Overview
Camille Suárez is a historian of the U.S. West. Her research focuses on the political, social, and environmental history of California during the 19th century. Her first book, Dreams of Small Countries: Race and State Making in California (forthcoming with University of North Carolina Press) centers Californio elites, Mexican settlers who became US citizens by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, as state makers. The book unearths the central role Californios performed in the imagining and making of California. She is working on her next book project, Madre Viña, an environmental history of the California Wine Country.
Research Focus
The U.S. West
19th Century U.S. History
U.S. Latino History
Environmental History
Publications
Books:
Colonial State Making: The Conflict Over Race, Land, and Citizenship in California, 1846 – 1879 (forthcoming with University of North Carolina Press)
The Mother Vine: An Environmental and Decolonial History of the California Wine Country (manuscript in progress)
Articles:
“Junta Democrática: Californios’ Rejection of Reconstruction in California” (forthcoming in Oct 2024 with The Western Historical Quarterly)
“A Legal Confiscation: Californios and the 1851 Land Act,” Journal of the Civil War Era, Vol. 13, No. 1 (March 2023), 29-59
“How to Blow Up a Framework: Bringing Climate Change into the US History Survey,” co-authored with Elsa Devienne for edited volume, A Historian’s Handbook for Saving the World (forthcoming Fall 2025)
AMST Courses - Fall 2024
- AMST 2375 : US Climate Catastrophes: Rethinking US History through the Climate
- AMST 3775 : Latinos and the United States, 1492-1880