The American Historian

September 2022: Latine History

Teaching Resources

1) Mexican American History Online, by Scott Walker and Brian Gratton (Magazine of History, 2009) 

  • Online resources for teaching about Mexican American history. 

2) Borderlands, Diasporas, and Transnational Crossings: Teaching LGBT Latina and Latino HIstories, by Horacio N. Roque Ramirez (Magazine of History, 2006) 

  • A lesson plan for teaching about Latino LGBT history through survival strategies from primary sources. 

3) Separate But Equal? A Case Study of Romo v. Laird and Mexican American Education, by Laura K. Munoz (Magazine of History, 2001) 

  • A lesson plan using primary sources and oral histories to teach about segregation and civil rights for Latine Americans.

4) Rethinking Race and Place: The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, by Trevor Griffey (Magazine of History, 2012) 

  • Teaching resources for teaching local Civil Rights struggles through the lens of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. 

5) Teaching Mexican American History, by Roberto R. Trevino (Magazine of History, 2005) 

  • An article on sensitivities to students when teaching the undercovered topic of Mexican American history. 

6) Teach in Spanglish: Latinx History with Bilingual Primary Sources, by Claudia Holguín Mendoza, Jorge Leal, and Julie M. Weise (The Amerian Historian, Summer 2022)

  • A piece that discusses the importance of using Spanish-language primary sources in the classroom.

Immigration 

1) Mary E. Mendoza on the U.S. - Mexico Border Fence Construction by OAH Blog Staff (Process History, Aug. 2015) 

  • An interview with Mary E. Mendoza on her transnational dissertation about the U.S.-Mexico border construction. 

2) Citizens of Nowhere: Fugitive Slaves and Free African Americans in Mexico, 1833-1857, by Ed Linenthal and Sarah E. Cornell (JAH Podcast, Sept. 2013) 

  • Ed Linenthal, editor of the Journal of American History, speaks with Sarah E. Cornell, author of “Citizens of Nowhere: Fugitive Slaves and Free African Americans in Mexico, 1833-1857”. Her article appears in the September 2013 issue of the JAH.

3) Mexican Immigration to the United States, by Kelly Lytle Hernandez (Magazine of History, Oct. 2009) 

  • This essay provides a compact history of Mexican immigration to the United States. There are many ways to tell this history, but the basic framework of what follows is a story of uneven capitalist economic development and U.S. foreign policy in the making of international labor migration. 

4) Historians Put Immigration Executive Order in Historical Context, by Maria Cristina Garcia, Alan Kraut, Lana Lipman, and Carl Bon Tempo (Process History Blog, 2017) 

  • An interview with four historians on Trump’s Executive Order restricting immigration, and putting the order into the historical context of immigration history. 

5) Nationalism, Immigration Control, and the Ethnoracial Remapping of America in the 1920s, by Mae M. Ngai (Magazine of History, 2007) 

  • A history of immigration restrictions and their intersection with hypernationalism in the interwar period. 

Social History 

1) Where Cultures Meet, by Frances Levine, Gini Griego, Wendy Leighton, Dino Roybal, and Pecos Pueblo (OAH Magazine of History, Summer 2000) 

  • “Texts, videos, historic photographs, and Internet web sites can tie the lessons of Pecos Pueblo to the larger context of the Spanish Borderlands history of the United States. Below we outline a series of activities that use Pecos Pueblo to examine these larger questions of cultural contact, cultural change, and the continuity of traditions in the Spanish Borderlands.”

2) Culture Clash: Foreign Oil and Indigenous People in Northern Veracruz, Mexico, 1900–1921, by Myrna Santiago (JAH, June 2012)

  • This article details how the actions of Indigenous people in Northern Veracruz against foriegn oil companies helped shape Mexico’s eventual nationalization of the oil industry in 1938.

3) The Origins and Evolution of Latino History, by Virginia Sanchez Korrol (Magazine of History, Jan. 1996) 

  • An article analyzing the evolution of a Latino consciousness and its historical role in US History through the 20th century. 

4) A Special Podcast on Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Diaspora, by Benjamin Irvin and Anne Macpherson (JAH Podcast, Dec 2017) 

  • Benjamin Irvin, executive editor of the Journal of American History, speaks with Anne Macpherson, associate professor of history at the College of Brockport, SUNY, and Michael Staudenmaier, visiting assistant professor of history and Latin American and Latino/a studies at Aurora University, about their articles appearing in the December 2017 issue of the JAH.

5) Latino History: An Interchange on Present Realities and Future Prospects, by John Nieto-Phillips and Virginia Sanchez Korrol (JAH Podcast, 2010) 

  • John Nieto-Phillips, associate editor of the Journal of American History, speaks with Professor Virginia Sánchez Korrol, a participant in the Interchange titled Latino History: An Interchange on Present Realities and Future Prospects. The article appears in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of American History.

6) Hoboken is Burning: A Conversation on Gentrification, Arson, and Displacement, by Dylan Gottlieb (Process History Blog, 2019) 

  • An interview of Dylan Gottleib’s work and article in the September 2019 issue of the JAH, in which they discuss the central story in New York City that centralizes the role of market forces in dispossession and violence. 

7) No End in Sight by Puerto Rico’s Many Crises after Hurricane Maria, by Harry Franqui-Rivera (Process History Blog, 2017) 

  • An overview of many crises faced by residents in Puerto Rico and how that fits into the longer history of the relationship to the states and Hurricane Maria. 

8) A History of Latino and Mexican Boxing, by Roberto Jose Andrade Franco by (Process History Blog, 2018) 

  • A history of boxing as it evolved in various social circles. 

