Maria Elena Martinez-Lopez, an associate professor of history and American studies and ethnicity in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Southern California, died on November 16 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 47 years old and had been diagnosed with cancer in May of this year.
Dr. Martinez-Lopez was a respected scholar of Spanish American and Mexican history. She joined the faculty at the university in 2001 and served as Chicano and Latino American studies from 2009 to 2011. She was the author of Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford University Press, 2008).
A native of Durango, Mexico, as a young girl Martinez-Lopez moved with her family to Chicago. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies from Northwestern University. She held a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Chicago.