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Brett Olmsted I am a professor of history at San Jacinto College in Houston, Texas. I completed my PhD in 20th Century U.S. History in 2017 from the University of Houston with a focus on Mexican American Studies. |
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Bio: I am a professor of history at San Jacinto College in Houston, Texas. I completed my PhD in 20th Century U.S. History in 2017 from the University of Houston with a focus on Mexican American Studies. My dissertation, “Los Mexicanos de Michigan: Claiming Space and Creating Community through Leisure and Popular Culture, 1920-1970,” analyzes the Mexicano experience in Midwest. Faced with powerful figurative boundaries of social, economic, and political exclusion, I examine how Mexicanos actively negotiated and molded the space around them, redefining how and where they belonged within a borderlands setting. I argue that because Mexicanos never constituted a numerically significant population in any one area, they claimed belonging via leisure spaces and labor unionism. By gathering together for celebrations, sports, movies, and music, Mexicanos claimed physical and social space within Michigan’s cities and towns, connected with other Mexicano communities across the state and country, and constructed their own sense of identity and community. Using multiple archival sources, online repositories, oral histories, and local newspapers, I show that Mexicanos adapted remarkably to their environment by finding which mode of leisure and/or labor was most effective, enabling them to make a home in the region while developing unique Midwestern-centric cultural identities. JOURNAL ARTICLES: “Mexican Fiestas in Central Michigan: Celebrations and Identity Formation, 1920-1930,” Michigan Historical Review 41, no. 2 (Fall 2015), 33-57 CONFERENCE PAPERS: “Las Fiestas Patrias en Michigan: How Celebrations Impacted Nationality, Citizenship, and Identity in the Rural Sugar Beet Industry,” National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies National Conference, San Antonio, Texas, March 2013 “Michigan Mexicans: Transnational Patterns of Belonging and the Multifaceted Nature of Mexican Gatherings, 1920-1930,” Mid-America Regional Historical Conference, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, September 2013 AWARDS Ernesto Valdes Oral History Prize for best use of oral history in a conference paper, article, or dissertation chapter, ($200 award), May 2017 |
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