Natalia Molina, PhD
Ena H. Thompson Lectureship, 2022-2023
November 3, 2022 at 7:15pm
Rose Hills Theater
“How The Nayarit Built a World: Feeding Los Angeles and Becoming Mexican-American”
A Reading and Conversation with Natalia Molina, PhD, McArthur Fellow Awardee (2020)
Sponsored by the Ena H. Thompson Fund and the History Department at Pomona College. Event is open and free to the Public.
Attendees are required to wear masks inside Rose Hills.
“In a world that sought to reduce Mexican immigrants to invisible labor the Nayarit was a place where people could become visible once again, where they could speak it, claim space, and belong. In 1951, Doña Natalia Barraza opened the Nayarit, a Mexican restaurant in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Historian Natalia Molina traces the life’s work of her grandmother, remembered by all who knew her as Doña Natalia - a generous, reserved, and extraordinarily capable woman. Doña Natalia immigrated alone from Mexico to L.A., adopted two children, and ran a successful business. She also sponsored, housed, and employed dozens of other immigrants, encouraging them to lay claim to a city long characterized by anti-Latinx racism. Together, the employees and customers of the Nayarit maintained ties to their old homes while providing one another safety and support.”
About the Lectureship
Endowed in 1980 through the generosity of Ena H. Thompson, these annual lectures encourage a broader understanding and appreciation of history. Generally held in the spring semester, the lectureship brings a distinguished historian to the Pomona College campus for a week of intensive interaction with students, faculty, and alumni. The visiting lecturers are elected both on the basis of their past contributions to the discipline and of the importance of their current research in advancing the field. Typically, they offer two public lectures on campus during the week of their residency and another lecture for alumni at a dinner event in the greater Los Angeles area.
Past Ena H. Thompson Distinguished Lecturers
2021 Angela Davis
2019 Kate Brown
2018 Andrew Bacevich
2017 James C. Scott
2016 Greg Grandin
2015 Kasia Cwiertka
2014 Tiya A. Miles
2013 Gail Hershatter
2012 Fred M. Donner
2011 Gilbert Gonzales
2010 Thomas R. Metcalf
2009 Louis A. Pérez, Jr.
2008 Pamela H. Smith
2007 David Roediger / Stanley Nelson
2006 Patricia Ebrey
2005 Dominick La Capra
2004 Robin D. G. Kelley
2003 Gilbert M. Joseph
2002 Patricia Nelson Limerick
2001 Linda Colley
2000 Vicki L. Ruiz / Antonia Castańeda
1999 Allan Bérubé
1998 Lynn Hunt
1997 Peter Brown
1996 Tetsuo Najita
1995 Ramón Eduardo Ruiz
1994 John Higginson
1993 G.W. Bowersock
1992 John H. Elliot
1991 Bernard Bailyn
1990 Ramón Gutiérrez
1989 Wolfgang J. Momsen
1988 Jonathan P. Spence
1987 A.W.B. Simpson
1986 Keith Thomas
1985 Natalie Zemon Davis
1984 Carl E. Schorske
1983 Richard Pipes
1982 Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
1981 Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie
1980 Peter Gay