Greg Prieto
www.gregprieto.com
Greg Prieto is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego. His first book, tentatively titled Precarity and Power: Immigrant Lives and Immigrant Action in the Deportation Nation, is under advance contract with New York University Press.
Professor Prieto's research interests lie at the intersection of race, racism, and legal violence. His primary focuses are Mexican immigration, police and Border Patrol, and social movements. His first book project is comparative ethnographic study of two Mexican immigrant communities in California as they negotiate and collectively contest the precariousness of life lived in the shadows of detention, deportation, and dispossession.
Future work includes a small scale survey of deported migrants living in 'El Bordo' or the Tijuana River Canal that runs the length of the border between Tijuana and California. Undergraduate students and the Tijuana-based NGO Fundación GAIA are key collaborators on this project.
His work appears in the peer-reviewed publications The American Sociologist, Mobilization, and is forthcoming in Latino Studies. Book chapters appear in the edited volumes The Nation and Its Peoples: Citizens, Denizens, Migrants (Park and Gleenson, 2014, Routledge) and Beginning a Career in Academic: A Guide for Graduate Students of Color (Mack, Watson, Camacho, 2014, Routledge). The National Science Foundation, the UC Center for New Racial Studies, and the USD Office of Undergraduate Research have generously funded his work.
Greg received his PhD from UC-Santa Barbara where he worked under the supervision of Howard Winant. He lives in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego, California with his partner James and their dog Cocoa.
Supervisors: Howard Winant, France Winddance Twine, and Lisa Hajjar
Phone: 619-260-4027
Address: 5998 Alcalá Park
Department of Sociology
San Diego, CA 92110
Greg Prieto is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego. His first book, tentatively titled Precarity and Power: Immigrant Lives and Immigrant Action in the Deportation Nation, is under advance contract with New York University Press.
Professor Prieto's research interests lie at the intersection of race, racism, and legal violence. His primary focuses are Mexican immigration, police and Border Patrol, and social movements. His first book project is comparative ethnographic study of two Mexican immigrant communities in California as they negotiate and collectively contest the precariousness of life lived in the shadows of detention, deportation, and dispossession.
Future work includes a small scale survey of deported migrants living in 'El Bordo' or the Tijuana River Canal that runs the length of the border between Tijuana and California. Undergraduate students and the Tijuana-based NGO Fundación GAIA are key collaborators on this project.
His work appears in the peer-reviewed publications The American Sociologist, Mobilization, and is forthcoming in Latino Studies. Book chapters appear in the edited volumes The Nation and Its Peoples: Citizens, Denizens, Migrants (Park and Gleenson, 2014, Routledge) and Beginning a Career in Academic: A Guide for Graduate Students of Color (Mack, Watson, Camacho, 2014, Routledge). The National Science Foundation, the UC Center for New Racial Studies, and the USD Office of Undergraduate Research have generously funded his work.
Greg received his PhD from UC-Santa Barbara where he worked under the supervision of Howard Winant. He lives in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego, California with his partner James and their dog Cocoa.
Supervisors: Howard Winant, France Winddance Twine, and Lisa Hajjar
Phone: 619-260-4027
Address: 5998 Alcalá Park
Department of Sociology
San Diego, CA 92110
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Papers by Greg Prieto
for those who are going on the market for the first time and cannot draw on the lessons of their own experience, must be to collect as many stories about successful and unsuccessful job searches from your colleagues and friends as you can. Below I share practical tools that helped me through this process and offer some best practices that stand out to me in retrospect. This chapter unfolds in three parts. First, I describe how I prepared for the phone interview, capturing the most pared-down answers to eight questions everyone can expect to be asked during the phone interview. I stress the importance of practice and working with your peers and committee members to hone your interview skills.
