Evelyn Rodriguez
Associate Professor
Biography
Evelyn I. Rodriguez is a second-generation Pinay, who was born in Honolulu, raised in San Diego, and is now an Associate Professor for the University of San Francisco's Department of Sociology. She also is a faculty member in Critical Diversity Studies, Asian American Studies, and the Maria Elena Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from UC San Diego as a Sociology major/Ethnic Studies minor; and received her MA and PhD from UC Berkeley's Sociology program. She has taught Asian and Pacific Islanders in U.S. Society, People of Mixed Descent, U.S. Immigration and Settlement, and Community Organizing, as well as Research Methods, Thesis Workshop, and for the USF Honors College.
Professor Rodriguez studies race, ethnicity, immigration, gender, culture, families, and identity in the United States, the Philippines, and Latin America. Her first book, Celebrating Debutantes and Quinceañeras: Coming of Age in American Ethnic Communities (Temple University Press 2013), used female coming-of-age rituals as windows into the lives of second-generation daughters and their immigrant Mexican and Filipino families. Her forthcoming book explores how American young adults of AIAN, Asian, Latinx, NHPI, and or multiracial ancestry experience race and approach civic engagement, especially to better comprehend if and how "the racialized middle" might transform how we understand race and politics in US society.
Research Areas
- Race, ethnicity, immigration, gender, culture, families, and identity in California, the Philippines, and Latin America
- Young adults of color and civic/ political engagement
- Coming-of-age rituals in Mexican and Filipino American immigrant families
- Mixed race
- Use of interdisciplinary social science methods
Appointments
- Lo Schiavo Faculty-in-Resident, Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought & the Ignatian Tradition
- Chair, Sociology Department
- Director, Critical Diversity Studies
Education
- PhD, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
- MA, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
- BA, Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Prior Experience
- James Irvine Foundation Minority Dissertation Fellow in Sociology, University of San Francisco
- Ronald E. McNair Graduate Assistant, UC Berkeley
Awards & Distinctions
- New York University Faculty Resource Network, Semester Scholar-in-Residence, 2022
- University of San Francisco Office of the Provost Sarlo Prize of Excellence in Teaching, 2022
- Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, National Academies of Sciences, 1999-2002
Selected Publications
- Rodriguez, Evelyn I. 2013. Celebrating Debutantes and Quinceañeras: Coming of Age in Ethnic American Communities. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
- Rodriguez, Evelyn I. 2021. “Debuts and Coming of Age Rituals.” Sage Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies. David, E.J.R; Kevin Nadal, and Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, eds. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
- Rodriguez, Evelyn I. 2016. “Quinceañera.” Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies. Ilan Stavans. (www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/latino-studies) Oxford University Press.
- Brooks, Christopher; Erin Brigham; Monica Doblado; and Evelyn Rodriguez, 2021. “Discernment in Action: How a modern university rewrote its mission statement by going back to its Ignatian roots.” Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
- Rodriguez, Evelyn I., 2021. “The Tokyo Olympics showed Americans the 'Asian Joy' we desperately needed to see.” San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 1, 2021.