Raquel Torua Padilla

Raquel Torua Padilla is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies modern Mexico, Indigenous history, military history, state formation, and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. She holds a B.A. in History from the Universidad de Sonora and an M.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the relationship between Indigenous communities, military institutions, and the state, with a particular focus on the Yaqui people of northwestern Mexico.

Her dissertation explores the history of Yaqui soldiers, military recruitment, and service during the early twentieth century. By examining both voluntary enlistment and forced conscription, the project investigates how military service reshaped Indigenous communities, contributed to territorial dispossession, and fostered transnational Yaqui diasporic networks linking Mexico, the United States, Spain, and Morocco. Drawing on archival research in Mexico, the United States, and Spain, the project situates Indigenous military service within broader histories of nation-building, border security, violence, and state formation.Raquel is a SECIHTI–ConTex Fellow and a recipient of the 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship.