Sasha Maria Suarez is a direct descendant of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also holds a joint appointment in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. Suarez earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities in 2020. An interdisciplinary historian of twentieth-century American Indian and Indigenous histories, her work centers on urban Indigenous communities in the Great Lakes region, with a particular focus on gender, activism, and community building.
Her first book, tentatively titled Making a Home in the City: White Earth Ojibwe Women and Community Organizing in Twentieth Century Minneapolis, explores the central role of Ojibwe women in shaping intertribal Indigenous infrastructure, activism, and urban place-making from the 1920s to the 1970s. It will be published in 2026 with the University of Minnesota Press.
Her academic and public history work reflects a commitment to Indigenous continuity, cultural resurgence, and community-based historical recovery. Suarez has contributed to exhibitions at the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota History Center, focusing on Red Lake Ojibwe history and Indigenous experiences with mass incarceration. She has also worked on a number of public and digital history projects at the University of Wisconsin, including a digital mapping project called Mapping Teejop, and an oral history, website, and library exhibition about UW-Madison’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program in honor of its 50th anniversary.
She was recently honored with the Exceptional Service Award at UW–Madison, recognizing her outstanding university and community service alongside her scholarly contributions.
Contact Information
Email: smsuarez@wisc.edu
Phone: 608-263-2172
Select Recent Work
“Anne Kaplan Oral History Interview with Ignatia Broker, 1984.” In Women and Social Movements. Indigenous Feminisms Special Issue. Edited by Mary Klann and Brianna Theobald. 29:1. Forthcoming.
“Introduction: New Histories of Indigenous Women.” With Brianna Theobald. In Indigneous Women’s Voices in North America, American Empire, and the Global South, 1820-2020: A Syllabus with Documents. Women and Social Movements. 2023. https://search-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cbibliographic_details%7C5517626
Boarding School Oral History Podcast. Podcast, season 1, episode 2. “Dr. Sasha Maria Suarez Oral History.” July 12, 2023. https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/boarding-school-oral-history-podcast.
Native Circles. Podcast, season 1, episode 22. “Sasha Maria Suarez on Expanding What Native Activism Looks Like.” April 15, 2023. https://nativecircles.buzzsprout.com/1811701/episodes/12654568-sasha-maria-suarez-on-expanding-what-native-activism-looks-like.
“Indigenous Hauntings.” Belt Magazine. July 6, 2022. https://beltmag.com/indigenous-hauntings/
“At the Falls: An Urban Ojibwe Story of Minneapolis Placemaking.” The Metropole. May 2022. https://themetropole.blog/2022/05/18/at-the-falls-an-urban-ojibwe-story-of-minneapolis-placemaking/
“Indigenizing Minneapolis: Building American Indian Community Infrastructure in the Mid-Twentieth Century.” In Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization, edited by Kent Blansett, Cathleen D. Cahill, and Andrew Needham. University of Oklahoma Press, 2022.
Heartland History. Podcast, episode 52. “Dr. Sasha Maria Suarez, Assistant Professor of History at UW-Madison.” Midwestern History Association. August 22, 2022. https://www.midwesternhistory.com/podcast.
“Gakaabikaang: White Earth Ojibwe Women and the Creation of Indian Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century.” PhD diss., University of Minnesota Twin Cities, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/11299/241321.