ABOUT

 

Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Connecticut

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Ph.D. in History, University of Michigan​​

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I am a historian of Puerto Ricans, Latinas in the United States, and women and gender. I have research and teaching experience in Puerto Rican, United States, Caribbean, and Latin American history.

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My first book, The Politics of Care Work: Puerto Rican Women Organizing for Social Justice, is forthcoming from Duke University Press in May 2025. This book tells the story of Puerto Rican women’s involvement in political activism for social and economic justice in Puerto Rico and the United States throughout the twentieth century. I focus on the experiences and contributions of Puerto Rican social workers, care workers, and caregivers who fought for the compensation of reproductive labor in society and the establishment of social welfare programs. I show how their relentless efforts gradually shifted the field of social work toward social justice and community-centered activism. Their profound and enduring impact on Puerto Rican communities underscores the crucial role of Puerto Rican women’s caregiving labor and activism in building and sustaining migrant communities.

 

I am currently working on two new books. The first, Bright Futures: Antonia Pantoja and the Practice of Ethnic Studies, is a biography of Afro-Puerto Rican civil rights activist Antonia Pantoja. This book will introduce readers to Pantoja’s life and examine her political work and contributions to the history of education and the formation of “Ethnic Studies” in the United States. The second, Community Work: Puerto Rican Women Activists in the United States, is a long-term project that explores the history of Puerto Rican women as community organizers and welfare rights activists in the United States from 1950 to 2000. 

 

My writing has been published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, ILWCH: International Labor and Working-Class History, and Modern American History.

I held a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University in the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the History Department. Additionally, I was a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, a Summer Institute on Tenure and Advancement (SITPA) Fellow at Duke University, a Dissertation Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY, and a Rackham Merit Fellow at the Graduate School of the University of Michigan. At UConn, my research has been funded by the JEDI Initiative Research Award from the Provost’s Office, a CLAS Research in Academic Themes Award, and a SCHARP Award. I have also received a Humanities Faculty Fellowship (2019-2020), a Felberbaum Family Faculty Award, and a Humanities Book Support Award from the Humanities Institute at UConn. ​