FACULTY NEWS | April 13, 2023
Prof. Cristina-Ioana Dragomir has authored a new book, Making the Immigrant Soldier, published by University of Illinois Press.
As a scholar of social justice and human rights, Dragomir's Making the Immigrant Soldier explores her research on migration, gender and environment through the stories of Lily, Alexa, and Vikrant—three immigrants who joined the military in order to become American citizens. Dragomir's book is an ethnographic study of the impact of race, ethnicity, class, and gender on the journey from immigrant to soldier to American, described through the opportunities and obstacles that Lily, Alexa, and Vikrant faced.
Author of The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America, Noelle Brigden said Dragomir's work gives "a sense of the lived experience of immigrant life in the military and after military service, including its complex trade-offs for socioeconomic mobility." Terry Williams, author of Harlem Supers: The Social Life of a Community in Transition, described how Dragomir offers insight into identity and sociological analysis and "brings years of fieldwork to fruition, revealing how the transformation to soldier is a hazardous, arduous journey, full of fellowship, wonder, and mystery."