2:20 p.m., Oct. 28, 2008----Robert Courtney Smith, a 1987 University of Delaware graduate and associate professor of sociology, immigration studies and public affairs in Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, has received the American Sociological Association's 2007 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for his acclaimed work, Mexican New York: Transnational Worlds of New Immigrants (University of California Press, 2005).

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Based on 15 years of ethnographic research in New York City and Puebla, Mexico, Mexican New York shows how transnational life both influences and is influenced by a variety of social processes.

Among the processes are migration decisions, assimilation patterns and gender relations among first- and second-generation immigrants.

The book also examines political participation in American and Mexican communities, the process of racialization and social mobility patterns through the life course.

An ASA press release said that Mexican New York: Transnational Worlds of New Immigrants “is an ambitious, methodologically meticulous analysis of the lives of Mexican immigrants, both in New York City and in their regular visits back to their communities of origin in Mexico. This is a timely and important book that offers significant contributions to a dizzying number of areas within sociology.”

Smith, who graduated from the University of Delaware with an honors degree, majoring in economics and political science, credited his undergraduate research experiences at UD with furthering his academic and professional career achievements.

“The research I am doing now grew directly out of the work I did as an undergraduate at UD,” Smith said. “I did three years of independent research while I was at UD, and rolled into grad school after taking a year off, ready to start a dissertation.”

Smith received his master's and doctorate degrees in political science from Columbia University, where his dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft Prize. His research areas include the sociology of immigration, transnationalization and globalization, Latinos in the United States, education, the second generation and undocumented workers. Additional research areas include racialization, ethnicity, masculinity and gender, immigrants and the life course and state diaspora relations.

Smith will be speaking on campus at UD in April, in an event cosponsored by the departments of sociology and criminal justice, political science and international relations and the Honors Program.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo courtesy of Baruch College