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Profile for Víctor Macías-González

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Víctor Macías‑González

Pronouns: He/Him/His
Professor
History University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

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Víctor Macías‑González Pronouns: He/Him/His

Professor

History

Specialty area(s)

Latin American, Mexican, and Latinx histories, through the prisms of gender and sexuality.  Latin Americanists study the pasts of nineteen different countries in the Americas, plus the Philippines, Spain, and the U.S.A.  I trained on nineteenth-century Mexico, especially the Porfiriato (1876-1911) and the U.S. Southwest.  My scholarly interests include diplomacy, transnational migration, Mexican diaspora, consumption and material culture, masculinity,  transgender history, Latin@s in the Midwest, the homophile movement, and LGBTQ+ history of the Midwest.    Service interests include increasing Latino access to higher education, graduate, and professional programs, as well as LGBTQ+ public history programs.   I serve on various professional groups in my field.  I chair the U.S.-Canada Organizing Committee of the International Historians of Mexico Conference, and serve on the organizing committee of REDMUGEN, the network for historians of women, gender, and sexuality in Mexico.  I have served on the American Historical Association's Committee on LGBTQ Status in the Profession, and on the board of the American Historical Association's Committee on LGBTQ History, which has recently morphed into the LGBTQ+ History Association.  For information, see: http://clgbthistory.org/

Brief biography

2026-27 is my twenty-seventh year at UW-La Crosse.    I joined UWL's faculty in 2000, was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2006, and to professor in 2013. In addition to my teaching, advising, research, and service duties in the Department of History. From Fall 2009 to Summer 2016 , I directed the Eagle Mentoring Program, a retention initiative for  high-achieving, historically under-represented, underprivileged second-year students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.  From 2017 to 2020, I coordinated the Faculty Fellows for Retention and Promotion in the CBA at UWL, assisting with personnel issues.  From Spring 2022 to Spring 2024, I served as CASSH Faculty Fellow.

I received my doctorate in Latin American history and letters, with a minor in Early Modern Europe, from Texas Christian University in 1999, and taught at the University of Texas at El Paso, and at the University of Minnesota.

My research interests focus on gender, sexuality, class, and material culture of Mexico in the long nineteenth century (1750-1930). I am a specialist of the Porfirian age in Mexico (1876-1911) and have published on the Mexican aristocracy, manuals of etiquette, portraiture, genealogy, consumption, and leisure. I am presently completing a monograph on gender affirming care in 1950s Mexico. 

My service interests include closing the achievement gap for historically-underserved populations, increasing access to higher education, especially in the graduate school pipeline.  I developed and implemented four programs at UWL, including Parent College, the Eagle Mentoring Program , Hekima Scholars, and LOMP--the Latina Outreach Mentoring Program.

I am Mexican-American, and I grew up on the U.S.-Mexico border, in El Paso, Texas. 

Current courses at UWL

FALL 2026:   HIS 490 and HIS 345

Letters of recommendation for graduate/professional school should be requested at least 3 weeks prior to due date.  Please meet with me no later than 2 weeks prior to due date.   I only write letters for students who have earned a grade of AB or higher in my 200, 300, and 400 level classes.  If you don’t meet these criteria, I cannot write for you, and I strongly urge you to select a faculty member with whom you’ve had more contact or better success.

Provide me the following in hard copy (in a folder) and provide the same material in a single e-mail:

  1. A copy of your c.v or résumé, with major/minor and GPA information listed,
  2. An information copy of your transcript,
  3. A list of the courses you took with me (date), preferably with a copy of any term paper or significant project that you want me to mention in your letter, and
  4. A draft of your statement of purpose for grad or professional school, or the cover letter, if for a job. Please note that I understand this may be a rough draft, but I need to know specifically what kind of program or job you are applying for, why, and details about you I can’t glean from a CV or transcript.  If this is for work, attach a copy of the job announcement.

Please provide materials and forms with at least 2 weeks' advance notice if it is the first request. If I already have a letter on file, I need a week's advance notice.  I insist that you use a “clearing house” for letters when you are applying to multiple schools or jobs, such as the University’s  Career Services Office or the Law School Admissions Council. I simply cannot keep up with multiple letters for multiple addresses.

