The University of North Texas Libraries invite applications for the 2017 UNT Special Collections Research Fellowship. Research in special collections is relevant to studies in a variety of disciplines including history, journalism, political science, geography, fine art, art history and American studies. We encourage applicants to think creatively about new uses for special collections. Preference will be given to applicants who demonstrate the greatest potential for publication and the best use of special collections at UNT Libraries.

The UNT Special Collections 2017 Research Fellowship Awardee

Laura Lee Oviedo

Project Title

Militarization of Mexican and Puerto Rican Women’s Lives during World War II and the Politics of Race, Class, Gender, and Citizenship

Project Description

Laura’s project, The Militarization of Mexican and Puerto Rican Women’s Lives during World War II and the Politics of Race, Class, Gender, and Citizenship, utilizes a gendered lens of militarization in order to better understand the structural and ideological forces that shaped ethnic Mexican and Puerto Rican women’s lived experiences, social Laura Lee Oviedo is a native of Pharr, Texas and is currently a PhD student of history at Texas A&M University. Her research utilizes interdisciplinary and relational approaches to study the experiences of Latina/os in the United States, U.S./Mexico borderlands, Chicana/Latina feminisms and labor, identity politics, race/ethnic relations, and the relationship between war, citizenship, and gender. Laura’s dissertation employs a comparative framework to examine the Militarization of Mexican and Puerto Rican Women’s Lives during World War II and the Politics of Race, Class, Gender, and Citizenship. She has been hosted as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Caribbean Studies at the University of Puerto Rico and has presented her research at the American Sociological Association, National Women’s Studies Association, National Association of Chicana and Chicano Scholars, Dale Center for the Study of War & Society, Texas State Historical Association, among others.relations, ideologies, and practices during a heavily militarized climate in the mid-twentieth century. Most importantly, it examines the roles of these mujeres as cultural consumers and producers, sex workers, (in)formal wage laborers, as soldiers in the newly formed auxiliary units of the U.S. military (Women’s Army Corps, WAVES, etc), and as wives and mothers of military soldiers.

Biography

Laura Lee Oviedo is a native of Pharr, Texas and is currently a Ph.D. student of history at Texas A&M University. Her research utilizes interdisciplinary and relational approaches to study the experiences of Latina/os in the United States, U.S./Mexico borderlands, Chicana/Latina feminisms and labor, identity politics, race/ethnic relations, and the relationship between war, citizenship, and gender. Laura’s dissertation employs a comparative framework to examine the Militarization of Mexican and Puerto Rican Women’s Lives during World War II and the Politics of Race, Class, Gender, and Citizenship. She has been hosted as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Caribbean Studies at the University of Puerto Rico and has presented her research at the American Sociological Association, National Women’s Studies Association, National Association of Chicana and Chicano Scholars, Dale Center for the Study of War & Society, Texas State Historical Association, among others.