Ana Raquel Minian Andjel

Ana Raquel Minian is a Professor in the Department of History at Stanford University and an award-winning author. They are the recipient of numerous prestigious honors, including the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2020), awarded to the nation’s most creative thinkers, and PEN America’s Nonfiction Award (2025) for their second book.

Their first book, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (Harvard University Press, 2018), won wide acclaim and multiple awards, including:

• The David Montgomery Award for the best book in labor and working-class history (Organization of American Historians and the Labor and Working-Class History Association)
• The Theodore Saloutos Book Award for an early-career scholar’s work in immigration and ethnic history (Immigration and Ethnic History Society)
• The Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize for best monograph in the field of history by a member (Western Association of Women Historians)
• The Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award for best book in humanist sociology (Association for Humanist Sociology)
• The Américo Paredes Book Award for Non-Fiction (Center for Mexican American Studies, South Texas College)
• It was also a finalist for the Frederick Jackson Turner Award (Organization of American Historians) and received honorable mention for the Bryce Wood Book Award (Latin American Studies Association).

Minian’s second book, In the Shadow of Liberty: The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention (Viking, 2024), winner of PEN America’s Nonfiction Award, traces the origins and evolution of the U.S. immigrant detention system from the 1800s to the present. Braiding together the vivid life stories of a Central American asylum seeker, a Cuban exile, a European war bride, and a Chinese refugee, the book humanizes this history and reveals the long reach of detention policies into contemporary U.S. life. From the rise of the for-profit prison industry to the erosion of due process, In the Shadow of Liberty explores how these hidden spaces of “rightlessness” have shaped political and legal institutions—and imagines alternatives for the future. The book was widely reviewed, including by the American Bar Association, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the New York Times, which selected it as an Editors’ Choice Book.

Their third book project, No Man’s Lands: A New History of Immigration Restriction, explores how, during the late Cold War and its aftermath, U.S. officials created a patchwork of spatial strategies to keep Latin American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean migrants from reaching U.S. soil. These improvised and often contradictory efforts—maritime interdiction, offshore detention, internal checkpoints, and regional pressure campaigns—revealed the reactive and fragmented nature of immigration control.

In addition to their books, Minian has published in leading journals such as the Journal of American History, American Quarterly, and the American Historical Review.

Their work contributes to current debates about immigration, and they have used a range of platforms to reach broader audiences. In addition to participating in and organizing conferences that attract international attendees, they have written articles for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Time, Dissent, and the Los Angeles Times. Their scholarship has been cited by numerous outlets, including The New Yorker, and they have been interviewed by Democracy Now!, Vox, NPR, Public Radio International, and Univisión. They also served as the historian for a two-week investigative series on NPR’s Morning Edition.

In 2022, Minian launched and now co-directs the Migration and Asylum Lab, which brings together scholars from multiple disciplines and institutions to support asylum adjudication processes. Lab members produce in-depth reports on human rights conditions in asylum seekers’ countries of origin, offer expert testimony in individual cases, and contribute to academic and policy discussions on migration. Minian has co-authored reports on Cuba, Guatemala, and Mexico, and edited those on Honduras, El Salvador, and Venezuela.

At Stanford, they teach courses on migration, Latinx history, Mexican American history, social movements, and the histories of incarceration and detention.

Prospective graduate students: If you are interested in working with me, please mark Latin America as your primary geographic field of interest in your application. Once admitted, you may choose any primary field that aligns with your evolving research interests.