February 4, 2026
Social Sciences Matrix
In the United States, immigrants of color have been treated as an exploitable and ultimately disposable labor force, especially now. Beyond unlivable wages and a lack of upward mobility, low-wage work in the U.S. is rife with danger and degrading treatment. Immigrants and people of color are overrepresented in these “bad jobs” and often feel as though they are unable to change their working conditions. In Legalized Inequalities, law scholar Kati L. Griffith, sociologist Shannon Gleeson, anthropologist Darlène Dubuisson, and political scientist Patricia Campos-Medina investigate the government’s role in perpetuating poor and dangerous work environments for low-wage immigrant workers of color.
Drawing on interviews with over three hundred low-wage Haitian and Central American workers and worker advocates, the authors reveal how U.S. policies produce and sustain job instability and insecurity. Join us for a timely discussion with the authors, who will address not only the crushing consequences of U.S. policy on low-wage immigrant workers of color but also the ways many of these workers reclaim their dignity in the face of these obstacles.