Profile picture of Yvette Saavedra

Yvette Saavedra

Assistant Professor
CLLAS, IRES, Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Phone: 541-346-5521
Office: 218 Hendricks Hall
Office Hours: Please email for appointment.
Research Interests: Chicanx History and Studies; Chicana Feminist Theory; U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History and Studies; History of U.S. West; 19th and 20th century U.S History; 19th and 20th century gender and sexuality in the U.S.

Biography

Saavedra is a historian specializing in 19th Century U.S. History, Borderlands History, History of the U.S. West, Chicana/o History, and Gender and Sexuality History. Her research interests include the intersection of race, power, identity, colonialism, nationalism, gender and sexuality.

 

Education

Ph.D. History, University of Texas El Paso

M.A. Borderlands History, University of Texas El Paso

B.A. History & Chicana/o Studies, Pitzer College

 

Research

Saavedra's book, Pasadena Before the Roses:  Race, Identity, and Land Use in Southern California, 1771-1890, (University of Arizona, 2018) examines and details the social and cultural history of how Spanish, Mexican, American and Indigenous groups’ competing visions of land use affected the formation of racial and cultural identity in Pasadena, California, during this period. This work reconceptualizes how culturally subjective ideas about race, masculinity, and visions of optimal land use became tangible representations of political projects of conquest, expansion, and empire building.  

 

She has published on topics ranging from Chicana Feminism, Chicana/o History, LGBTQ History, U.S. History, and Borderlands History.  Other research includes the recently published "Of Chicana Lesbian Terrorists and Lesberadas: Recuperatin the Lesbian/Queer Roots of Chicana Feminism, 1970-2000" (Feminist Formations, Summer 2022) examining the lesbi-queer roots of Chicana feminism, and an article titled "Speaking for Themeselves: Rancheras and Respectabilty in Mexican California, 1800-1850," (California History, Spring 2023) tracing the development of hegemonic ranchera femininty in nineteenth century Californio culture.   

 

Her current research agenda reflects work on several projects including her second full length book tentatively titled Living la Mala Vida: Transgressive Femininities, Morality, and Nationalism in Mexican California, 1810-1850 a study that (re)defines masculinity, femininity, gender, and sexuality within Mexican nationalism and concepts of political and social citizenship. 

 

Saavedra is co-editor of BorderVisions a borderlands books series with the University of Arizona Press. 

 

She is a the recipeint of the 2019 Western History Association Huntington Library Martin Ridge Fellowship, a 2021 Oregon Humantities Center Faculty Research Fellowship, a 2021-2022 Faculty Research Grant from the University of Oregon's Center for the Study of Women in Society,  and a 2022 Research Grant from the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of Oregon. Saavedra was recently awarded the 2023 "Chicana Caucus Publication Recognition" by the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies' Chicana Caucus. 

 

 

 

https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/pasadena-before-the-roses

https://uapress.arizona.edu/series/bordervisons

 

Teaching

Spring 2023

Courses:

WGS 303: Women and Gender in American History 

WGS 422/522: Defining Deviance

Office Hours: Please email for an appointment yjs@uoregon.edu