Andrés Arias is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, Merced. He was born in Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico and was raised in San Jose, California. His research examines the intersections of race, labor, and immigration, with a particular focus on how racialized labor markets shape work experiences of Latino and undocumented immigrants in rural regions. His dissertation draws on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews to examine how Latino day laborers in California’s Central Valley navigate, endure and resist exploitation in racialized and interconnected labor markets.

His research has been published in Social Problems and Sociology of Health & Illness. His article, “It is worse in the fields”: how racial capitalism disciplines Latino day laborers in California’s Central Valley,” published in Social Problems, received an honorable mention for the Cristina Maria Riegos Distinguished Student Paper Award from the Latina/o Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.

At the Hyland Lab, he is examining the labor conditions and workplace experiences of farmworkers laboring under extreme heat in California’s San Joaquin Valley.