Jia-Lin Liu, PHD, MSW

Hello! 

I am currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Social Work at California State University, Los Angeles. 

My book project, "Far from the Model Minority: the Reimagination of Success among Transnational Chinese Families" (under contract with the University of California Press), explores how current theoretical understandings of social class and mobility are inadequate to describe the experiences of immigrants - specifically Chinese immigrants. This book overall centers on the voices and narratives of five undocumented and mixed-status Chinese immigrant families in New York City and their sending communities in Fuzhou, China. In contrast to what research and society perceives of Chinese immigrants/Chinese Americans and their success narratives, my participant families experienced multi-generational structural exclusion and ultimately had to construct and negotiate mobility strategies that were “face” focused – the need to garner, and save, “face” for their families. Before coming to the US, my participant families’ cultural framework of “face” and social class backgrounds compelled them to give up education. Instead, working abroad and sending remittances became the valorized way for my participant families to bring “face” to their families in China. While in the US, as they encountered their new racialized socio-cultural context – exacerbated by the issues and barriers of their precarious legal status – my participant families found themselves yet again stuck in low social positions and being educationally disregarded. Furthermore, my participants’ undocumented status in the US ultimately had an adverse effect on the supposed face gain for their sending families back in China.

I hope to turn this book project into some form of public and visual storytelling in the near future - whether through photography or the making of a documentary and/or feature film. So, stay tuned!

At CSULA, I teach courses on diversity and macro/micro practices: community organizing, culturally competent social work practice, diversity and intersectionality, institutional racism to cultural competency, culturally competent social work practice, and practice with groups. 

I graduated from New York University with my doctoral degree in international education in 2022. Prior to my doctoral studies, I worked as a child welfare social worker at the Center for Family Life, based in Sunset Park Brooklyn for 6 and a half years. During my time as a social worker, I provided clinical casework counseling to around 100 Chinese, Latino, and other Asian immigrant families. In addition, I also ran many community groups and helped the process of starting a tutoring cooperative, Sunset Scholars, which continues to flourish in the community today. Prior to my time as a social worker, I graduated from Columbia University with my master’s degree in social work, and Vanderbilt University with my bachelor’s degree in molecular cellular biology.

Thank you for visiting my website (still under construction)!