Vanessa Lauchland

I come with a Master's in US History from CSU Sacramento, and currently working under Lorena Oropeza in Chicano History. While at CSU Sacramento, I worked under Paula Austin, an African American Civil Rights Historian. Under her, I was taught to utilize epistemological and methodological approaches within the Black Civil Rights and pull them into my work for the United Farm Worker's movement and Chicano history. I am looking to expand this toward a comparative history discussing the cross-germination of ideologies and practices between the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and the African American Civil Rights Movement. I'm considering looking into a traditional historical narrative to explore family, gender, and health within the fields in the 1960s and 1970s; however, my previous research focused on identity creation through radical and ideological literature (pamphlets, magazines, poetic ephemera). Since I'm just finishing my second quarter here, I am approaching a crossroad at which I need to decide whether to embark on a new area or expand my prior research.