Jessica Jackson

Dr. Jackson specializes in immigration history, late-19th/early 20th centuries U.S. history, southern/Louisiana history, race and citizenship studies, and social studies education. Her first book, Dixie’s Italians: Sicilians, Race, and Citizenship in the Jim Crow Gulf South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020), which was a co-winner for the Italian American Studies Association Best Book Award in 2020, looks at the racial experience of Sicilians in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama at the turn-of-the-century. Through a series of historical case studies, Dr. Jackson investigates the lynchings of Sicilians/Italians in Louisiana and Mississippi between 1886-1901, the impact of disenfranchisement efforts upon Sicilians/Italians in 1890s Louisiana, attempts to segregate Sicilian children from a “white” school in 1907 Mississippi, and the inconsistent way that Sicilians and other Italians were racially categorized within turn-of-the-century miscegenation disputes in Louisiana and Alabama. Bridging the previously disconnected fields of immigration history, southern history, and modern Italian history, Dr. Jackson expands scholarship on the immigrant experience in the American South and explorations of the gray area within the traditionally black/white narrative.

Dr. Jackson’s new book project, Italians in Colorado and the Making of the American West, uncovers the largely forgotten history of Italian immigrants in Colorado from the 1870s to the 1920s. The book traces how Italian migrants encountered racial exclusion, labor exploitation, and anti-immigrant violence—including lynching—within a rapidly changing frontier society. Tracing Italians in Colorado, the book contends that race, citizenship, and belonging were fluid, contested processes actively produced through migration, law, labor, and everyday community practices. It argues that violence, exclusion, and selective heritage were not peripheral experiences but constitutive mechanisms in the formation of immigrant identity and the racial logic of the region, shaping immigrant life and regional racial hierarchies in turn-of-the-century Colorado and the American West more broadly. Within this framework, violence and memory operated together to regulate visibility and belonging, challenging frontier myths and redefining the boundaries of inclusion in the American past. Italians in Colorado further demonstrates that these formations and legacies continue to shape understandings of immigration, belonging, and American identity today.

With ten years of secondary teaching experience, Dr. Jackson is also the Director of Social Studies Teaching where she oversees the Department of History’s Social Studies Teaching (SST) undergraduate concentration. She regularly teaches EDUC465: Social Studies Methods & Materials and HIST477: Teaching History and is committed to teacher education, educational equity, and inclusive and culturally responsive/sustaining pedagogies. Related to this work, she directs the History Matters Projectn(Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 2025), a digital public humanities initiative producing equity-driven, hyperlocal, place-based K–12 curriculum highlighting the undertold histories of Fort Collins, Northern Colorado, and Colorado.

SELECTED RECENT PAPERS PRESENTED/SYMPOSIA/INVITED LECTURES

• April 16, 2026, The Palermo-New Orleans Connection: Archival Excavation and Historical Recovery of aSouthern Migration Story, Organization of American Historians (OAH) Conference on American History, (Co-Presenters) Braun-Stumfels, L., Bonsaver, G., Jackson, J. B., Gussoni, A., Zaccagini, C., Philadelphia, PA (one of two panels sponsored by the Immigration and Ethnic History Society).
• March 2, 2026, Place-Based & Community-Center Approaches: Rethinking PD and Continuing Ed through theHistory Matters Project, Colorado Council for the Social Studies (CCSS), (Co-Presenters) Jackson, J. B., Pittman, A., Denver, CO (Peer-reviewed/refereed; DEISJ).
• October 18, 2025, Two Laws, One Town: Colorado’s Dual Miscegenation Statutes in 1920s Pueblo in Racialized Laws and Gendered Lives: Women and Citizenship in the US West. Western History Association (WHA) Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM. (Peer-reviewed/refereed; DEISJ).
• October 16, 2025, History Matters: Teaching Local History in/of the West, Western History Association (WHA) Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM. (Peer-reviewed/refereed; DEISJ).
• May 7, 2025, Blake Center Faculty Research Showcase: History Matters, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado StateUniversity (DEISJ).
• March 3, 2025, History Matters: Hyperlocal, Place-Based, and Culturally Responsive History Curriculum, Colorado Council for the Social Studies (CCSS), (Co-Presenters) Jackson, J. B., Pittman, A., Ernest, A., Rajnowski, B., French, L., Grande, M. Denver, CO (Peer-reviewed/refereed; DEISJ).
• April 13, 2024, Creole Italian: Food History and Culture of New Orleans’ Sicilian Community, 2024 Organization of American Historians Conference on American History, New Orleans, LA (invited).
• November 9-12, 2023, “Lynchings, Riots, and Massacres: White Supremacist Violence in the Turn-of-the-Century US,” The Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, Charlotte, NC (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• October 26-29, 2023, “Teaching Local History “Across Many Wests”: A Roundtable Conversation, Western History Association Annual Conference,” Los Angeles, CA (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• October 26-29, 2023, “Paradoxes of Non-Citizenship: Enabling Immigrant Voters and Authorizing Anti-Immigrant Violence in Turn-of-the-Century Colorado,” Western History Association Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• November 10, 2022, “Before the Lynchings: Reconsidering the Experience of Italian Immigrants in post-Civil War Louisiana,” Understanding Early Migration from Italy: The Case of Sicily and Louisiana, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK (invited).
• October 24, 2022, “Histories of the Present: How the Lessons of Lynching and Racialized Violence Can Inform Conversations on Race Today,” American Studies Program, Providence College, American Studies Program, Providence, RI (invited).
• October 14, 2022, “Citizenship for Sale: Debating Indemnities for Italian Lynching Victims in 1890s Colorado,” Western History Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• September 24, 2022, “Traversing the Color Line: The Racial Transiency of Dixie’s Italians in Jim Crow Louisiana,” Symposium: The Italian Immigrant Experience: Between Black and White, Tulane University and The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, New Orleans, LA (invited).
• November 11-13, 2021, “‘Are Italians White’? Continuing to Debate Processes of Racialization across Time and Space,” Social Science History Association, Virtual (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• April 14, 2021, “‘Citizens Plead Necessity for White Supremacy’ & the ‘Privileged Dago’ Clause: The Power of the Press in Racializing Sicilians in 1890s Louisiana,” Louisiana Historical Association Conference, Virtual (peer-reviewed/referred).
• February 4, 2021, “Dixie’s Italians Interview and Book Talk,” Calandra Italian American Institute, Virtual (invited).
• November 6, 2020, “Intersections of Place, Space, and Race: Exploring Italian America as Multi-Ethnic History,” Italian American Studies Association Webinar Series, Virtual (invited).
• October 17, 2020, “‘Death to the Dago’: What the Lynchings of Italians in 1890s Colorado Reveal about the Construction of Race, Identity, and Citizenship in the West,” Western History Association Conference, Virtual (peer-reviewed/refereed).

