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Biography
Carlos Francisco Parra earned his doctoral degree in history from the University of Southern California where he researched Latino cultural formation in metropolitan Los Angeles and throughout the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. Prior to his studies in the heart of Latina/o/x Los Angeles, Parra earned his B.A. in Secondary Education with a specialization in History and Bicultural/Bilingual Education at the University of Arizona and an M.A. in History at the University of New Mexico. In addition to serving as a Ronald McNair Scholar at the University of Arizona, Parra has also served as a fellow in the Smithsonian Institution’s Latino Museum Studies Program (2017) and a Graduate Student Research Fellow at the National Museum of American History (2018).
Parra’s published research covers topics ranging from the origins of the first U.S.-Mexican border fences in Southern Arizona, the cultural assimilation of ethnic Mexican students in the early New Mexico public school system and is currently researching the cultural history of Spanish-language television in greater Latino Los Angeles. While Spanish-language TV was not born in Southern California, the success of Univision KMEX Channel 34 and Telemundo KVEA Channel 52 in metropolitan L.A. (with its sizeable ethnic Mexican population) propelled the transnational industry’s expansion into other Latino markets in New York, Miami, Chicago, and throughout the United States. As some of the most consumed media outlets in the U.S., Univision and Telemundo played key roles in shaping the cultural formation of Latinos in the second half of the twentieth century.
Education (4)
University of Southern California: Ph.D., History 2021
University of Southern California: M.A., History 2016
University of New Mexico: M.A., History 2013
University of Arizona: B.A., Secondary Education with an Emphasis in History 2009
Areas of Expertise (7)
Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x History
Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.
Modern Mexico (post-1821)
U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Migration History
Cultural History
U.S. Southwest
Accomplishments (4)
C. L. Sonnichsen Award, Arizona Historical Society (professional)
2011
Erasmus Circle Scholars Award, University of Arizona College of Education (professional)
2008 - 2009
Hispanic Scholarship Fund Award (professional)
2008 - 2009
UA Hispanic Alumni Scholarship Award (professional)
2006 - 2009
Affiliations (2)
- Member : Organization of American Historians, 2020 - Present
- Member : Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association 2017 - Present
Links (1)
Languages (2)
- Spanish
- Mandarin Chinese (conversational)
Articles (2)
Lessons in Americanization: Educational Attainment and Internal Colonialism in Albuquerque Public Schools, 1879–1942
New Mexico Historical ReviewCarlos Parra
Vol. 91, no. 2., 2016
Valientes Nogalenses: The 1918 Battle Between the U.S. and Mexico That Transformed Ambos Nogales
Journal of Arizona HistoryCarlos Parra
Vol. 51, no. 1., 2010