9) From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the United States, by Vicki L. Ruiz (Magazine of History, 1996) 

  • A history of Mexican and Native American women’s networks and kinship lines. 

10) South by Southwest: Mexican Americans and Segregated Schooling, 1900-1950, by Vicki K. Ruiz (Magazine of History, 2001) 

  • A history of Mexican American struggles for educational desegregation including how Mendez v. Westminster set the stage for Brown v. Board of Education. 

11) The Afro-Cuban Community in Ybor City and Tampa, 1886-1910, by Nancy Raquel Mirabel (Magazine of History, 1993) 

  • A history of the intersectional experience of Afro Cubans when they arrived in the Tampa Area to work during the Jim Crow Period. 

12) The Young Lords, Puerto Rican Liberation, and the Black Freedom Struggle interview with Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez (Magazine of History, 2012) 

  • The following is an edited transcript of an interview with José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, which was conducted by OAH Magazine of History assistant editor Ángel G. Flores-Rodríguez.

13) Latinos in the United States, by Vicki L.Ruiz (Magazine of History, 1996) 

  • Dr. Ruiz discusses the historical narratives of Latino history through their journey to become a historian. 

14) Adjusting the Focus: Padua Hills Theatre and Latino History, by Matt Garcia (Magazine of History, 1996)

  • A history of the Padua Hills Theatre, a place for Mexican American performers to perform cultural pieces in Spanish from 1931-1974. 

15) Soul Salsa, by Tyina Steptoe (The American Historian, Feb. 2019)

  • An examination of the Afro-Latin influence in jazz.

16) New Directions in Caribbean History, by Reena N. Goldthree (The American Historian, May 2018)

  • An updated state of the field of Caribbean History

17) The Gulf World: A Framework, by Dalia Antonia Muller (The American Historian, May 2018)

  • "The framework of the Gulf World, by contrast, underscores the unique connectedness of the space in and in between Mexico, Cuba, and the United States by centering all three places."

18) Latine Rebellions and Why They Matter, by Llana Barber (The American Historian, Dec. 2021)

  • An examination of urban Latine rebellions and their importance.

19) Overlooked: Latinas’ Role in Migrating and Settling in the Mid-Century Midwest, by Dalia Fernandez-Jones (The American Historian, Summer 2022)

  • An essay that discusses the often overlooked and important role women played in Latine immigration to the midwest.

20) Documented Invasions and Undocumented Peoples: The 2019 Wal Mart Massacre, Land Dispossessions, and the Founding of Texas, by Kris Klein Hernandez (The American Historian, Summer 2022)

  • An essay that shows how the history of Texas immigration should be viewed as a story of undocumented white immigration into the area.

Legal, Rights, Colonial, and Political History

1) Indigenous Erasure in Caribbean Histories of Colonization, by Carolyn Arena (Process, October 8 2018) 

  • Through a framing of the myths of Columbus, Arena argues that past and present erasure of Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean has effects on modern Indigneous communities and politics.

2) Rereading Blank Spaces in the Colonial Caribbean, by Tessa Murphy (Process, October 2 2018) 

  • “The idea that European absence may point to indigenous persistence is not new to historians of colonial North America. Yet in much scholarship on the Caribbean, the latter half of the seventeenth century continues to mark a historical and historiographic moment in which indigenous people largely disappear from view.”

3) Birth of the U.S. Colonial Minimum Wage: The Struggle over the Fair Labor Standards Act in Puerto Rico, 1938–1941, by Anne S. Macpherson (Journal of American History, December 2017)

4) Votes for Colonized Women, by Laura Prieto (Process History, May 2020) 

  • An analysis of the 19th Amendment’s impact for women in the Caribbean and Pacific Territories of the UNited States. This transnational research on Women’s suffrage contextualizes U.S. history into the broader history of its empire. 

5) U.S. - Latin American Relations, by William Kamman (Magazine of History, Sept. 1992) 

  • A history of the various stakes, contingencies, and policies for both sides in U.S.-Latin American relations from the Colonial era forward. 

6) Remembering Sara Rosas Garcia, by Alexandra Minna Stern (Process History Blog, 2017) 

  • A history of eugenic sterilizations in California filtered through Sara Rosas Garcia suing the state in 1939 on behalf of her daughter, Andrea Garcia. 

7) Anarchism and the Long Red Scare in the Caribbean, 1897-1925, by Kirwin Shaffer (Process History Blog, 2018) 

  • A History of the expansion of the Red Scare outside of the United States and into the Caribbean with a focus on transnational intelligence sharing and military actions. 

8) Rethinking Global Inequality: Venezuela and the Rise and Fall of the New International Economic Order, by Michael Franczak (Process History Blog, 2019) 

  • A history of the “lost decade” of development for Latin America. 

9) Beyond Big Stick: Elihu Root’s visit to Rio de Janeiro (1906), by Alexandre Guilherme da Cruz Alves (Process History Blog, 2020) 

  • A history of the prelude to the Good Neighbor Policy as voiced through former Secretary of State, Elihu Root. 

10) Neither a Spanish Nor U.S. Lake: The Caribbean, a Region in Its Own Right, by Ernesto Bassi (The American Historian, May 2018)

  • Bassi argues that scholars should examin the history of the Caribbean from within, and not from a lense of Spanish or U.S. imperialism.

11) Colonial Lessons: The Politics of Education in Puerto Rico, 1898–1930, by Solsiree del Moral (The American Historian, May 2018)

  • An examination of the colonial legacies of education in Puerto Rico.