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About Me

Bonnie A. Lucero is a historian of Latin America and the Caribbean. Her research centers on the intersections of race and gender in colonial and post-colonial contexts, especially in Cuba. She is co-editor of Voices of Crime: Constructing and Contesting Social Control in Modern Latin America (University of Arizona Press, 2016) and author of Revolutionary Masculinity and Racial Inequality: Gendering War and Politics in Cuba, 1895-1902 (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Her second monograph, A Cuban City, Segregated: Race and Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century (University of Alabama Press, 2019) examines the experiences of men and women of African descent in Cienfuegos, a city founded as a white colony, during the long nineteenth century. With the generous support of the Law and Society Post-Doctoral Fellowship and Newcomb College Institute, Lucero has advanced her new book project, tentatively titled Malthusian Practices: A History of Pregnancy, Abortion, and Infanticide in Cuba since Colonial Times. In that project, she interrogates how laws regulating women’s reproduction historically perpetuated gender-specific forms of racial inequality since the early colonial period. Dr. Lucero currently serves as Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Center for Latino Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown. She is a native of Richmond, California.

As an educator, Dr. Lucero has dedicated her career to advancing equity and inclusion in higher education. In her current position as Director of the Center for Latino Studies at the University of Houston-Downtown, she leads initiatives to cultivate the unique talents of Latino students by providing educational experiences that embrace students’ racial, ethnic, and cultural identities. Advancing the Hispanic-serving and Minority-serving mission of her institution, she brings together faculty, students, and local partners to create and implement socially-empowering curriculum, innovative student support programs, cultural-enrichment opportunities, and purposeful community engagement in the heart of one of the most culturally-diverse cities in the United States. At the core of this project lies her vision to transform the traditional canons of academic knowledge by developing a dynamic, interdisciplinary learning experience in Latino Studies that not only features electives and extracurriculars, but also occupies a central space within the institution’s core curriculum and the students’ broader learning journeys.

Before coming to Houston, Dr. Lucero focused her energies on expanding access to education among historically-marginalized populations in other communities along the Gulf Coast. As Law and Society Fellow at Tulane University’s Newcomb College Institute, she conducted research on racial inequality from an intersectional lens and applied insights in community programing in the greater New Orleans area. She taught incarcerated women at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in addition to mentoring undergraduate women in hands-on research experiences at home and abroad. Prior to that, Dr. Lucero worked as an educator on the Rio Grande Valley. There, she designed and implemented culturally-relevant programming and socially-empowering curriculum especially for Mexican-American students at the largest Hispanic-serving institution in the state of Texas. While working on the US-Mexico border, she founded and directed Global Latin America, an interdisciplinary lecture and engagement series highlighting the diverse cultural, ethnic, and racial heritages of Latinx and Latin American peoples.

Dr. Lucero is a native of Richmond, California.

Recent Publications

Books

Revolutionary Masculinity and Racial Inequality: Gendering War and Politics in Cuba, 1895-1902 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018).

A Cuban City, Segregated: Race and Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2019).

 

Edited Volumes

Voices of Crime: Constructing and Contesting Social Control in Modern Latin America, Co-edited with Luz Huertas & Gregory Swedberg (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016).

 

Refereed Journal Articles

“The Hidden Costs of Serving Our Community: Women Faculty of Color, Racist Sexism, and the False Security of Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” Feminist Teacher 27:2-3 (2019): 176-195.

“Civilization before Citizenship: Education, Racial Order and the Material Culture of Female Domesticity, Cuba (1899-1902),” Atlantic Studies: Global Currents 12: 1 (2015): 26-49.

“Transcending Race and Nation: Social Networks and Economic Mobility among Cubans of Color, circa 1898,” Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies Journal 13 (2012).

“Racial Geographies, Imperial Transitions: Property Ownership and Race Relations in Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1894-1899,” Journal of Transnational American Studies 3:2 (December 2011). http://escholarship.org/uc/item/75z157cv

 

Book Chapters

“Political Violence, Revolution, and US Occupation in Cuba circa the 1905 Elections,” in The Oxford Handbook of Revolutionary Elections in the Americas, 1800-1910, edited by Andrew Robertson and Eduardo Posada-Carbó (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

“‘In this Matter of Dignity’: Black Unionism, Racial Order, and the Struggle for Citizenship in Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1899-1907,” in Human Rights, Race and Resistance in the African Diaspora, edited by Cacee Hoyer and Toyín Falola, pp. 126-148 (New York: Routledge, 2016).

“Order in an Occupied City: Police and Antiblack Violence in Cienfuegos, Cuba, circa 1899,” in Voices of Crime, op. cit.

“Conclusion: Towards an Intersectional Vision of Crime,” in Voices of Crime, op. cit.

“Introduction: Studying the Construction, Negotiation, and Repression of Crime,” with Luz Huertas & Gregory Swedberg, in Voices of Crime, op. cit.

“Entre Esclavos y Comerciantes: Mujeres Negras como Intermediarias en la Economía Colonial Cienfueguera” Emergiendo del silencio. Mujeres negras en la Historia de Cuba, edited by Oilda Hevia Lanier (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2016).

Media Coverage

Social Media

@DrBLucero

Country Focus

Cuba

Expertise by Geography

Atlantic, Caribbean, Latin America, United States

Expertise by Chronology

18th century, 19th century, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Emancipation, Gender, Medicine, Politics, Race, Sexuality, Slavery, Urban History, Women