
Sofya Aptekar
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About Sofya
Aptekar conducts research on immigration; race and ethnicity; and urban communities. She teaches classes on sociology; race and ethnic relations; sociological research methods; and social theory. Aptekar is knowledgeable about citizenship acquisition by immigrants in the United States and beyond; as well as how the naturalization process and the meaning of citizenship have changed over time. Her most recent work examines how people get along in diverse and changing urban neighborhoods. In recent years; Aptekar has served on an advisory board of a neighborhood-based youth enrichment organization; taught adult English learners; and volunteered as an instructor at a youth correctional facility.
Contributions
How Barriers to Citizenship Status Increase Inequality in the United States
No Jargon Podcast
In the News
Publications
Presents a comparative study of organizational discourses on immigrants in two cornerstone US institutions: labor unions and the US military, both powerful players in setting the terms of immigration debates and policies in the United States.
Discusses how US military veterans deported to Mexico work together to co-construct autobiographical memories to build a shared case for US citizenship and national belonging through military service.
Examines noncitizen soldiers in the US military, revealing how they contribute nearly 5% of new recruits and often enlist with the hope of obtaining citizenship in return for their service. Illustrates how US military actions abroad can drive migration, creating a cycle where migrants provide cheap labor for the military in exchange for citizenship prospects.
Investigates how legal status stratifies migrants in the US, particularly focusing on the nuanced pathways into illegality. Illustrates how nationality, race, and socioeconomic status influence how individuals enter illegality, impacting their opportunities to adjust legal status.
Explores undocumented and “DACAmented” students’ experiences managing their illegality on campus and how college staff and faculty manage that illegality while organizing programs and support. Identifies tensions between student experience on campus, including status disclosure, and staff actions and assumption in conditions of higher education austerity.
Contributes to the literature on migrant illegality in sociology that is primarily based on the experiences of Latinx migrants by highlighting the continuities and unique features of legal violence experienced by undocumented Chinese.
Traces the demographic changes in a Queens neighborhood, analyzing the disruption and reconstitution of mental maps.
Presents quantitative analysis of a random survey of civil surgeons, identifying features of this migration industry and constructing at typology of profit seekers, immigrant advocates, and screeners. Explains that civil surgeons are in the private sector, dominated by immigrant doctors who tend to pass most applicants and charge higher fees.
Explores how food-producing community gardens in New York City, historically created in response to city policies displacing residents of color, are responding to ongoing gentrification. Compares three community gardens in three gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City, and discusses implications for achieving food justice in the city.
Discusses how social movements are full of contradictions, and an inherent tension often emerges between reformist and radical flanks. Mentions how this becomes especially true as activists attempt to draw connections between varied aims such as opposition to globalization and support for immigrants. Considers the implication of this critical omission.
Findings show why some community gardens in food insecure communities adopt a food justice vision, while others do not, and how gentrification can amplify racial and class tensions within community gardens and between gardeners and nongardeners.
Draws on ethnographic research of a small public library in a diverse, mostly working class neighborhood in Queens, New York. Shows that in addition to providing an alternative to the capitalist market by distributing resources according to people's needs, the library serves as a moral underground space, where middle-class people bend rules to help struggling city residents. A
Illustrates through the analysis of two public spaces in a super-diverse New York neighbourhood. Concludes by raising questions about the use of super-diversity discourse in the public and policy spheres.
Provides a critique of work on urban public space that touts its potential as a haven from racial and class conflicts and inequalities. Argues that social structures and hierarchies embedded in the capitalist system and the state's social control over the racialized poor are not suspended even in places that appear governed by civility and tolerance, such as those under Anderson's “cosmopolitan canopy.
Shows that multi-vocal and fragmented contexts of collective memory help explain the uneven nature of gentrification processes, with one park serving as its cultural fulcrum while the other is left at the sidelines.
Investigates motivations for giving and the social norms that guide it. Finds that while members of other internet-based groups have been found to exhibit altruism and solidarity, altruism and solidarity in Freecycle appear to be secondary
Reports on an interview-based study in suburban Toronto and New Jersey that investigated how immigrants explain their decisions to acquire citizenship. Analyzes respondents’ understandings of naturalization in light of different theories of citizenship and different dimensions of the concept.
Examines citizenship acquisition from the perspective of immigrants and the American nation, demonstrates how naturalization exacerbates American inequality, and introduces policy alternatives.
Argues that different ideas about the same small urban public space can lead to conflict that reinforces inequality in the neighborhood, while diversity provides opportunities for people with less power to get what they want.
Demonstrates a growing inequality in the distribution of citizenship among immigrants in the United States and no such growth in Canada. Argues that the most disadvantaged unskilled immigrants are becoming ever more unlikely to gain access to the benefits of citizenship, including the right to vote, job opportunities, and security from deportation.
Shows how the stories told to and about recent American citizens have changed between mid-20th century and today. Discusses the implications of these stories for immigration policy and immigrant incorporation.
Investigates participation in civil society among Asian Indian and Chinese immigrants in Edison, New Jersey, showing the role of race in political incorporation of Asian Indians and marginalization of Chinese immigrants.