Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, William Colorado Chiriguayo is a doctoral candidate and award-winning scholar and writer at Harvard University. During his tenure in the academic realm–as well as his private-sector career–he has distinguished himself as an exceptional writer, scholar, educator, public speaker, and consultant. He’s the recipient of various prestigious awards and recognitions for his work–in these, and related, areas of his work. Colorado is a recognized expert on the history of United States currency, the history of money, the history of United States expansion and imperialism, history of the United States’ role in the world, and other subjects around United States history and history of the Americas.
Chiriguayo received his Master’s degree in history at Harvard, and is currently completing a manuscript on the subject of his research–the history of the United States Dollar–in completion of his doctoral (Ph.D.) degree. His ambitious project examines how the production of United States currency served to advance United States imperial expansion in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century–projecting United States influence throughout the the hemisphere and world. Broad in temporal and spatial scope, the project is bounded by a discrete set of through-lines (or “themes”). These bring ostensibly remote areas of scholarship together to reveal novel and valuable insights on money and value–and neighboring subjects, theoretical and applied–which even some of the most famed scholars of these subjects have inadequately examined, or excluded from their (appropriately) celebrated oeuvres. In short: Chiriguayo’s work has the promise to significantly contribute to scholarly notions on currency, value, and economics–and be in conversation with the likes of titans like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Michel Foucault, and the list of their intellectual peers in their respective professions.
His current academic referees, and previous corporate mentors, are among the most distinguished names in their respective fields–a privilege that has further enabled him to become one of the most promising up-and-coming scholars in the study of money, value, economy, and numismatics, and United States history.
His studies in both history and classics–along with his experience in real-world (“applied”) economic practice–have given Chiriguayo the unique vantage point required to undertake the subject and scope of his work; Research that promises to be an important addition to the fields of monetary history, economics, art history, anthropology, the history of capitalism, and other related disciplines.
Chiriguayo has studied at–and with–some of the most prestigious institutions and established scholars, respectively, in the world. Among these institutions are Columbia University, UC Irvine, Colby College, UCLA, and–most recently–Harvard University. The list of scholars are beyond the scope of this abbreviated biography, but includes household names and some of the most celebrated figures in their fields.
Before arriving at Harvard, William worked as a copywriter, editor, public-relations adviser, and ghost writer for a well-known Fortune 500 brand as well as prominent freelance clients. The latter is work he has continued, as consultant and writer–on a limited basis–to select clients during his scholarly work and advancing his masters-level and doctoral research, and other leadership roles, at Harvard. In aggregate, William has designed a number of marketing and advertising campaigns that have generated seven-to-eight figures of revenue for his company and clients. Moreover, his advertising work has achieved prominent “placement,” ranging from: commercials on primetime television, full-page ads in national publications, radio ads on “celebrity”-hosted shows, international print, and even banners hanging from well-known professional-sports stadiums.
In another arena, Chiriguayo’s freelance and ghost-writing work has helped his clients grow national profiles, international exposure, and significant publication sales. Some of his ghost-writing and speech-writing has been–and remains–the subject of some of the most popular media online. To use the vernacular, William’s work has helped his clients go “viral” multiple times over, garnering the attention of national news media and diverse international audiences–in nationally televised news programs, syndicated talk-radio, and in tens-of-millions of “views” and “shares” on social-media platforms.
Chiriguayo was previously a copy editor, in-house writer, and communications professional at the Director’s Guild of America (DGA), the craft union that represents film and television directors–and worldwide. That includes every level of the film and television craft, from the unknown beginner to the Steven Spielbergs, Clint Eastwoods, and Taylor Hackfords of the profession; figures with whom he had the privilege to work for, and around, by virtue of his diverse duties at the DGA. Throughout his corporate, scholarly, and writing career, Chiriguayo has refined his talents by having the opportunity to work with and for a wide array of clients–across the country and abroad–on subjects ranging from public relations, to educational curricula, to political strategy, to public-speaking scripts for a variety of events and figures.
