Emilio Zamora

Biography

Zamora has roots in the Mexico-Texas border dating back to the 1700s and grew up on both sides of the international line. He has taught at Juárez-Lincoln University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas A&I University, University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Houston.

Zamora serves on the boards of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, the Hispanic History of Texas Project, headquartered at the University of Houston, and the City of Austin’s Emma Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, and directs the East Austin Oral History Project.

Research interests

He recently wrote Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas, Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009) and co-edited with Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez Beyond the Latino WWII Hero; The Social and Political Legacy of a Generation (Austin: University of Texas, 2009).

His research interests include the history of Mexicans in the United States and their relationship with Mexico, as well as oral history, the history of the U.S. working class, Texas history, and the archival enterprise in Texas and northern Mexico.

Zamora’s research has been supported by the Institute of International Education (Fulbright García Robles Fellowship, Mexico), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the University of California President’s Fellowship.

Courses taught

Mexicans in the United States since 1848; Oral History, Theory and Practice; Texas History in the Twentieth Century; The Historical Record in Texas and Northern Mexico; and the History of the U.S. Working Class.

Awards/Honors

• Carol Horton Tullis Memorial Prize in Texas (2010), Texas State Historical Association, for Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas, Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009)
• Texas State Historical Association Fellow, 2010
• The Most Significant Scholarly Book (2009), Texas Institute of Letters, for Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas, Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009)
• Fulbright García-Robles Fellowship (Mexico), 2007-2008
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1995-1996
• Bolton-Kinnaird Award in Borderlands History (1992), The Western History Association, for “The Failed Promise of Wartime Opportunity for Mexicans in the Texas Oil Industry,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 95 (January 1992): 323-50
• T.R. Fehrenbach Award in Texas History (1994), Texas Historical Commission, for The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station: Texas AandM University Press, 1993) 
• H.L. Mitchell Award in Southern Working Class History (1994), the Southern Historical Association, for The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas.