Jonathan Aaron Nunez is a 2018 summa cum laude graduate from Montclair State University, where he received a B.A. in history. He also trained to be a certified P-12 history and social studies teacher, working in Newark, West Orange, and Kearny, New Jersey public schools. His undergraduate thesis, entitled “All the President’s Taxmen: Viner’s Recommendations and the Legacy of New Deal Tax Reform,” saw his interests in economic history blossom. At MSU, Jonathan also developed his understanding of class conflict, domesticity, technological stagnation and advancement, and fiscal policy, in the context of urban economics, by writing extensively on past and present city planning. This developed into an activist effort to influence local constituencies and their legislatures that the expansion and maintenance of a robust public transit system is necessary to counter economic and population stagnation in northern New Jersey.
Jonathan now centers his research on the United States from World War I to the late 1950s, taking domestic issues such as tax reform and showing their international consequences. His interests are deeply entwined with the U.S and the world subfield of American history, specifically postwar U.S.-Japanese relations. During Jonathan’s time at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, he will explore these interests in the context of the United States’ occupation of Japan and its effect on local fiscal policy and urban reconstruction. His ability to read and translate tōyō kanji and jōyō kanji of the postwar Japanese language systems enables him to make this project truly international.
