Maria Rendon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine, and is an affiliated faculty member there in Sociology and Chicano/Latino Studies. Maria received her PhD from Sociology and Social Policy program at Harvard University. Maria examines how concentrated poverty and racial segregation impacts the life outcomes of urban residents and specifically how children of Latino immigrants adapt and acculturate in these environments. As part of this work she has examined how Latinos navigate urban violence and criminalization in these neighborhoods and how these processes shape their ethnic identity and racial consciousness. She is currently working on a book that follows the lives of forty-two inner city Latino young men in Los Angeles as they transition to adulthood. In this book she explains why Latino young men hold on to the American Dream ideal in the face of great adversity and limited opportunities for upward mobility. Her work has been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, City and Community, Social Problems, Ethnicities, The Urban Review, Housing Policy Debate and the Journal for Health and Social Behavior. Her book is under contract with Russell Sage. She is a native of Los Angeles and a child of Mexican immigrants herself.
http://media.kzyx.org/mp3/Talking%20About%20California%20-%20guest-%20Maria%20Rendon.mp3