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Natalia Molina
Distinguished Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity, University of Southern California

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Natalia Molina
Distinguished Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity, University of Southern California
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Detention and Deportation, Immigration During the 20th Century, Immigration During the 21st Century, Labor Migration, Race and Ethnicity
AREAS OF TEACHING
Latinx Studies, Immigration, Foodways, Gender, Urban Studies, & Public Health
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
BIO
Natalia Molina is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is the author of two award-winning books, How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts and Fit to Be Citizens?: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1940, as well as co-editor of Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method and Practice. Her work examines the interconnectedness of racial and ethnic communities through her concept of “racial scripts” which looks at how practices, customs, policies and laws that are directed at one group and are readily available and hence easily applied to other groups. She continues to explore the themes of race, space, labor, immigration, gender and urban history in her forthcoming book A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant in Los Angeles Nourished its Community (University of California Press, 2022). Professor Molina is working on a new book, The Silent Hands that Shaped the Huntington: A History of Its Mexican Workers.
AWARDS
Professor Molina is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Her work has been supported by various organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford, Mellon and Rockefeller Foundation. She is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. In 2018, she was the Organization of American Historians China Residency scholar. She has also been the recipient of various awards for her diversity work, including by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
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