Out now from University of Oklahoma Press:

Little Liberia:
A Dream of Black Freedom
in the US-Mexico Borderlands

“Through her sensitive and humanized portrait of Little Liberia, Hooton elegantly interweaves historical threads of Black America and the US-Mexico Borderlands on a larger, transnational stage. This is a pathbreaking work.”

—Samuel Truett, author of Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgotten History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands.

Spring 2026 New Mexico State University awardee
Outstanding Faculty Achievement in Outreach

Recognizing public work on African American history, including an exhibit at the NMSU library created by students in the African American history class in Fall 2025.

Race, borderlands, and social movements

My research focuses on African Americans in the US-Mexico Borderlands, immigration and migration, social movements, and race and ethnicity in the American West.

Little Liberia

My first monograph, under contract with University of Oklahoma, will cover the entire history of this African American community and social movement based in Baja California, Mexico. Articles on Little Liberia can be found in Farming Across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American West and California History.

Almost all aliens

Co-author with Paul Spickard and Francisco Beltrán on the Second Edition of Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity. This book is a foundational reinterpretation of immigration history in the United States from 1600 to the present.

MY RESEARCH

My Teaching

I have taught classes in History and Ethnic Studies covering:

Race and Ethnicity in the US
American Civil Rights Movements
African American History
Mexican American History
American Immigration History
North American Borderlands
History of the United States to 1865
History of the United States Since 1865

Dr. Laura Hooton

Assistant Professor of History
Director of Graduate Studies
New Mexico State University

hooton@nmsu.edu