Amy Hsin

Biography & Research

Amy Hsin is professor of migration in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a core-affiliated faculty member of the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights.

A sociologist and social demographer, Hsin researches the intersection of immigration, race and ethnicity, education and social inequality in the United States. Her work examines how structural forces — such as immigration policy, immigration status, racial stratification and economic inequality — shape educational outcomes, labor market trajectories and family life. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methods, Hsin’s research illuminates how individuals navigate institutions that reproduce inequality and how these dynamics vary by race, immigration status, and social class.

Hsin's forthcoming book, "Beyond Dreamers: School, Work, and Identity among Diverse Undocumented New Yorkers" (with Sofya Aptekar), challenges dominant narratives of undocumented life by highlighting the racial, national and class diversity of undocumented youth in New York City. Based on a unique mixed-methods study — including administrative data, more than 100 in-depth interviews, and extensive fieldwork — "Beyond Dreamers" shows how immigration policies create unequal pathways to incorporation by sorting individuals into different legal categories with vastly different prospects for stability and mobility. The book introduces the concept of “stratified entry into illegality” to explain how race and mode of entry shape life chances, and it centers the voices of undocumented youth from Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa as they navigate exclusion, imagine alternative futures and contest the limits of belonging in America.

Her research has been featured in media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Economist, NPR, and the Los Angeles Times, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. She has co-authored several amicus briefs defending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and birthright citizenship, and her work continues to inform public debates around immigration and education equity.

Hsin is president-elect of the Asia and Asian America Section of the American Sociological Association and has previously served on the editorial boards of the American Sociological Review and International Migration Review. She was named to City & State New York’s Education Power 100 list and was appointed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to the School Diversity Advisory Committee.

Courses

• Foundations of Cultural Analysis (undergraduate course)

News & Media

• "Limiting public education access would hurt U.S. workforce and harm child welfare, migration scholar warns"
• "Conference in Rome underscores theology’s crucial role in migration research and policy"