Dr. Ramirez-Lopez’s research examines the intersections of Indigeneity, autonomy, and social movements through the experiences of Indigenous migrants from the Global South who traversed, transformed, and built political currents across the spaces shaped by and located in the Global North. His research is informed by his training in the Black Radical Tradition and in accompaniment with Indigenous migrant communities.
For his first book, Democracy from Below he explores the migration of Indigenous people from Oaxaca, Mexico to the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s as they built a cross-border social movement that could address their needs as Native communities. Dr. Ramirez-Lopez also writes about current Mexican Indigenous politics, immigration, and labor issues in the United States and in Mexico. He is currently working on two additional projects: the first is about twenty-first century Indigenous land defenders and human rights violations in southern Mexico through a global lens. The second project is about Indigenous immigrant rights struggles in our contemporary moment.
Dr. Ramirez-Lopez’s scholarship has been generously supported by the Mellon Foundation/ UCPPFP UC-HSI Humanities Initiative, the Dartmouth Society of Fellows Venture Funds, the Fulbright-García Robles, the Social Science Research Council-DPDF, UC San Diego's Chancellor’s Research Excellence Scholarships, UC San Diego’s Friends of the International Center Fellowship, the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, and the Emerging Scholars of Program at the University of Houston Downtown.
Publications:
Indigenous Autonomy Across Mexico and the United States as Global Indigenous Histories (in progress)
“Our Dark Hands and Sore Backs: The Comité Cívico Popular Mixteco and the New Grassroots Activism by Indigenous Mexican Migrants” Journal of American Ethnic History 43, no. 2 (2024): 5-33. 10.5406/19364695.43.2.01
“Why Oaxaca? Why Now? The Political Currents of Indigenous Oaxacan Migrants in the Twenty-First Century” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 48, no. 2 (Fall 2023): 179-193. 10.1525/azt.2023.48.2.179
“Epilogue: We Provide Food for Your Table: Triqui Farmworkers Organizing for Change,” co-authored with Seth Holmes, in Seth Holmes, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, Updated with A New Preface and Epilogue (University of California Press 2023). https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398634/fresh-fruit-broken-bodies
“Indigenous Harvest in Oaxacalifornia,” in Carissa Garcia and Yenedit Mendez, eds, Boom Oaxaca: Conversaciones de Campo a Campo (The Press at California State University, Fresno 2022). Co-authored with Xóchitl Flores-Marcial.
“Archives of Indigenous Self-Activity: Capitalism, Violence, and Indigeneity in the Americas,” Radical History Review, Special Issue on Militarism and Capitalism 133 (January 2019): 149-162. 10.1215/01636545-7160126
“In Memoriam: Cedric Robinson, Modest Audacity, and the Black Radical Tradition,” Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies 3, No. 2 (Fall 2016): 288-297. Co-authored with Jonathan D. Gomez and Ismael F. Illescas. 10.15367/kf.v3i2.108
