Joaquín Lara Midkiff

Bio

Joaquín Lara Midkiff is a doctoral student studying as Dean's Fellow in the Department of History at Stanford University whose scholarship focuses on the social and labor movements of Indigenous Mexican and Central American communities in the United States during the twentieth century.

His earlier work centered Mixteco and Triqui encounters with carcerality, pan-Indigenous coalition-building, and racialized agricultural labor in the Pacific Northwest during the late twentieth century.

His scholarship and commentary has been published or is forthcoming in the Western Historical Quarterly, Truthout, and The Oregonian, among others. His poetry appears in The Future Lives in Our Bodies (Abalone Mountain Press) and Crab Creek Review.

At Stanford, he has also received the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) and Research, Action, and Impact through Strategic Engagement (RAISE) fellowships, and organizes the Latin American & Caribbean History Workshop (2026-27).

Joaquín lives with his family in Salem, Oregon, where he has served on various public and non-profit boards, including Cherriots (Salem Area Mass Transit), the Oregon Disabilities Commission, and PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union. He earned his B.A. from Yale University.

Honors & Awards

• RAISE Fellowship, Stanford University (2026)
• Dean's Scholar Award, Stanford University (2025)
• EDGE Fellowship, Stanford University (2025)
• Andrew D. White Prize in American History, Yale University (2024)
• Adrian Van Sinderen Prize, Yale University (2023)
• John C. Schroeder Award, Yale University (2022)

Education & Certifications

• B.A., Yale University