Dr. Julia Young is a historian of Mexico, Latin America, Catholicism, and migration whose research connects historical scholarship to contemporary debates about migration, religion, and politics. She is an Associate Professor of History at The Catholic University of America, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and Chair of the Department of Global Studies.

Dr. Young is the author of the award-winning book Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War (Oxford University Press, 2015), which examines the diasporic politics of Mexican migrants in the United States during Mexico’s violent conflict between church and state. More broadly, her historical scholarship investigates two major questions. First, she explores how contemporary migration patterns are shaped by long-term political, religious, and social forces within the Americas and beyond. Second, she examines the history of popular Catholic movements in Mexico, including the Cristero rebellion and the rise of an integralist movement known as the Unión Nacional Sinarquista. She has published in leading scholarly journals and presses, including the Journal on Migration and Human Security,The Americas, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Modernism, and The Catholic Historical Review.  Her scholarly work has been supported by fellowships from the Library of Congress’s Kluge Center, and the Luce/ACLS Program in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs. 

In Washington, D.C., Dr. Young regularly engages with policy institutions and practitioners on both migration as well as Catholicism in Mexico and Latin America. She has contributed to reports and public analysis through outlets such as the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, Americas Quarterly, The Hill, TIME, and The Washington Post, and she has moderated and participated in a wide variety of public forums on migration, border enforcement, and U.S.-Mexico relations. She has taught and lectured for the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute on migration, Mexico, Central America, and hemispheric affairs.

In addition to her scholarly and public-facing work, Dr. Young serves as an expert witness in U.S. asylum cases, providing country-conditions reports related to migration, religious freedom, political persecution, and cartel violence in Mexico. She frequently advises journalists, educators, and nonprofit organizations seeking historically grounded analysis of immigration and border issues, as well as a deeper understanding of Catholicism and religious movements in Mexico and Latin America.

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