Director of Latina/o Studies and Professor of History

(Spring 2025)

Latino communities in the old industrial cities of eastern Pennsylvania hold the key to understanding the momentous political realignment that is currently underway nationally. This project will explore the historical genealogy of Trumpism, and the political xenophobia that underlies it, by studying its origins in a part of the state with relatively new Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and other Latino populations. I analyze three simultaneous processes: the arrival of Latin American migrants, the deindustrialization of these cities, and their political struggles over municipal resources and cultural recognition by both anti-Hispanic activists and Latino residents.