Second, I share my experience of preparing for and going through the campus interview. Again, preparing for the interview by practicing the job talk and
the teaching demonstration with peers and advisors is key for a successful interview. While performing well on the centerpieces of the campus interview—the job talk and the teaching demonstration—are vital, I also stress the interpersonal
aspects of the interview process. Your academic record is being evaluated, to be sure, but your interviewers are also trying to imagine you as a colleague. Take the time to genuinely connect with them.
The third and final section of this chapter focuses on this central concern in the job search: fit. The committee is not only assessing whether you are a good fit for the department; you are determining whether the department is a good fit
for you. Can you envision a career for yourself at this university or college and in this department? This issue of fit raises a final dilemma, especially for candidates who are queer, people of color, or queer people of color. From your interactions
with potential colleagues and mentors, from the stories that you collect during your visit, from the composition of the student body and the faculty, and from the presence or absence of institutional programs designed to ensure your success: Do you have the sense that you would be able to form a meaningful community that will support you? Colleagues need not share your identities, but search for evidence of a genuine institutional investment in the success of queer faculty of color, support that we know is critical for overcoming the hurdles that queer faculty and faculty of color often face (see Camacho & Lord, 2013; Gutiérrez y Muhs et al., 2012; Mack, Watson, & Camacho, 2012; Rendón, 2009; Rockquemore
& Laszloffy, 2008).
Pacific Sociological Association (PSA). The authors explore the role that professional organizations such as the PSA have played in promoting racial and ethnic diversity within the Sociology pipeline. Further, it provides an analytic overview of the history of conference presentations on the topic of race and ethnicity within the PSA over the last eight decades. The article proceeds in three major parts: First, is an outline of the
contours of the problem of racial underrepresentation in the academy. Next, follows a content analysis of PSA programs, which indicates that race continues to be of central
importance to the PSA and that the 1970s were a turning point when the PSA began to examine its role in promoting diversity in the discipline. Finally, mentorship is presented as a critical vehicle for promoting greater racial equity in the PSA and the
discipline of Sociology more broadly.
Data collected during the survey indicate that although there is not an acute crisis of trust between the Latina/o community and police, some patterns of interaction with police have eroded the Latina/o community’s willingness to interact with law enforcement. The community relies, as before, on the police to respond in emergencies and to keep them safe. Still, under certain conditions, people are much less likely to trust police. Respondents who have had a direct experience with police in the past or perceive themselves as likely to interact with the police in the future are less likely to express trust in police. These members of the Latino community are less likely to turn to police in times of need.
Santa Barbara is at a crossroads. While everyone in Santa Barbara relies on effective policing, there are marked instances of Latina/o mistrust, misgivings, and confusion about the police and police practices in the city. Both respondents and researchers recognize that the police have made efforts toward establishing a more trusting relationship with the community. Yet we recommend that further steps be taken to cultivate trusting relationships with the Santa Barbara Latino/a community.
In this chapter, I make two related arguments. First, I provide analysis of ‘protection’ strategies that my respondents described in order to avoid deportation, impoundment of their cars, and incarceration. I argue that these strategies are forms of isolation and avoidance that enable them to minimize their interactions with agents of the “state,” particularly the police.
Second, I argue that paradoxically these same strategies operate as a barrier to community engagement and social justice organizing. The very same strategies that offer cover from the reach of state agents function as barriers to involvement in the wider community, including social movement organizing.
Book Project by Greg Prieto
While scholars have closely examined immigration law and enforcement as something that is done to people, far less scholarship has examined what immigrants do in response. This book project takes a different tack by offering a comparative ethnographic examination of the ways Mexican immigrants from two communities with different political climates 1) endure the daily threats of property apprehension, detention, and deportation, and 2) fight back against their marginalization.
While recent mobilization efforts have not matched the scale of the 2006 marches, energetic state and local organizing continues, especially in response the failure of comprehensive immigration reform and to broader transformations in the architecture of immigration enforcement, namely “crimmigration” and devolution. Crimmigration refers to the criminalization of immigration and the growing overlap between criminal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. One process by which crimmigration occurs is devolution. Typically an exclusively federal prerogative, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has pulled state and local governments into the work immigration enforcement through programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm), the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), and the now defunct 287(g) program. Immigrants and immigrant advocates have responded by targeting local and state elected officials, city police departments, and Sheriff’s departments with varying success. In this way, devolution has proliferated not only the sites of repression, but also the sites of contestation. Comparative studies, like this one, are critical because they tap into the difference that different local political climates make in the reception or repression of local immigrant communities.
