Emma Amador

Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

History, El Instituto

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Areas of Interest:

Puerto Rico, U.S. Latina/o/x, Caribbean, Latin America, women, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, migrations

Biographical Note:

Emma Amador is an Assistant Professor of History and Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.  Her work focuses on Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans, and U.S. Latina/o/x History with an emphasis on women, gender, and race.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an M.A. from UConn, and a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.  Before coming to UConn she held a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University in the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the History Department.

Her first book, The Politics of Care: Puerto Ricans, Citizenship, and Migration after 1917, is under contract with Duke University Press. This book explores the role of Puerto Rican women in struggles for citizenship rights, social justice, labor reform, and decolonization.  She has also published her research in LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, ILWCH: International Labor and Working-Class History, and Modern American History.  Most recently, her article “Caring for Labor History,” was published in the December 2020 issue of LABOR

This scholarship has received support from a Humanities Faculty Fellowship at the Humanities Institute at UConn, a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the History Department at Brown University, a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, the SITPA Fellowship (Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement) from Duke University, the Rackham Merit Fellowship at the Graduate School of the University of Michigan, and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY.

Dr. Amador was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New England. She loves New England in the fall, doing art projects of all sorts, watching mystery tv shows, and taking her toddler on adventures.

Current Research/Selected Publications:

In Progress

The Politics of Care: Puerto Ricans, Citizenship, and Migration after 1917  (Book under contract with Duke University Press).

“Care Work is Essential: Puerto Rican Feminist Activists and the National Welfare Rights Organization, 1960-1980s,” (Article in progress).

“Antonia Pantoja, Community Organizing, and Puerto Rican Studies in US History” (Article in progress.)

Published

“Caring for Labor History,” Forum: Starting from Home: Four New Spirits Engage Labor History, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas (17:4, December 2020): 65-69.

“Linked Histories of Welfare, Labor, and Puerto Rican Migration,” Forum: Puerto Rico and the United States at Critical Junctures, Modern American History (2: Fall 2019): 165-168.

“Women Ask Relief for Puerto Ricans:” Social Workers, the Social Security Act and Puerto Rican Communities, 1933-1943,” LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas (12:3, December 2016): 105-129.

“Organizing Puerto Rican Domestics: Resistance and Household Labor Reform in the Puerto Rican Diaspora after 1930,” ILWCH: International Labor and Working-Class History (No. 8, Fall 2015): 67-86.

Current Research Projects

Boricua Welfare Rights: Puerto Rican Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in the United States          

Bright Futures: Antonia Pantoja and the Practice of Ethnic Studies in US History