Research Expertise and Interest

comparative Latino studies, United States history, social movement history, historical methods

Research Description

Broadly speaking, Christian Paiz is a twentieth-century United States historian with interests in transnational migration, egalitarian social-cultural movements, and theoretically-creative histories. Specifically, he studies 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 Latina/o Studies, Asian American Studies and American Labor History, and using original oral history interviews, his dissertation 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 Farmworker Movement, and helped determine our contemporary fortunes. History, in short, often sits amongst forgotten peoples.