Lauren Heidbrink

Lauren Heidbrink, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor of Human Development
• Email: Lauren.Heidbrink@csulb.edu
• Phone: (562) 985-8530
• Office hours for Spring 2024: Not teaching. Dr. Heidbrink is on research leave for Spring 2024.
• Office location: LA3-200A
• Website: www.youthcirculations.com

Education

• Ph.D. (2010), M.A. (2007) John Hopkins University, Anthropology
• M.A./M.S. (2003) DePaul University, International Public Service Management
• B.A. (1998) University of Virginia, City Planning, Latin American Studies, Spanish Literature

Research Interests

Lauren Heidbrink is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on the anthropology of childhood and migration in Central America. Her research and teaching interests include childhood and youth, transnational migration, performance and identity, engaged methodologies, and Central America. Her manuscript, Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), examines the experiences of migrant children in U.S. federal facilities for unaccompanied children and following release. With support of the National Science Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, her recent manuscript Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation (Stanford University Press, 2020) traces the impacts of the securitization of development on Indigenous Guatemalan youth following deportation from the U.S. and Mexico. Dr. Heidbrink is co-founder and editor of Youth Circulations, a curated digital exhibit tracing the real and imagined circulations of global youth.  

Teaching

• HDEV 205: Immigrant Youth in Long Beach
• HDEV 307: Approaches to Childhood
• HDEV 310: Qualitative Methods in Human Development
• HDEV 320: Quantitative Methods in Human Development
• HDEV 405: Latin American Childhoods
• HDEV 470: Seminar/Practicum
• ANTH 444/544: Transnational Migration

Recent Publications

• Heidbrink, L. In Press. Expert as educator: Subverting legal violence in immigration proceedings.Annals of Anthropological Practice.
• Heidbrink, , Batz, G. and C. Sánchez. In Press. “Why would anyone leave?”: Development, overindebtedness, and migration in Guatemala. Maya America.
• Heidbrink, L. 2021. Migrantidad: La juventud en una nueva era de deportaciones. Mexico City, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de investigaciones Multidisciplinarias sobre Chiapas y Centroamérica.
• Heidbrink, L., G. Afable and Delia. 2021. Delia’s Return: The detention and deportation of unaccompanied children/El Retorno de Delia: La Migración y Deportación de una Niña No-acompañada. American Anthropologist 123(3): 685-702.
• Statz, M. and Heidbrink, L. 2021. Unintended Trauma: The Role of Public Health Policy in the Detention of Migrant Children. The Lancet.
• Heidbrink, L. and M. Statz. 2021. Youth Circulations: Tracing the real and imagined circulations of global youth. In Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents: Approaches to Research in a Global Context. Edited by F. Vavrus, M. Maynes & D. Levison. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
• Heidbrink, L. 2020. Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. (Book Manuscript)
• Heidbrink, L. 2020. Anatomy of a Crisis: Governing Youth Mobility through Vulnerability. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1797479.
• Heidbrink, L. 2020. Benevolent Complicity: The detention of unaccompanied children. In Diverse Unfreedoms and their Ghosts: Interrogations, Transitions, Legacies, and Re-imaginings. Edited by K. Green, C. Coe and S. Balagopalan. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
• Statz, M. and L. Heidbrink. 2019. A Better “Best Interests”: Immigration Policy in a Comparative Context. Law and Policy 41(4): 365-386.
• Heidbrink, L. 2019. Debt-driven Migration among indigenous youth in Guatemala. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.
• Heidbrink, L. 2019. Acts of Removal. In Il/legal Encounters: Migration, Detention, and Deportation in the Lives of Young People. Edited by D. Boehm and S. Terrio. New York: New York University Press.
• Heidbrink, L. 2019. Borders. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Heidbrink, L. 2018. Circulation of care among unaccompanied migrant youth from Guatemala. Children and Youth Services Review 92: 30-38.
• Heidbrink, L. 2017. Assessing Parental Fitness and Care for Unaccompanied Children. The Journal of the Social Sciences 3(4): 37-52
• Heidbrink, L. and M. Statz. 2017. Parents of Global Youth: Contesting Debt and Belonging. Children’s Geographies 15(5): 545-557.
• Cardoso, J., K. Brabeck, D. Stinchcomb, D. Birman, L. Heidbrink, O. Price, and L. Zayas. 2017. Integration of unaccompanied migrant youth in the United States: a call for research. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, (2017): 1-20.
• Zayas, L.; K. Brabeck; L. Heffron, PhD; J. Dreby; E. Calzada; J. Parra-Cardona; A. Dettlaff; L. Heidbrink; K. Perreira; H. Yoshikawa. 2017. Charting Directions for Research on Undocumented and Unaccompanied Immigrant Children and Citizen Children. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences.
• Langtiw, C. and L. Heidbrink. 2016. Removal, betrayal, and resistance: Comparative analysis of black youth in the U.S. and Haitian-descendant youth in the Dominican Republic. Community Psychology in Global Perspective 2(2): 40-55.
• Heidbrink, L. 2015. Unintended Consequences: Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Journal of Applied Research on Children 5(2): Article 2, 1-29.
• Richardson, W., L. Heidbrink and A. Muhammed. 2015. Black Learning Matters: Experiences of Exclusion and Lessons for Inclusion of Students of Color in Higher Education. In RIP Jim Crow: Fighting Racism through Higher Education Policy, Curriculum, and Cultural Interventions. Series: Equity in Higher Education Theory, Policy, & Praxis. Virginia Stead, editor. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
• Heidbrink, L. 2014. Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Human Rights Series. (Book Manuscript)
• Heidbrink, L. 2013. Humanitarian Refugee or Criminal Alien?: The Social Agency of Migrant Youth. American Bar Association Children’s Legal Rights Journal 33(1): 133-190.
• Heidbrink, L. 2012. At a Crossroads: Youth at the Intersection of the Family and the State. In Transnational Migration, Gender and Rights. Ragnhild Sollund, editor. Great Britain: Emerald Press.
• Heidbrink, L. 2010. Recasting the Agency of Unaccompanied Youth. In Emerging Perspectives on Children in Migratory Circumstances: Selected Proceedings of the Working Group on Childhood and Migration June 2008 Conference. R. Reynolds, et al., editors. Philadelphia: Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences and the Drexel iDea Repository. 2010.

