Kelly Lytle Hernandez
Professor & Thomas E. Lifka Chair of History
Kelly Lytle Hernández is a professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA where she holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (Norton, 2022). She also leads Million Dollar Hoods, which maps fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. For her historical and contemporary work, Professor Lytle Hernández was named a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. She is also an elected member of the Society of American Historians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Awards
Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (2022)
2023 Bancroft Prize (Columbia University)
2023 American Book Award (Before Columbus Foundation)
2023 Robert M. Utley Prize (Western History Association)
2023 Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award (nonfiction)
2023 Lynton History Prize Short List
2023 PEN America Finalist for the John Kenneth Galbraith Award (nonfiction)
2022 National Book Award Long List (nonfiction)
2022 Cundill History Prize Long List
City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (2017)
2018 John Hope Franklin Prize (American Studies Association)
2018 American Book Award (Before Columbus Foundation)
2018 Robert G. Athearn Book Prize (Western History Association)
2018 John A. Rawley Prize (Organization of American Historians)
Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (2010)
2010 Clements Book Award (Clements Center for Southwest Studies,
Southern Methodist University)
Honorable Mention, 2010 John Hope Franklin Book Prize (American Studies Association)
Honorable Mention, 2010 Lora Romero First Book Prize (American Studies Association)
"The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943 - 1954" (2006)
2007 Oscar O. Winther Prize (Western History Association)
2007 Bolton-Kinnaird Prize in Borderlands History (Western History Association)
Selected Publications
Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (W. W. Norton Books, 2022)
City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017)
“Hobos in Heaven: Race, Incarceration, and the Rise of Los Angeles, 1880 - 1910,"Pacific Historical Review v 83, n 3 (August 2014)
“Amnesty or Abolition: Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement," Boom: A Journal of California (Winter 2011).
MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010)
“An Introduction to el Archivo Histórico del Instituto Nacional de Migración,” co-authored with Pablo Yankelevich, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies v 34, n 1 (Spring 2009), 157-168.
“The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943-1954,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 2006), 421-444.
Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1900 – 1999: A Sourcebook for Teachers, published by the National Center for History in the Schools (Fall 2002).