Verenize Arceo

Biography

My dissertation, “Gateway to Community: Ethnic Mexican Place-Making in California’s San Joaquin Valley, 1965-1995,” centers the everyday socio-cultural life and leisure experiences of ethnic Mexican women as critical strides in redefining the identity of the San Joaquin Valley. Located in the heart of California, the San Joaquin Valley has remained a hyper-invisible landscape within our larger understandings of the U.S. West, Migration, and Latinx histories. On one end, supported by the constant cycling in and out of minority groups, as well as a climate that sustains year-round agricultural harvests, the San Joaquin Valley is celebrated as the “nation’s breadbasket.” Yet, with the reconstruction of Highway 99 finalized in 1964, travelers were directed to overlook and drive-by, rather than through the valley, on their way to opposite ends of California. In essence, the San Joaquin Valley became synonymous for cultivating crops, not community. In following the detours that ethnic Mexicans took off the 99, my project uses oral histories to argue that it is in the everyday quotidian spaces, that were maintained by women, where we see how centering place-making reveals both a vibrant community that managed to remain in the valley across generations, as well as the motivations behind this hyper-invisible design.

Education

M.A., History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2021
B.A., History, University of California, Merced, 2018

Field

• U.S./North American History
• Gender and Women’s History

MA Title

• “What Are We Doing Here?: The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chicano Studies Program and the Landscape of (un)Belonging, 1974-76”

Working Dissertation Title

• “Gateway to Community: Ethnic Mexican Place-Making in California’s San Joaquin Valley, 1965-1995”

Selected Publications

• David Rouff and Verenize Arceo, “Communal Gardens, Defensive Design, and Urban Apartheid in Chinatown: Merced, CA, 1870-1910” in Segregation and Resistance of the Americas, eds. Eric Avila and Thaïsa Way (Dumbarton Oaks: Harvard University Press, 2023), 235-261.
• Review of Border Women and the Community of Maclovio Rojas: Autonomy in the Spaces of Neoliberal Neglect, by Michelle Téllez, Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 53, Issue 3, Autumn 2022, 316.

Selected Awards

• Irene Ledesma Prize; Coalition for Western Women’s History (2024)
• CWWH-WHA Graduate Student Conference Grant; Coalition for Western Women’s History (2024)
• George E. Pozzetta Dissertation Award; Immigration and Ethnic History Society (2024)
• 2023-2024 Campus-Wide Advanced Achievement in Teaching Award; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Graduate School (2024)
• Trennert-Iverson Conference Scholarship; Western History Association (2023)
• WHA Graduate Student Prize; Western History Association (2023)
• Jeanne Boydston Conference Travel Grant; Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2022)
• Early Excellence in Teaching Award; Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2021)

Professional Affiliations

• Coalition of Western Women’s History
• Latinx Studies Association
• Western History Association

Courses Taught as TA

•  History 136: Sports, Recreation, and Society in the United States; Professor Alex Mountain
• History/ Chican@ & Latin@ Studies 151: The North American West to 1850; Professor Allison Powers
• History/ Chican@ & Latin@ Studies 152: The US West to 1850; Professor Allison Powers
• History/Asian American Studies 160: Process of Movement and Dislocation; Professor Cindy I-Fen Cheng