Kevan Antonio Aguilar
Assistant Professor, History
School of Humanities
School of Humanities
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2021, History
M.A., University of California, San Diego, 2014, Latin American Studies
B.A., California State University, Long Beach, 2012, History
M.A., University of California, San Diego, 2014, Latin American Studies
B.A., California State University, Long Beach, 2012, History
University of California, Irvine
200 Krieger Hall
Mail Code: 3275
Irvine, CA 92697
200 Krieger Hall
Mail Code: 3275
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Mexican Revolution; the Spanish Civil War; racial formations; Chicanx/Latinx history; Global Indigenous Studies; immigration/exile; revolution and radicalism
Appointments
President's Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland, College Park (2021-2022)
Research Abstract
My research focuses on transnational histories of race formation, migration, and working-class culture in twentieth-century Mexico and Mexican America.
I am currently working on first book manuscript, “Revolutionary Encounters: Race, Ideology, and Exile in Mexico and Spain,” which examines the perceptions and receptions of Mexicans toward political refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War. The study examines the radical imaginaries of Mexico’s laboring classes and Spanish political refugees to demonstrate the impact of internationalist and postcolonial thought on both societies. Drawing on documentary materials and oral testimony transcripts collected from seventeen archives in Mexico, Spain, the United States, and the Netherlands, I demonstrate how solidarities between Indigenous, Mexican, and Spanish peoples proposed new revolutionary demands that challenged the Mexican state’s racial and economic modernization initiatives.
My second book project, tentatively titled "Inland Against Empire: Class Solidarity, Racial Terror, and the Mexican Revolution in Southern California," examines the struggles of Indigenous, working class, and immigrant communities in the Inland Empire, and their resistance to white supremacist violence through multiracial labor coalitions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
I am currently working on first book manuscript, “Revolutionary Encounters: Race, Ideology, and Exile in Mexico and Spain,” which examines the perceptions and receptions of Mexicans toward political refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War. The study examines the radical imaginaries of Mexico’s laboring classes and Spanish political refugees to demonstrate the impact of internationalist and postcolonial thought on both societies. Drawing on documentary materials and oral testimony transcripts collected from seventeen archives in Mexico, Spain, the United States, and the Netherlands, I demonstrate how solidarities between Indigenous, Mexican, and Spanish peoples proposed new revolutionary demands that challenged the Mexican state’s racial and economic modernization initiatives.
My second book project, tentatively titled "Inland Against Empire: Class Solidarity, Racial Terror, and the Mexican Revolution in Southern California," examines the struggles of Indigenous, working class, and immigrant communities in the Inland Empire, and their resistance to white supremacist violence through multiracial labor coalitions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Awards and Honors
- Institute for Citizens and Scholars Career Enhancement Fellow (2025)
- Paul Vanderwood Prize, Conference on Latin American History (2023), "From Comrades to Subversives: Mexican Secret Police and 'Undesirable' Spanish Exiles, 1939-60," Journal of Latin American Studies, 53, no. 1 (February 2021): 1-24.
- George Watt Essay Prize, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive, "Ambassadors of the Revolution: Anarchist Diplomacy during the Spanish Civil War" (2021)
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Integrated Internship Initiative Fellowship (2020)
- Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2019)
- Visiting Fellow, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego (2018)
- Visiting Fellow, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UC San Diego (2018)
- Fulbright-Hays, Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2017)
- Social Science Research Council (SSRC), International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2017)
- UC San Diego Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program Fellowship (2017)
- Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Alternate (2016)
- San Diego Fellowship (2014-2016, 2018-2019)
- Paul Vanderwood Prize, Conference on Latin American History (2023), "From Comrades to Subversives: Mexican Secret Police and 'Undesirable' Spanish Exiles, 1939-60," Journal of Latin American Studies, 53, no. 1 (February 2021): 1-24.
- George Watt Essay Prize, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive, "Ambassadors of the Revolution: Anarchist Diplomacy during the Spanish Civil War" (2021)
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Integrated Internship Initiative Fellowship (2020)
- Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2019)
- Visiting Fellow, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego (2018)
- Visiting Fellow, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UC San Diego (2018)
- Fulbright-Hays, Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2017)
- Social Science Research Council (SSRC), International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2017)
- UC San Diego Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program Fellowship (2017)
- Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Alternate (2016)
- San Diego Fellowship (2014-2016, 2018-2019)
Short Biography
Dr. Kevan Antonio Aguilar is a first-generation college graduate from San Bernardino, California, with ancestral ties to Mexico, Ireland, as well as the Xi'oi (Pame) Indigenous peoples of Rioverde, San Luis Potosí.
Publications
“The IWW in Tampico: Anarchism, Internationalism, and Solidarity Unionism in a Mexican Port,” in Wobblies of the World: A Global History, edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers, and Kenyon Zimmer. London: Pluto Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1vz4973.11
“Ricardo Flores Magón and the Ongoing Revolution,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Mexican History and Culture, edited by William H. Beezley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. http://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.445
"Decolonizing Refuge: Indigenous Solidarity toward Spanish Exiles in Mexico, 1936-1939," Radical History Review 153 (October 2025): 116-134.
“From Comrades to Subversives: Mexican Secret Police and ‘Undesirable’ Spanish Exiles, 1939-60,” Journal of Latin American Studies 53, no. 1 (February 2021), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X20001017
"The 'Indios' of Spain and the Mexican Revolution: Racial Ideologies and the Labor of Internationalist Solidarity," Hispanic American Historical Review 104, no. 3 (2024): 433–463. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-11189922
- “San Bernardino: Prospects for Community Building in Times of Crisis.” Op-Ed Article, KCET Departures. December 8, 2015. https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/san-bernardino-prospects-for-community-building-in-times-of-crisis
“The Many Legacies of Regeneración,” KCET Artbound. November 26, 2018. http://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/the-many-legacies-of-regeneracion
Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7094
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7094
Last updated
09/28/2025
09/28/2025