Personal Info

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About Me

Dr. Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva (She/Ella) is a Chicana, Fronteriza from the South Texas border and a historian of modern Latin American history, primarily in nineteenth and twentieth century Central American history. She received her Ph.D. from Texas Christian University (2017) with a dual emphasis on cultural studies and borderland theory. She has published in the Journal of South Texas and the edited book, Latin America and the Global Cold War. Her work discusses how Panama’s anti-imperialist military government tapped into rising Third Worldism on the streets during the 1970s. Analyzing General Omar Torrijos’ multilayered struggle to liberate his country’s Canal Zone from U.S. occupation, Villanueva uncovers the Panamanian military’s strategic alliance with anti-colonial social movements. Successfully employing Third World cultural theory to reimagine Panama’s decades-long struggle for canal sovereignty, the military’s coalition with artists and students won domestic and foreign legitimacy amid rising anti-imperialist sentiment throughout the Global South. Villanueva is completing her manuscript, Reclaiming a Homeland: Power, Liberation, and Third Worldism in Panama, 1968-1983.

Currently, she’s an educator at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. As the 10th Grade World History Course Head, she has mentored new faculty on best teaching and grading practices. She has given workshops for more than half a decade on designing curriculum that reflects equity design and culturally sustaining and responsive approaches. She has served on advisory boards for curriculum projects at the Boston Athenaeum, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, the Brace Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Phillips Academy’s Archive and Special Collections department. In 2024, she received the Kass Teacher fellowship from the Massachusetts Historical Society to continue promoting Latin American lessons from archival material.

While my early research focused on Latin America history exclusively, my professional trajectory has expanded to address systemic inequities in education, particularly the representation of historically marginalized communities in social studies curricula. Research, for me, cannot be divorced from its impact on teaching and learning. As an advisory board member for Teaching Central America, I curate materials that help K–12 educators integrate Panamanian history and other underrepresented narratives into their classrooms. Similarly, as a book award committee member for the committee member for the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP), I evaluate children’s and young adult literature for its cultural contextualization, literary quality, and classroom application. These roles exemplify my commitment to bridging research and practice, ensuring that scholarship serves as a tool for empowerment and equity.

I’m a native of the Rio Valley Grande of Texas and identify as Mexican American, a Texan living in New England. I enjoy rock climbing, graphic novels,  traveling, and am a big fan of all things horror.

Recent Publications

Currículum Vitae

Articles:

“Blackness Under Dictatorship: The Vindication of Pedro Prestán in Panama, 1984-1986,” (Article in Preparation)

“Third Worldism and The Panama Canal: Liberating the Isthmus, 1971-1978.” in Latina America and the Global Cold War, Thomas Field, Stella Krepp, and Vanni Petttiná, eds. North Carolina: UNC Press, 2020.

“Oppression and Violence along the Border: The Plan of San Diego as Reported in 1915 Newspapers.” The Journal of South Texas 24 (Spring 2011): 32-47.

Dissertation:

Populist Authoritarianism: A Cultural Interpretation of Military Government in Cold-War Panama, 1968-1989

Encyclopedia Entries:

“Pedro Prestán.” Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Franklin W. Knight and Henry Louis Gates. eds. Vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016:207-209.

“Floyd Britton.” Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Franklin W. Knight and Henry
Louis Gates, eds. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016: 408-411.

“Panama Canal.” in Encyclopedia of American Imperialism and Expansionism in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Chris J. Magoc and David Bernstein, eds. Washington: ABC-CLIO, 2015: 836-839.

“Francisco Luiz da Silva Campos.” in Encyclopedia of United States-Latin American Relations. Thomas M. Leonard, ed. Los Angeles: CQ Press, 2012: 129-130.

Digital Content:

“A Minute and Over: North American Borders” Phillips Academy. YouTube: https://youtu.be/Qw8e65gkSMs

“Review of Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers: Kuna Culture from the Inside and Out” by James Howe. ISTMO: Revista virtual de estudios literarios y culturales centroamericanos no.23 (Dec.2011),

http://istmo.denison.edu/n23/resenas/index. html.

“Valley Roots and Dirt: Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley and the Ambiguous Plan de San Diego.” Refusingtoforget.org (September 6, 2015).

“TCU Alum Ernest M. Ligon and the Character Research Project.” Texas Christian University, Special Collections Blog. http://blogs.lib.tcu.edu/specialcollections/page/5/

“The Bryson Club.” Texas Christian University, Special Collections Blog. http://blogs.lib.tcu.edu/specialcollections/page/4/

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

Panama and Latin America

Expertise by Geography

Caribbean, Central America, Latin America, North America, United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Diplomacy, Gender, Local & Regional, Politics, Race, Rebellion & Revolution, Sexuality, Women