Tomás F. Summers Sandoval Jr.

Tomás Summers Sandoval is a historian whose teaching and research focuses on Latine populations in the United States. Jointly appointed to the History Department and the Intercollegiate Department of Chicanx-Latinx Studies, he teaches classes on Latine histories, movements for racial equality, immigration, and oral history.

Summers Sandoval is the author of various academic works, including Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco (2013). A dedicated oral and public historian, he also produces works for more general audiences. These include two community exhibits––Voices Veteranos: Mexican America and the Legacy of Vietnam (2017) and Sounds of Pomona: Coming of Age in the Golden Era of Music, 1955-1975 (2023-24)––and Ring of Red: A Barrio Story (2018), a stage play based on oral histories with Latino Vietnam vets.

He is currently at work on a book examining the history of Latinos in relations to the U.S. war in Vietnam. On the Edge of Things: The Vietnam War in Latinx America is based on scores of oral histories with Latino Vietnam vets, their spouses, and other family members, as well as hundreds of letters written by and to Chicano/Latino vets while they served.

Summers Sandoval is the Director of The Humanities Studio at Pomona College. A past president of the Oral History Association (2023-24), he’s previously served as Chair of the History Department, Coordinator of the Chicanx-Latinx Studies Program, and the first Faculty Coordinator of the Draper Center for Community Partnerships. His work has been supported by the Whiting Foundation, California Humanities, and the U.S. Latino Digital Humanities Center. In recognition of his teaching, he is a two-time recipient of the Wig Distinguished Professor Award (2009, 2014) at Pomona College.

Ring of Red: A Barrio Story, premiere at The Bootleg Theater (Los Angeles, CA), September 20-30, 2018.

Libby Denkmann, “This play is keeping alive the ‘hidden history’ and memories of Chicanos who served in Vietnam,” The Frame (89.3 KPCC radio), September 25, 2018.

Voices Veteranos: Mexican American and the Legacy of Vietnam, public history exhibit at The dA Center for the Arts (Pomona, CA), March 11-Spril 15, 2017.

Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco (University of North Carolina Press, August 2013; paperback edition, 2016).

Pat Morrison, “Vietnam Through the Eyes of Latino Soldiers,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2015.

Steve Cuevas, “The Invisible Force: Latinos at War in Vietnam,” The California Report, (KQED Productions), May 25, 2015.

“‘All those who care about the Mission, stand up with me!’: Latino Community Formation and the Mission Coalition Organization,” in Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978, edited by Chris Carlsson (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2011), 48-60.

“L’America non capisce il suo razzismo,” Limes: Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica (Sept. 2009): 117-124.

“Disobedient Bodies: Race, Resistance, and the Mass (Re)Articulation of the Mexican Immigrant Body,” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 52, no. 4 (Dec. 2008): 580-597.

“The Burden of History and John Sayles’ Lonestar,” in Westerns: Films through History (AFI Film Readers), ed. Janet Walker (Routledge Press, 2001), 71-85.