Ph.D.
Southern Methodist University - 2008
Professional Preparation
M.A.
University of Texas at El Paso - 2000
University of Texas at El Paso - 2000
B.A.
University of Texas at Austin - 1997
University of Texas at Austin - 1997
Research Areas
Native American, borderlands, and environmental historyPublications
Are We Not Foreigners Here?: Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, University of North Carolina Press, 2018 - Book
“The Chamizal Blues: El Paso, the Wayward River, and the Peoples in Between," Western Historical Quarterly, 2012 - Article
“‘The Year of the Yaqui’: Texas Tech University’s Sonoran Expeditions, 1934-1984," Journal of the West, 2010 - Article
"Native American Women," Women's Rights, 2010 - Book chapter
"The Rediscovery of the Tiguas: Indianness and Federal Recognition in the Twentieth Century," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 2001 - Article
Awards
Predoctoral Fellowship in Ethnic Studies, Texas Tech University, 2005-2007 -
William B. Clements Department of History Doctoral Fellowship, Southern Methodist University, 2000-2005 -
Appointments
Clinical Associate Professor
University of Texas at Dallas [2018–Present]
University of Texas at Dallas [2018–Present]
Senior Lecturer
University of Texas at Dallas [2007–2018]
University of Texas at Dallas [2007–2018]
Instructor/Fellow in Ethnic Studies
Texas Tech University [2005–2007]
Texas Tech University [2005–2007]
Co-Instructor
Southern Methodist University [2004–2004]
Southern Methodist University [2004–2004]
Instructor
SMU-in-Taos [2002–2002]
SMU-in-Taos [2002–2002]
Teaching Assistant
University of Texas at El Paso [1998–1999]
University of Texas at El Paso [1998–1999]
Presentations
“American Indian Women of the Colonial-Era Southwest”
Energizing Texas History Conference, Texas State Historical Association, 2014“Reenfranchised: Kickapoo Migrant-Citizens and the Contested Twentieth-Century Borderlands”
Western Historical Association Conference, Denver, Colorado, 2012“‘The Year of the Yaqui': Texas Tech University’s Sonoran Expeditions, 1934-1984"
Western Historical Association Conference, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2007“The Kickapoo Diaspora: Transnational Movements and Moments in Twentieth-Century Native America”
Ethnohistory Society Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005“Trans-Nations: Indians, Imagined Communities, and Borderland Realities in the Twentieth Century”
Western Historical Association Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2005Additional Information
I have been teaching at UTD since 2007. Although I am primarily responsible for managing the big U.S. and Texas history surveys, I also teach Native American, borderlands, and environmental history courses.
My published work reflects an array of scholarly interests. I have written about topics related to, for example, U.S. immigration policy, U.S.-Mexican diplomacy, federal Indian policy and Indian law, Native American women’s history, and the Rio Grande River.
My first book-length project, entitled Are We Not Foreigners Here?: Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, traces the histories of the Yaquis, Kickapoos, and Tohono O’odham, three indigenous groups with communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. It examines the ways in which they have historically used that unusual orientation as a strategy to assert claims to independent nationhood, all while under the gaze of two powerful nation-states that were obviously determined to thwart those efforts. My current project deals with crime, racism, environmentalism, and artistic expression within the scrap metal recycling industry.
I am also a gardener, amateur chef, guitar player, and proud father.