Michael Rangel

My research investigates the history of Chicanx and queer people in South Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley (The Valley) from 1968-2000. I examine the consequences of the Civil Rights Movement and the development of the Chicano Movement as it reaches the Valley, pushing for the creation of more radical activism on the local level for Chicanx students, Chicanx women, and queer people. And I demonstrate the ways in which these identities shaped not only the movements they participated in, but also served as a crucial foundation for the subsequent movements that followed in the Valley.