Irma Victoria Montelongo, Ph.D.

Irma Victoria Montelongo is Associate Professor of Practice and Online Program Coordinator with the Chicano Studies Program at The University of Texas at El Paso. She received her Ph.D. in Borderlands History from The University of Texas at El Paso. Her fields of study include Gender and Sexuality, Latin American History, U.S. History with a sub-field in Immigration Studies, and Borderlands History with a sub-field in Race and Ethnic Studies.

Dr. Montelongo served as a fellow at the Center for Collaborative Online International Learning at the State University of New York Global Center and developed and teaches Global Learning Communities linked with classes at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. The courses focus on globalization and its impact on migration, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In 2018 she received the Border Hero Award from Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center as well as the Outstanding Lecturer Award from the College of Liberal Arts and the Regents Outstanding Teaching Award from The University of Texas System.

Her research and teaching interests focus on race, class, gender, sexuality, and criminology on the U.S.-Mexico border. Her dissertation entitled “Illicit Inhabitants: Empire, Immigration, Race, and Sexuality on the U.S.-México Border, 1891-1924,” focuses on the creation of empire, law enforcement, and Mexican American identity formation on the U.S.-Mexico border at the turn of the twentieth century. Additionally, Dr. Montelongo researches and writes about the relationship between Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and the digital humanities and which digital tools can and do “alter” HSI classrooms and deepen students’ understandings of heterogeneous Latinx knowledges and subjectivities. She is currently part of a Working Group supported by IUPLR which is in the process of developing a manuscript entitled Beyond Digital Fronteras: Rehumanizing Latinx Education.

Dr. Montelongo is interested in connecting others who research and write about Immigration Policy, Border Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Ethnic Studies at the K-12 level as well as in Higher Education.