Dr. Julio Orellana is an interdisciplinary social-science scholar who works at the intersection of Central American, Latinx, and Latin American Studies. Julio is currently a 2023-2025 University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Barbara. He earned his PhD in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside (2023). His investigation uses community-engaged ethnography to examine international migration from Guatemala. Julio’s research has taken him across Southern California and Guatemala. His book manuscript, The Normalization of Forced Guatemalan Migration: Race and Labor Under Global Capitalism, shows the emergence of indigenous Maya and non-indigenous mestizo/ladino Guatemalan migrants in Southern California and their transnational grassroots organizations.
