Director of the Latin American
and Latino Studies Program
Illinois State University

Maura I. Toro-Morn is the Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at Illinois State University. As a sociologist, she has always been curious about why people move, how, and what are the consequences of their movements thus she has devoted a significant part of her career to studying migrations in a global perspective.  

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She began to address the complexities of migration while researching the social class and gender dimensions of Puerto Rican migration to Chicago. She is part of a generation of scholars that has taken on that task of exploring the gender specific qualities of contemporary migrations, work that has contributed to the historicizing Latino immigration to the Midwest and to making the experiences of women immigrants across diverse geographies visible.

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Her work is also relevant because it contributes to analyzing how gender and race systems of inequality intersect in the recruitment and deployment of Latina women workers. Her first book, Migration and Immigration: A Global View, co-edited with Marixsa Alicea, DePaul University, was published by Greenwood Press in 2004 brought together fourteen scholars from around the world to describe and analyze migration issues in regions all over the world. Her second book, Immigrant Women in the Neoliberal Age (Urbana: University of Illinois Press (2013) an edited volume with Nilda Flores Gonzalez, Anna Guevarra, and Grace Chang, addresses the experiences of Asian and Latina immigrant women workers. In 2016 when she was named, ISU’s Outstanding College Researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University.

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Her third book to come out this year, Puerto Ricans in Illinois (Southern Illinois Press), co-author with Ivis Garcia, examines the struggles and contributions of Puerto Ricans who, like her, now call Illinois home.

Her work as Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies program has earned her the admiration and respect of her colleagues and students. She has helped design classes that deepen student’s knowledge of Latinx immigration and incorporation. She has worked to secure resources, funds, space and has placed the program as a point of pride in the institution. The lectures and events which she helps coordinate as part of the annual Latinx Heritage Month offer our community another important space to learn about the Latinx experiences in the Americas. She is one of the founding members of CAUSA, Illinois State’s Committee Assisting Undocumented Student Achievement. She was also instrumental in launching the Latino Oral History Project in the McLean County Museum of History, a project that sets to record the culture and experience of Latinos who live and work in McLean County.