Overview

The Latina and Latino Studies program of Northwestern University engages in teaching, research, and service activities that represent current production of knowledge about Latina and Latino communities in the United States.

Program highlights

Latina and Latino Studies focuses on the historic and contemporary circumstances that shape Latina and Latino lives, spaces, subjectivities, and politics in the United States. This field encompasses diverse communities and nationalities while also offering critical attention to transnational dynamics or to how Latinas and Latinos relate and connect to cultural or geographical origins across the Americas. Similar to other race/ethnic studies fields, Latina and Latino Studies has origins outside of universities. To a large extent, it originated in social movements led by organizers, thinkers, artists, students, workers and teachers who were opposed to legacies of racial injustice, ethnic prejudice, exploitation, criminalization and neglect.  Latina and Latino Studies represents the academic branch of this dynamic political culture.

While our program and its students benefit from the rich Latino cultures and communities that reside and flourish in Chicago, the program also delves into the experiences of Latino communities nationwide. Our courses may discuss the realities of Puerto Rican and Mexican communities in Chicago, second generation Dominicans in New York, or generations of Mexican Americans in Houston.