Degree:
University of Virginia, Ph.D. in History, 1993
University of Virginia, M.A. in History, 1987
University of Michigan, B.A. (honors), Phi Beta Kappa, in History and American Culture, 1984

Grants and Fellowships (partial list):
▪Hewlett-Mellon Fund for Faculty Development Grant, Albion College,  2001, 2002, 2003
▪ACM Newberry Library Program in the Humanities, Faculty Fellow, 2000
▪National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars, 1995-96
▪Hewlett-Mellon Fund for Faculty Development Grant, Albion College, 1994
▪DuPont Fellowship, University of Virginia, 1990-1991
▪Travel Grant, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, 1989
▪Dumas Malone Traveling Fellowship, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1987-1988
▪President's Fellowship, University of Virginia, 1986-1989

Courses Offered: 
Colonial Latin American History
Latin America in the National Period
Slave Societies of the Americas
Early America: 3 Worlds Meet
Going North: Latin American Immigration & the United States
The Mexican Midwest, Contact and Conquest in the Americas
Gender and Sexuality in the `Hispanic' World, Modern Mexico:  Identity, Culture & Nation
Cuban Revolutions

Publications: 
“Hijos del Pueblo: Gender, Family and Community in Rural Mexico, 1730-1850.” University of Texas Press.  Forthcoming.

Articles:
▪"Mexico State," The Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (New York: Scribners, 1995), vol. 4, pp. 43-44.
▪"Native Female Land Tenure and its Decline in Mexico, 1750-1900," Ethnohistory vol. 42:4 (1995), pp. 607-616.
▪"Introduction," Special Issue: Women, Power, and Resistance in Colonial Mesoamerica, Ethnohistory vol 42:4 (1995), pp. 561-562. Co-authored with Kevin Gosner.
▪Viudas y vecinos, milpas y magueyes--el impacto del auge de la población en el Valle de Toluca: el caso de Tenango del Valle en el siglo XVIII," Estudios demográficos y urbanos vol. 7:1, pp. 19-33.

Papers and Presentations (partial list)
▪“Forging a Mexican-American Identity: Chicago’s St. Francis Parish, 1942-60.” Organization of American Historians, Boston, March 25-28, 2004.
▪“Building a Mexican Catholic Presence:  St. Francis Assisi Parish & Chicago’s Near West Side, 1940-60.” Midwest Academy of American Religion, Chicago, April 5-6, 2003.
▪“We are the Good Neighbors!: Parish and Community in Mexican Chicago, 1942-65.” American Historical Association, San Francisco, January 3-6, 2002.
▪“Teaching the Enlightenment against the Grain.” Presented with James Diedrick. Newberry Library Colloquium, Chicago, October 4, 2000.
▪“`Like Family’: Bastards, Orphans, and Servants in 18th-century Rural Mexico.” XXII International Congress of Latin American Studies Association, Miami, March 16-18, 2000.
▪"Women on the Loose: Enclosing Indias and Other Women in Late Colonial Mexico." Mid-Michigan Seminar for Colonial Studies, Ann Arbor, November 10, 1995.
▪"From Fathers to Stepfathers: Indians, Gender and the Mexican Judiciary." XIX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington D.C., September 28-30, 1995.
▪"`Their Hair was Curly': Afro-Mexicans in Indian Villages, Central Mexico 1750-1821." Symposium on Comparative History of Blacks in Diaspora, Michigan State University, April 13-15, 1995.

Current Research Interests:
Chicago Católico:  The Evolution of Mexican Parishes, 1940-75
 

Introduction
Today Mexicans and other Latinos comprise nearly 40% of Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago; the Church requires that all its seminarians learn Spanish; even Chicago Poles make pilgrimages to Tepeyac. Shrines to Padre Miguel Pro, a martyred priest of the revolutionary era, stand in Chicago churches along with regional Mexican saints, such as the Santo Niño de Atocha. The largest archdiocese in the U.S. has, in many ways, become "Chicago católico." My research examines how Chicago's burgeoning Mexican Catholic population, contained in just three parishes until 1960, re-shaped dozens of ethnic parishes after that date.

Part I:  St. Francis of Assisi, 1942-65
To understand this transformation, I have begun by examining the mother parish, St. Francis Assisi, and the surrounding Near West Side (or "Hull House") neighborhood that was the center of Mexican Chicago. My research in Chicago archives finds that devout immigrants and enterprising Mexican-Americans, often working in tandem with the Claretian clergy, made St. Francis the center of their neighborhood, community, and Mexican and Mexican-American identity. Some Chicago Mexicans took issue with the church (and the clergy especially) as the leading force in their community. Furthermore, interviews I conducted in 2002 reveal a discernable rift within the parish, between immigrants and Mexican-Americans.

Initial research indicates that St. Francis saw an enhancement of traditional, Mexican devotion at the church in the 1940s and 1950s, an era when new immigrants joined long-established Mexican-Americans in the neighborhood. Oral histories, again, are crucial to gain a more complete sense of the ways that devotional practices evolved at St. Francis.  Overall, I want to document how the holy space of the parish became a middle ground that aimed to fulfill clerical goals, immigrant expectations, and Mexican-American desires.

Part II:  Pilsen es católico
As I complete research on St. Francis and the Near West Side from 1942-65, I will turn to the Mexicanization of European "national" parishes in the nearby Pilsen neighborhood. Beginning in the late 1950s Mexicans slowly made their way into Lithuanian, Czech, Polish, Irish, Slovak, German, and Croatian parishes. The story of Mexican entry/rejection/integration/take-over differed in each of these parishes. By 1975 ethnic succession of Pilsen was largely complete. The annual Via Crucis, an open-air procession and reenactment of the Stations of the Cross, began at this time, thus marking Pilsen as a Mexican and Catholic space. 

Ultimately, I will write a book-length manuscript on “Chicago Católico.” This study of Near West Side and Pilsen parishes will focus on evolving ethnic devotional practices and the ways that Catholicism defines, affirms, and challenges what it means to be Mexican and Chicano for many in el Norte.

Historic street markers in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato. The town of Dolores is considered the "cradle of Mexican independence" because here Father Miguel Hidalgo began the struggle for Mexico’s independence in 1810. These signs were erected by Mexicans residing in Chicago in 1950.

Current Events:

In January 2004 Deborah Kanter was appointed by the Library of Congress as Contributing Editor for the MEXICO: GENERAL AND COLONIAL PERIOD chapter of the Handbook of Latin American Studies. This biannual publication is the most authoritative annotated scholarly bibliography in area of Latin American Studies.

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