MMUF PhD Monica Muñoz Martinez Featured in Mellon Foundation's Shared Experiences Blog

MMUF PhD Monica Muñoz Martinez, who is currently an assistant professor of American studies and ethnic studies at Brown University, recently spoke to the Mellon Foundation about her new book, The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas, and her experience in the MMUF program. Monica, whose undergraduate institution was also Brown, was originally selected as an MMUF fellow there. A Brown faculty member at the time - Professor Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, also a Latina historian - helped Monica to realize that the histories of her home community in Texas could form the subject of academic research and be preserved for future generations in written as well as oral form. "It seemed ironic that I had traveled 2,000 miles from my home state of Texas, to Rhode Island, to learn the history of civil rights movements in the southwest. [Professor Saldaña-Portillo] helped me realize I could write histories that could be taught in schools back home," she says.

In addition to her faculty role, Monica is the cofounder of Refusing to Forget, a nonprofit organization that works to increase historical awareness of Texas border violence and connects that history with current civil rights struggles. We congratulate Monica on the publication of The Injustice Never Leaves You and her increasingly public role as a civil rights historian and advocate.