Education:

Ph.D., University of California Merced, 2024
M.A., University of California Merced, 2022
B.A., Humboldt State University, 2016
A.A., Coastline Community College, 2013

Research interests:

Public and applied history, digital humanities, critical and community archives, urban history, race and place, 20th Century American West

Bio:

Dr. Shiloh Soto is a public historian of the 20th Century American West. Centering racialized workers, Shiloh’s research explores the consequences of the benevolence of public memory and sets out to ameliorate regional archives through an ethnic studies lens. Committed to publicly accessible historical research, her current work explores the liberatory possibilities of community archives through analysis of a community-engaged project she led in California’s rural San Joaquin Valley: a 100-page experiential guidebook on the City of Livingston, and a paired ethnic studies syllabus on digital archives and local history. These interdisciplinary digital humanities projects endeavor to put students in the driver’s seat of archival work and rethink how knowledge is produced. Her research has been primarily supported through community-engaged research grants from the Luce Foundation and various public humanities centers. Shiloh’s future research will take a critical archives approach to Vancouver’s labor, immigration, and social movement histories.