Cristina Salinas

Cristina Salinas is an Associate Professor in the Department of History & Geography at The University of Texas at Arlington, with affiliations in Women's and Gender Studies and Social Work. She holds a PhD in U.S. History from the University of Texas at Austin and specializes in Mexican American and U.S.-Mexico border history.

• PhD, U.S. History, The University of Texas at Austin, 2011
• MA, U.S. History, The University of Texas at Austin, 2005
• BA, History, The University of Texas at Austin, 1997

Her research centers on immigration, labor, and gender in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, with a particular focus on Mexican American civil rights and political organizing. She is the author of Managed Migrations: Growers, Farmworkers, and Border Enforcement in the Twentieth Century (2018) and co-editor of Deportation in the Americas: Histories of Resistance and Exclusion (2018). Her work explores the intersections of race, nation, and labor at the border, especially through the lens of everyday political activism by Mexicana/Chicana women.

Her recent publications and presentations reveal a strong trend in analyzing border enforcement, labor smuggling (e.g., 'the boatmen'), and civil rights activism from the 1940s to the present. She frequently presents at major historical associations and has led public-facing events on immigration and racial justice.

• National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Book Award (2020)
• Finalist, Ramirez Family Award for Most Significant Scholarly Book, Texas Institute of Letters (2019)
• Center for Mexican American Studies Dissertation Fellowship (2010)
• Clara Driscoll Fellowship (2008)
• Texas State Summer Predoctoral Fellowship (2008)

Salinas has served as thesis chair for numerous master’s students and has advised undergraduate research in Mexican American history. She is Principal Investigator on a major grant from the University of Illinois Chicago and the Mellon Foundation for her project Mapping Everyday Mexicana/Chicana Political Organizing in the Texas and Arizona Borderlands, which supports community-based historical research. She also participates in curriculum development and faculty mentoring programs.

She is actively involved with the Center for Mexican American Studies at UTA, where she has served as Assistant Director and on multiple committees. She organizes faculty writing workshops and public symposia, and engages in outreach to K–12 educators and community organizations to promote inclusive historical narratives.