Jazmin Puicon

Jazmín Puicón is an Assistant Professor of History at Bard High School Early College in Newark, NJ. She is a historian of modern Latin America with a specialization in Women’s and Gender History. Her research focuses on popular democracy, Afro-Colombian women, and working-class culture in urban Colombia. Her writing examines how the working class in Cali, Colombia sustained families and communities by embracing popular democracy despite increased local and national political violence.

She has received grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, and the International Education Fund (Union College-NY) to conduct research in Colombia on oral history and political violence, highlighting the voices of Afro-Colombian women in the Cauca Valley as they fought for peace and community throughout the 20^th century. She has presented papers and her work at conferences in the United States and abroad, including the International Conference on Women’s History in Bogotá, Colombia and the inaugural ALARI Conference on Afro-Latin American Studies at Harvard University.

At Bard High School Early College, a partnership between Newark Public Schools and Bard College, she currently teaches courses on the history of the United States from an Afro-Latinx perspective, the History of Modern Latin America, Year 1 Seminar, and Women’s and Gender Studies courses for 9^th to 12^th graders. Her teaching has garnered Highly Effective yearly ratings, the highest possible rating.

In addition, while at Bard HS Early College, she has won grants for her courses (including the Engaged Liberal Arts and Science Grant from Bard College), was selected into the inaugural cohort for the New Jersey Department of Education’s Diverse Teachers for Diverse Schools initiative, and is currently a fellow at the Open Society University Network’s Experiential Learning Institute. She was previously a Teaching Fellow at the Honors College at Rutgers University – New Brunswick.