Catherine Sue Ramírez

Research Interests

I'm a scholar of race, migration, and citizenship. My current book project is an alternative history of assimilation in the United States. Over 2016-17, I was the principal investigator of Non-citizenship, UC Santa Cruz's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Culture.

I'm also a scholar of Mexican American history and Latinx culture. My book, The Woman in the Zoot Suit (Duke University Press, 2009), excavates the participation of Mexican American women in the zoot subculture of the 1940s and examines the significance of the zoot-suiter in Chicano cultural production since the 1960s. I've also published several essays on race, gender, and science fiction. 

In the fall of 2013, I was appointed director of UCSC's Chicano Latino Research Center.

Biography, Education and Training

• Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley


• Designated Emphasis, Gender and Women's Studies, University of California, Berkeley


• B.A., English, University of California, Berkeley

Honors, Awards and Grants

• Principal Investigator, Non-citizenship, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Culture (2016-17)


• Board Opportunity Fund Grant, UC Santa Cruz Foundation (2015-16)


• Co-principal Investigator, Working for Dignity, Engaging Humanities Public Humanities Project Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute (2014-15)


• Co-principal Investigator, Latino Cultures Network, University of California Humanities Network Multicampus Research Group (2011-12)


• University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) Grant (2011-12, 2015-16)


• UC Santa Cruz Excellence in Teaching Award (2010)


• Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2001-02)

Selected Publications

• The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory (Duke University Press, 2009)

Teaching Interests

Critical migration studies; United States cultural, ethnic, and immigration history; theories of citizenship; twentieth-century Mexican American history; comparative ethnic studies; feminist and gender studies; Latino literature; speculative fiction and alternative futurisms

Courses Taught