Aron Ramirez

I’m a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History. (My preferred pronouns are he/him/él.) My dissertation, “The Death of the American Dream en Español: The Problem of Latinx Homeownership in the Late Twentieth Century,” situates Latinx homeownership in the twilight of the mass-homeownership economy of the New Deal order. I emphasize how Latinx homeownership was shaped by three trends in US history after 1968: the federal government’s growing recognition of a measurable “Hispanic” or “Latino” constituency and the dire housing conditions they endured; the abandonment of federal initiatives to integrate housing markets, particularly during the Nixon administration; and the devolution of low-income housing to the private sector. This project reflects my broader interests in the histories of housing, political economy, poverty, and racial formation in the twentieth century United States. My research has been supported by the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration at Yale, and by external grants from the Beinecke Scholarship, the Ford Foundation, the Social Sciences Research Council, and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars.

 

In academic year 2020-2021, I was a co-president of the Andrews Society. I’m a first-generation college graduate—please reach out if you are, too!—born and raised in southeast Los Angeles. I earned my BA in History with distinction and departmental honors from Stanford University in 2019.