Profile
Joanna Dreby is Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany, and affiliate faculty member of the Latin Americans and Caribbean & U.S Latino Studies Department. Her research primarily focuses on family dynamics under conditions of increased globalization, with specific expertise in qualitative methods and in research with migrants and with children. She is author of the award-winning books Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and their Children (University of California Press 2010) and Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families (University of California Press 2015), and more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters on a range of topics including childcare fatalities, transnational families, gender and generational relations, work-family balance, and the impacts of enforcement policies on children. Professor Dreby has received Fulbright grants for field work in Costa Rica (2017), in Mexico (2005-2006) and Spain (for 2024). She has also received financial support from the Foundation for Child Development (2009-2012) and the Russell Sage Foundation (2019-2022), with her most recent project focused on the salience of immigration policies for second-generation young adults raised during the era of immigration enforcement.
Publications
Dreby, Joanna and Eric Macias*. 2023. “The Aftermath of Enforcement Episodes for the Children of Immigrants.” Law & Society Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12640
Dreby, Joanna, Florencia Silveira* and Eunju Lee. 2022. “Anatomy of Immigration Enforcement: Longstanding socioemotional impacts as children age into adulthood” Journal of Marriage and Family 84(3): 713-733.
Dreby, Joanna, Sarah Gallo, Florencia Silveira* and Melissa Corral Adams*. 2020. “Nací Allá: Meanings of U.S. Citizenship for Young Children of Return Migrants to Mexico.” Harvard Educational Review. 90 (4): 573–597. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-90.4.573
Dreby, Joanna and Mairead Carr*. 2019. “The Social Value of Children for Families that Farm.” Sociological Forum 34(4): 904-925.
Dreby, Joanna, Esperanza Tuñón-Pablos, and Griffin Lacy*. 2019. “Children’s Food Practices in Mexican Migrant Households” Childhood 26(4): 540-553.
Gubernskaya, Zoya and Joanna Dreby. 2017. “U.S. Immigration Policy and the Case for Family Unity.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 5(2): 417-430.
Dreby, Joanna. 2015. Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dreby, Joanna. 2015. “U.S. Immigration Policy and Family Separation: The consequences for children’s well-being.” Social Science and Medicine 132: 245-251.
Dreby, Joanna and Leah Schmalzbauer. 2013. “The Relational Contexts of Migration: Mexican Women in New Destination Sites.” Sociological Forum 28 (1): 1-26.
Dreby, Joanna. 2012. “The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families.” Journal of Marriage and Family 74: 829-45.
Dreby, Joanna. 2010. Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and their Children. Berkeley: University of California Press.
