Maria Cristina Garcia is an American historian, currently the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Her work focuses on the history of displaced and mobile populations in the Americas. Garcia received her B.A. from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

and her Ph.D. from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. She is a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and the

Society of American Historians The Society of American Historians, founded in 1939, encourages and honors literary distinction in the writing of history and biography about American topics. The approximately 300 members include professional historians, independent scholars, jou ...

. She is a recipient of a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the 2010 Cornell Stephen and Margery Russell Teaching Award, the 2016 Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Advising Award, and the President's and Provost's Award for Excellence in research, Teaching, and Service in Diversity. She is also a former fellow of the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washi ...

in Washington, D.C. and a past president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society (2015-2018).

''Havana USA'' (1996)

Garcia is the author of ''Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida'' (

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

), which examines the federal policies precipitating the post-revolutionary migration of Cubans to the United States, as well as the

Cuban American Cuban Americans ( es, cubanoestadounidenses or ''cubanoamericanos'') are Americans who trace their cultural heritage to Cuba regardless of phenotype or ethnic origin. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Cuban descent or t ...

community's emergence as an important

political lobby Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the developm ...

and entrepreneurial business community. The text details Cuban influence on

foreign policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

and electoral outcomes, how they reshaped the cultural landscape of the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, and redefined American assimilation in the 20th century.

''Seeking Refuge'' (2006)

Her second book, ''Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada'' (

) is a comparative study of the international responses to the

Salvadoran Salvadorans (Spanish: ''Salvadoreños''), also known as Salvadorians (alternate spelling: Salvadoreans), are citizens of El Salvador, a country in Central America. Most Salvadorans live in El Salvador, although there is also a significant Salvado ...

, Guatemalan, and

Nicaraguan Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

refugee crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Garcia details the role

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s and transnational advocacy networks played in prompting nationwide debates about U.S. immigration; such efforts are attributed with creating a more responsive refugee policy. Analytically, Garcia primarily cites the work of individuals, groups, and organizations which responded to the Central American refugee crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, and whose efforts restructured refugee policies throughout

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Collectively, domestic and transnational advocacy networks documented the abuses of states, pressured for changes in policy, provided representation to the displaced and the excluded, and ultimately re-framed national debates about immigration.

Recent publications (2018-present)

In her most recent work, ''State of Disaster: The Failure of U.S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change,'' Garcia examines the environmental origins and factors affecting refugee migrations. In ''The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

), Garcia examines the most important political actors and issues for the development of the United States'

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

and asylum policy since 1989. An anthology, co-edited with Maddalena Marinari entitled ''Whose America? US Immigration Policy since 1980'' was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2023. A second anthology, coedited with Madeline Hsu and Maddalena Marinari, entitled ''A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: The U.S. in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965'' was published by the

University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic project ...

in the fall of 2018.

Books

*''State of Disaster: The Failure of U.S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change'' (2022) *''The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America'' (2017) *''Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada'' (2006) *''Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida'' (1996)

Anthologies

*''Whose America? U.S. Immigration Policy since 1980'' (2023) *''A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: The U.S. in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia, Maria Cristina 1960 births Living people Cornell University faculty 21st-century American historians Cornell University Department of History faculty