Department of Sociology

Hyeyoung Kwon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society and Asian American Studies at Indiana University (IU), Bloomington. Her expertise includes race, immigration, families, gender, children and youth, and qualitative research. Kwon uses a comparative and intersectional approach to theorize the politics of inclusion and exclusion, exploring how racialized and gendered meanings of immigrants legitimize unequal resource distribution and shape how immigrants navigate different institutions to safeguard their well-being. Her work has appeared in leading journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Childhood. Kwon’s scholarship has been recognized with multiple awards and honorable mentions from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the American Sociological Association Sections on International Migration, Children and Youth, Race, Gender and Class, and Race and Ethnic minorities.

Kwon is the author of Language Brokers: Children of Immigrants Translating Inequality and Belonging for Their Family (Stanford University Press, 2024), which documents how bilingual children of immigrants secure essential resources for their families. While existing scholarship largely focuses on how adults, particularly mothers, navigate systemic gaps in social support, Kwon shifts the focus to young people. Drawing on interviews with working-class Mexican and Korean bilingual children of immigrants, healthcare providers, and months of participant observation in a Southern California police station, Kwon reveals that language brokering extends far beyond verbal translation. Living at the intersection of multiple inequalities, these youth creatively leverage their in-between status to navigate structural barriers, ensuring their families’ basic social citizenship rights in interactions with teachers, social workers, landlords, doctors, and police officers. In an era of racialized nativism and a fraying safety net, Kwon underscores how racialized and dichotomous perceptions of “deserving” versus “undeserving” immigrants—embedded in everyday interactions, cultural narratives, and institutional practices—shape the ways immigrant youth work to cultivate belonging for their families.

In addition to her research, Kwon teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on race, ethnicity, immigration, and childhood. Her commitment to teaching and mentoring has been recognized with several awards at IU, including the James E. Mumford Excellence in Extraordinary Teaching Award from the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching, the Outstanding Faculty Mentoring Award from the Sociology Graduate Student Association, and the Trustees Teaching Award from the university.