S2E8: Dr. Geraldo Cadava, Teaching a Lesson in Latino History

Featuring Dr. Geraldo Cadava

In This Episode

Dr. Geraldo Cadava’s deep family history informs his own experiences.

A scholar and author, Cadava has often looked to his grandfather—a man of Colombian and Filipino descent who was born in Panama—for a rich text of stories about the Latino experience in America. In unpacking the cultural and political complexities within his own family, he became an expert on the multitude of themes woven throughout Latino history.

That curiosity has fueled his career as an educator and spawned two books, the most recent being 2020’s The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of An American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump.

For Cadava, the wide diversity of the Latino experience is something to be honored rather than categorically dissected. Only once we respect the countless origin stories of our community can we even begin to understand the sincere, deeply held beliefs of each unique individual.

 

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About Our Guest

Geraldo Cadava is a professor of History and Latina and Latino Studies at Northwestern University. He received a Ph.D. in History from Yale University in 2008, and he received a B.A., also in History, from Dartmouth College in 2000. His areas of expertise are Latino History, the United States-Mexico Borderlands, Latin American immigration to the United States, and American politics.

He is the author of two books. The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of An American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump, will be published by Ecco in May 2020. Standing On Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland, was published by Harvard University Press in 2013. At present, he is working on a third book, about the lifelong friendship between William F. Buckley, Jr., the founder of the National Review and leading conservative intellectual, and E. Howard Hunt, one of the men who planned the Watergate break-in and prolific writer of Cold War Spy novels.

In addition to these books, Cadava has written scholarly articles in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals, as well as essays for general audiences that have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and other papers and websites.

His awards and honors include the Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians, for Standing On Common Ground, fellowships from the Stanford Humanities Center, the Ford Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. He is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and is an editor of the Borderlands section for Public Books, and serves on the editorial boards of Modern American History and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.

Website

Twitter: @Gerry_Cadava

Book: The Hispanic Republican

Linkedin: Geraldo Cadava