Skip to main content

Mirelsie Velázquez

Associate Professor

Biography

Mirelsie Velázquez, PhD, is an associate professor of Latina/o Studies. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her work centers history of education, women's history, Puerto Rican studies, gender and sexuality, and teacher education. Her book, Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977 (University of Illinois Press 2022), chronicles the Puerto Rican community’s response to the urban decay in which they were forced to live, work, and especially learn. Her work has most recently appeared in the journals Latino Studies, Centro, and Gender and Education. Puerto Rican Chicago was an American Educational Studies Critic's Choice Book Award recipient in 2023. Dr. Velázquez is currently working on a second book project that historicizes Puerto Rican women and other Latina activists in higher education across the Midwest, from the 1970s to the 1990s, as they worked to create homespaces. 

 

 

Research Interests

Latina/o/x Studies

Puerto Rican Studies

History of Education

Critical Race Theory

Oral History

Additional Campus Affiliations

Associate Professor, Latina/Latino Studies
Associate Professor, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership

Highlighted Publications

Velázquez, M. (2022). Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977. (Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest). University of Illinois Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctv28hj1g2

View all publications on Illinois Experts

Recent Publications

Graves, K., Velázquez, M., & Vidal, D. G. (2023). LGBTQ+ HISTORIES OF EDUCATION INTRODUCTION. Historia y Memoria de la Educacion, 18, 9-18. https://doi.org/10.5944/hme.18.2023.37644

Velázquez, M. (2023). Review: J. Perrillo's Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands. History of Education Quarterly, 63(3), 432-434. https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2023.21

Velázquez, M. (2022). Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977. (Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest). University of Illinois Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctv28hj1g2

Velázquez, M. (2022). Schooling Puerto Rican Chicago. In I. Pulido, A. Rivera, & A. M. Aviles (Eds.), Latina/o/x Education in Chicago: Roots, Resistance, and Transformation (pp. 23-43). (Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest). University of Illinois Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctv2p7j673.7

Velazquez, M. (2021). Gender and Latinx Pedagogy. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1344

View all publications on Illinois Experts