Professor Amezcua’s research brings new insights to the study of postwar Chicago in particular and American cities more broadly. Diverging from long-held understandings of the city’s post-1945 ghetto formations, white flight, and immigration, his research historicizes a relational nexus of urban landscapes of decline, renewal and transition; racial and migrant intersections; and emotive cultural politics of contestation and invention that move us beyond simple understandings of Latinos in Chicago as mere “buffer communities” between other ethnoracial groups. The same commitment to the fields of Latina/o and urban history that inspires his research also propels his work in the classroom. Professor Amezcua teaches courses on U.S. Latina/o History, Cultures of the Urban Crisis, and Latina/o Chicago with future course offerings in racial built environments and modern U.S. history.
