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Bonar Hernandez

Bonar Hernández Sandoval

  • Associate Professor

Contact

bhernand@iastate.edu

515-294-7266

603 Ross
527 Farm House Ln.
Ames IA
50011-1054

Bio

My teaching and research explore the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and politics in Latin America, with a focus on transnational religious movements and revolutionary activism during the Cold War.

I am the author of Guatemala’s Catholic Revolution, which examines the resurgence of Catholicism among Maya communities through a transnational lens. Drawing on archival sources from Guatemala, the U.S., and Vatican City, the book explores Church-state relations, papal influence, missionary activities, and Church-sponsored development during the Cold War, highlighting the rise of lay-led progressive Catholic communities.

I am currently focused on two large research projects: 1) a book-in-progress titled The Making of Guatemala’s Grassroots Religious and Political Activists during the Cold War, which analyzes the grassroots formation of Maya-led popular movements; and 2) a transnational history of Latin American Catholicism that investigates the impact of Vatican diplomacy in Central America during the Cold War.

My research has appeared in The Americas, “The Oxford Handbook of Central American History,” “The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism,” “The Cambridge History of Religion in Latin America,” and “Beyond the Shadow of the Eagle.” I have received funding from the Social Science Research Council, the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship program, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and the Center for the Excellence of the Arts and Humanities and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University.

I have contributed to a diverse range of committees and programs at and beyond the university. At Iowa State University, I have served on numerous committees, as faculty senator, and as a volunteer with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. From 2023–2025, I served as Faculty Fellow for Latino Student Success in the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Provost’s Office, supporting various academic initiatives. I also serve on the Book Award Selection Committee for the Pacific Coast Branch of the AHA (2023–2025).

Ask An Historian

How do you approach teaching?

My own path as an immigrant student reminds me every semester why I teach—and it inspires me to create space for all my students to see their own histories reflected in the broader narratives we study. Students enter my classroom with lived experiences foundational to a critical engagement with different kinds of sources and assignments. For this reason, my courses engage competing primary and secondary sources, including images, testimonials, music, and works of fiction.

Education

PhD, Latin American History University of Texas at Austin

MA, Latin American History University of Texas at Austin

BA, History, magna cum laude, Minor, Spanish, San Francisco State University

Selected Publications

  • Hernández Sandoval, Bonar. Guatemala’s Catholic Revolution: A History of Religious and Social Reform, 1920-1968. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
  • Hernández Sandoval, Bonar. “Reforming Catholicism: Vatican Diplomacy in Guatemala during the 1920s and 1930s.” The Americas 71:2 (October 2014): 255-280.
  • “Religion, Politics, and the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Central American History, edited by Robert Holden. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 403-429.
  • “The Global South: Latin America.” In The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, edited by Bernice M. Kaczynski and Thomas Sullivan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 526-540.
  • “The Revival of Latin American Catholicism, 1920-1968.” In The Cambridge History of Religion in Latin America, edited by Virginia Garrard-Burnett and Paul Freston. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 346-358.
  • “‘Restoring All Things in Christ’: Social Catholicism, Urban Workers, and the Cold War in Guatemala.” In Beyond the Shadow of the Eagle: New Histories of Latin America's Cold War, edited by Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Mark Lawrence, and Julio Moreno. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013, pp. 251-280.

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