Monica Martinez, PhD

Monica Muñoz Martinez is an award winning author, teacher, and public historian. She received her PhD in American Studies from Yale University and her AB from Brown University. She offers courses in US history, Texas history, Latina/o/x history, Mexican American history, borderlands history, women and gender history, public history, digital humanities, and civil rights history.  Her research has been funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, the Brown University Office of Vice President of Research, and the Texas State Historical Association. In 2017 Martinez was selected for the prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program. The fellowship provides grants for the “country’s most creative thinkers” to support research on “challenges to democracy and international order.” In 2019, NBC News included Martinez in their list, “Latino 20” recognizing twenty celebrities, CEOs, activists, and scholars using their voice and talent to empower Latino communities. Martinez is also a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.

Since the tragedy on May 24, 2022 at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, her hometown, Martinez has been leading a trauma-informed, multidisciplinary team of researchers at UT to bring solutions to meet the ongoing and urgent needs in Uvalde. The goal of this community engaged research is to support the community of Uvalde by responding to community requests for research and to build knowledge and tools to better respond to the needs of victims and survivors of mass shootings in rural communities. This research has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, the College of Liberal Arts, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Humanities Institute, Law Societies Justice Initiative, Office of the Vice President for Research. 

Her first book, The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas, (Harvard University Press Sept 2018) was awarded the Lawrence Levine Award from the Organization of American Historians; Caughey Western History Prize and the Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association; María Elena Martínez Prize from the Conference on Latin American History; the Best Non-Fiction Book Award from the National Association for Chicano Chicana Studies Tejas FOCO; the TCU Texas Book Award from TCU Press and Friends of the TCU Library; and was a finalist for the Fredrick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians. 

Martinez is the primary investigator for Mapping Violence: Racial Terror in Texas 1900-1930, a digital project that recovers histories of racial violence in Texas. The multifaceted project includes a digital archive of histories of racial violence, research for each documented case, curated content (including digital tours and historical essays), and an interactive map. The project documents multiple forms of violence (at the hands of law enforcement, US soldiers, and vigilantes) that targeted multiple racial and ethnic groups.

Martinez is also a leading public voice. She is a founding member of the award-winning non-profit organization Refusing to Forget that calls for a public reckoning with racial violence in Texas. Refusing to Forget helped developed an award-winning exhibit for the Bullock Texas State History Museum that marked the first time a cultural institution acknowledged state responsibility for a period of racial terror in the twentieth century. Martinez collaborated with the Texas Historical Commission to secure four state historical markers along the US-Mexico border and she has worked as a historical consultant for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. In 2021, she and RTF co-founders received the Friend of History Award from the Organization of American Historians. The award recognizes an institution or organization, or an individual working primarily outside college or university settings, for outstanding support for historical research, the public presentation of American history, or the work of the OAH. Her research has been featured by media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, NBC, NPR, the Associated Press, Texas Monthly, Latina Magazine, the Texas Observer, and the Austin American-Statesman.