At Texas A&M University, Hispanic heritage matters. Through research, teaching and working with local communities, the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences makes sure that Hispanic experiences are preserved, remembered and shared.
Historical research within our department helps document the stories of Hispanic heritage. While on leave this academic year, thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Dr. Sonia Hernández has been busy planning several presentations based on the research supported by this fellowship. In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, Dr. Hernández will visit Lone Star College-Kingwood to deliver a lecture based on her current book project. As part of the “Curious Minds” Speaker Series, she will share the consequential history of the near lynching of Mexican cowboy Gregorio Cortez in south-central Texas in 1901; Hernández examines the incident in larger context, discussing its broader historical implications related to changing ideas about citizenship, race, gender, and class, and the forging of a transnational alliance that brought people from different backgrounds together to mitigate violence.
Dr. Hernández is currently collaborating with the State University of Nuevo León—one of the largest state universities in Mexico, with a similar history and student population to Texas A&M—on a Spanish translation of her recently co-edited anthology, Reverberations of Racial Violence/Rebrotes de Violencia Racial. As she completes her book project, Hernández has begun working on a journal article on the state of Mexican American history and has just received the galleys for her forthcoming article in California History, part of a special issue commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and our nation’s shift toward increased border controls.
In addition to research, faculty in the Department of History at Texas A&M University contribute their teaching expertise in a variety of courses on Hispanic history and Latinx studies, including:
- HIST 307: Latinx History
- HIST 304: Southwest Borderlands
- HIST 481: The Cuban Revolution in Fall 2024
Hispanic heritage is an ongoing part of scholarship, teaching, and outreach in the Department of History at Texas A&M University.