Mirelsie Velázquez
Position title: Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Website: Mirelsie Velázquez's website
A historian of education interested in issues of race/ethnicity, historical research in education, and gender and sexuality, Mirelsie Velázquez teaches courses on education, critical race theory, Latina feminism, oral history, and Puerto Rican Studies. Her book, Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977 (University of Illinois Press 2022), chronicles the Puerto Rican community’s response to the urban decay in which they were forced to live, work, and especially learn. Velázquez is completing research on the history of Black and Indigenous education in both the Oklahoma and Indian Territories, from the mid-19th century until statehood in 1907.