83e1 Southwestern University: Profile

History

Shana Bernstein

Associate Professor of History

Areas of expertise

Urban, Civil Rights, Social Reform, Comparative Race and Ethnicity, Environmental, and U.S. West

 



Areas of expertise: U.S. History, especially 20th century civil rights and social reform, comparative race and ethnicity, the U.S. West, environmental.


Education

Ph.D., M.A., Stanford University 2003
B.A., UC Berkeley 1994

Positions

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Latino Studies
Northwestern University
September 01, 2003 - August 01, 2004

Associate Professor of History
Southwestern University
August 01, 2004 - present

Teaching Philosophy


Previous Courses

I teach the following at Southwestern: U.S. History before 1865, U.S. History since 1865, the U.S. West, Race Relations in the 20th Century U.S., Immigration History, a History Capstone Seminar entitled "Outsiders and Insiders," and a First Year Seminar entitled Travel, Tourism, and Encountering "the Other."

Research

My larger areas of research focus on civil rights, race relations, and social reform in 20th century U.S. History, particularly in the West. My book, Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles, was published with Oxford University Press in 2011. It examines how international circumstances of the "American Century" facilitated the emergence of collaborative interracial civil rights activism in Los Angeles which helped shape later national transformations as well as specific ethnic groups' civil rights politics.


Publications

Bridges of Reform: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Twentieth Century Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2011)

"From the Southwest to the Nation: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in the Sunbelt Southwest," in Michelle Nickerson and Darren Dochuk, eds., Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region in the American South and Southwest (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)

"Interracial Activism in the Los Angeles Community Service Organization: Linking the World War II and Civil Rights Eras," Pacific Historical Review Vol. 80, no. 2 (May, 2011)

"From Civic Defense to Civil Rights: the Growth of Jewish-American Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Los Angeles," University of Southern California's Casden Institute Journal, special volume on Jewish Los Angeles (2009)

"California Goes National: the Long 1950s," chapter in William Deverell and David Igler, eds., The Blackwell Companion to California History (2008)

"From California to the Nation: Rethinking the History of 20th Century U.S. Civil Rights Struggles through a Mexican-American, and Multiracial, Lens," Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, Vol. 18 (2007)

BOOK REVIEWS:

Brian D. Behnken, Fighting their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas, in Pacific Historical Review (forthcoming)

Neil Foley, Quest for Equality: The Failed Promise of Black-Brown Solidarity, in American Historical Review (December 2011)

Emilio Zamora, Claiming Rights and Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II, in Western Historical Quarterly (Autumn 2010)

Ellen M. Eisenberg, The First to Cry Down Injustice? Western Jews and Japanese Removal during WWII, in American Jewish History (December 2008)

Scott Kurashige, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles, in Southern Historical Quarterly (Fall 2008)

Matthew C. Whitaker, Race Work: the Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West, in Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2007)

Martin Schiesl and Mark M. Dodge, eds., City of Promise: Race and Historical Change in Los Angeles, in Southern California Quarterly (Winter 2006/07)

Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America, in Journal of Southern History (May 2006)


Seminars & Presentations

“Immigration: The ‘Second Wave’ Reimagined,” lecture/workshop, Texas Humanities Institute, summer teacher program, the University of Houston (June  2012) 
“Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement,” presentation/workshop, Presidential Timeline Summer Teacher Institute, 
sponsored by the Department of Education and the National Archives/LBJ Archives, the University of Texas, Austin (June 2011)

 


Honors & Awards

I have received various research and writing awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Cullen Foundation, the Huntington Library, the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, the Historical Society of Southern California/the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation, and the Jewish Community Endowment Newhouse Fund. I also have been selected as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Latino Studies at Northwestern University and as a Southwestern Brown, Jr. fellow. For my teaching, I received Stanford's Centennial Teaching Award. I am currently a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.


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