DIRECTOR OF THE PROGRAM: Associate Professor Saldana

The Program in Latino Studies, which is administered by the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, offers multidisciplinary courses on Latino history and contemporary experiences in the United States and the Americas. The category Latino includes people of Latin American descent in the United States. The most numerous Latino populations are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban ancestry, but groups of other national origins are an increasing presence. Latinos are studied in comparative perspective (comparisons within Latino groupings as well as with other ethnic groups) as well as in transnational perspective in the Americas.

Among central issues in Latino Studies are the following: race and racialization around the spectrum African American, white, and indigenous; immigration and migration in a climate of increased policing of international borders; electoral politics as the Latino vote has increased numerically; social movements for labor, education, and language rights; assimilation and resistance in relation to language, residential groupings, and cultural practices; expressive and popular culture in music and the arts; language retention and invention in the United States in relation to English, Spanish, indigenous languages, and their combinations; the segmentation of the labor force; citizenship issues both for undocumented and documented Latinos in the United States; and the failures and successes of schooling for Latinos, including bilingual education and levels of educational attainment.

Faculty

Dávila, Dopico, Ferrer, Lopez (Law), Muñoz (Tisch), Noguera (Steinhardt), Ochoa, Ospina (Wagner), Poitevin (Gallatin), Pratt, Rodríguez (Law), Rosaldo, Suarez-Orozco (Steinhardt), Taylor (Tisch)