Alejandro Hernández

Alejandro Hernández

VANIER SCHOLAR
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Welcome

Alejandro works as an Assistant Professor at Concordia University (under a limited term contract) in Montreal, Canada. Previously, he worked as a Research Associate ll in the Immigration Research Knowledge Area of the Conference Board of Canada. He holds a PhD in Sociology with a specialization in Political Economy from Carleton University, and was awarded with a Vanier Scholar, the Government of Canada’s most prestigious international award for doctoral students, among other awards, fellowships and prizes.

Alejandro has ample professional experience in migration, economic and labour market integration, and youth research, as well as policy evaluation, teaching, and education management in Canada and Mexico.

Alejandro was twice a member of the Adjudication Committee for the Lorne Tepperman Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Award of the Canadian Sociological Association. He was a Board of Directors member, Communications Chair, and Elections Officer of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2016-2019). He was also Chair of the Committee for Refugee Issues and member of the Advisory Search Committee for Vice-President (Research and International) at Carleton University.

Alejandro’s latest main big research project analyzed how the contexts and immigration reasons of Mexican youth, along with their experiences of economic and labour market integration in Ottawa and Montreal (Canada), shaped the type of ties they maintain with Mexico and their (potential) transnational practices in Canada. His latest, ongoing and smaller research project focuses on understanding the economic integration (i.e. income) of Latin Americans in Canada.

Canadian Sociological Association

CSAI was humbled and truly honoured to have been invited by the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) to honour the work of Dr. Agnes Calliste with the Outstanding Contribution Award Lecture.  This lecture was scheduled as part of the CSA 2020 Conference. Due to Covid-19, it has been rescheduled for the CSA 2021 Conference at the University of Alberta (May 31-June 4, 2021).

Dr. Calliste passed away at the age of 74, after a long and rich career at St. Francis Xavier University. She posthumously received the Outstanding Contribution Award by the CSA in 2019.

Dr. Calliste was a faculty member at St. Francis for 26 years, having retired in 2010. Over those years, her work was foundational to establishing a tradition of critical, intersectional analyses of race in Canada. Focusing especially on Caribbean immigration, Dr. Calliste foregrounded the experiences of Black/Caribbean workers in Canada.

Her work on immigration policy revealed gendered and racist assumptions embedded within the immigration system, channeling Caribbean women to physically dangerous and servile work. Her research is an important counter to the narrative of Canada’s self-awareness as a colour-blind, multicultural society (Stasiulis, 2018).