Rocio Gomez

Rocio Gomez

Contributor

Rocio Gomez, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on environmental history and the history of medicine in Modern Latin America. Specifically, she examines how the mining industry affected water sources and public health in nineteenth-century Zacatecas, Mexico. She is currently working on her manuscript, “Silver Veins and Dusty Lungs: Water, Public Health, and the Environmental Legacies of Industry in Modern Mexico, 1835-1945,” which is under contract with University of Nebraska Press.

Medicina/Medicine

Climate Calamity: Lice, Typhus, and Gender in Mexico

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By tucking themselves away in the corners of beds and the folds of clothes, insects have long evolved alongside humans. Mites, ticks, fleas, bedbugs, lice—they all feast happily on blood, leaving humans with the itchy, irritating aftermath. In the first half of the twentieth century, rural parasitic insects gained a foothold in the largely agriculture-based… Read more →

Bites of History

Itinerant Tacos: A Brief History of Tortilla Factories

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The squeaky wheels, the baking corn masa, and the silver behemoth carrying golden circles on a metal conveyor — the sights, sounds, and smells of tortillerías invoke memories of childhood visits to Mexico. However, tortillerías, or tortilla factories, increasingly dot the United States, illustrating a lingering cultural tie to the region south of the border…. Read more →