About

Jody Agius Vallejo is a Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC Dornsife, where she also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. She is an expert in immigrant integration and mobility, the minoritized middle and upper classes, and racial/ethnic inequality in the United States. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that propel immigrants and their descendants into the middle and upper echelons of the class structure and the processes that shape their integration pathways. She is particularly interested in studying these groups by 'studying up,' which involves focusing on the middle and upper classes and using multiple methods to explore understudied segments within these groups, challenging traditional theories of immigrant integration and socioeconomic mobility.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Gender studies
• Social Science
• Anthropology
• Political economy
• Geography

Selected publications

• Minoritized Economic Elites in Racially Stratified Systems

  2026-04-04

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The term elite typically conjures up an image of a white man in a business suit boarding a private jet. Rarely are Latinos or other minoritized groups envisioned as being part of this category. The study of elites is experiencing a revival, yet most research investigates the experiences of White elites. This chapter uses Latino economic elites as a case study to understand how race and class impact the philanthropic and economic activities of Latino elites via the frameworks of ethnoracial philanthropy and ethnoracial capitalism. The chapter concludes that research and theories investigating the rise, lives, and practices of elites must include understandings of how elites manage their elite status in racially stratified systems.

  PublisherDOI

• Racist Policy Shocks in the United States and Latino Elites’ Identities and Actions: Prop 187, SB 1070, and Trump’s Racism

  American Behavioral Scientist · 2025-02-24

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This article draws on interviews conducted with 65 upper-middle class and upper-class Latinos in the business and corporate sector to investigate how racist and exclusionary immigration policy shocks at the state and federal level in the United States—such as Prop 187 in California, SB1070 in Arizona in the 2010s and Trump’s criminalizing rhetoric and immigration policies before and during his first term—shape the racial/ethnic identification and philanthropic activities of Latino economic elites. I argue that well-publicized racialized policies, what I refer to “racist policy shocks,” have enduring effects because they shock systems at multiple levels of society that ripple through institutions and everyday life and across time. Racist policy shocks can result in more than changes in public opinion, a thickening of ethnic identity, and political protest in the moment that groups are being targeted—they can also have long-lasting impacts on racial/ethnic identity, reinforce ethnic solidarity, and spur people to economic action and ethnoracial uplift. I argue that individual level factors rooted in ethnorace and class intersections—such as growing up in low-income communities and experiences with discrimination—combine with an exclusionary macro level context—such as negative political rhetoric that constantly demonizes Latinos as a threat—to crystallize a sense of ethnic solidarity and responsibility for the broader Latino community.

  PublisherDOI

• Generational Precarity Ripples: Legal Status, Economic Mobility, and Well-being Within and Across Generations

  National symposium on family issues · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Latino Middle Class

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2024-05-15 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Latino educational gains over time and income mobility portend a burgeoning Latino middle class. In this article, we critically review scholarship on the Latino middle class, from theoretical perspectives aiming to explain Latino experiences to empirical research investigating mechanisms that promote, and barriers that thwart, upward mobility. Studies suggest that the Latino middle class is distinctive for many reasons—from structural barriers to asset accumulation, legal status precarity for self or family, financial responsibility for class-disadvantaged kin, and negative controlling images that bog down class ascension. Scholars’ recent efforts to decouple middle-class status from Whiteness is an important contribution that undercuts the notion that melding into Whiteness is the desired outcome of middle-class integration. In addition to the utility of education to upward mobility, we contend that studies of middle-class pathways should expand to recognize that Latinos are engaging in workarounds—career paths not requiring a bachelor's degree, such as business ownership or credentialed professions. Workarounds are an intervention that accounts for routes to mobility that are eclipsed by conventional conceptions of mobility. Ultimately, we argue that Latinos are attaining middle-class status even as they are racialized, thereby expanding the minoritized middle class.

  PublisherDOI

• Feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship among Latina elite and middle‐class entrepreneurs

  Gender Work and Organization · 2023-11-27 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Latinas represent one of the fastest‐growing groups of entrepreneurs in the United States, yet they are understudied in entrepreneurship research. Through three case studies of middle‐class and wealthy Latinas, we explore how ethnorace, gender, immigration, class, and community shape their entrepreneurial endeavors as they practice what we refer to as feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship–entrepreneurial endeavors that aim to empower, assist, and/or build community amongst women through ethnic and gender‐specific services and experiences. Feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship, in theory, aims to mitigate ethnoracial and gender inequality. Our participants draw from their lived experiences to inform their entrepreneurial motivations to make a profit and a social difference. By incorporating research centered on feminist approaches to entrepreneurship, we show how gender and the ethnoracial context combine with class to shape Latina entrepreneurs' ethnoracial capitalism and community empowerment practices at the levels of institutions, in community spaces, and markets as they navigate broader structures of racial and gender inequality. Our participants challenge structural ethnoracial and gender exclusion via entrepreneurial endeavors in finance that aim to address gender and racial gaps in access to commercial capital, by opening Latino coffee shops rooted in community and feminist ideology, and by fashioning physical and digital makers markets grounded in Chicana/Latina Feminisms.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A distinct integration path? Latino economic elites in Los Angeles growing the Latino middle class

