 Vasquez's dissertation and first book, "The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity" (Cambridge University Press 1998), focused on the impact of neo-liberal capitalism on grassroots progressive Catholicism in Brazil.The book received the 1998 award for excellence in the analytical-descriptive study of religion from the American Academy of Religion.More recently, Vasquez has co-directed (with Philip J. Williams) a series of studies, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Ford Foundation, on the role of religion in the process of migration, settlement, and integration among Latinos in new destinations in the U.S. South.