DR. MARGARET SALAZAR-PORZIO
Curator, Latina/o Life and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History
She curated the museum’s Many Voices, One Nation exhibit that opened in 2017.
EDUCATION
B.A., California State University of Los Angeles, Liberal Studies
M.A., University of Southern California, American Studies and Ethnicity
Ph.D., University of Southern California, American Studies and Ethnicity
Dr. Salazar-Porzio is a Curator in the Division of Home and Community Life with interests and expertise in 20th century visual and material culture of the Western United States, Pacific Rim, and Mexico; Race, Citizenship and National Identity in U.S. urban history; U.S. Latina/o History and Culture; Cultural Studies and 20th Century Cultural History in the U.S.; and K-20 Education.
RESEARCH SPECIALTIES
Specific fields
- U.S. Chicana/o and Latina/o History
- Immigration and transnational history of the U.S.-Mexico Border Region and the Pacific Rim
- Asian American Studies
- Comparative Race Relations in the 20th-Century U.S.
- Media Studies with an emphasis on Television, Photography, and New Media
- Visual and Material Culture of Latinas/os in the U.S.
- Civil Rights and Human Rights Law
- Women’s and Gender Studies.
Projects
- Many Voices, One Nation
- Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and the Big Leagues
- Expanding Latina/o Collections
- Latino DC History Project
- The Worlds We Make
AWARDS, HONORS, AND SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Before joining the SI National Museum of American History, Salazar-Porzio served as an Associate Research Scholar at the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia University Law School (2011-2013) and held a Smithsonian Institution Latina/o Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010-2011). In addition to receiving research fellowships from the Guggenheim (2006), Rockefeller (2003-2004), and National Science Foundations (2004), Salazar-Porzio was also a primary education teacher in Los Angeles, California, where she received a local Teacher of the Year award (2004).
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI
Christian Picciolini is an Emmy Award-winning director and producer, a published author, TEDx speaker, global peace advocate, and a reformed extremist. His work and life purpose bear witness to a deep-seated desire to atone for his grisly past, and an urgency to transform the hurts and wounds he inflicted into vehicles for profound healing. Christian tenaciously works to use the redemption he has been offered to make the world a better, more peace-filled place.
After leaving the violent hate movement he helped create during his youth, he began the painstaking process of rebuilding his life. Christian earned a degree with honors in international relations and international business from DePaul University, began his own global media and counter-extremism consulting firm, and was appointed a member of both the Chicago Grammy Rock Music Committee and the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival.
In 2010 and 2011, he was nominated for three regional Emmy Awards for his role as executive producer of JBTV, one of America's longest-running, nationally-broadcast music television programs. In 2016, he won an Emmy Award for his role in directing and producing an anti-hate advertising campaign called "There is life after hate" aimed at helping youth disengage from white-supremacist groups. He has worked as an adjunct professor at the college level, and contributed to Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Director of Jigsaw, Jared Cohen's, New York Times bestseller, The New Digital Age.
In 2009, he co-founded Life After Hate, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping communities and organizations implement long-term solutions that counter racism and violent extremism. Christian is currently working to help build the world's first global network of extremism preventionists, who are helping people disengage from hate movements and other violent ideologies around the globe.
His involvement in, and eventual exit from, the early American white-supremacist skinhead movement is chronicled in Christian's memoir WHITE AMERICAN YOUTH: My Descent into America's Most Violent Hate Movement—and How I Got Out (Hachette Books, 2018). The book is used in courses at Yale University, Texas Woman's University, Northern Illinois University, and the New York Institute of Technology, among others.
Christian is a frequent commentator and focus of national and international media platforms such as MSNBC, CNN, 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, CBC, Vice, Washington Post, NY Times, Vox, Rolling Stone Magazine, GQ, Time Magazine, BBC, NPR, Glenn Beck, PBS, DemocracyNow!, CSPAN, and others. He has also appeared as a guest on shows by Sarah Silverman, Adam Carolla, Mitch Albom, and many more.
An explorer by nature, Christian loves to learn new things and thrives on challenging himself with "positive disruptive thinking." He values kindness, selflessness, sincerity, and respect for all people. Christian believes that small ideas can compound to change the world, and wherever we are we should all "#MakeGoodHappen."
