Latinx and Latin American Studies

The Minor in Latinx and Latin American Studies offers students interdisciplinary knowledge and cross-cultural skills that can be applied in a range of fields including but not limited to community advocacy, business, education, public policy, health sciences, and the arts. The minor integrates theories of decolonization and liberation with the exploration of historic geopolitical, economic, and sociocultural conditions of Latin American development and how they have shaped contemporary U.S. Latinx identities. The program explores the emergence of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial and postcolonial relations in the new world, including the encounter of the indigenous/native Americans and the Europeans, which subsequently shaped Latin American societies and cultures, and the emergence of Latinx identities in the U.S. It also covers the initial encounters between indigenous peoples and the Europeans in the new world and the subsequent ethnicity, racial relations, religious conversions, and migrations of peoples from Latin America to the U.S. Core courses provide a theoretical framework to analyze issues such as immigration, transnational social movements, and restructuring under global capitalism, as well as hands-on experience in community-based research methods and activism.

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