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Profile profile for velasquezs

L. Stephen Velasquez

Curator
Division of Cultural and Community Life

M.A., George Washington University, 1997 B.A., University of Missouri, Columbia, 1994

Research Specialties: 
  • Latino/a history and culture
  • Immigration and migration history
  • early Spanish in the Americas
  • Food studies, foodways, food labor
Projects: 

Current exhibition and research projects:

Mexican and Mexican Americans in the California Wine Industry

Exiles:The Cuban Pedro Pan Story

Many Voices, One Nation

FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950 -2000     

Past exhibition and research projects:

  • Mexican Revolution, American Legacy
  • Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942 – 1964
  • Producing for the American Table, co-curator, 2008-2010
  • Mexican Treasures of the Smithsonian, contributing curator with Smithsonian Latino Center
  • AZÚCAR!: The Life of Celia Cruz, collections manager
  • What’s Cooking, Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian,
  • A Collector’s Vision of Puerto Rico; Puerto Rico La Vision de un Colelctor
Awards, Honors, and Special Recognition: 

Smithsonian Minority Graduate Fellowship, June 1996–Aug. 1996, National Museum of Natural History

Publications

“Doing it with “Ganas”: Mexican and Mexican Americans Shaping the California Wine Industry,” Southern California Quarterly, Vol 100, No. 2, Summer 2018, p. 216-243. 
“Tortillas, Tacos, and Berries: Reflections on Collecting Latino Food History at the National Museum of American History”  in Food and Museums, Nina Levent and Irina D. Mihalache, eds. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
"Old South, New Migrations" in Many Voices, One Nation: Material Culture Reflections on Race and Migration in the United States. Margaret Salazar-Porzio and Joan Troyano, eds., Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017, P.231-243. 
“Creating a Bracero Archive: Collaborations, Collections, and Challenges,” Diálogo, Vol. 19, No. 2, Fall 2016, 7-20. 
"Documenting and Preserving the History of the Bracero Program" in The Federalist Newsletter, No. 22 (Summer 2009)
"The Teodoro Vidal Collection: Creating Space for Latinos at the National Museum of American History," in Public Historian Vol. 23, No. 4, Fall 2001.