Rocío Rosales
Associate Professor of Sociology
r.rosales@uci.edu
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2012
Research areas: International Migration, Urban Sociology, Qualitative Methods, Latino/a Studies
Rocío Rosales is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Prior to this appointment she was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She completed her Ph.D. in Sociology at UCLA in 2012 and received her A.B. in Sociology (cum laude) with a certificate in Latin American Studies from Princeton University. Her research interests include international migration, immigrant and ethnic economies, race and ethnicity, law and society, Latinas/os in the US, and qualitative research methods. Her work has been funded by the American Philosophical Society (2011), John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation (2010), Ford Foundation (2005-2008), and Mellon Mays Foundation (2003-2012). Her research appears in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Ethnic and Racial Studies. Her book, Fruteros: Street Vending, Illegality, and Ethnic Community, was published by University of California Press.
Distinguished Book Award 2021, Co-winner
American Sociological Association, Latina/o Sociology Section
Thomas and Znaniecki Book Award 2021, Honorable Mention
American Sociological Association, International Migration Section
“This stellar work artfully details the complex lives of immigrants who make a living selling fruit on the streets of Los Angeles. Drawing from six years of ethnographic research, Rocío Rosales offers an innovative theoretical tool—the ethnic cage—to explain how constant crackdowns on immigrant street vendors enhance their vulnerability as well as their willingness to exploit their compatriots.”—Tanya Golash-Boza, author of Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism
“This important ethnography is a critical contribution to our understanding of migrant networks and labor precarity.”—Shannon Gleeson, Associate Professor of Labor Relations, Law and History, Cornell University
“Rosales shows us the microcosm of everyday life within which co-ethnics interact with, coexist with, compete with, and disappoint one another. Fruteros is theoretically rich and thoroughly engaging—ethnography at its best.”—Cecilia Menjívar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
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