Lucero Estrella (she/her) is an interdisciplinary historian of Japanese migration to the Americas, focusing on diasporic communities in northeastern Mexico and south Texas. Her work explores the circuits of migration formed across two empires– Japan and the U.S.– and mediated by Mexico’s nationalist ambitions during the early twentieth century. Estrella’s work is based on archival and ethnographic research in Spanish, Japanese, and English in Mexico, Japan, and the U.S., and oral histories with Japanese communities living in the Texas-Mexico border. Oral histories uncover the stories, memories, and cultures of Japanese communities that formed in states like Coahuila, Nuevo León and Texas.
Estrella works closely with the Nikkei community in Piedras Negras and the Asociación México Japonesa del Noreste. She has given talks at the Museo de la Frontera Norte in Piedras Negras, at the Teatro Juárez in Las Esperanzas, at la Convención Nacional de Nikkei 2024 in Monterrey, and virtually to the Nikkei community in Mexico.
Areas of Interest:
History, Migration and Border Studies, Asian & Asian American Studies, Latin American & Latinx/e Studies.
