Monica Perales
Associate Professor
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Phone: (713) 743-3103
- Email: mperales3@uh.edu
- Office: 564 Agnes Arnold Hall
Monica Perales received her Ph.D. in history from Stanford University in 2004. She has been the recipient of various fellowships including the 2009 Women's Studies Faculty Summer Fellowship, and was the 2006-2007 Summerlee Fellow in Texas History at the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. Professor Perales is a member of the Board of Directors of Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a B.A. in Journalism (1994) and M.A. in History (1996) from the University of Texas at El Paso.
Teaching
Professor Perales’ general teaching interests include Chicana/o labor and social history, immigration, American West, Borderlands and oral history.
Research Interests
Perales’ research explores questions of race, gender, nation, community and identity on the border. She is presently working on a manuscript project that explores the multiple meanings of Mexican motherhood on the border during the Progressive Era.
Her article “Fighting to Stay in Smeltertown: Lead Contamination and Environmental Justice in a Mexican American Community” (Western Historical Quarterly, Spring 2008) received the 2008 Article Award from the Oral History Association. Professor Perales has presented her work at the annual scholarly meetings of several associations including the Berkshire Conference in the History of Women, The Western History Association, and the Organization of American Historians.
Selected Publications
- Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)
- Co-editor, Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2010)
Articles
- “Fighting to Stay in Smeltertown: Lead Contamination and Environmental Justice in a Mexican American Community” (Western Historical Quarterly, Spring 2008)
