Author Archives: Amelia Fortunato

About

I am a doctoral student in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center with a BA in Comparative American Studies from Oberlin College. Inspired by my years as a union organizer in Chicago, my research focuses on race in the American Labor Movement. Specifically, I have written about historical cases of anti-black discrimination and violence in labor struggles, as well as solidarity and discord between organized labor and racial justice movements. More broadly, I am interested in theories of working class identity formation, political ideology and behavior, social movement spillover and interaction, and racial solidarity and conflict.

Currently, I am in the early stages of writing a dissertation proposal to conduct qualitative research on racial tension in the contemporary American labor movement. Through interviews, I plan to investigate white union members’ responses to unions’ recent racial justice initiatives and explore unions’ strategies for navigating backlash and providing support to immigrant, Muslim, Latinx, and black union members in the post-Janus era.

In addition to my academic research, I teach Sociology courses at John Jay College as a Graduate Teaching Fellow. I am also the student representative for the Labor and Labor Movements Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA); a student fellow with ARC, CUNY’s Advanced Research Collaborative; and newly a member of the Student Advisory Board for Social Problems.