About

B.A., UCLA
Ph.D., UC Santa Cruz

I am a historian of the twentieth century United States specializing in Latinx, immigration, and borderlands histories. I am particularly interested in the intersection of immigration policy and labor migrations at the turn of the twentieth century. My current research questions why US federal-level immigration policies relied on local-level morals policing to enforce national-level policies of border control.

I am currently working on preparing a book manuscript on the California-Baja California borderlands. I focus on agricultural and sexual commerce workers at the turn of the twentieth century as they negotiated between US and Mexican state projects of labor policing.

When not teaching or conducting research I enjoy watching Dodger games and exploring Maine with my family.

Publications

“Between the Homing Pigeon and the Vagrant: The Contract Labor System and the Creation of the Immoral Mexican Migrant, 1910-1929” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 21 no. 4

“How the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Became Spaces of Crime and Violence” The American Historian