Dr. Laura K. Muñoz will present a talk about her book Desert Dreams: Mexican Arizona and the Politics of Educational Equality as part of the State of Arizona Research Library’s 2025 Arizona Author Series. The talk is at 12 p.m. MST, Thursday, March 13th, and will be held virtually on Zoom. Attendees are encouraged to register to receive the link to the presentation. After the talk, there will be time for questions from the audience.

This presentation will be recorded and made available on our YouTube channel. Registered attendees will receive a link to the recording once it is available.

About Desert Dreams: Muñoz’s book is the first comprehensive social history of Arizonenses, or Arizona Mexicans, that focuses on their legal and political struggles before 1960. As Arizona became a Territory and later a state, Arizonenses expected to be treated as citizens. Instead, they discovered they needed to fight for political quality, particularly access to an education. Through their collective organizing and legal battles, they filed the first desegregation case in the state (Romo v. Laird (1925)) and inspired a broader call-to-action for civil rights.

You can read and listen to books about the history and culture of Arizona for free on Reading Arizona.

Dr. Laura K. Muñoz is an associate professor of History and Ethnic Studies at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She earned her PhD in American History at Arizona State University and is a former National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.

In 2023, Penn Press published her first book, Desert Dreams: Mexican Arizona and the Politics of Educational Equality that details how Mexican American families, parents, and children embraced education as a pathway to sustained citizenship, political engagement, and cultural preservation from the 1870s to 1950s.

This event is part of the 2025 Arizona Author Series. This program is supported by the Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records, a division of the Secretary of State, with federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Arizona Center for the Book, a Library of Congress Center for the Book Affiliate.