Abstract
Nora’s introduction to the new journal, Latin American Perspectives (LAP), was in 1974 as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. She was impressed. Her later work with LAP, as with her academic work in general, was intertwined with her dedication to social justice and keen attention to research and accuracy as a scholar. They were inseparable. After earning a BA in English literature, she found employment with the new International Development Foundation, supporting community development in Latin America. The Foundation sent her to Chile where she monitored agrarian reform and peasant organization and studied at the University of Chile from 1966 to 1968. Upon return, she earned an MA in Latin American Studies at NYU, and a PhD at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Nora joined the USC Department of Political Science in 1977.
Nora’s intellectual journey had begun in Montgomery Alabama, “where I grew up . . .was apolitical and had little interest in social sciences, and limited knowledge. . .of the rest of the world.” Moving to New York, she evolved into a “Kennedy liberal.” By 1969, however, she had developed a more critical perspective and at Wisconsin she “immediately became involved in politics,” including the antiwar movement and activities to educate the community about “the negative consequences of U.S. . . .involvement in Latin America . . .[and] the intervention in elections and the overthrow of revolutionary and democratic governments.” Nora published an article in LAP that focused on relations between the Mexican state and social classes and discussed the “the extent to which the state could act independently of the dominant classes and the trajectory of the post-revolutionary state.”
Moving to Los Angeles in l977, Norma Chinchilla (whom Nora had known at Wisconsin) introduced Nora to LAP. Nora was invited to join as a coordinating editor. By the early 1980s, when many Central American countries were suffering the depredations of right-wing dictators supported by the United States government, Nora became actively involved in several key Los Angeles organizations. She co-founded the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the Nicaraguan Task Force, and the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN), was regional coordinator of the Faculty Committee for Human Rights in El Salvador and Central America (FACHRES), a member of the Interfaith Task Force, and served on the board of CARECEN and Policy Alternatives for Central America (PACA). Nora also played a critical role as an expert witness for asylum cases, participated in fact-finding delegations to Central America, and continued her research in both El Salvador and Mexico.
Nora’s involvement with LAP spurred her writing collectively. She published several articles in LAP: “The Sanctuary Movement and Central American Activism,” co-authored with Norma Chinchilla and James Loucky (Chinchilla, Hamilton and Loucky, 2009); and “The Value of Collective Work” (Hamilton, 2013: 69-70). With LAP’s Tim Harding, she co-edited Modern Mexico: The State, Economy and Social Conflict (Hamilton and Harding, 1985). She also edited several issues of the journal and published several books: The Limits of State Autonomy in Post Revolutionary Mexico (Hamilton, 1982) and the coedited Crisis in Central America: Regional Dynamics and U.S. Policy in the 1990s (Hamilton, Frieden, Fuller and Pastor, 1998).
In addition, Nora and Norma Chinchilla co-edited several articles and the book, Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorians in Los Angeles (Hamilton and Chinchilla, 2001). Their collective work garnered awards from: the American Political Science Association-Best Book in Race, Ethnicity Politics and Globalization (2002); the Historians of the Lion’s Award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (2002); the first annual Adelante! Award from the Salvadorean American Education and Leadership Fund (2007); and the first annual Immigration Scholar Activist Award from USC (2014).
Nora Presente!