As an educator, Chiriguayo has been recognized with an array of prestigious awards. At Harvard alone, he’s received five awards for his undergraduate teaching. Among them was being granted the distinction of teaching his own course at Harvard–as lead instructor, while still “only” a doctoral candidate–as recipient of the “History Prize Instructorship” from Harvard University’s History Department. The course, “History of the United States Dollar: From Spanish Silver to Bitcoin,” was a semester-long seminar for Harvard upperclassmen on Colorado’s specialties and research. That includes the history of United States imperialism, monetary history, and the growth and expansion of the United States across the North American continent–and beyond. He served as a non-resident tutor (advisor) for Mather House, at Harvard, advising house members on their history concentrations, academic projects, and career plans. Two of his former advisees were subsequently named Rhodes Scholars, and several of his former students now hold distinguished positions in the professional world, academia, and government–successes for which he takes little-to-no credit, but for which he is very proud on behalf of his former pupils. As a freelance, private (academic) tutor, William has helped hundreds of students channel their talents into a long list of academic accomplishments, including perfect scores on national standardized tests and admission to some of the most elite colleges and universities in the United States.
Colorado has also been the recipient of various competitive fellowships, including an invitation to participate in the Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics–a highly selective, and intensive, eight-week course–comprised of lectures and demonstrations by leading researchers and experts invited from around the world. This distinction is awarded by the American Numismatic Society (ANS) and has selected a small cohort of promising young scholars for the annual gathering since 1956. Founded in 1858, the ANS is a recognized global leader in numismatic scholarship and research, and is also the holder of the largest private collection of coinage and other currency–rivaled only by the Smithsonian’s National Numismatic Collection.
William was the first fellow in the seminar’s 70-year history to submit a “digital history” project in satisfaction of the research-project component of his fellowship appointment. The series of “micro-documentaries” on the history of American currency–titled the Imperial Dollar Project–were part of a temporary website exhibition, with various forms of media on subjects related to Colorado’s research on monetary and numismatic topics, as well as introductory-level vignettes on the history of the American dollar.
On the personal level, William is a professional-level woodworker, restorer, and carpenter–a third generation practitioner of these crafts–who enjoys working with, among other materials, “recovered” and antique woods. He’s also an accomplished classical guitarist and photographer and videographer. Bringing together two of these interests, Chiriguayo is working on mastering the fine craft of lutherie–string-instrument making and restoration, with a focus on period instruments and “relatives” (both past and present) of the modern acoustic guitar. On the media side of things, William uses “digital new media” technologies to bring important (and timely) subjects in the study of history, and its current-day relevancy, out of the stodgy classroom and to new, broader audiences and to pragmatic applications–from examining the political developments to identifying and comprehending shifts in social and cultural norms.
William’s long-standing scholarly examination of propaganda and the power of imagery fueled his study and work in academic-documentary filmmaking and visual storytelling. In that capacity, he has worked in the prestigious History Design Studio at Harvard–among other roles. This has given him the ability to combine his training as a historian, talents in storytelling, and knowledge of a media professional to tell stories of the past in new, short-form, informative content that cuts through the noise of today’s saturated media landscape. In that capacity, William has had the honor and privilege to interview prominent figures such as Shannon Lee–the daughter of the monumental cultural icon, Bruce Lee–and renowned scholars, such as Walter Johnson, Vincent Brown, Irvin Ibargüen, and Robert Hogue on subjects ranging from “post-racial” appeal of figures like Bruce Lee to the cultural and economic implications of “dollarization” in Latin America and Africa. True to the medium of digital history, he has managed all facets of the production process, while maintaining the underlying scholarship of the work. From lighting, to audio, to video, the task at hand is to do proper justice to the subject–with visual, audio, and narrative integrity–facilitated by a streamlined approach that preserves quality production values, while maximizing access to subjects and resources which otherwise might be inaccessible in other formats.
TLDR version: William Colorado Chiriguayo is a historian and storyteller, trained and experienced in an array of media, from scholarly writing, to documentary filmmaking, to storytelling to bring long-buried–or inadequately and poorly documented–interpretations of the American past to the broadest and most diverse audiences possible. In doing so, his accomplishments–and on-going dedication–is to contribute to an elevated and inform national (and international) conversation on subjects affecting “ordinary” people; that is, groups who–because of class, race, gender, and other categories of identity–have been erased from history or are silenced in today’s political climate. Colorado is a proud son of both working-class and “white-collar” roots–engaging in work that preserves, advances, and combines the crafts handed down to him by those backgrounds to bring a unique voice to subjects important to all of us.