Salvador Rangel was born in Dolores Hidalgo, a city in the Mexican state Guanajuato, and lived there until the age of nineteen. After getting his GED diploma from a community college, he went to Eastern Kentucky University for his B.A. and then got his M.A. from the University of Kentucky. In 2020, Rangel graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara with a Ph.D in Sociology. He is currently an assistant professor of sociology at Swarthmore.
Throughout my first two years at Swarthmore, friends constantly told me great things about Professor Rangel, and they insisted that, before I graduated, I had to take at least one class with him. Luckily I listened, and this semester I decided to enroll in his course, sociology of capitalism. Professor Rangel is an engaging lecturer and, despite assigning quite complex readings, articulates difficult concepts in an intuitive way. He is also able to adeptly modulate from his usual, light-hearted and instantly comforting classroom presence to a more thoughtful tone when, inevitably, our readings or class discussions take a more sober turn. Professor Rangel is certainly not afraid to speak his mind in class, often pushing back on established ideological norms, especially when it comes to the economic and political common sense that many of us have absorbed and been taught from a young age. On Tuesday, I joined him in his recently refurnished office in Kohlberg Hall to discuss his life experiences and thoughts on sociology, higher education, and the current political environment. Below is our conversation, edited for clarity:
Rafael Karpowitz: To begin, could you tell me a little bit about your journey to the United States and becoming a professor?
Salvador Rangel: These two things are somewhat related, but let me start with a little bit about my background. So I came to the U.S. for the purpose of, like so many other people before me, labor migration. My goal was to be a migrant worker, to save some money and be able to go back home — maybe start up a business or use the opportunity to advantage myself in some kind of way. But I turned out to be very bad at saving, and so I began to feel like I had been here too long. When you put down some roots, you start to feel like you no longer have a “back home” to go to. I lived in that capacity as an undocumented immigrant for many years. Academia really wasn’t on my radar at all; I wasn’t even aware of what that was. So I probably have a very different background to most of the professors that you will encounter at this institution or similar ones.
Eventually, when I began going to community college, I had nothing in mind as to what I wanted to do. Mainly, I had questions, and I wanted to find answers. That is how I eventually became an academic: I was constantly searching for answers to the questions I had and going deeper into [them]. Before I knew it, I was already getting a Ph.D in Sociology, and [becoming a professor] felt like a decided matter at that point. What else could I do?
It’s, of course, a much longer story, but it starts with being curious about my own experience as an immigrant and wanting to know how it was that some people had to migrate, leaving their homes and their loved ones behind, and some others didn’t. I wanted to understand the systemic and structural issues that came into play with that kind of decision. At the time, I didn’t have the language to explain it, but I knew that this decision was not isolated only to me, because I could see so many people that look like me who are doing the same thing and from similar countries. Mine was a very common migrant experience, and I wanted to know more about what causes that to happen.
RK: Do you feel that your experiences before going to college as a migrant working in construction shaped your approach to and understanding of academia?
SR: That’s a good question. It definitely did, and even now, when I bring in experts to my classrooms, I always try to make space for people who come from nontraditional backgrounds. So I will bring in experts from wherever — I’ll bring in people from institutions that I have connections to and that I think have something to say, but also those who work with migrant workers.
Recently, I invited someone to my class on migration and capitalism who does migrant labor organizing with guest workers from North Carolina. She’s able to provide a perspective that students would never otherwise encounter. I really value that sort of outside perspective, especially from people who are not often taken seriously as experts.
I would definitely say [my experience] has shaped how I approach academia, but also the kinds of questions that I keep asking. Right now we are going through one of these periodic moments of anti-immigrant rhetoric in this country. It’s not the first time, and I’m afraid it won’t be the last, but I want to be able to provide some clarity as to what the motivations are behind this moment and how to understand it better.
RK: How do you think of yourself in the context of the broader field of sociology? Do you view yourself as playing a particular role, or as part of a broader tradition?
SR: The tradition with which I would probably most closely align would be what they call public scholarship, or critical sociology. There are some elements within sociology that are geared more towards an analysis and critique of the systems that tend to structure our lives, and that’s where I would fit in within that tradition.
The larger point, though, is that I don’t think I’m the best sociologist. I don’t like to think of myself as constrained within a particular disciplinary focus. The moment that you start to abide by the boundaries of your discipline, you can lose the ability to think broadly, and I don’t think that’s a beneficial thing. When I was starting to get into education, I liked all disciplines: anthropology, psychology, sociology. I went with sociology because it initially gave me the freedom not to commit to a particularly narrow focus. I felt like it allowed me to study things that I wanted to study without having to commit to one or the other. By and large, I tend to think of myself as an undisciplinary academic. Sociology is my home, but I don’t feel particularly territorial when it comes down to it.