Public Scholarship

• Heidbrink, L. and Frank-Vitale, A. 2021. Development Aid: A “Root Cause” of Child Migration. International Organization for Migration: Migration Policy Practice 11(2): 21-25.
• Heidbrink, L. and Frank-Vitale, A. 2021. Ayuda al desarrollo: una causa fundamental de la migración de menores. Contra Corriente.
• Heidbrink, L. and M. Statz. 2021. Podcast: Children and Youth as Subjects, Agents and Objects. Critical Childhoods and Youth Studies
• Frank Vitale, A. and Heidbrink, L. 2021, May 24. The Real Root Cause of Central American Migration. In These Times.
• Heidbrink, L. 2021. Unaccompanied children navigate federal custody. Penn Press.
• Heidbrink, L. 2021. Opinion: The Cruelty of detention for Young Migrants. Press Telegram.
• Heidbrink, L. 2020, September. “El Poder Coactivo de la Deuda: La Migración y Deportación de jóvenes Indigenas” Organization of American States, 68-77.
• Heidbrink, L. and A.Grewe. 2020. Dual Crisis: Health and Fear in Guatemala. Youth Circulations.
• Anthropologist Action Network for Immigrants and Refugees. 2020. What International Student Services can learn from Undocumented Students. Society for Applied Anthropology.
• Heidbrink, L., W. Duncan, and K. Yarris. 2019. Webinar: Providing Expert Testimony: Promises and Pitfalls of Engaging in Immigration Proceedings. Sponsored by the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology.
• Heidbrink, L. and M. Statz. 2019. The Blame Game: Criminalizing migrant parents. Youth Circulations.
• Heidbrink, L. 2018. Radicalizing Tensions Between Fascism and Solidarity in Italy. Youth Circulations. 
• Statz, M. and L. Heidbrink. 2018. Migration as Clickbait. Anthropology News. DOI: 10.1111/AN.760.
• Duncan, W.; Heidbrink, L. and K. Yarris. 2018. Im/migration in the Era of Trump; Hot Spots. Cultural Anthropology.
• Heidbrink, L. 2018. Care in Contexts of Child Detention; Hot Spots. Cultural Anthropology.
• Heidbrink, L., G. Batz, & C. Sanchez. 2017. Almolonga: Informe Comunitario/Almolonga: A Community Report. Funded by National Science Foundation.
• Heidbrink, L. 2017. Migration and Belonging: Narratives from a Highland Town. Youth Circulations.
• Art exhibition, “Migration and Belonging: Narratives from a Highland Town/Migración y Pertenencia: Narrativas de un pueblo del altiplano.”
  • Almolonga, Guatemala, 2019
  • Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 2018
  • Loyola University, Chicago, IL, 2018
  • Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, Long Beach, CA, 2017.
  • Conference on Emotional Geographies, American Association of Geographers, Long Beach, CA 2017.
  • University of California, Los Angeles, 2017.

• Yarris, K.; L. Heidbrink; and W. Duncan. 2016. Protecting Undocumented Students Post-Election: From meeting to action. Working together to support our students. Anthropology News.  
• Heidbrink, L. and M. Statz. 2014, September. Widening the Frame: Unaccompanied Youth. Anthropology of Children and Youth. Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group.
• Castañeda, H.; L. Heidbrink; and K. Yarris. 2014. September. From Alienation to Protection: Central American Child Migration. Access Denied.