MIREYALOZA

I am a historian and curator whose research focuses on Latinx history, labor history, and food studies. My book Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual and Political Freedom (UNC Press) examines the Bracero Program and highlights how guest workers navigated questions of indigeneity, intimacy, and transnational organizing. In researching this book, I collaborated with the National Museum of American History to create the largest collection of bracero oral histories and to develop a digital archive. You can listen to the interviews here. I am currently writing my second book.

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My first book received the 2017 Theodore Saloutos Book Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize. I was also named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians. My research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Mexico-North Research Network, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown University, I was an Assistant Professor of Food Studies at New York University and a curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), where I continue to collaborate on public history projects.

I regularly deliver lectures and keynote addresses on food and immigration, agricultural labor, and Latinx history, and I lead workshops on oral history methods and public history practice.

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I earned my Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University, as well as an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I designed my own major and became the first student to graduate with a degree in Latina/o Studies.

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If you would like to learn more about my family and research listen to this episode of Latino USA.