Early Career Category

The AAHHE Books of the Year Awards are a celebration of Hispanic culture, history and research excellence and are presented to Latinx/a/o authors to celebrate and recognize their contributions to higher education. AAHHE acknowledges and honors the power of the written word to share the Hispanic experience and celebrates the Hispanic culture, history and research excellence. The AAHHE Books of the Year Awards recipients' accomplishments are at the highest levels of literature and scholarship.  The AAHHE Books of the Year Awards are presented at the annual AAHHE national conference. No other higher education organization provides these significant awards.

Early Career Category – recognizes a book by an early career scholar whose initial career shows promising levels of productivity and excellence. This productivity will also be reflected in the quality and impact of the recipient’s book. The winning candidate should have received a doctoral degree no more than seven years before the deadline. The criteria to be considered by the selection committee are the impact of the candidate’s work, where quality reflects the highest standards of writing, research, and excellence and impact is demonstrated through evidence that the work has advanced the research field of Latinx and education. The book should have been published within two years of the deadline, and may not have been previously submitted for this award.

2025 AAHHE Books of the Year Award Recipient
Early Career Category

How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (2025)

Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of California, Los Angeles

Past Recipients of the AAHHE Books of the Year Award in the Early Career Category:

  • 2024 Martín Alberto Gonzalez, PhD - Why you always so political?: The experiences and resiliencies of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx students in higher education (2023)
  • 2023 Stephany Cuevas, EdD - Apoyo Sacrificial: How Undocumented Latinx Parents Get Their Children to College (2021)