Tales from the Rebel Archive: History as Subversive Practice at California’s Margins

Southern California Quarterly,  2020

Presented as the annual W. P. Whitsett lecture, this article examines the challenges of archival work outside of traditional urban centers, looks to the "rebel archive" and the public humanities as avenues for addressing these challenges, and draws on case studies from the California Inland Empire that recover, interrogate, and share these histories as forms of subversive practice. 

Toward a Digital Ethnic Studies: Race, Technology, and the Classroom

American Quarterly, 2018

What might a critically engaged classroom exploring the connections between the digital humanities and ethnic studies look like within contemporary American studies?

Mapping LA-tinx Suburbia

Boom Journal, 2017

This essay explores how digital mapping can inform our understanding of metropolitan Los Angeles, both in the academy and beyond through a collaborative project titled, Barrio Suburbanism Map. This work complicates popular perceptions of the suburbs as sites of homogeneity in order to reveal the dynamic diversity of suburbanization in multiracial Los Angeles.

Building People's Histories: Graduate Student Pedagogy, Undergraduate Education, and Collaboration with Community Partners

Journal of American History, 2013

People’s history represents a wide range of pedagogical engagements that push for more complex and dynamic historical analyses. This article focuses on a project built on the principles of people’s history by graduate students in collaboration with community partners. It reflects on the challenges, opportunities, and future directions for other educators interested in pursuing a people’s history approach in higher education.

The Right to the Suburb? Rethinking Lefebvre and Immigrant Activism

Journal of Urban Affairs, 2011

This article examines how the tensions between suburbanites and Latino immigrants are addressed by municipal governments as immigration enforcement is increasingly rescaled to the local level. While the urban realm remains the most visible stage of social movements, this paper suggests immigrant activism is increasingly being generated in suburbs, election-based organizing can be an effective gateway to municipal level change, and seeking to expand or constrict the Right to the City necessarily entails multi-scalar efforts.

Los Angeles, The Automobile, and the Mexican American Life

Boom California, 2019

This essay places Mexican Americans at the center of L.A.'s autopia. Connecting the past and present, it includes an excerpt from Carpio's Collisions at the Crossroads, an essay by cultural historian Eric Avila, and original photographs from the Inland Mexican Heritage collection.

Racial Projections: Cyberspace, Public Space, and the Digital Divide

Information, Communication and Society, 2017

By examining contemporary digital art that critiques spatial inequalities encountered by communities of color, this article illustrates how public intellectuals use ICTs in ways that draw upon past strategies to territorialize space for political ends. It focuses on digital pop-ups, open-air installations that cast images onto public space using projectors. This research indicates that place-based claims, such as digital pop-ups, are important sites for combatting racial injustice and creating more inclusionary spaces, especially among youth adults.

Philanthropic (Dis)trust and the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1950-1965

The Western Historical Quarterly, 2016

Through a relational approach to regional western history, this article examines the ways organizers based in the American West negotiated with East Coast philanthropists over conflicting visions of civil rights activism. Ultimately, these debates reveal the possibilities and limits of philanthropic support within leftist movements.

Unexpected Allies: David C. Marcus and His Impact on the Advancement of Civil Rights in the Mexican-American Legal Landscape of Southern California

Casden: An Annual Review, 2012

This article  traces the life and career of David C. Marcus, who litigated Mendez v. Westminster, with an emphasis on his impact on Latino legal history  in the World War II era. More broadly, this inquiry offers one window into the ways Jewish and Latino alliances formed in Southern California and how, together, they attempted to shift the legal terrain of race and race-relations in the United States.