The Latin American section of the Arizona State University History Department offers geographical coverage in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Andean region, and the Southern Cone and expertise in both the colonial and national periods, allowing graduate students to earn an M.A. or Ph.D. The faculty is recognized internationally and nationally for its contributions in gender, indigenous, Chicano, and border history.

Students in Latin American history are strongly encouraged to conduct research in the country they are studying, and the faculty assist them in finding travel grants and in obtaining access to relevant research materials. Graduate students have recently traveled to Mexico, Cuba, and Guatemala.

Faculty Profiles

Asunción Lavrin received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her first wave of recognized work established the economic importance of convents during the colonial period. She has been the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a Social Science Research Council Grant, a grant from the Organization of American States, a number of NEH fellowships and Summer Institute grants, and most recently the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has won the prestigious Arthur P. Whitaker Memorial Prize and the Harold Eugene Davis Memorial Prize. She also served on the Council on Latin American History. Her publications inclue Monjas y Beatas: La escritura femenina en la espiritualidad barroca novohispana, siglos XVII y XVIII, co-edited with Rosalva Loreto López, Women, Feminism and Social Change in the Southern Cone, 1890-1940, an edited and co-authored book, Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, and an edited and co-authored book, Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives.

K. Lynn Stoner received her Ph.D. from Indiana University and wrote her first book From the House to the Streets: The Cuban Woman's Movement for Legal Change, 1898-1940 on Cuban women's activism during the early years of the republic. As Latin American and Cuban women's history are emergent fields whose resources are difficult to find, she has written two recognized bibliographies, Latinas of the Americas: A Resource Book and Cuban and Cuban American Women: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography . She has won an ACLS grant, an NEH Summer Institute Grant, a Rockefeller Scholar in Residence Grant, and a Franklin Summer Research Grant.

F. Arturo Rosales graduated from Indiana University with his Ph.D. and focused his research on Latino politics, Latino immigration, Chicano history, and the history of the border. His publications include Testimonio: A Documentary History of the Mexican American Struggle for Civil Rights, “Pobre Raza!”: Violence, Crime, Justice and Mobilization Among Mexico Lindo Immigrants, 1900-1936, and Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Rosales was the recipient of an Organization of American Historians National Parks Service award.

Current Students and Dissertation Topics

Patricia Harms - Guatemalan Women During the Democratic Decade, 1944-1954

Eric Meringer - The Miskito Indians: Ethnogenesis and Identity in the Twentieth Century

Shawn England - The Curse of Huitzilopochtli: The Origins, Process, and Legacy of Mexico’s Military Reforms, 1920-40