Aldo Lauria Santiago

Aldo Lauria Santiago is Professor I at Rutgers University in the departments of History and Latino & Hispanic Caribbean Studies. He recently completed seven years as chair of the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies Department. He is a historian of Latin America, the Caribbean and U.S. Latinos with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago who specializes in peasant and working class history. His most recent publication To Rise in Darkness (Duke University Press, 2008), co-authored by Jeffrey Gould (Indiana University), is a history of the 1932 peasant/communist revolt of El Salvador and the traumatic memory of state-sponsored mass murder that followed it and has haunted the country ever since.

His current research focuses on the regional history of the peasantry in Western Mexico and the history of the Puerto Rican (and other Latino) working class in New York City. This project, based on research in over thirty archival collections, is a history of the insertion of Puerto Ricans in New York City’s working class, unions and economy between 1920 and 1970. He has served professionally in different capacities: as President of the New England Council of Latin American Studies, as Chair of the Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association and as coordinator of many conferences, panels and organizations. He grew up in Puerto Rico but has lived in the US since 1977.