Lilia Soto

Lilia Soto is an Ethnic Studies scholar who writes about the Napa Valley, the place she calls home. She is the daughter of an immigrant father and former bracero worker who arrived in Napa in 1961 and a mother who raised six daughters in the town of Zinapécuaro in the state of Michoacán. Born in Napa and raised in a transnational family, she is both a U.S. citizen and an immigrant.

Her first book, Girlhood in the Borderlands: Mexican Teens Caught in the Crossroads of Migration (NYU Press, 2018) addresses the experiences of young teenage girls raised in transnational families where time, age, sexuality, and gender are key. She is currently working on a second book project on Latinx women who have shaped Napa’s wine industry. Soto has held appointments at San Diego State University and the University of Wyoming. She has also been the recipient of the NEH Summer Seminar, the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.