These guidelines are set up so that I can genuinely help in your future endeavors.  I appreciate your understanding.

 

Education

PhD, Latin American History and Letters, Texas Christian University, 1999.
M.A., History, University of Texas at El Paso, 1995.
B.A., Political Science, University of Texas at El Paso, 1992.

Career

Teaching history

HIS 101, 102, 110 (Focus on History of Family, Gender, and Sexuality)
HIS 200: Historiography and Historical Methods
HIS 210: Survey of U.S. History

HIS 220:  Survey of Latin American and U.S. Latino History

HIS 240:  Survey of European History

HIS 325: America in the Cold War
HIS 336: Hispanics in the United States
HIS 341: Nineteenth-Century Latin America
HIS 342: Twentieth-Century Latin America
HIS 344: Colonial Latin America
HIS 345: US-Latin American Relations
HIS 347: History of Greater Mexico

HIS 354:  History of Spain
HIS 356: History of Mexico
HIS 360: Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Latin America

HIS 490:  Historiography Seminar


LS 200: Career Exploration and Planning
UWL 100: First Year Seminar

UWLondon Program (Summers 2016 & 2017).

Professional history

  • Chair, Department of History, Summer 2024-Spring 2027.
  • CASSH Faculty Fellow,  Spring 2022-Spring 2024.
  • CBA Faculty Retention and Promotion Coordinator, Fall 2017-Summer 2020
  • CBA Faculty Fellow for Faculty Retention and Promotion, Fall 2016-2017
  • CLS Faculty Fellow for Enrollment, Strategic Recruitment, and Retention Initiatives, Fall 2015-Spring 2016
  • Professor of History, UW-L, 2013-present.
  • Associate Professor of History, UW-L, 2006-2013.
  • Assistant Professor of History, UW-L, 2000-2006.
  • Director, Eagle Mentoring Program, UW-L, 2009-2016.
  • Director, Institute for Latina/o and Latin American Studies, UW-L, 2001-2012.
  • Visiting Associate Professor of History, University of Minnesota, 2008.
  • Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Chicano Studies, UT-El Paso, 1999-2000.

Research and publishing

Selected Publications or Presentations

•“LGBTQ+ Archives and Public History Projects in Mexico, 1976-present.”  Sources and Methods in the   History of Sexuality, ed.  Anna Clark and Elizabeth W. Williams, 191-202.  New York:  Routledge, 2024.

https://www.routledge.com/Sources-and-Methods-in-the-History-of-Sexuality/Clark-Williams/p/book/9781032655819?srsltid=AfmBOooJKwxb6udD5IvOkk4HGEaCEyJhzuLTRvlR2Yyj84s5w9ZYKXi_

•“La domesticidad homosexual extranjera en México, 1930-1960.  Los casos de William Spratling y Witter Bynner.”  Provocaciones del Seminario Histórico LGBTTTI Mexicano. Aproximaciones a Nuestras Historias.  Vol. 1., ed. Alonso Hernández Victoria.  Mexico City: Colectivo Sol, Archivos y Memorias Diversas, UAM, forthcoming.

•“Chapter 16.   Being Fronterizo:  Life on the U.S.-Mexico border, 1970-1980.”  In Critical Storytelling, ed. Carmella Braninger and Julio Enríquez-Ornelas.  Leiden:  Brill, 2022.

• “Comida de Vigilia:  Lenten dishes from the Paso del Norte Region.”  Password:  The Quarterly Journal of the El Paso County Historical Society.   66, no. 1 (Spring 2022):  13-21.

• with Ariel Beaujot, "Ch. 12:  Hear, Here:  Mapping Queer Stories in La Crosse, Wisconsin," in Queer Sites in Global Contexts:  Technologies,  Spaces, and Otherness, ed.  Regner Ramos.   New York and London:  Routledge, 2020.

•“Los homosexuales como sujetos peligrosos en la ciudad de México (1940-1960),”  84-119. Hampones, intocables y pecatrices: Sujetos peligrosos de la Ciudad de México (1940-1960), ed. Susana Sosenski.  Mexico City:  Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2019.

