Valerie Francisco-Menchavez
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez is the College of Health & Social Science's assistant dean for restorative and transformative social justice and an associate professor of sociology. Dr. Francisco’s academic interests include: global and transnational sociology, migration and immigration studies, diaspora with a special interest on the Philippine migration, gender and the family, racial and ethnic relations in the U.S., labor, transnational social movements with regard to migrant workers, and international political economy. Her current book project explores the dynamics of gender and technology of care work in Filipino transnational families in the Philippines and the U.S. Through an examination of neoliberal immigration policies and market forces, Francisco contextualizes the shifts in the long-standing transnational family formation in the Philippines. Dr. Francisco research program includes a transnational study of Filipino migrant mothers in New York City and their families left behind in Manila and participatory action research with Filipino immigrants working as caregivers in the U.S. In journals like Critical Sociology, Working USA, The Philippine Sociological Review and International Review of Qualitative Research, Dr. Francisco also writes on the transnational activism that emerges from the social conditions of migration, separation and migrant labor.
Francisco’s research is informed by the transnational activism of GABRIELA, an alliance of progressive Filipino women’s organizations in the Philippines and internationally, and MIGRANTE International, an international alliance of Filipino migrant workers. These networks of diasporic and transnational solidarity between Filipino migrant communities and the national democratic movement in the Philippines has helped shape her critical perspective on neoliberalism. To this end, Francisco has engaged in participatory action research and feminist methods in all of her research projects where Filipino and Filipina migrants’ experiences are centered as expertise. Currently, she is collaborating with Robyn Rodriguez on a PAR project with Filipino caregivers and domestic workers to research an understudied industry of caregiving to the elderly. More importantly, this research project allows for the development of leadership and organizing capacity in the Filipino community in the Bay Area through an newly formed organization, Migrante Northern California.
Dr. Francisco has been awarded the 2015 Pacific Sociological Association’s Distinguished Contribution to Sociological Praxis Award and has been named one of the ten national finalists for the 2014 Lynton Award Scholarship of Engagement for Early Scholars by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE).
Previously Offered Courses
- SOC 464 Families and Society
- Ethnic Relations: International Comparisons
Publications
- Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie. The Labor of Care Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age. University of Illinois Press, 2018.