Christian Paiz
Assistant Professor
Comparative Ethnic Studies
Comparative Latino Studies, Historical Methods, Immigration, Labor, Philippine and Filipino American Studies, Social Movement History, United States History
Bio & Research Interests
Broadly speaking, I am a twentieth-century United States historian with interests in transnational migration, egalitarian social-cultural movements, and theoretically-creative histories. Specifically, I study how farmworkers in Southern California’s Coachella Valley (men, women, migrants, residents, Filipino and Mexican) envisioned their future through their involvement in the United Farm Worker (UFW) Movement from the 1960s to 1980s. Drawing from Latinx Studies, Asian American Studies and Labor History, and using original interviews, my research narrates a UFW history that transcends its more famous leadership. It argues that everyday people, and their aspirations, were of utmost historical significance: they initiated and propelled forward the UFW, and helped determine our contemporary fortunes. History, in short, often sits among forgotten peoples.
Courses Taught
ES10AC: History of Race & Ethnicity in Western North America
ES180: Before Trump, There Was California: A Research Seminar on Proposition 187
ES190: The Politics and Narratives of American Social Movements Since WWII
ES190: The Roots of California Today: A History of Social Inequality and its Discontents
ES250: Methods and Approaches to Inter-Racial Histories of the United States
ES250: From Borderlands History to a History of Borders – New Scholarship on the US/MX Division
ES375: Critical Pedagogy