Gina Pérez

Dr. Gina M. Pérez is a cultural anthropologist and chair of the Department of Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College. Dr. Pérez’s interdisciplinary scholarship explores the lived experiences of Latina/o communities through the lenses of migration, militarism, youth, gender, and faith-based organizing. She received a PhD in anthropology from Northwestern University (2000), an MA  from Northwestern University (1996), and a BA from the University of Notre Dame (1990). Her work is deeply rooted in ethnographic research and community engagement, especially in the U.S. Midwest and Puerto Rico. Dr. Pérez is the author of Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities (NYU Press, 2024), and the award-winning Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC and the American Dream (New York University Press, 2015) and The Near Northwest Side Story: Gender, Migration and Puerto Rican Families (University of California Press, 2004). She has also coedited two anthologies: Ethnographic Refusals, Unruly Latinidades (coedited with Alex Chávez, University of New Mexico Press, 2022, School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series) and Beyond el Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America (coedited with Frank Guridy and Adrian Burgos Jr., New York University Press, 2011). Dr. Pérez teaches courses that are grounded in community-based learning and research methods, theories, and practice that connect students to Latina/o/x communities in Lorain and throughout Northeast Ohio. With the support and guidance of the Oberlin College Libraries’ staff, she works with students to develop their skills of public and community engagement by developing web-based platforms like Omeka to share research findings with a broader public.