USC.edu

Juan De Lara

Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity
Juan De Lara
Email jdelara@usc.edu Office KAP 462 Office Phone (213) 740-1767

Research & Practice Areas

Social justice and social movements, urban political economy, race and ethnicity, Latinx geographies, labor, science and technology studies, Los Angeles, and the U.S./Mexico border.

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • Equity Research Institute, Faculty Affiliate
  • Latinx and Latin American Studies Center, Director

Biography

Juan De Lara is the inaugural director of the Latinx and Latin American Studies Center and an associate professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Dr. De Lara received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Inland Shift: Race, Space, and Capital in Southern California (University of California Press, 2018). Dr. De Lara’s research focuses on social justice, urban ecologies, and the intersections between data, race, and power. His articles and essays have appeared in publications including Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, Labor Studies Journal, and American Quarterly. He is currently working on two book manuscripts. One is Coachella: Extractive Ecologies, Race, and Class in the Southern Californian Desert the other is titled From Guns to Goods: Infrastructure, Military Bases and Global Supply Chains in Southern California.

Education

  • Ph.D. Geography, UC Berkeley, 12/2009
  • M.A. Urban Planning, UCLA, 5/2000
  • B.A. Sociology and Labor Studies, Pitzer College, 5/1996
    • Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, University of Southern California, 01/2010-08/2011

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Assistant Professor, University of Southern California, 2011-2012

    Research, Teaching, Practice, and Clinical Appointments

    • Program Director, Ontario Community Studies Program, Pitzer College, 1999-08-2001-07

    Other Employment

    • Inaugural Director, Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies, University of Southern California, 2020-2021

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Juan De Lara is the inaugural director of the Latinx and Latin American Studies Center and an associate professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Dr. De Lara received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Inland Shift: Race, Space, and Capital in Southern California (University of California Press, 2018). Dr. De Lara’s research focuses on social justice, urban ecologies, and the intersections between data, race, and power. His articles and essays have appeared in publications including Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, Labor Studies Journal, and American Quarterly. He is currently working on two book manuscripts. One is Coachella: Extractive Ecologies, Race, and Class in the Southern Californian Desert the other is titled From Guns to Goods: Infrastructure, Military Bases and Global Supply Chains in Southern California.

  • Conference Presentations

    • Critical Data Studies , Artificial Publics, Just Infrastructures, Ethical Learning ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Invited, Simon Fraser University, Canada, Spring 2019
    • Contesting Contingency: Immigrant Worker Organizing in the Logistics Sector , American Sociological Association ConferenceRoundtable/Panel, Fall 2018
    • Latinx Geographies III: Envisioning Alternatives , Association of American Geographers Annual MeetingRoundtable/Panel, Invited, Spring 2018
    • Logistics, Racial Capitalism, and the Politics of Space , Association of American Geographers Annual MeetingRoundtable/Panel, Spring 2016
    • Has Geography Abandoned US? Counting the Bodies, Naming Names and Revisiting Race in the Discipline. , Association of American GeographersRoundtable/Panel, Invited, New York, Spring 2012
    • Measuring Movement Building: Defining Metrics that Matter , From the Ashes: The 1992 Civil Unrest and the Rise of Social Movement OrganizingRoundtable/Panel, Program for Environmental and Regional Equity, Invited, University of Southern California, Spring 2012
    • Subprime Spaces: Southern California’s New Geography of Race and Class , The Invisible Crisis, Foreclosures in CaliforniaTalk/Oral Presentation, University of California, Riverside, Invited, Riverside, CA, Spring 2012
    • City of Quartz at 20: The View from Past Futures. , Association of American GeographersRoundtable/Panel, Spring 2011
    • Commodity Flows and the Production of Metropolitan Inequality: The Case of Southern California. , Association of American GeographersPaper Presentation, Seattle, Spring 2011
    • Moving the Goods: The Inland Empire Logistics Industry. , Getting the Goods Conference, University of California RiversideTalk/Oral Presentation, Invited, Fall 2008
    • Spaces of Circulation: Finance Capital, Housing, and the Goods Movement Industry in LA’s Urban Fringe. , Association of American GeographersTalk/Oral Presentation, Spring 2008
    • A Life of Leisure: Mapping Development in the Palm Springs Valley. , American Association of GeographersTalk/Oral Presentation, Spring 2007

    Other Presentations

    • California’s Inland Empire: A Land of Contradictions, Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation Fellows Meeting, Corona, CA, 2011-2012
    • Hidden Landscapes of Circulation: Labor and Environmental Justice in the Inland Empire., Faculty Colloquia, , 2008-2009

  • Book

    • De Lara, J. D. (2018). Inland Shift: Race, Space, and Capital in Inland Southern California. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. UC Press

    Book Chapters

    • De Lara, J. D. (2016). The Last Suburb: Immigrant Integration in the Inland Empire. Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civi pp. 136-162. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    • Pastor, M., De Lara, J. D., Rosner, R. (2016). Movements Matter: Immigrant Integration in Los Angeles. Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civi Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    • De Lara, J. D. (2012). Goods Movement and Metropolitan Inequality. Cities, Regions and Flows pp. 75-91. London and New York: Routledge.

    Journal Article

    • De Lara, J. D. (2022). Race, Algorithms, and the Work of Border Enforcement. Information & Culture. Vol. 52 (2)
    • Pulido, L., De Lara, J. D. (2018). Reimagining ‘justice’ in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. Vol. 1 (1), pp. 23. PubMed Web Address
    • De Lara, J. D. (2017). “This port is killing people”: Sustainability Without Justice in the Neo-Keynesian Green City. Annals of the American Association of Geographers.
    • De Lara, J. D., Reese, E. R., Struna, J. Organizing Temporary, Subcontracted, and Immigrant Workers. Labor Studies Journalno. 4(2016): 309-332.
    • De Lara, J. D. (2012). Post City of Quartz Los Angeles. Human Geography. Vol. 5 (3)

    Grant Report

    • Pastor, M., Delara, J. D., Scoggins, J. (2011). All Together Now? African Americans, Immigrants, and the Future of California. Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration.
    • Fellow, Institute for the Study of Social Change, UC Berkeley, 2005/09-2007/05
    • Rhodes Scholar, 1995-1996
    • McNair Scholar, U.S. Department of Education, 1994-1995
    • American Sociological Association, MOST Fellow, 1993-1994