effectiveness of corequisites—and variation in reform take-up. Our findings on the frames used by implementing actors illuminate individual-level processes underlying lags in reform implementation and, for policymakers and administrators, can inform potential counterframes to spur further action and overcome resistance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “It’s an Old White Boys’ Club:” Faculty of Color’s Perceptions of Policy Engagement

  Review of higher education/˜The œreview of higher education · 2024-06-01

  articleSenior author

  Scholars of color remain underrepresented in policymaking contexts, and the absence of their expertise in policy processes can have significant consequences for society. In this study, we examine motivations for and perceived barriers to engagement in public policymaking among faculty of color. Using an institutional logics framework and interviews with 20 tenure-stream faculty of color at 20 research universities, we identify three main themes that elucidate their perceptions of public policy engagement: (1) the network-driven, racialized nature of public policymaking spaces; (2) communal motivations and perceived benefits of public policy engagement; and (3) the double-edged sword of engaging with public policymaking.

  PublisherDOI

• Supporting Public Policy Engagement for Tenure-Stream Faculty of Color

  Change The Magazine of Higher Learning · 2023-06-26 · 1 citations

  article

  In ShortColleges and universities can do more to support engagement in public policymaking among faculty of color.Institutional support for public policy engagement among faculty of color would increase the representation of people of color in policymaking settings and advance institutional goals (magnifying their impact and creating new opportunities for partnerships and funding).Recommendations for institutions to better support faculty of color’s policy engagement include formally valuing policy engagement, offering institutional support and protection from the consequences of public policy engagement, and providing resources for such engagement.

  PublisherDOI

• Review: <i>Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs</i>, by Maria L. Quintana

  Pacific Historical Review · 2023-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Book Review| November 01 2023 Review: Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs, by Maria L. Quintana Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs. By Maria L. Quintana. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. 296 pp.) Catherine S. Ramirez Catherine S. Ramirez University of California, Santa Cruz Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (2023) 92 (4): 649–650. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.4.649 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Catherine S. Ramirez; Review: Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs, by Maria L. Quintana. Pacific Historical Review 1 November 2023; 92 (4): 649–650. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.4.649 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search In April 2020, Donald Trump announced a sixty-day ban on immigration to the United States. Although the then-U.S. president claimed he was suspending immigration to protect American workers, his administration increased the number of H-2A visas for temporary agricultural workers. Trump’s simultaneous clampdown on immigration and expansion of the H-2A program was part of an enduring American pattern: dependence on immigrant labor and rejection of immigrants themselves. Quintana’s book elucidates this vexing paradox. To do so, it probes the entanglements of guestworker programs, liberalism, and empire. In addition to examining the Mexican bracero program, Quintana turns our attention to less-known guestworker programs, such as the War Relocation Authority Work Corps, an initiative that put incarcerated Japanese Americans to work on farms during the Second World War; the Puerto Rican labor importation programs (1943–1993); and the British West Indies farm labor programs that imported seasonal agricultural workers from the Bahamas, Jamaica,... You do not currently have access to this content.

  PublisherDOI

• Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship

  2021-06-18 · 4 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Precarity and Belonging examines how the movement of people and their incorporation, marginalization, and exclusion, under epochal conditions of labor and social precarity affecting both citizens and noncitizens, have challenged older notions of citizenship and alienage. This collection brings mobility, precarity, and citizenship together in order to explore the points of contact and friction, and, thus, the spaces for a possible politics of commonality between citizens and noncitizens.The editors ask: What does modern citizenship mean in a world of citizens, denizens, and noncitizens, such as undocumented migrants, guest workers, permanent residents, refugees, detainees, and stateless people? How is the concept of citizenship, based on assumptions of deservingness, legality, and productivity, challenged when people of various and competing statuses and differential citizenship practices interact with each other, revealing their co-constitutive connections? How is citizenship valued or revalued when labor and social precarity impact those who seemingly have formal rights and those who seemingly or effectively do not? This book interrogates such binaries as citizen/noncitizen, insider/outsider, entitled/unentitled, "legal"/"illegal," and deserving/undeserving in order to explore the fluidity--that is, the dynamism and malleability--of the spectra of belonging

