Lisa Sun-Hee Park
Associate Professor
Ph.D. 1998 Northwestern University
Room 1035 Social Sciences
tel.: 612-624-8563
email: lspark@umn.edu
Interest Areas
Park’s area of research and teaching include: Immigration and welfare policy; Immigrant health care access; Race, gender, and class; Asian American studies; Environmental inequality; Urban theory and methods.
Current Research
Her current research project, “The Politics of Immigrant Motherhood: Race, Prenatal Care, and the Welfare State,” investigates the impact of federal welfare and immigration policies on Asian and Latina immigrant women’s health care access. This study focuses on the political ramifications of contemporary constructions of pregnant immigrant women as “public charges” or burdens upon the state. A second on-going project is titled, “The Slums of Aspen: Immigrant Labor, the Environment, and the Politics of Poverty.” This joint project with D.N. Pellow focuses on Aspen, Colorado as an entree to a larger discussion of the place and persistence of immigrant labor in the global economy. By analyzing community reactions to growing numbers of low-income Latino immigrant workers in this exclusive tourist destination, this study identifies how “environmentalism” is used as a rhetorical tool for promoting a particular idyllic image of a post-industrial refuge from racism and poverty. Park is also in the early stages of a new research project on the household health strategies among Middle Eastern and African refugee domestic violence survivors in San Diego.
Selected Publications
“Continuing Significance of the Model Minority Myth: The Second Generation.” Forthcoming 2008. Social Justice.
Consuming Citizenship: Children of Asian Immigrant Entrepreneurs. 2005. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
- 2006 American Sociological Association, Asia and Asian America Section Outstanding Book Award.
“Making the Invisible Visible: Asian American/Pacific Islander Workers in Silicon Valley,” with David Pellow. 2005. AAPI Nexus 3(1): 45-65.
“Racial Formation, Environmental Racism, and the Emergence of Silicon Valley,” with David Pellow. 2004. Ethnicities 4 (3): 403-423.
Silicon Valley of Dreams: Immigrant Labor, Environmental Injustice, and the High Tech Global Economy, with David Pellow. 2002. New York: New York University Press.
“Perpetuation of Poverty through ‘Public Charge.’” 2001. Denver University Law Review 78:1161-1177.