Iris López is a cultural anthropologist and professor at The City College of New York/CCNY. She is a former director of the Latin American & Latino@ Studies Program and chair of the Sociology Department. She taught for two years as a visiting professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). As a former Ford Foundation Post-Doctorate Fellow, for the past five years she has served as the Ford Foundation liaison for the New York City. For the past two years she been on the advisory board of Stand Up-Speak Out. Professor Lopez is frequently invited to talk about a variety of topics regarding Latinas on mainstream television and national and international presses.
Dr. López’s extensive ethnographic research in New York focuses on Latinos/asX in the United States where she has done extensive work on Latinas & Reproductive Justice. Dr. López is a national and international expert on sterilization among poor Women of Color. She conducted a 25-year intergenerational ethnographic study on Puerto Rican women in Brooklyn, New York entitled, Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom (Rutgers University Press 2008). Dr. López is also known for her distinctive research on Latinos/asX in the Pacific. She has conducted research on the local Puerto Rican community in Hawai’i. Her research is premiered at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Dr. López is currently writing a book on the Latino/aX diaspora to the Pacific.
Education
- Dr. López received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.
- She has a post-doctorate from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
Books and monographs:
- Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom. Rutgers University Press (December, 2008).
- Telling To Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios. Co-authored with the Latina Feminist Group. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Bibliographic Essay And Annotated Bibliography: El Aborto En Puerto Rico. Co-authored with A. Colon, A.L. Davila, M.Fernos and E. Vicente, Puerto Rico: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, Recinto de Rio Piedras: 1-131.
- Monograph Co-authored with F. Caro, E. Marshall, A. Carter, D. Kalmuss and D. Darabi, Barriers to Prenatal Care: An Examination of the Use of Prenatal Care Among Low-Income Women in New York City. New York: Community Service Society: 1-115. 1988
- Book Prize 2002 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, Telling to Live: Latin Feminist Testimonios. Co-authored with the Latina Feminist Group. Durham: Duke University Press. Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights, Simmons College, Boston MA.
Reviews of Books:
- 2019 Our Bodies, Our Rights: Empowering Women of Color through the Movement for Reproductive Justice (NYU Press, 2019), by Patricia Zavella.
- 2016 Pushing in Silence: The Medicalization and Rapid Transformation in Puerto Rico 1946
- 1990s-(NYU Press, 2016) Isabel M. Cordoba.
- 2011 Family Planning in Brazil: From Eugenics to Reproductive Rights, Irrational Reproduction: New Intersections of Politics, Gender, Race, and Class Across the North-South Divide. Anthropology & Medicine, Spring.
- 2004 Review for the Journal of American Anthropologists. September 106.3 issue for Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island in the United States. Jorge Duany. Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
- 2003 Review for Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick. We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords. Miguel Melendez.
- 1999 Reviewer for the Centro Journal. Reviewed: Indigenous Hawai’ians under Statehood: Lessons for Puerto Rico, blind Review.
- 1999 Reviewer for the Centro Journal. Los Discursos de Oposición a la Esterilización Femenina en la Prensa Puertorriqueña (1940-1975), blind review.
- 1988 Essay Review of Two Boys, A Girl, and Enough! Reproduction and Economic Decision Making on the Mexican Periphery. Jean M. Simoneli in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2 (1):86-89.
Articles in books and journals:
- 2012 Negotiating Different Worlds: An Integral Ethnography of Reproductive Freedom & Social Justice,” Feminist Activist Ethnography: Counterpoints to Neo-Liberalism in North America. Christa Craven and Dana-Ain Davis, eds. Lanham MD: Lexington Books. Forthcoming, expected March 2013.
- 2011 “Sterilization & the Ethics of Reproductive Technology: An Integral Approach.” Scholar & Feminist Journal, Barnard: Columbia University Press.
- 2011 “Sterilization Abuse & Beyond, A Case Study of Puerto Rican Women,” Oxford Encyclopedia.
- 2005 “Borinkis and Chop Suey: From Aloha to Globalization,” The Puerto Rican Diaspora. Editors: Carmen Whalen and Victor Vasquez- Hernandez. Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 43-67.
- 2005 “lmas Borinkis in Hawai’i” Editors: Vicky Ruiz and Virginia Sanchez -Korral, Encylopedia of Latina Women in the United States. Indiana University Press: 62-68.
- 2005 “Forced Sterilization.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Editors: Suzanne Obler and Deanna Gonzalez. Volume 3. Oxford University: 152-154.
- 2003 “Agency and Constraint: Sterilization and Reproductive Freedom Among Puerto Rican Women in New York City,” Reprinted in Latina Health in the United States: A Public Health Reader (San Francisco: Jossey Bass).
- 2001 Introduction and Section Editor of Puerto Ricans in Hawai’i. Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Volume XIII, Number 1, spring: 78-81.
- 2001 “Borinki Identity in Hawai’i: Present and Future.” Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Volume XIII, Number 1, co- authored with David Forbes, Spring: 108-125.
- 2001 “Celebrando Hawai’ian Style: The Puerto Rican Centennial in Hawai’i,” Co-authored with David Forbes, Centro News: Newsletter of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos, Volume 2, Spring:6.
- 1998 “An Ethnography of the Medicalization of Puerto Rican Women’s Reproduction,” Pragmatism in Action: Women’s Responses to Body Technologies. Margaret Lock and Patricia Kaufert, editors England: Cambridge University Press, Fall 1997: 240-258.
- 1997 “gency and Constraint: Sterilization And Reproductive Freedom Among Puerto Rican Women In New York City,” Reprinted in Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. Editors Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragone, and Pat Zavella, Routledge Press: 157-171.
- 1994 The Social Construction of Choice: An Ethnographic Study of Puerto Rican Women and Sterilization in New York City, Genero Y Mujeres Puertorriquenas: Tercer encuentro de investigadoras. Rio Piedras, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales: 105-126.
- 1993 Agency and Constraint: Sterilization and Reproductive Freedom Among Puerto Rican Women in New York City, Editors: Reprint Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and Economic Development,(3-4), Fall and Winter: 299-323.
- 1989 “A Divided City: Disparities in the Utilization of Prenatal Care Services in New York City,” Kaleidoscope: Current Research And Scholarly Activity at CCNY. Spring, Volume 1: 11-13.
- 1988 Barriers to the Timely Use of Prenatal Care Among Non-White Women in New York City”, Special Health Issue, Estudios Puertorriqueños Bulletin, Fall 1988, 2(4):72-77.
- 1987 “Sterilization Among Puerto Rican Women in New York City: Public Policy and Social Constraints, Cities of the United States: Studies in Urban America. Editor: Leith Mullings. New York: Columbia University Press: 269-291.
- 1986 Contributed to the development of the Study Guide for the Classic Film: La Operacion: 9-15.
- 1983 “Social Coercion and Sterilization Among Puerto Rican Women”, England: Sage Race Relations Abstracts, Volume 8 (3):27-40.
- 1980 “Sterilization in Puerto Rico: Coercion or Personal Choice?” Genes and Gender III, E. Tobach and B. Rosoff, eds. New York: Gordian Press: 66-75
Work in progress:
- “Puerto Ricans, Ethnicity, and Globalization: Borinki’s in Hawai’i.” University of Hawaii Press.
