Fields
Latin America; Race and Ethnicity; Indigenous History
Bio
My research focuses on histories of development, Indigeneity, and international diplomacy in modern Central America. My first book, "On Our Own Terms" (UNC Press, 2022), focuses on the ways that Guatemalans interacted with, and often appropriated Cold War-era development projects. I focus not only on the actions and motivations of policymakers but also emphasize the ways that Indigenous people actively participated in these processes, creating alternate versions of development and Indigenous citizenship. I have also published chapters in two edited volumes, "Latin America and the Global Cold War" (UNC Press, 2020) and "Out of the Shadow: Revisiting the Revolution from Post-Peace Guatemala" (U. Texas Press, 2020). I also co-edited a special journal issue for the Journal of Social History titled “Interpretative Challenges in the Archive: Rumor, Forgery, and Denunciation in Latin America.” My article which appeared in the issue, “Rumors of Insurgency and Assassination in the Ixcán, Guatemala” won the 2021 Sturgis Leavitt Award from the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies.
I have several research projects underway: an article about environmental disaster and earthquake relief efforts in Chinautla, Guatemala, Latino Oklahoma, a collaborative oral history project that is working to record oral histories from Oklahoma’s Latinx community and a book-length project that is a social history of the long-standing territorial dispute between Guatemala and Belize. This initial research has been funded by an Oklahoma Humanities Council grant, an OSU Community Engagement grant,, and an OSU Office of the Vice President Research Jumpstart/Acceleration grant.
I enjoy teaching courses on colonial and modern Latin American history and thematic courses that discuss immigration and transnational community formation, Indigenous histories of Latin America, histories of food commodities and U.S./Latin American foreign relations. My course HIST3303 Nations on the Move was created with funding from the Stanton Foundation’s Applied History Course grant.
Courses Taught
HIST 1103 Survey of American History
HIST 1823 World History 1500-present
HIST/AMST 2513 Plantation to Plate: Sugar, Bananas, and Coffee in the Americas
HIST/AMST 3303 Nations on the Move: Latin American Migration and Latinx Communities in the U.S.
HIST3453 Colonial Latin America
HIST3463 Modern Latin America
HIST 3980 American History Through the Image
HIST4903 History Senior Seminar
HIST 4980 Latin American Borderlands and Frontiers (Independent Study)
HIST 5140 Indigenous Latin America (Graduate Readings Seminar)
HIST 5140 Atlantic World History (Graduate Readings Seminar)