Duke Historian Awarded Carnegie Fellowship

Cecilia Márquez will research Latino participation in rightwing and far-right politics

Duke professor Cecilia Márquez

This is a summary of a story by Cara August that originally ran on Trinity Arts & Sciences.

Cecilia Márquez is investigating a topic that’s gaining more attention of late – Latino participation in rightwing and far-right political movements and where it began.

A Duke history professor, Márquez is doing so with some impressive new support: a prestigious Carnegie fellowship.

The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program provides time and resources to pursue research addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing society today. Founded in 2015, the program initially funded a broad range of humanities and social science research. Beginning in 2024, the foundation shifted the program’s focus as part of a three-year commitment to studying political polarization in the United States, making Márquez’s project particularly timely. 

Márquez says her work will look at a complex — and sometimes uncomfortable — dimension of Latino political history. 

“I think sometimes in Latino history and Latino studies we struggle to talk about the parts of our community that don’t fit the narrative of social justice movements,” Márquez said. “So, to receive this honor is really affirming that this work is important in helping us think about the big question of our time, which is political polarization.” 

Márquez’s new book, titled “Latinos and the Right,” will trace Latino conservative activism from the 1960s through 2020. It’s intended for a popular audience. The fellowship provides two years of support; in the first, Márquez plans to conduct research and oral history interviews; the second year will be devoted to writing.

Latinos represent the youngest and fastest-growing demographic group, and with that growth comes political influence. Her work challenges a common assumption that Latino political identity is uniformly progressive. Instead, Márquez argues that Latinos have long engaged with conservative politics, shaped by a range of social, racial and geopolitical forces. 

Read more about Márquez’s work on Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.