Carlos R. Hernandez
Assistant Professor
Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies
Website(s)
Department
History
Carlos R. Hernandez
Carlos R. Hernández joined the faculty of Wayne State University in Fall 2022 as an Assistant Professor of History with a joint appointment in the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies. He previously served as the A. Kenneth Pye Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Southern Methodist University (SMU). Hernández earned his Ph.D. in History from Yale University in Spring 2020. He also holds an M.A. in History from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Political Science and English from Texas A&M University.
A bilingual and binational scholar, Hernández maintains strong personal and professional ties to Mexico. He formerly served as the Joseph C. Fox Visiting Research Fellow at El Colegio de México in Mexico City, where he completed much of the research for his current book project, Paradise Lost: Beach Tourism, the Mexican State, and the Making of Cancún. Drawing on over a dozen Mexican national and regional archives, and nearly forty oral interviews, the manuscript argues that the development of touristic sites such as Cancún enabled developing countries such as Mexico to engage in large-scale forms of privatization after decades of state-led development. The book further demonstrates that this project came at the expense of Mexican workers, particularly women and local Yucatec Maya communities, inviting readers to reconsider their scholarly and popular assumptions about Mexican nationalism, development, and tourism.
Hernández is broadly interested in developing new approaches to Mexican nationalism and the Mexican state. His published scholarship has appeared in the Latin American Research Review, with future work in progress for The Americas and other flagship journals. He is also completing preliminary research for his next book project, Why Mexico Matters. The emerging monograph argues for the analytical significance of Mexican historiography (known in Mexico as historia patria) in contemporary debates about political economy, international relations, and migratory policies on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. It reorients the practice of public history toward these axes, reexamines the formation of Mexican Studies as a disproportionately Anglophone field, and provides a critical rereading of both the Mexican and Mexicanist historical canons.
In addition to maintaining an active research agenda, Hernández is committed to diversifying and expanding access to higher education through active under/graduate mentoring. His former advisees have won major fellowships, including the US Rhodes and McNair. He has also helped them secure competitive internships with public leaders such Earl Anthony Wayne, President Obama’s Ambassador to Mexico. As a core member of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies, Hernández welcomes queries from students and community members interested in Latin America and its diaspora.
Research interest(s)/area of expertise
- Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean
- Tourism, labor, and development
- Nationalism and cultural history
- US Latinx Studies
Research
Hernández is currently completing his first scholarly monograph, Paradise Lost: Beach Tourism, the Mexican State, and the Making of Cancún.
Education
- Ph.D., History, Yale University
- M.A., History, University of Florida
- B.A., Political Science and English, Texas A&M University
Awards and grants
- Faculty Fellow at the Wayne State Humanities Center, AY 2024-25
- CLAS Grant Writing Workshop in the Humanities & Social Sciences (nominated by History Chair), Fall 2023
- Chronicle of Higher Education Bootcamp for Future Faculty Leaders (nominated by OVPR), Fall 2023
- University Research Grant, Wayne State University, Summer 2023
- SMU Hope Teaching Award (nominated by students), Winter 2022
- Joseph C. Fox Visiting Research Fellow, El Colegio de México, AY 2017-18
- MacMillan International Dissertation Research Fellowship, AY 2017-18
- Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) Research Grant, Winter 2017
Selected publications
- “Creating Cancún: Three Paradoxes of Development in a Mexican Resort Town," in "Genealogies of Development: Approaches from Latin America," ed. Casey M. Lurtz, special issue, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development (under review).
- Review of El Golpe: US Labor, the CIA, and the Coup at Ford in Mexico, by Rob McKenzie and Patrick Dunne, Labour/Le Travail 93, (Spring 2024): 377-379. DOI: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/151/article/927437.
- Review of Stuck with Tourism: Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatán, by Mathilde Córdoba Azcárate, Hispanic American Historical Review 103, no. 1 (February 2023): 189-190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-10216812.
- “Rethinking Mexican Modernity: Nation-State Formation, Politics, and the Longue Durée, Latin American Research Review 55, no. 3 (January 2022): 586-594. DOI: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.99.
Courses taught by Carlos R. Hernandez
Winter Term 2025 (future)
Fall Term 2024
Winter Term 2024
Fall Term 2023
- HIS1900 - History of Colonial Latin America
- HIS3995 - Special Topics in History
- LAS1900 - History of Colonial Latin America
- LAS3000 - Special Topics in Latino/a and Latin American Studies
Winter Term 2023
- HIS2420 - History of Puerto Rico and Cuba
- HIS2440 - History of Mexico
- LAS2410 - History of Mexico
- LAS2420 - History of Puerto Rico and Cuba