I was born in Cueva Grande, Zacatecas, Mexico and migrated in 1977 with my family to the largest lemon fruit ranch in the country known as Limoneira Ranch, in Ventura County, California. My family worked in lemon packinghouses and orchards year-round which allowed my siblings and I to attend local public schools. At middle school age, I took part in University of California, Santa Barbara's Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) that encouraged minority students to seek a higher education. I’m proud to be a beneficiary of Affirmative Action programs like EOP. After graduating with a B.A. in Sociology and Communication Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara I began graduate school at University of California Irvine. I received my Ph.D. in the Comparative Cultures Program (ethnic studies) in 2000. During the 1999-2000 school year I accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies. In May, 2006 I received tenure was promoted to Associate Professor. Apart from my academic research, I have worked with community oral history projects, museum exhibitions, labor unions, immigrant rights groups, and social justice organizations. I’m currently the advisor for WSU-MEChA and former co-chair of the Chicano/a-Latino/a Faculty and Staff Association (CLFSA) at WSU.
My research focuses on the ways in which Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans have used culture, politics, and other forms of leisure to build community solidarity, construct gender and ethnic identities, and to forge inter-ethnic relations with other groups in order to advance politically and economically in the United States.
As a specialist in the areas of Chicano(a)/Latino(a) Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies, and U.S. Labor and Immigration, my research methodology is multidisciplinary and comparative incorporating theoretical approaches from history, anthropology, sociology, political economy, critical race theory, gender studies and cultural studies. Some of these methodological approaches include archival research, ethnography, participant observation, oral history interviews, literary readings and cultural analysis. My interdisciplinary training in these fields has allowed me to establish linkages and connections between men and women, workers and management, the working class and middle-class groups, and racially and ethnically diverse groups and communities.
A major concern that has guided my research is to understand why the ethnic Mexican working class in United States continues to face economic, political and social barriers in American society. To understand the present character of the Mexican working class we must explore the United States' role in Mexico during the late nineteenth century and how the capitalist development of the southwest and concurrent underdevelopment of the Mexican countryside led to Mexican immigration to the United States. Upon arrival, Mexican families filled the ranks of the agricultural-industrial labor force and over time settled into urban and rural communities, and created vibrant cultural communities. Apart from economic concerns, I pay close attention to racial dynamics and gender relations. More specifically how Mexican Americans were integrated into a racialized and gender stratified economy. To fully understand the ethnic Mexican working experience, I extend my analysis outside the workplace.
For my first book I have chosen to focus on "labor" and "leisure" because past and present day struggles over leisure space have yet to be fully documented, especially among Mexican American working class communities, many of which continue to be plagued by declining public spaces, negative portrayals in mass media, lack of recreational facilities, and heavily policed cultural events. Mexican American communities have not been hopelessly captive to employers, police and city government officials. On the contrary Mexican Americans waged protracted struggles over leisure spaces in attempt to inscribe their own cultural meanings and declare "spaces of pleasure" as their own. These forms of working class opposition can offer important lessons to public policy officials and community activists to meet the future recreational needs of this growing Latino/a population in the United States.
My second book will examine the transnational history of sports clubs, athletes, and sporting events in both Mexico and the United States. Playing Across Borders: The Rise of Transnational Sports in Greater Mexico seeks to challenge the idea that Mexican American athletes and sports clubs were bounded by national borders in the twentieth century.
Making Lemonade out of Lemons: Mexican American Labor and Leisure in a California Town, 1900-1960 (University of Illinois Press, 2006)
"More Than a Fiesta: Ethnic Identity, Cultural Politics and Cinco de Mayo Festivals in Corona, California, 1930-1950"Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies v. 28, n.2 (Fall 2003)
(Available in PDF)
"Peloteros in Paradise: Mexican American Baseball and Oppositional Politics in Southern California, 1930-1950" Western Historical Quarterly, v. 34, n. 2 (Summer 2003)
"Mexican American Baseball: Masculinity, Racial Struggle, and Labor Politics in Southern California, 1930-1950" in John Bloom and Michael Willard (eds.) Sports Matters: Race, Recreation, and Culture (New York University Press, 2002)
“'Our Culture is Not For Sale': Contesting the Commercialization of Cinco de Mayo in the United States” in Racial Crossroads: A Comparative Ethnic Studies Reader eds. Yolanda Flores Neimann and Carmen Lugo (Kendall Hunt Publishers, 2004) (Available in PDF)
“Latinos and Latinas in Washington State” in Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States co-editors. Deena J. Gonzalez and Suzanne Oboler (Oxford University Press, 2005)
"Parading Ethnic Identities" Journal of American Ethnic History (May 2004)
"Frances Martinez" in Vicki Ruiz and Virginia Sanchez Korrol, eds. Latinas in the United States: An Historical Encyclopedia (Indiana University Press, 2006)
“Drinking the ‘Other’: Alcohol Companies Reinterpreting Cinco de Mayo into Commodity Racism” in C. Richard King, ed., Commodity Racism: Representation, Racialization, and Resistance (University of Georgia Press, 2007)
“Cinco de Mayo” Latinos and Latinas in U.S. History and Society: An Encyclopedia,
Edited by David Leonard and Carmen Lugo-Lugo (M.E. Sharpe, Inc, forthcoming)
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
Playing Across Borders: The Rise of Transnational Sports in Greater Mexico
Commercialism and Cultural Politics of Cinco de Mayo in the United States
Mexican Solos, Male Leisure and the Making of Working Class Masculinities in the North American West, 1900-1930