Drawing on three years of participant observation with a social movement organization and over 60 interviews with Mexican immigrants, I broadly argue that immigrants’ legal vulnerability prompts an “inward turn”—a shell—that functions both as a protection from deportation and as a barrier to participation in social movement organization and wider civic participation. At the level of interaction, social movement actors and organizations play a critical role in the cultivation of immigrant activists, whose mobilization is informed by a critical consciousness borne of the experience of exploitative labor relations and racial subordination. In the context of crimmigration and devolution, this comparative ethnography examines the way two different local political environments—one repressive, one progressive—shape their perceptions of local police and immigration enforcement and, consequently, immigrants’ claims and the strategies used to pursue them.
This book highlights a central dilemma in immigrant political activity: while the marginalization of immigrants inspires a range of grievances that move some immigrants to action, this marginalization also stands as a concrete barrier to participation in social movement organizing. In this way, the social location of the immigrant “other” both enables and constrains their ability to act politically. Consequently, immigrant politics take on a reformist tone not as a consequence of a lack of individual critical imagination among immigrant activists, but as a consequence of their structural location as low wage racialized immigrants whose horizons of expectations are shaped by the urgency of their material grievances. Immigrant political activity is limited by the very source of its inspiration: its material mooring.
for those who are going on the market for the first time and cannot draw on the lessons of their own experience, must be to collect as many stories about successful and unsuccessful job searches from your colleagues and friends as you can. Below I share practical tools that helped me through this process and offer some best practices that stand out to me in retrospect. This chapter unfolds in three parts. First, I describe how I prepared for the phone interview, capturing the most pared-down answers to eight questions everyone can expect to be asked during the phone interview. I stress the importance of practice and working with your peers and committee members to hone your interview skills.
Second, I share my experience of preparing for and going through the campus interview. Again, preparing for the interview by practicing the job talk and
the teaching demonstration with peers and advisors is key for a successful interview. While performing well on the centerpieces of the campus interview—the job talk and the teaching demonstration—are vital, I also stress the interpersonal
aspects of the interview process. Your academic record is being evaluated, to be sure, but your interviewers are also trying to imagine you as a colleague. Take the time to genuinely connect with them.
The third and final section of this chapter focuses on this central concern in the job search: fit. The committee is not only assessing whether you are a good fit for the department; you are determining whether the department is a good fit
for you. Can you envision a career for yourself at this university or college and in this department? This issue of fit raises a final dilemma, especially for candidates who are queer, people of color, or queer people of color. From your interactions
with potential colleagues and mentors, from the stories that you collect during your visit, from the composition of the student body and the faculty, and from the presence or absence of institutional programs designed to ensure your success: Do you have the sense that you would be able to form a meaningful community that will support you? Colleagues need not share your identities, but search for evidence of a genuine institutional investment in the success of queer faculty of color, support that we know is critical for overcoming the hurdles that queer faculty and faculty of color often face (see Camacho & Lord, 2013; Gutiérrez y Muhs et al., 2012; Mack, Watson, & Camacho, 2012; Rendón, 2009; Rockquemore
& Laszloffy, 2008).
Pacific Sociological Association (PSA). The authors explore the role that professional organizations such as the PSA have played in promoting racial and ethnic diversity within the Sociology pipeline. Further, it provides an analytic overview of the history of conference presentations on the topic of race and ethnicity within the PSA over the last eight decades. The article proceeds in three major parts: First, is an outline of the
contours of the problem of racial underrepresentation in the academy. Next, follows a content analysis of PSA programs, which indicates that race continues to be of central
importance to the PSA and that the 1970s were a turning point when the PSA began to examine its role in promoting diversity in the discipline. Finally, mentorship is presented as a critical vehicle for promoting greater racial equity in the PSA and the
discipline of Sociology more broadly.
