José Luis Castro Padilla completed his Master of Arts in History at CSUSB in 2022, and since then his work has featured in a number of premier scholarly outlets. Most recently, Castro Padilla has published an article titled, “Brownson Settlement House: Americanization and Social Justice in Los Angeles during the Progressive Era” in the Summer 2026 issue of the U.S. Catholic Historian (Volume 44, Number 3). This stellar work of peer-reviewed scholarship is the lead article in the summer issue of the journal.

Castro Padilla is currently a PhD student in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Last fall, we featured another recent publication in this Department News item, noting that Castro Padilla’s work had been published in Perspectives, the flagship journal of the American Historical Association. His work can also be found at the National Catholic Reporter.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Castro Padilla earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies in Mexico, and a second Bachelor of Arts in History at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Before going on to UCLA, he was a member of the inaugural cohort in the CSUSB MA in History program, starting in 2020 and graduating in 2022. 

Of his recent work, Castro Padilla noted, “Studying in the Chicano/a Studies program allows me to broaden my interdisciplinary approach and use the methodology I learned during my master's in history as a tool in my research.” He continued, “As a historian, I contribute to the study of the Mexican-American community from a historical perspective to address current issues such as migration, public health and housing.”

In his time as a graduate student advised by Dr. Michael Karp in our department, Castro Padilla also sharpened his skills in writing, editing, and publishing while working for the department’s student-run journal of history scholarship, History in the Making, which published its nineteenth annual issue this past June.

The History Department congratulates José Luis Castro Padilla on his truly remarkable ongoing success as an emerging scholar of History, working on urgent topics in a way that enriches our academic community and the national conversation.