SELECTED RECENT COLLABORATIVE, ENGAGED, & INTEGRATIVE INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOLARSHIP

• June 4-5, 2024, “PSD Summer Institute: Building Hyperlocal, Place-Based, Culturally Responsive Social Studies Curriculum,” Fort Collins, CO (organized)
• September 21, 2023, “Teaching Difficult Topics in Recent History,” CSU Spur Campus Professional Development Seminar, Denver, CO (invited).
• April 22, 2022, “Learning from College Students’ Engagement in Collective Action: Divergent Values and Implementation,” American Educational Research Association Annual Convention, (Co-Presenters) Jackson, J. B., Ginsberg, R., & Midgette, L., San Diego, CA. (peer-reviewed/refereed).
• November 9, 2021, “Social Movements and Collective Action through History and Story: An Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Teaching and Research,” Great Conversations, (Co-Presenters) Jackson, J. B., Ginsberg, R., Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, (extension/engagement; invited).
• November 3, 2021, “Navigating the Culture Wars: Politics in the Classroom and Where We Go from Here,” Poudre School District Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Professional Learning Workshop, Fort Collins, CO, (extension/engagement; invited).
• February 28, 2020, “The Law and Justice in American History: Immigration and Citizenship and the Law,” Poudre School District Professional Development Collaborative Workshop, Fort Collins, CO, (extensions/ engagement).
• April 25-27, 2019, “Writing for Purpose and Digital Storytelling: Pedagogical Strategies for Practicing History in the High-Enrollment History Survey and Undergraduate History Classroom”, Beyond the History Essay: A Conversation About Pedagogy in the Two-Year and Four-Year College/University Classroom, Western Association of Women Historians Conference, Portland, OR, (extension/engagement; peer-reviewed/refereed).
• March 7, 2019, “Best Practice: Redesigning the College Survey Course”, Poudre School District Professional Development Collaborative Workshop, Fort Collins, CO, (extensions/engagement).
• December 1, 2018, “Teaching Immigration and Debunking Myths in the ‘Fake News’ Era”, National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, (extension/engagement; peer-reviewed/refereed).

SELECTED RECENT MEDIA APPEARANCES

• We the Italians, Rome, Italy, September 1, 2021, Interviewed by Umberto Mucci; transcribed in both English and Italian for dual-language online media outlet. https://www.wetheitalians.com/interviews/dixies-italians-sicilians-race-and-citizenship-south-east-us
• Finding Your Roots, PBS, New York, NY, United States, February 23, 2021, Historical consultant for episode with celebrity guest Roseanne Cash; interviewed (January 2020) and reviewed/commented on script. https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/tv-schedule
• New York Times, New York, NY, United States, October 12, 2019, Interviewed by Brent Staples for editorial about the lynching of Italians. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/columbus-day-italian-american-racism.html
• Washington Post, Washington, D.C., United States, March 31, 2019, Interviewed about response to the mayor of New Orleans’s apology for the 1891 lynching of Italians. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/01/new-orleans-apologize-lynching-italians-among-worst-american-history/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0541921f5277