Natalia Molina
We are thrilled to start working with Professor Natalia Molina who is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
In addressing complex questions about belonging and identity in America, Professor Molina sheds new light on our collective history. Her work deepens our awareness of race, ethnicity, and gender, and shows us how our past continues to inform our social and cultural present. She analyzes the histories of communities of color in ways that tell us more about our perceptions of race – and how these intersect with views on public health, labor, and citizenship.
Professor Molina’s timely scholarship helps guide our national conversation on a variety of subjects. In her book, How Race Is Made in America, she coined the term “racial scripts” to describe the recurring historical narratives that continue to drive debates and policies surrounding immigration. Similarly, her work on the health disparities faced by people of color brings understanding and nuance to events that have had a generational impact.
Professor Molina also breathes life into the history of Los Angeles by bringing her community’s history to her scholarly work. Her forthcoming book, Place-making at the Nayarit:
How a Mexican Restaurant in Los Angeles Nourished its Community examines the Mexican restaurant her grandmother founded in the 1950s, which served as a focal point for immigrants in Echo Park. Professor Molina is working on a new book, The Silent Hands that Shaped the Huntington: A History of Its Mexican Workers. Her work has been supported by numerous organizations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the MacArthur Foundation, which recognized her with a prestigious “genius grant.”
A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community
In a world that sought to reduce Mexican immigrants to invisible labor, the Nayarit was a place where people could become visible once again, where they could speak out, claim space, and belong. In 1951, Doña Natalia Barraza opened the Nayarit, a Mexican restaurant in Echo Park, Los Angeles. With A Place at the Nayarit, historian Natalia Molina traces the life’s work of her grandmother, remembered by all who knew her as Doña Natalia––a generous, reserved, and extraordinarily capable woman. Doña Natalia immigrated alone from Mexico to L.A., adopted two children, and ran a successful business. She also sponsored, housed, and employed dozens of other immigrants, encouraging them to lay claim to a city long characterized by anti-Latinx racism. Together, the employees and customers of the Nayarit maintained ties to their old homes while providing one another safety and support.
The Nayarit was much more than a popular eating spot: it was an urban anchor for a robust community, a gathering space where ethnic Mexican workers and customers connected with their patria chica (their “small country”). That meant connecting with distinctive tastes, with one another, and with the city they now called home. Through deep research and vivid storytelling, Molina follows restaurant workers from the kitchen and the front of the house across borders and through the decades. These people’s stories illuminate the many facets of the immigrant experience: immigrants’ complex networks of family and community and the small but essential pleasures of daily life, as well as cross-currents of gender and sexuality and pressures of racism and segregation. The Nayarit was a local landmark, popular with both Hollywood stars and restaurant workers from across the city and beloved for its fresh, traditionally prepared Mexican food. But as Molina argues, it was also, and most importantly, a place where ethnic Mexicans and other Latinx L.A. residents could step into the fullness of their lives, nourishing themselves and one another. A Place at the Nayarit is a stirring exploration of how racialized minorities create a sense of belonging. It will resonate with anyone who has felt like an outsider and had a special place where they felt like an insider.
Stay tuned for updates!
