With dual appointments in history and in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies, University of Iowa faculty member Lina-Maria Murillo asks her students to examine history through different lenses.
Every month is Latinx/a/o Heritage Month for Lina-Maria Murillo.
Murillo joined the University of Iowa faculty in the Departments of History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies in 2018, and she teaches Latinx/a/o History from Conquest to the Present, History of Social Justice Movements, Global Reproduction, and Introduction to Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies.
“I understand why these months celebrating cultural heritage exist, but it’s always Latinx/a/o Heritage Month for me,” she says. “It’s a 12-month cycle. I am constantly thinking about diverse communities and cultures and how they crisscross and inform each other. I’m always teaching these histories.”
Murillo, whose parents migrated to the U.S. from Colombia and settled in San Jose, California, was raised in a community steeped in social justice advocacy. Her father was active in the farm workers movement, and a mantra of her childhood was, “How do we live our lives creating more justice and more peace?” As a young scholar, Murillo studied the history of Latinas along the U.S.-Mexico border as well as reproductive health.