Getrich, Christina

Bio

Dr. Christina Getrich is a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her primary line of research examines how the state shapes belonging for immigrants and their children through public policies and immigration enforcement practices that render them structurally vulnerable but also how immigrants, their children, and advocates maneuver within these exclusionary structures to forge well-being and justice. Her scholarship advances knowledge about the implications of changing immigration and health policies at federal, state, and local levels. She examines how these evolving policies shape immigrants’ health and access to care in different sociolegal contexts, including the U.S.-Mexico borderlands where she conducted research for 15 years and the jurisdictionally complex Washington, D.C. Metropolitan region where she has conducted research for the last decade.

Her most recent book, Everyday Activists: Undocumented Immigrants’ Quest for Justice and Well-Being (New York University Press, 2025) examines how Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients who are not active in public, organized immigration-related activism nonetheless fight for immigrant well-being and justice in their everyday lives. Everyday Activists is based on longitudinal research (carried out with UMD graduate, undergraduate students, and a community advisory board) on the health and well-being of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients living in the D.C. Metro region. This research builds on Dr. Getrich's long-standing interest in young adults who live in mixed-status immigrant families and communities. Her first book, Border Brokers: Children of Mexican Immigrants Navigating U.S. Society, Laws, and Politics (University of Arizona Press, 2019) is a longitudinal examination of the children of Mexican immigrants who grew up in mixed-status families living in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. Border Brokers highlights the deleterious effects of immigration policies and enforcement practices on their families but also demonstrates how these young adults transitioned into adulthood as grounded and skilled brokers who effectively leverage their secure immigration statuses, life skills, and local knowledge bases as engaged citizens advocating for their communities.  

Dr. Getrich also maintains a long-standing interest in health inequities faced by immigrants and other structurally marginalized populations. She is particularly interested in strategies for promoting health equity by addressing structural barriers to care, such as the use of community health workers (CHWs). She recently collaborated with interdisciplinary colleagues at UMD on the Pandemic Readiness Initiative to examine how CHWs are building back and sustaining trust in the aftermath of the pandemic. This research builds on her prior work on mixed-method interventions examining the use of patient navigators in cancer prevention and screening and promotoras as mental health practitioners addressing depression and broader social determinants of mental health. She is currently working on two projects examining the impact of recent developments in immigration enforcement on the health and well-being of immigrant-origin emerging adults and how exposure to digital content depicting traumatic enforcement events impacts Latine mental health.

Dr. Getrich has won numerous awards at UMD, including for Research Excellence, Excellence in Advising and Administration, Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies, Excellence in Mentoring, and the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Faculty Mentorship Award. She joined the Department of Anthropology in fall 2014. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology with Distinction from the University of New Mexico (2008), her M.A. in Applied Anthropology from Northern Arizona University (2001), and her B.A. in Anthropology, with a minor in Spanish, from the College of Wooster (1997). Prior to coming to UMD, she was a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist for six years in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico and taught at the University of New Mexico and San Diego City College.