•“Otros camaradas de ruta.  Las colaboraciones transnacionales de los editores republicanos españoles y los activistas homófilos norteamericanos en la ciudad de México, ca. 1940-1960,” 223-247.  Nuevas Aproximaciones al Exilio.   Edited by Aribert Reinmann.   Frankfurt A.M. and Madrid:  Editorial Vervuert, 2018.    https://www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es/FichaLibro.aspx?P1=147840

•“Los amigos inmortales: el peso de la Historia,” in Hacer visible lo invisible. Otras historias de amor en el Museo del Prado. Catálogo.  Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2017.  http://www.tiendaprado.com/es/catalogos/8254-cat-9788484803874.html

•“Leftist Sexual Dissidents and Exiles in Mexico City: The transnational collaboration of Spanish publishers and American Homophile Activists, 1940s-1960s.” Paper Presented at Nuevas Aproximaciones al Exilio Conference, Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid, Spain, 16-20 August 2016, sponsored by the European Research Council-sponsored research project on Left-wing Exile in Mexico, 1934-1960.

• "The Transnational Homophile Movement and the Development of Domesticity in Mexico City's Homosexual Community, 1930-70." Gender, Imperialism, and Global Exchanges. Edited by Stephan F. Miescher, Michelle Mitchell, and Naoko Shibusawa. 132-157. Chichester, UK and Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell, 2015. Link

•"Le capital culturel et social de la communauté aristocratique mexicaine à Paris, 1850-1914." Les français au Mexique XVIIIe au XXIe siècle, volume 2: Savoirs, réseaux, et représentations. Edited by Javier Pérez Siller and Jean-Marie Lassus, 189-218. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2014.
Link

• "Transnationalism and the Development of Domesticity in Mexico City’s Homophile Community, 1920-1960.” Gender History 23, no. 3 (Oct. 2014): 519-44.

• Víctor M. Macías González and Anne Rubenstein, eds. Masculinity and Sexuality in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012. Link

• “Learning the Rules of the Game: Informal Empire and the Mexican Experience at Stonyhurst College, 1805-1920,” in The Victorian World. Edited by Martin Hewitt. Routledge Worlds Series, 2012. Link

• Víctor M. Macías-González and Steven Bunker, "Ch. 3: Consumption and Material Culture from Pre-Contact to the Porfiriato." and "Ch. 4: Consumption and Material Culture in the 20th Century," in A Companion to Mexican History. Wiley, 2011. Link

• "The Case of the Murdering Beauty: Narrative Construction, Beauty Pageants, and the Postrevolutionary Mexican National Myth (1921-1931).” In True Stories of Crime in Modern Mexico. Edited by Robert Buffington and Pablo Piccato. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Link

• “Masculine Friendships, Sentiment, and Homoerotics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: The Correspondence of José María Calderón y Tapia, 1820s-1850s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, 3 (September 2007): 416-35. Link

• “Presidential Ritual in Porfirian Mexico: Curtsying in the Shadow of Dictators.” In Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America. Edited by Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw, 83-108. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2006. Link

• “The Lagartijo at The High Life: Notes on Masculine Consumption, Race, Nation, and Homosexuality in Porfirian Mexico.” In The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901. Edited by Robert McKee-Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan, and Michelle Rocío Nasser, 227-249. New York: Palgrave Press, 2003. Link

Selected Awards

2024 Dr. P. B. Poorman Award for Outstanding Achievement on Behalf of LGBTQ People,          The Universities of Wisconsin System and LGBTQ+ Inclusivity Initiative.

2021 Wisconsin LGBTQ Leaders of Color Award, Our Lives Magazine:  Wisconsin LGBTQ News,   “Pride In Color” Special Issue, vol. 15, no. 1 (July-August 2021).

2018-2019 Research Fellow, Latino Research Initiative, The College of Liberal Arts, The University of Texas, Austin.

2018 National Endowment for the Humanities, Women's Suffrage in the Americas, Carthage College, Wis., July 23-August 3, 2018.

