The Department would like to congratulate Matt Guariglia for receiving the 2020 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society (IEHS)! A well-deserved honor for his excellent dissertation, titled “The American Problem: Race, Empire, and Policing in New York City, 1840-1930.” An additional congratulations to his dissertation chair, Micki McElya, and committee members Peter Baldwin and Jelani Cobb.
IEHS announcement:
This year’s IEHS Outstanding Dissertation Award goes to Matthew Guariglia, whose excellent dissertation makes visible the deep connections between the development of policing, immigration, race, and American empire. Well-researched and methodologically expansive (connecting multiple fields and disciplines), Guariglia shows how the early militarization of New York’s police force was shaped by U.S. colonial experiences in the Philippines and Cuba, and how NY officials translated imperial practices abroad into the domestic policing of immigrants and black Americans. Representing some of the exciting new directions for the study of immigration and ethnic history, Guariglia’s dissertation speaks in powerful ways to current debates about the carceral state, surveillance, and the policing of racialized communities in the United States today.
Committee: Julian Lim (Chair), Aldo Lauria, Laura Madokoro