Cecilia Márquez

Cecilia Márquez is the Hunt Family Assistant Professor of History at Duke University. Her research and teaching examine the formation of Latino identity in the United States, with particular attention to how race, region, and political ideology shape the meaning of “Latino” over time. Her work contributes to broader conversations about race, identity, and belonging in modern U.S. history.

Her award-winning book, Making the Latino South: A History of Racial Formation (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), traces the shifting racial position of Latino communities in the U.S. South from the 1940s to the 2010s. Márquez’s scholarship reaches both academic and public audiences. She has written for The New York Times and has been featured in outlets such as The Guardian and The New Yorker, as well as on public radio and podcasts.

Her work has been supported by fellowships and awards from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Márquez holds a BA in Black studies and gender and sexuality studies from Swarthmore College and a PhD in history from the University of Virginia.

Márquez’s project, “Latinos and the Right: Race and Radicalization in U.S. Politics, 1960–Present,” traces the development of Latino far-right activism from the 1960s to the present, showing how race, diaspora, and ideology have shaped Latino political identity and contributed to growing polarization. Rather than treating Latinos on the right as outliers, this project centers their histories and confronts longstanding and overlooked threads of extremism within Latino communities.

May 2026