Profile
Alexandra Délano Alonso is Professor of Politics and Global Studies at The New School and Eugene M. Lang Professor for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. As a migration scholar, her earlier writing examines the Mexican state’s relations with its diaspora in the United States and, more recently, the shifting forms of agency and solidarity created by and for migrants at the margins of the state, both in Mexico and in the United States. Her current research explores the question of ungrievability and public mourning around migrants who have died crossing borders; memory activism in Mexico in the context of enforced disappearances; and alternative narratives and forms of social mobilization in response to border politics.
Her research and practice draws connections between academia, policy and activism by identifying spaces where bottom-up and top-down interactions produce innovative practices, policies and institutions. Looking at these questions from both sides of the border—geographically and politically, and also linguistically and culturally—, and in collaboration with community organizers, activists, artists, government offices, and other scholars, her work offers an opportunity to explore different forms of social and political participation and to understand the emergence of alternative conceptions, narratives and practices of citizenship, transnationalism, sovereignty and solidarity.
She is co-founder and former co-director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility with Miriam Ticktin, as well as a member of The New School's Sanctuary Working Group.
Born and raised in Mexico, her experience living across borders and her mixed origins as the granddaughter of immigrants have shaped her research, teaching, mentoring, university service and activism.
Degrees Held
DPhil in International Relations, University of Oxford
Recent Publications
Professor Délano Alonso's publications include the book From Here and There: Diaspora Policies, Integration and Social Rights Beyond Borders (Oxford University Press, 2018) and the book Mexico and Its Diaspora in the United States: Policies of Emigration since 1848 (Cambridge University Press, 2011; El Colegio de México, 2014), co-winner of the William LeoGrande Prize for the best book on US-Latin America Relations.
She is also co-editor of the special issue on the Microfoundations of Disapora Politics (with Harris Mylonas, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2019) and the special issue on Borders and the Politics of Mourning (with Benjamin Nienass, Social Research,Summer 2016).
Her most recent books include:
New Narratives on the Peopling of America: Immigration, Race and Dispossession, co-edited with Alex Aleinikoff (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024)
Las luchas por la memoria contra las violencias en México, co-edited with Benjamin Nienass, Alicia de los Ríos Merino and María De Vecchi Gerli (El Colegio de México, 2023)
Recent articles and essays:
Migrants in Waiting in Mexico (Current History, 2024)
Memory Protest and Contested Time: The Antimonumentos Route in Mexico City (Sociologica, 2023)
Antes y después de Juárez (Gatopardo, 2023)
Performances and Appearances
“Step Up, Rise Up, and Reimagine a Radically Just World”, A Commencement Address to the Graduates of Eugene Lang College, May 18, 2017.
Research Interests
migration, diasporas, transnationalism, memory, sanctuary, mutual aid, solidarity, Mexico
Awards And Honors
Fulbright-Carlos Rico Award for North American Studies, 2014-15.
William M. LeoGrande Prize for Best Book on U.S.-Latin American Relations. Co-winner, American University, February 2013.
Distinguished University Teaching Award, The New School, June 2012.
Faculty Advisor Excellence Award, The New School, May 2012.