RK: Earlier, you mentioned the current political moment. There seems to be a growing hostility across the country toward elite institutions of higher education like Swarthmore. Do you think this antipathy is grounded in any legitimate discontents, and, if so, how should institutions like Swarthmore, and academia more broadly, approach this, and should they attempt to rectify it?
SR: That’s a good question. I think some of the discontent might be earned, but I think a lot of it is misplaced. When we talk about a swell of discontent, we probably are thinking about conservative voters and voices that have become critical of elite academic institutions. That’s kind of what you’re referring to, right?
RK: Yeah.
SR: So, I don’t think these things just happen out of the blue. In sociology, there’s this thing that we talk about called the “moral panic.” And I think that some people within conservative institutions or ways of thinking have instigated a kind of moral panic; they’ve decided that they want to target academic institutions — this is the cultural battle that they want to wage. And so, in many ways, they have made academics, particularly at elite institutions, seem like the enemy. But I think it’s a distraction from actually looking at where power is coming from and how it’s wielded.
Academics have some degree of power, but we don’t really have the wherewithal to run things. We are mostly analyzing, critiquing, commenting on things, but we don’t really get to set policy; by and large that’s coming from other places. So I do think it can serve as a distraction from looking at where power actually originates by focusing instead on places where, culturally, it feels like power resides.
I also do feel like this problem connects well with the anti-intellectualism that has become so popular recently in the country’s politics, such as the distrust of authorities, medical and otherwise. The truth has become disputed in many ways.
What can we do about it? I think we can connect better with the populations that we are trying to reach. We teach students here, but we can do a better job of communicating publicly about what it is that we do. To that end, it would be helpful for us to be less like ivory tower intellectuals. We should communicate with folks in ways that they are ready to listen to, and perhaps not be so isolated in general. Overall, I think the problem does not emerge from these institutions, but rather from the groups and places that are singling them out as a manifestation of the cultural power they want to target.
RK: I think one of the critiques, or discontents, within academia is this question of isolation, of being out of touch. While it is certainly the conservative pundits driving this moral panic, it does seem like there are a lot of people not in power who sincerely feel like academia often perpetuates the status quo or, as you said, remains unable to connect with broader populations. For this contingent of people, who don’t necessarily have power but nonetheless feel angry with institutions of higher education, do you feel that there is any legitimacy to their critique?
SR: I mean, it’s hard to say that they don’t have a point, right? Like we get to sit in our classrooms debating ideas and talking about things that most folks around the country in the world don’t have the time to sit down and do. They have to do jobs and pay their bills and, while it is intellectual labor, it doesn’t seem like “hard work.” And in some ways, it’s not — that’s coming from somebody who used to do “hard work.”
I think there’s definitely some validity to it, but, again, academia doesn’t really have, in general, economic power or the power to dictate policy. Even so, there is definitely an element of cultural influence. We end up having debates within academia that then become part of the general discourse and can be alienating to some people. We have this internal language [in higher education] to talk about what are actually regular things that everybody deals with. But we talk about them in such a disconnected or seemingly obtuse way which some people just find off-putting.
That can be something for academics to work on, but it depends on how you see yourself as an academic. The fact that you are in an institution puts you in a certain position, but ultimately you decide what you do with your own influence. [You decide] how you seek to make an intervention in public debates, if that’s how you see yourself as being part of or not. For me, I see myself as wanting to be connected to ongoing issues, especially by working toward some clarity. I do feel like this is a moment in which I can help to provide some clarity.
For instance, there is a lot of misinformation and even outright lies and propaganda that are whipped up to create our current anti-immigrant frenzy. I try to provide clarity on who immigrants actually are. We’re not some scary, nefarious, evil thing, but in fact, human beings who are, in general, making most people’s lives better through the work that they do. I think that’s something that I want to be able to communicate, and I see value in that.
RK: I think when you talk about power, there is a sense that many people who are in power come from a select few elite institutions of higher education. And maybe these institutions themselves don’t wield the power, but they might cultivate a certain culture which, in turn, cultivates people who then end up in the top echelons of politics. For instance, I’m thinking of the fact that nearly the entire Supreme Court went to Yale or Harvard. Do you think that the resentment we’re seeing toward elite academia may stem, in part, from this seeming political monopoly, and if not by the institutions themselves then by their products?
SR: I think there’s definitely truth to what you’re saying. It’s not only the Supreme Court, but also Congress, which tends to be made up of people who went to law school at fancy institutions.
As a sociologist, one of the things I like to focus on is how to explain change over time. If things were something, how do they become something else? The makeup of these institutions has been the same for generations and generations, so why would there be an anti-intellectual backlash now and a turn against those institutions present? So I do think that [such resentment] exists, but to me that doesn’t tell the story of how we came to be in this place.
