Ethnic Studies

Ron Mize is Professor in the School of Language, Culture, and Society and Coordinator of Ethnic Studies (2020-2021, 2023-2024).  He previously taught International Relations, Sociology, Latino Studies, and Ethnic Studies at ITAM (Mexico City), Humboldt State University, Cornell University, University of Saint Francis-Fort Wayne, California State University-San Marcos, University of California San Diego, Southwestern College, Colorado State University and University of Wisconsin Rock County.  He was trained as a journalist at the University of Colorado Boulder and went on to study Sociology at Colorado State University (M.A.) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D.).  In 2016, he was the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Chair in U.S. Studies at el Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.  From 2020-2022, he was the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

His scholarly research focuses on the historical origins of racial, class, and gender oppression in the lives of Mexicano/as and Latina/os residing in the United States. Due to the reliance on Mexican labor in the rural industries of agriculture, mining, and railroad construction, his historical research explores the class, gender, and race formations of Anglo-Chicano relations as they relate to these sectors of rural spaces and the economy. He investigates the degree to which contemporary immigrant labor is informed by the history of Mexican incorporation into the rural United States. He is also committed to building Latinx studies within a comparative ethnic studies framework. He seeks to understand the underlying assumptions about nation, race, identity, gender and class in how the public forms our opinions about immigration and part of his effort is to carve out a new paradigm for understanding both the political economy and culture of immigration as well as their interconnections. 

Professor Mize is the author of over 50 scholarly publications, including LATINA/O STUDIES (2019, Polity Books),  THE INVISIBLE WORKERS OF THE U.S.-MEXICO BRACERO PROGRAM: OBREROS OLVIDADOS (2016, Lexington Books), CONSUMING MEXICAN LABOR: FROM THE BRACERO PROGRAM TO NAFTA (2010, University of Toronto Press, with Alicia Swords), and LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES (2012, Polity Books, with Grace Peña Delgado).  A more accessible discussion of his work is available from the ABC-CLIO series Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society.

Do the benefits to American society of immigration outweigh its costs?

On September 24, 2016, Professor Mize presented a report at the Stronger Together/Fuerza Unida conference commissioned by the Oregon Latino Agenda for Action on the status of Latino/a well-being in the state of Oregon.  Thanks to OLAA for making the executive summary and full report available to the public.  The report was updated in 2018 but subsequently interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.  See the efforts of a collaborative team who worked to mitigate the impacts of COVID on Oregon's farmworkers.