Álvaro Márquez
Álvaro D. Márquez is a USC Del Amo Fellow and a fourth-year doctoral candidate in American Studies and Ethnicity. A former Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow, he obtained his B.A with honors in Modern American History in 2003 from Brown University. Prior to attending USC, Álvaro worked as program and alumni coordinator with the Schools, Mentoring and Research Team (SMART), an educational non-profit based in San Francisco, where he tutored and mentored primarily undocumented and inner-city youth of color. His research interests focus on the historical and cultural memories of migration, as evidenced in popular, vernacular, and visual culture.As a 2012 Interdisciplinary Research Group fellow, Álvaro will examine the lore around and devotion of Catholic martyr and popular Mexican saint Toribio Romo Gonzalez (1900-1928). Through this cultural and religious figure, he will trace the ways that specific rural Mexican migrants residing in the United States utilize visual, vernacular, and popular culture to situate themselves as (trans)national subjects. Methodologically, he will combine ethnography, site visits, and participant observation in religious shrines in the 'Los Altos' regions of central highland Mexico. His research seeks to understand the ways that beliefs in the intangible help to structure stories about shared elsewheres -whether these are tales about homes left behind or about immigrant life in the United States.