Neil Foley

Biography

Research interests

His current research centers on the changing constructions of race, citizenship, and transnational identity in the  Borderlands, Mexico and the American West; Mexican immigration; and comparative civil rights politics of African Americans and Mexican Americans.  He is the author of The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas (Berkeley, 1997); Quest for Equality: The Failed Promise of Black-Brown Solidarity (Harvard, 2010), and Latino USA: Mexicans and the Remaking of America (forthcoming, Harvard, 2012).

Courses taught

Hispanic/Mexican Borderlands, Twentieth Century U.S. history, Mexican American/Latino History, race and ethnicity, immigration, legal and labor history, citizenship and transnational Identity, and comparative civil rights.

Awards, Fellowships, Honors

• Texas Institute of Letters, Most Significant Scholarly Book Award, 2011, for Quest for Equality: The Failed Promise of Black Brown Solidarity (Harvard, 2010)
• Finalist, William P. Clements Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book on Southwestern America, 2011, for Quest for Equality
• Nathan I. Huggins Lectures in American History, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, April 2009
• John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2008-2009
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2008-2009
• Woodrow Wilson International Center Fellowship, Wash., DC, 2007-2008
• Shelby Cullom Davis Center Fellowship, Princeton, Fall 2007 (declined)
• Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 2007-2008
• American Philosophical Society Fellowship, 2006-2007
• Fulbright Senior Fellow, American Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 2000-2001
• Frederick Jackson Turner Book Prize, Organization of American Historians, 1998, for The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas (Berkeley, 1997)
• Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, American Historical Association, 1998, for The White Scourge
• Charles Sydnor Book Award, Southern Historical Association, 1998
• Robert G. Athearn Book Award, Western Historical Association, 1998
• Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America, 1998
• T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award, Texas Historical Commission, 1998
• Robert W. Hamilton Book Author Award, Grand Prize, University of Texas Co-operative Society, 1998