For many of the people who came out of these institutions, these are not really the places where they are made, but it’s sort of where they’re finished. In reality, what we want to look at is their background. Where are they coming from? Where is their class background? Who were their parents connected to? By the time they get to an institution like Harvard or Yale, I think most of their connections are already made.
I said I was not a good sociologist, but I will deploy some sociological analysis here. One of the things that you understand from sociology is that most people’s future ends up looking a lot like their background. Who your parents were is likely going to be very similar to what you love doing, especially since we are in a society with limited upward mobility.
So yes, there are definitely some legitimate reasons for these grievances, but I think the way people frame it is interesting. You will see them go together to Harvard, but then they turn around and criticize intellectuals. In fact, there’s a guy from, I think the center of Kentucky, who went to some of these fancy schools, but he now likes to talk like he’s from the Deep South. He adopts the aesthetics of what anti-intellectuals look like.
I think we need to discern what is symptomatic from what is actually causing these things. To me, while the institutions [of higher education] might be part of the problem, this is not really what is wrong. I think that we need to look at how these anti-intellectual movements that cast doubt on science and authority have become so popular.
RK: You’ve written often about American politics, neoliberalism, and capitalist crisis, all from an explicitly socialist perspective. Given this perspective, how would you encourage readers to think about and understand our current political moment and society in general?
SR: I would encourage them to think about some of the problems that they are dealing with, and then extend these thoughts to other people and consider how they may be coping with the same problems. People think that by being an immigrant you kind of become a different kind of human being. It makes sense that people think this way, because we use a certain language that tends to depict them as such. We call people “aliens,” for instance, or “illegal,” and you end up getting this image of immigrants that completely departs from reality.
When you look at it more closely, however, immigrants are, for the most part, just people looking for better opportunities and better access, and anybody who has moved from one state to another has a similar experience. You may not have left your country to live in a different one, but you are leaving your state to pursue educational opportunities somewhere else or to pursue better job prospects elsewhere. So you are, in fact, an internal migrant. I think you can gain some perspective and some empathy if you connect these motivations with your own experiences and consider that other people might be doing the same thing in their own lives.
RK: You have also published critiques of the left, so I’m wondering what problems you see in the left right now, and, more broadly, how you would describe the current state of the left.
SR: So this word, the “left,” is always very undefined, very amorphous — no one really knows what it means. It encompasses everything from socialist, communist, and Marxist to people who fashion themselves as progressives, liberals, or anything in between. So it really is not that helpful to talk about the left so much in those terms, unless we clarify what we mean.
The interventions that I have tried to make, in some ways, have been in trying to provide some clarity on these things and depart from relying on terminology. I do think, going back to your previous questions, that one of the things that happens is that the language developed by academics is often found within activist circles. I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing, because one of the things that academics are often quite good at is obfuscating and obscuring things that are not all that complex. The opposite is also true. Sometimes, they make things sound very simplistic which are in reality more complex.
So part of my goal in criticizing what we might refer to as The Left is to try and get some clarity by refocusing on what it is that most of us as human beings share in common? And to me, that has to do, primarily, with some basic things like security, stability, a job that provides you enough to get by. I think these are things we can all relate to, but the way we end up talking about them using certain cultural, heavy-laden terms is not necessarily helpful for [understanding] that. One may actually agree a lot more with people who are within the so-called left if they were able to focus on things that we have in common, rather than emphasizing differences because they’re using language that is not to your liking or that you prefer to not use.
I think an emphasis back on the material reality of people’s lives can be really helpful here. And so that is what my interventions have tried to do. Can we refocus on what it is that people are struggling with and what can be done about that? Not that cultural issues are not important, but to me, we cannot give them the same amount of attention that we can give to the material reality that is affecting people’s lives.
And I think it’s not that hard to see. Why is it that the people who are doing this are able to break through the noise of politics? You see people like [Zohran] Mamdani, who is likely to become the next mayor of New York City. If you look at what he’s talking about, he’s laser-focused on affordability. His focus is on what makes people’s lives possible and enjoyable. He’s picking up the mantle of [U.S. Senator] Bernie Sanders, who did similar things. You find that when they talk, they break through the noise of politics, and people actually listen, and they really resonate with people.
RK: Do you have any final thoughts?
SR: We’re not so different from one another. And, despite the things that you may have been led to believe or grew up thinking about yourself and others, a lot of what we can achieve is a matter of the opportunity that is presented to us. Many people might not think of my story as a very likely story, and it is not, because you don’t really meet people every day who were undocumented and are now teaching at elite institutions. But, if you give people who have the desire to achieve things an opportunity, I think you’ll be surprised by how much can actually take place. And one of the things I’ve been doing recently is trying to incorporate more students from disadvantaged backgrounds and being able to connect with and mentor them. That is particularly meaningful to me.
