Uzma Quraishi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

BIOGRAPHY

Uzma Quraishi is Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University. Dr. Quraishi is a historian of recent America, with areas of specialization in immigration, race and ethnicity, Asian American history, and the Cold War. She teaches courses on late nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. history from the survey to graduate level, and enjoys serving students with interests in these fields as a thesis or portfolio committee advisor.

Dr. Quraishi’s first book, Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War (2020), examines the significance of race, ethnicity, and class for Asian immigrants as a window into the post-Jim Crow South. It traces the formation of Houston’s Indian and Pakistani immigrants’ racial identities from before to well after migration through the lenses of the Cold War, community building, residential segregation, and school selection. The study proposes an epistemology of immigrants’ racial sense-making processes, but more broadly, reveals the subtle ways in which racial hierarchies lingered and were re-constructed after the demise of Jim Crow segregation in the American South.

Her accolades include the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Award (IEHS) for the best book in U.S. immigration history, as well as honorable mention for the Pacific Coast Branch Book Award (AHA PCB) for Redefining the Immigrant South. Her recent article, “Racial Calculations: Indian and Pakistani Immigrants in Houston, 1960–1980,” appeared in a special issue of the Journal of American Ethnic History on multi-ethnic immigration to the U.S. South, and was awarded the 2020 Vicki L. Ruiz Award (WHA) for the best article on race in the American West and honorable mention for the Qualey Memorial Article Award. Professor Quraishi’s research has been supported by a grants and fellowships from the Clements Center for Southwest Studies (SMU), the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and the African American Library at the Gregory School.

Currently, Dr. Quraishi is working on a history of U.S. Cold War public diplomacy and cultural imperialism in South Asia.

SELECTED COURSES

Undergraduate:

HIST 1302 United States History, since 1876
HIST 3379 Recent America, 1945-present
HIST 3382 Immigration and Ethnicity in American History
HIST 4399 Senior Seminar

Graduate:

HIST 5375 United States History, 1876-1933
HIST 5376 Contemporary America, 1933-present
HIST 5383 US Diplomatic History
HIST 5097 US Urban and Suburban History

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston during the Cold War (UNC Press, New Directions in Southern Studies series)

 “Racial Calculations: Indian and Pakistani Immigrants in Houston, 1960–1980,” Special Issue: History of Multi-Cultural U.S. South, Journal of American Ethnic History (Summer 2019, Vol. 38, No. 4). https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.shsu.edu/stable/10.5406/jamerethnhist.38.4.0055?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents via JSTOR

 "Diffracted Diasporas: Trinidad Indians, Religio-Nationalism, and India’s Independence," Journal of Social History (Winter 2015, 49:2). http://jsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/2/406.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=Ozd9jQQMbJyWzLu