  Compare A Journal of Comparative and International Education · 2023-08-15 · 8 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACTThis research examines Latino economic elites in Los Angeles who engage in 'ethnoracial philanthropy' – giving to or creating ethnic-centric organisations that focus on alleviating socioeconomic inequalities. We draw on 65 in-depth interviews to provide insights into the ethnoracial educational structures created by Latino elites to facilitate the mobility of Latino youth. We compare three ways in which philanthropy manifests: via the creation of Latino scholarship funds; ethnic-centric charter schools in low-income Latino neighbourhoods; Latino youth leadership programmes comprised of college students from the top 100 universities. These institutions may serve to widen the path to inclusion by creating a distinct ethnoracial integration path via education, contrasting with assimilation theory and the minority culture of mobility framework. However, the focus on education, and not on other issues, benefits those who reproduce the elites' image.KEYWORDS: Educational mobilityethnoracial philanthropyLatino elitesminority culture of mobilityLatinos AcknowledgmentsWe thank Sean Angst, Jazmin Muro, and Stephanie Canizales for research assistance. We also thank Tim Biblarz, Richard Green, Pierrette Hondagnue-Sotelo, Zulema Valdez, Tanya Golash-Boza, Jason Seawright, Sara Goodman, George Sanchez and the anonymous reviewers for critical comments and suggestions. We also thank our research participants for participating in this study. This research was supported by the American Sociological Association/National Science Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, the UC Davis Centre for Poverty Research, The John and Dora Haynes Foundation, USC Office of the Provost, and the USC Lusk Centre for Real Estate. This paper also benefited significantly from presentations at the 2015 Southwest Mixed Methods Research Workshop at the University of New Mexico, the University of California, Merced and Davis, and Stanford University.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the American Sociological Association/National Science Foundation [Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline]; UC Davis Centre for Poverty Research Lusk Centre for Real Estate.

  PublisherDOI

• Latinos & Racism in the Trump Era

  Daedalus · 2021 · 91 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Gender studies

  Abstract This essay examines the roots, causes, and effects of racism experienced by Latinos in the Trump era. We argue that Trump and his administration were not the origin of Latinos' experiences of racism, but his rise to power was, in part, derived from Latino racialization. Preexisting politics of Latino immigration, Whites' fear of loss of status due to demographic shifts, and historical and contemporary processes of racializing Latinos were seized by the Trump administration and made central features of his renegade presidential campaign and policy agenda. White nationalist racism became the defining feature of the Trump presidency, making Latinos' heightened experiences of racism, and the relegitimization of overt White nationalism, one of its lasting legacies.

  PublisherDOI

• Ethnoracial Capitalism and the Limits of Ethnic Solidarity

  Social Problems · 2021 · 16 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  Abstract Based on qualitative data drawn from Latino elites, Latino entrepreneurs, and two Latino banks in Los Angeles, we theorize the concept of ethnoracial capitalism, which occurs within racialized groups when group members commodify ethnicity through the sale of culturally-specific goods or when institutions and services are imbued with ethnicity and assumed to form the basis of profitable financial exchanges. We investigate why Latino elites establish Latino-centric banks, and we draw on the perspectives of Latino-elites and middle- and upper-class entrepreneurs to examine whether shared ethnoracial and class resources breed solidarity between Latino elite-owned and -operated banks and the Latino entrepreneurs they target. We find that structural constraints, the state, and class conflict thwarts the possibility of sustaining banking practices rooted in ethnoracial solidarity. Our research provides insights into the fraught intra-ethnic relationships that can occur within ethnoracial capitalistic endeavors that are situated within racist racial projects, such as the U.S. banking system. Ultimately, the sole presence of capital and ethnic financial institutions in minoritized communities does not remedy economic inequalities born of White supremacist racial projects and racially stratified systems, such as U.S. financial markets.

  PublisherDOI

• 2. Mexican Americans Yesterday and Today

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Getting Involved: Lizbeth Mateo

  Contexts · 2020-02-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Jody Agius Vallejo sits down with immigrant rights activist and attorney, Lizbeth Mateo.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Heterogeneity and Adaptation in American Wealth

  NSF · $120k · 2013–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Zulema Valdez

  University of California, Merced

  146 shared

• Daisy Reyes

  University of Oregon

  144 shared

• David Torres-Rouff

  California State University, Channel Islands

  144 shared

• Irenee R. Beattie

  University of California, Merced

  144 shared

• Gilberto Rosas

  144 shared

• Helen Marrow

  California State University, Channel Islands

  144 shared

• Vilna Treitler

  University of Oregon

  144 shared

• Jemima Pierre

  144 shared

Awards & honors

• 2023 Award for Public Sociology in International Migration f…
• 2023 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the ASA Section…