Data collected during the survey indicate that although there is not an acute crisis of trust between the Latina/o community and police, some patterns of interaction with police have eroded the Latina/o community’s willingness to interact with law enforcement. The community relies, as before, on the police to respond in emergencies and to keep them safe. Still, under certain conditions, people are much less likely to trust police. Respondents who have had a direct experience with police in the past or perceive themselves as likely to interact with the police in the future are less likely to express trust in police. These members of the Latino community are less likely to turn to police in times of need.
Santa Barbara is at a crossroads. While everyone in Santa Barbara relies on effective policing, there are marked instances of Latina/o mistrust, misgivings, and confusion about the police and police practices in the city. Both respondents and researchers recognize that the police have made efforts toward establishing a more trusting relationship with the community. Yet we recommend that further steps be taken to cultivate trusting relationships with the Santa Barbara Latino/a community.
In this chapter, I make two related arguments. First, I provide analysis of ‘protection’ strategies that my respondents described in order to avoid deportation, impoundment of their cars, and incarceration. I argue that these strategies are forms of isolation and avoidance that enable them to minimize their interactions with agents of the “state,” particularly the police.
Second, I argue that paradoxically these same strategies operate as a barrier to community engagement and social justice organizing. The very same strategies that offer cover from the reach of state agents function as barriers to involvement in the wider community, including social movement organizing.
While scholars have closely examined immigration law and enforcement as something that is done to people, far less scholarship has examined what immigrants do in response. This book project takes a different tack by offering a comparative ethnographic examination of the ways Mexican immigrants from two communities with different political climates 1) endure the daily threats of property apprehension, detention, and deportation, and 2) fight back against their marginalization.
While recent mobilization efforts have not matched the scale of the 2006 marches, energetic state and local organizing continues, especially in response the failure of comprehensive immigration reform and to broader transformations in the architecture of immigration enforcement, namely “crimmigration” and devolution. Crimmigration refers to the criminalization of immigration and the growing overlap between criminal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. One process by which crimmigration occurs is devolution. Typically an exclusively federal prerogative, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has pulled state and local governments into the work immigration enforcement through programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm), the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), and the now defunct 287(g) program. Immigrants and immigrant advocates have responded by targeting local and state elected officials, city police departments, and Sheriff’s departments with varying success. In this way, devolution has proliferated not only the sites of repression, but also the sites of contestation. Comparative studies, like this one, are critical because they tap into the difference that different local political climates make in the reception or repression of local immigrant communities.
Drawing on three years of participant observation with a social movement organization and over 60 interviews with Mexican immigrants, I broadly argue that immigrants’ legal vulnerability prompts an “inward turn”—a shell—that functions both as a protection from deportation and as a barrier to participation in social movement organization and wider civic participation. At the level of interaction, social movement actors and organizations play a critical role in the cultivation of immigrant activists, whose mobilization is informed by a critical consciousness borne of the experience of exploitative labor relations and racial subordination. In the context of crimmigration and devolution, this comparative ethnography examines the way two different local political environments—one repressive, one progressive—shape their perceptions of local police and immigration enforcement and, consequently, immigrants’ claims and the strategies used to pursue them.
This book highlights a central dilemma in immigrant political activity: while the marginalization of immigrants inspires a range of grievances that move some immigrants to action, this marginalization also stands as a concrete barrier to participation in social movement organizing. In this way, the social location of the immigrant “other” both enables and constrains their ability to act politically. Consequently, immigrant politics take on a reformist tone not as a consequence of a lack of individual critical imagination among immigrant activists, but as a consequence of their structural location as low wage racialized immigrants whose horizons of expectations are shaped by the urgency of their material grievances. Immigrant political activity is limited by the very source of its inspiration: its material mooring.