I about nearly spit out my Maker's the other day when I opened my Facebook page and saw the picture to the right. That's my friend Jody Agius Vallejo, OC girl done good and a pioneering sociologist over at the University of Southern California, where she's gone where no sociologist has gone before: examining the modern-day Mexican-immigrant middle class in the U.S., former wabs who still have the nopal en la frente but are better off than their ilk.
Only nerds and cool people know about Vallejo's work–so how did she land the cover of OC Metro, a magazine best suited for skimming while waiting for an order at Subway?
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Turns out that it was the rag's annual “20 Women to Watch” issue, and they gave much love to Vallejo–another nice picture inside, and a plug for her coming book, Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class. They should've given Vallejo a bigger plug than about 100 words, but whatever: for the first time in years, OC Metro became a must-read. Congrats, Jody, and we still gotta get you to lecture over at the Fullerton Public Library one of these days…
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