2015 Equity Prize, The American Historical Association, individual category.

2015 University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents Diversity Award, individual category.

2014-2015 LGBT Studies Research Fellowship, Yale University.

2014 Ann Lydecker Educational Diversity Award, Wisconsin State Council on Affirmative Action, State of Wisconsin Office of State Employee Relations, for development and implementation of Eagle Mentoring Program at UW-L.

2013 Wisconsin Professor of the Year, Council for Advancement and Support of Education and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, U.S. Professor of the Year Awards Program.

2011 Recognition of Excellence Award, The College of Liberal Studies of the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.

2009 University of Wisconsin System Grant, Closing the Achievement Gap: Promoting Institutional Change to Foster Access and Excellence for Historically Underrepresented Populations. Awarded $30,000 to establish a 2-year pilot Eagle Mentoring Program.

2006 Summer Research Fellowship, Regenstein Library and Center for Latin American Studies, the University of Chicago.

2004 Recognition of Excellence Award in Research and Scholarship, The College of Liberal Studies of the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.

2004 James L. Loveless Award for University Service, Office of International Education of the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.

2003 Friedrich Katz Prize, Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Administrativas, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

2002 National Endowment for the Humanities “Hispanic Gendering of the Americas” Summer Institute, Arizona State University.

Kudos

presented

Victor Macias-Gonzalez, History, presented "Lessons from Writing a Mexican Trans History: The Media, Politics, and the Science of Gender Affirming Care in the Case of Martha Olmos Romero, 1952-1957" at the Latin American Critical Cultural Studies Working Group, Kellogg Institute and Department of History, at the University of Notre Dame on April 24 in Notre Dame, Indiana. Macías-González was a guest of the Mexico Working Group and the Latin American History Working Group at the University of Notre Dame.

Submitted on: May 1

elected

Victor Macias-Gonzalez, History, was elected member of the General Council of the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH). The CLAH was founded in 1926 to promote the study and teaching of Latin American history. Affiliated with the American Historical Association, it holds an annual meeting featuring academic sessions, regional committee meetings, and prestigious awards.

Submitted on: Feb. 20

presented

Víctor Macías-González, History, presented "Martha Olmos Romero, la primera mujer trans mexicana, 1933-1972. Su representación fotográfica en la prensa" at VIII Seminario Internacional, El Desorden de Género on June 4 in Bilbao, Spain. The event was organized by the Universidad del País Vasco's research project “El desorden de género en la España contemporánea. Feminidades y masculinidades,” PID2020-114602GB-I00, with funding from the Basque Country and the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

Submitted on: July 3, 2024

awarded

Víctor Macías-González, History, received the award for Wisconsin LGBTQ Leaders of Color from Our Lives Magazine. Macías-González was recognized for his work with diverse populations; he created three diversity programs at UWL: Eagle Mentoring, Hekima Scholars, and Parent College. He is also working on a LGBTQ history documentary with Wisconsin PBS and helped research and create a La Crosse LGBTQ Heritage Tour..

Submitted on: Sept. 18, 2021

presented

Víctor Macías-González, CL-18, presented ""Los homosexuales como sujetos peligrosos, 1940-1960"" at Colloquium ""Hampones, intocables, y pecatrices. Sujetos peligrosos de la ciudad de México, 1940-1960," at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México on Oct. 26, 2016 in Mexico City. The presentation forms part of a forthcoming book to be published in 2017 by the Fondo de Cultura Económica, in Mexico City.

Submitted on: Nov. 6, 2016

named

Victor Macias-Gonzalez, History, was named visiting scholar of Institute for Ethnic Studies of the University of Nebraska. Macias-Gonzalez was a guest at the annual retreat held Aug. 24-29, and gave public talks about his research, service, and outreach efforts at UWL.

Submitted on: Sept. 4, 2015

Memberships & affiliations

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Important links

Víctor Macías-González's office hours

Tuesday
2:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Wednesday
9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Thursday
9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Remote office hours offered: Please send an outlook calendar request to set up a virtual meeting if you would prefer to do so. I am generally available on Wednesday and Friday mornings.