  DOI

• Latinx Assimilation

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History · 2021-02-22

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Latinx is a gender-neutral, gender non-binary, gender non-conforming, and gender-inclusive label that refers to Latin American–origin groups in the United States. Since there are, by some counts, roughly thirty of these groups, Latinx, like Asian Pacific American, is a pan-ethnic label. Assimilation generally refers to a sociocultural process of absorption, of becoming more alike, and of boundary crossing (e.g., from margin to mainstream). When assimilation happens, the mainstream or the host society absorbs the minority or the newcomer, or the minority or the newcomer comes to resemble the majority or the host. In some instances, the majority or host takes on some of the minority’s or newcomer’s traits. Assimilation is widely seen as an outcome of immigration to the United States. However, before it was associated with immigration, assimilation was linked to efforts to “civilize” Native Americans and African Americans. Assimilation is sometimes used synonymously with acculturation, Americanization, incorporation, and integration. In the master narrative of immigration and assimilation, immigrants arrive and never look back. They change their names, learn English, acquire capital, and participate in mainstream institutions and culture. Within a couple of generations, their descendants blend in. Above all, assimilation is connected to ideas about who belongs in the United States. A pillar of the US nation-making project, it is a tool for distinguishing outsiders from insiders. More than a process of absorption, becoming more alike, and boundary crossing, assimilation is a relation of power. In some instances, groups are assimilated not as homologous peers but as distinct, subordinate, and even excluded others. These groups are, paradoxically, outsiders on the inside. Because Latinxs are a heterogeneous group and not all Latinxs are immigrants, there is no and has never been a single or homogeneous Latinx experience of assimilation. Some Latinxs assimilate in ways in which assimilation is generally understood: they move from margin to mainstream and blend in with the majority. Others are folded into a community made up of people from the same country of origin and have relatively little interaction with the dominant society. Others are assimilated as outsiders on the inside. Latinx assimilation is frequently studied in the context of language (specifically, English and Spanish), bilingualism, citizenship, naturalization, upward mobility, labor, entrepreneurship, education, conflicts and alliances between immigrants and US-born Latinxs, gender relations, and generational differences (especially between immigrant parents and their US-born children). In short, there are many ways Latinxs have or have not assimilated. Likewise, there are many ways to narrate the histories of Latinx assimilation. There is no single or definitive history of Latinx assimilation.

  PublisherDOI

• Precarity and Belonging

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2021 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Geography
  • Sociology

  Precarity and Belonging examines how the movement of people and their incorporation, marginalization, and exclusion, under epochal conditions of labor and social precarity affecting both citizens and noncitizens, have challenged older notions of citizenship and alienage. This collection brings mobility, precarity, and citizenship together in order to explore the points of contact and friction, and, thus, the spaces for a possible politics of commonality between citizens and noncitizens.The editors ask: What does modern citizenship mean in a world of citizens, denizens, and noncitizens, such as undocumented migrants, guest workers, permanent residents, refugees, detainees, and stateless people? How is the concept of citizenship, based on assumptions of deservingness, legality, and productivity, challenged when people of various and competing statuses and differential citizenship practices interact with each other, revealing their co-constitutive connections? How is citizenship valued or revalued when labor and social precarity impact those who seemingly have formal rights and those who seemingly or effectively do not? This book interrogates such binaries as citizen/noncitizen, insider/outsider, entitled/unentitled, “legal”/“illegal,” and deserving/undeserving in order to explore the fluidity--that is, the dynamism and malleability--of the spectra of belonging.

  PublisherDOI

• 15 Black No More: Black Denizenship and the Struggle for the Future

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2021-06-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction: Toward a Politics of Commonality: The Nexus of Mobility, Precarity, and (Non)citizenship

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michaela A. Jones

  2 shared

• Victoria Kim

  2 shared

• Denisa Gándara

  The University of Texas at Austin

  2 shared

• Navdeep Kaur

  Guru Kashi University

  2 shared

• Steven C. McKay

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1 shared

• Kamil Q. Brown

  The University of Texas at Austin

  1 shared

• Sylvanna M. Falcón

  1 shared

• Lauren Schudde

  1 shared

Education

• PhD, Education Leadership and Policy

  The University of Texas at Austin

  2025

Awards & honors

• Excellence in Teaching Award, UC Santa Cruz
• Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2001-02)
• Honorable Mention, 2019-20 Modern Language Association Prize…