Daniela Valdes is a doctoral candidate studying twentieth-century United States history. Her dissertation explores the history of gender nonconformity and queer sexuality in Black and Brown communities in New York, centering questions on policing and urban space. Her article “In the Shadow of the Health-Care City: Historicizing Trans Latinx Immigrant Experiences during the Coronavirus Pandemic” won the Antonia Castañeda Prize for best article on women’s Latina and Indigenous history from the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. Previously, she was awarded the Du Bois-Wells Graduate Student Paper Prize from the African American Intellectual History Society for her research on race, trans identity, and prisoner organizing.
In addition to her scholarship, Daniela collaborates on public history projects. She co-directed the documentary "Story by Story: Building a People's History of Rikers Island," for the Rikers Public Memory Project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Qzz1rSwLIng&feature=youtu.be
See some of her other writing: "'A whole race called me faggot': Reflections on Race and Class in Trans Oral History Research," August 26, 2022. https://lgbtqdigitalcollaboratory.org/a-whole-race-called-me-faggot/
