{"id":4246,"date":"2026-06-23T11:04:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/magazine\/?p=4246"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:52:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T22:52:54","slug":"america-at-250-through-an-la-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/magazine\/america-at-250-through-an-la-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining American identity at 250"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n USC Dornsife alumna Laura Dominguez is helping lead LA2026, a citywide initiative examining the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary through the lens of Los Angeles. (Photo: Misha Gravenor.)\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Reimagining American identity at 250<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n
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\n\n \n As the nation approaches its semiquincentennial, USC Dornsife scholar Laura Dominguez \u201912, \u201923 is bringing diverse perspectives into conversations about history and belonging.\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n By<\/span>Daniel P. Smith<\/a><\/strong>\n \n June 23, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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For Laura Dominguez \u201912, \u201923<\/a>, the built environment is never just physical space. Buildings, monuments and neighborhoods also reflect whose stories a society chooses to preserve and whose it leaves out.<\/p>\n

That idea has guided Dominguez\u2019s work across historic preservation, public history and scholarship. Now, as a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute<\/a> (EMSI), she is helping lead LA2026<\/a>, a citywide initiative examining the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary through the lens of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Working with EMSI Director of Programs Amy Braden<\/a> and six local institutions \u2014 including the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County<\/a>, Mission San Gabriel Arc\u00e1ngel<\/a> and the Autry Museum of the American West<\/a> \u2014 Dominguez is helping organize 18 public conversations, both in person and online. The programs will explore questions of democracy, belonging and historical memory, asking how national ideals have been experienced, challenged and reimagined in L.A.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do the Declaration of Independence\u2019s ideas mean to us here in L.A.? How do we live them? How do we challenge them?\u201d asks Dominguez, a native of the San Gabriel Valley.<\/p>\n

The series reflects Dominguez\u2019s long-standing interest in how history is publicly remembered. She earned a master\u2019s degree in historic preservation from the USC School of Architecture<\/a> in 2012, then spent years working with nonprofits in San Francisco and L.A. Again and again, she saw how the histories of many communities were overlooked in preservation work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, I entered the field at a moment of reckoning,\u201d Dominguez says. \u201cPeople were beginning to recognize the exclusionary aspects of memory work.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, she co-founded Latinos in Heritage Conservation<\/a>, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Latinx places, stories and cultural heritage while challenging narrow ideas about what counts as \u201cAmerican\u201d history.<\/p>\n

At the encouragement of USC Dornsife historian William Deverell<\/a>, divisional dean for the social sciences, Dominguez returned to USC to pursue a PhD in the history<\/a> of the United States. Her dissertation examined memory and heritage work in L.A. from the late 1700s to the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

Rather than follow a conventional academic path, Dominguez chose to focus on public-facing scholarship that connects rigorous research with civic life. Mentors including Deverell and EMSI Director Peter Mancall<\/a> supported that ambition. Along the way, she joined the Los Angeles Mayor\u2019s Office Civic Memory Working Group<\/a> and was a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow with the National Park Service before taking on her role with LA2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand people will have a range of reactions to America 250,\u201d Dominguez says. \u201cBy creating space for people to have intimate, meaningful conversations, we\u2019re bringing distinct perspectives to light, modeling ways to have healthy disagreement about the past and showing there\u2019s no one way to think about our nation\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n Nurturing Scholarly Talent\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n
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\n USC Dornsife Magazine\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Summer \/ Fall 2026<\/h2>\n

America at 250<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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