Theresa Van Hoy
Associate Professor of History and O'Connor Chair of the History of Hispanic Texas and the Southwest
EXPERTISE:- History
- Borderlands and Latin America
- Gender Studies
- Cultural Criticism
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:A Social History of Mexico’s Railroads: Peons, Prisoners, and Priests, Rowman & Littlefield, Inc., February 2008
Sankofa: viaje e iniciación camino al SAT, Ensenanzas desbordadas: Migración y pedagogía, PAPIME, UNAM, November 2009
“Festering Fecundity: Nahui Olin and Revolution,” in Revolutionary Women in Texas and Mexico: Portraits and Essays, ed. Jennifer Speed and Kathy Sosa.
TEACHING:- History of Texas and the Borderlands
- Atlantic Worlds
- U.S. Women's History
- U.S. History since 1877
- Writing Laboratory
EDUCATION:- Wesleyan University, Bachelor of Arts
- Wesleyan University, Master's Degree
- University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D.
History Professor Teresa Van Hoy, Ph.D., began what she thinks of as her “scholarly pilgrimage” in June 2011 when she became O’Connor Chair of the History of Hispanic Texas and the Southwest.
As the O’Connor Chair, Van Hoy has two years of release time for writing a book and lecturing both on and off campus while focusing extensively on her research as a Borderlands scholar. She is studying the history of Latinos in the Borderlands, researching their contributions to Mexico’s fight with the French in the 1860s. Additionally, Van Hoy is examining the history of Cinco de Mayo.
The “textbook story,” she said, claims that what has become a well-known celebration began when Mexico defeated Maximilian and the French, but Van Hoy thinks it is more complex than that.
Hispanic-American newspapers bear witness to a mobilization among Latinos in the United States to help President Benito Juarez and the Mexican people fight and protect their land. In these accounts, small mining communities gathered together to raise money to send to Juarez. Even after the French left, Mexico’s celebration of Cinco de Mayo continued as a way to preserve Latino culture and celebrate their identity, even in their adopted homeland.
One of the goals of Van Hoy’s exploration is to highlight the Borderland people’s contributions and to find the true meaning behind celebrations of Cinco de Mayo.
“As a historian, I am grateful for the O’Connor family’s vision in supporting history and for St. Mary’s commitment to historical study and outreach,” Van Hoy said
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