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UW Professor to Discuss Book Chronicling Lives of Migrant Girls Oct. 3

head portrait of a woman
Lilia Soto

Lilia Soto, a University of Wyoming associate professor of American studies and Latina/o studies, will discuss her book detailing the lives of immigrant/migrant teenage girls Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the University of Wyoming.

Soto will detail her work on “Girlhood in the Borderlands: Mexican Teens Caught in the Crossroads of Migration” at 5 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. Her discussion is part of the Hispanic Heritage Month book talk series. The event is free and open to the public.

Soto will discuss how gender and generations shaped perceptions of place and time as told through the voices of Mexican teenage girls.

Soto was born in Napa, Calif., but raised in Zinapécuaro, Michoacán, Mexico, until the fourth grade. Her father, Matias Soto, had made repeated trips back and forth between Zinapécuaro and Napa before he settled in the United States permanently to work. Soto, along with her five sisters and their mother, Maria Elena Soto, remained in Mexico, where they anticipated moving north someday.

After living in a transnational family for 10 years, Soto, her mother and her sisters were reunited with Matias Soto. She used those childhood experiences for research into her book. Soto has lived in the U.S. since 1986 and has been at UW since 2010.

Soto’s book examines the lived experiences of Mexican teenage girls raised in transnational families and the varied ways they make meaning of their lives. During a six-year period, Soto interviewed more than 60 teenage girls in Napa and Zinapécuaro to reveal the ruptures and continuities felt for the girls surrounded by the movement of families, ideas and social practices across borders.

Her talk is sponsored by Latina/o Studies, the UW student group MEChA, American Studies and the School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice.

 

 

Contact Us

Institutional Communications
Bureau of Mines Building, Room 137
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-2929
Email: cbaldwin@uwyo.edu


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