Mónica García Blizzard received a B.A. in Romance Languages and Literatures with minors in Anthropology and European Studies from the University of Notre Dame, where she also completed an M.A. in Italian studies. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures from The Ohio State University. 

Dr. García Blizzard’s research interests lie at the intersection of Latin American Cultural Studies and Film Studies. Her primary scholarly focus is race and national identity in Mexican cinema. Her dissertation received the 2017 LASA Mexico Section Award for best dissertation. She has written articles and reviews published in Alternativas: Latin American Cultural Studies Journal, Vivomatografías: Revista de estudios sobre precine y cine silente en Latinoamérica, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas, and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. She has forthcoming publications in Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos and Estudios Mexicanos/Mexican Studies.

Her first book, The White Indians of Mexican Cinema: Racial Masquerade throughout the Golden Age, (SUNY Press, 2022), argues that the filmic representation of indigeneity through white Mexican bodies during the mid-twentieth century reveals the unresolved tensions between competing racial ideologies and proposals for national identity.

Mónica was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to Mexican parents from Mexico City and Guanajuato, and was raised primarily in Texas. Her transnational, transcultural, and multilingual life experience has shaped her hemispheric perspective, as well as her focus on nationalisms, racial formations, and marginality.