Monica Muñoz Martinez was born in Uvalde, Texas.[2] She received her B.A. from Brown University's Department of Ethnic Studies and American Civilization and her Ph.D. from Yale University's Department of American Studies.[3] After completing her doctorate, she conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin with the Center for Mexican American Studies studying the history and legacy of anti-Mexican violence along the Texas borderlands.[4]
Academic career
Muñoz Martinez was the Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.[5][6] Her areas of research include Latino studies, immigration, and the history of violence and policing, with an emphasis on the history of anti-Mexican violence in the Southwestern United States and the legacy violence has on people today.[7][8] Discussing her goal of shedding light on the legacy of violence, she stated, "I wanted to study the longer legacies of violence," ... "Historians think in terms of concrete time frames. But now I was meeting descendants who were still being impacted by the violence. It still resonates today."[9]
She is a co-founder of Refusing to Forget, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching and raising public awareness of current and past racial violence in Texas.[2][10]
Her first book The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas was published by Harvard University Press in 2018 and has received numerous awards and positive reviews in academic journals.[11][12][13][14] Commenting on her book she stated her goal was attempting “to recover history that’s been forgotten or disavowed and make it public."[15] The book is centered around three episodes of violence in the Texas borderlands: the 1910 lynching of Antonio Rodríguez; the 1915 murders of Jesus Bazán and Antonio Longoria by Texas Rangers; and the 1918 Porvenir massacre of fifteen Tejanos by Texas Rangers. The book continues with a history of the efforts by José Tomás Canales in 1919 to bring criminal charges against several Texas Rangers for their involvement in terrorizing and murdering Mexican Americans and the House-Senate committee hearings that investigated the murders and violence perpetrated by the Texas Rangers in the borderlands.[16]
Martinez was part of the research team for the project "Mapping Violence", documenting the history of racial violence in Texas during 1900–1930.[17][2]
In 2019, Martinez gave testimony in Congress during Judiciary Committee hearings on the "Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Border Policies and the Relationship Between Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Domestic Terrorism".[18]
Her professional affiliations include the Organization of American Historians, the American Studies Association, the National Council for Public Humanities, the National Association of Chicana Chicano Studies, the Western History Association and the American Historians Association.[3]
During her first year at Brown University, Martinez was the recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.[2] Since completing her Ph.D. in 2012, has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships.[3][5] These include:
Life and Death on the Border, 1910–1920. Bullock Texas State History Museum. Museum Exhibit.[27][2]
Mapping Violence. Academic collaboration documenting previously forgotten or concealed cases of racial violence in Texas between 1900 – 1930.[2][28]
Refusing To Forget. Educational non-profit organization focused on raising public awareness about anti-immigrant violence along the US-Mexico border.[2][29]
Texas Historical Commission Historical Markers project. Martinez worked to place four historical markers along the US-Mexico border at locations of major acts of anti-Mexican violence.[6]
^Barajas, Frank P. (2019). "The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas". Journal of American History. 106 (3): 786. doi:10.1093/jahist/jaz598.
^Tijerina, Andrés (2019). "The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martínez". Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 123: 114–115. doi:10.1353/swh.2019.0056. S2CID198799175.
^Campney, Brent (2019). "Review: The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez". Pacific Historical Review. 88 (4): 731–732. doi:10.1525/phr.2019.88.4.731.
^LeBrón, Marisol (2019). "Review of Monica Muñoz Martinez's The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas". NACLA Report on the Americas. 51 (4): 437–440. doi:10.1080/10714839.2019.1693006. S2CID213344911.
