BIOGRAPHY:
I was born in Cueva Grande, Zacatecas, Mexico (between Valparaiso and Fresnillo) and migrated in 1977 with my family to the largest lemon fruit ranch in the country known as Limoneira Ranch, in Santa Paula, 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 with the mentorship of Gilbert Gonzalez, Raul Fernandez, Jeff Garcilazo, Dorothy Fujita Rony and Heidi Tinsman. During the 1999-2000 school year I accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies, affilate faculty in the Women Studies Department and graduate faculty in the American Studies graduate program at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Despite the colder weather and bouts of SADS and "Pullmania" I enjoyed the people at WSU. In May, 2008 I decided to return to my hometown of Ventura County and accepted a new tenured Chicano/a Studies position at the newest 4-year public university, California State University Channel Islands. It is not located on the Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura County but in the former site of the Camarillo state hospital in Camarillo, CA. Currently I'm the Associate Professor and Coordinator of new program in Chicana/o Studies with a focus on "Tranborder Communities" and Community Engagement componet. We are currently working with the Smithsonian Institution's Bracero Archive Project to collect oral histories from ex-braceros and their family and anyone who was involved with the Bracero Program (1942-1964). I'm also serving as board member in the Studio for Southern California History and the Latino Baseball History Project. I am also involved with local organizations fighting for immigration reform including Ventura County Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.
RESEARCH:
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 understand how sports shaped both a Mexico de Afuera and Mexican American identity simultaneously and how sports instilled confidence and new leadership skills that proved invaluable for future civil rights struggles. This book also seeks to challenge the idea that Mexican American athletes and sporting events were not bounded by national borders in the twentieth century.
PUBLICATIONS:
"Richard "Pancho" Gonzalez, Race and the Print Media in Postwar Tennis America" International Journal of the History of Sport, V. 26, N. 7 (June 2009): 947-965. [PDF copy]
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)
"Cinco de Mayo: A Celebration of Mexican American Culture" in Celebrate Cinco de Mayo by Carolyn Otto (National Geographic, 2008)
"Baseball" in Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, 1750 to the Present, edited by Peter Stearns (Oxford University Press, 2008)
"Bibliographic Essay on U.S. Latino/a History" (National Park Service and Organization of American Historians, 2008)
“Drinko de Mayo": Reinterpreting Cinco de Mayo into Commercial Holiday ” in Studies in Symbolic Interactionism (forthcoming)
“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)