Word from the Director
Bienvenidos a nuestro programa! Welcome to the UIC Latin American and Latino Studies Program! This is a unique multidisciplinary program that compares and combines the study of Latin America and Latino communities in the United States. The Chicago metropolitan area is home to over a million Latinos from nearly every country in Latin America. This provides students with meaningful opportunities to reflect and engage with social issues of contemporary importance such as globalization, immigration, and equality as well as questions related to identity including race, nationality and gender. The program's faculty members are committed to a critical understanding of the historical and cultural context in which these communities and their countries of origin evolve.
Our faculty is also engaged in exciting scholarship with strong ties to the communities they study. Students will have opportunities to participate in this through research assistantships and in the many classes that encourage theoretical and interactive learning. Students will also have opportunities to participate in study abroad programs.
We are also a member of the InterUniversity Program on Latino Research, a national consortium, which provides research and training opportunities for faculty and students.
Through our community collaborations, we encourage conversations among scholars and people working and living in Chicago's Latino communities. We also have a diverse student body active in a variety of organizations. We invite you to check out our various pages here for more information, and feel free to visit us personally at UIC, join one of our classes or participate in our community events.
-María de los Angeles Torres, Director
News, Announcements, and Events
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Alejandro L. Madrid will spend the 2011-2012 academic year finishing the
manuscript of a book about cultural relations between Cuba, Mexico, and
New Orleans from the end of the 19th century through the 20th century as
seen in the historical and contemporary practice of the danzón. The book
is written in collaboration with Robin Moore (University of Texas at
Austin, and the project is sponsored by a fellowship from the American
Council of Learned Societies.
Professors Amalia Pallares and Joel Palka received the Institute for Humanities
2011-2012 Institute Fellows for the departments of Political Science and Latin American
Studies and the Departments of Anthropology and Latin American Studies.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Zona Abierta: TRANSNATIONAL ENCOUNTERS
Music and Performance at the U.S. - Mexico Border
Join the UIC Latino Cultural Center and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program (LALS) in a panel discussion centered on the book:
TRANSNATIONAL ENCOUNTERS Music and Performance at the U.S. - Mexico Border
edited by UIC professor Alejandro L. Madrid.
Transnational Encounters Event Flyer
The essays presented here seek to explore the transnational connections and local significance of many of the musical cultures found along the border.
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Latino Cultural Center
Lecture Center B2
Panelists:
Ignacio Corona, Ohio State University
Lillian Gorman, University of Illinois at Chicago
José E. Limón, University of Notre Dame
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Northwestern University
Moderator: Alejandro L. Madrid, LALS
"Transnational Encounters is a collection of outstanding essays on U.S.-Mexico border music written by the most authoritative scholars in the field. Brilliantly conceptualized by Alejandro L. Madrid, it offers in-depth studies on corridos, cumbias, mariachi, hip-hop and other musical genres."
- Maria Herrera-Sobek, Associate Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chicana Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Music at UIC.
Free refreshments and admission.
For more information please call the LCC (312) 996-3095 or LALS (312) 996-2445
The UIC Latino Cultural Center Zona Abierta (Open Zone) series highlights the intersection of arts, humanities, science, culture and civic life with presentations by local, national and international artists, scholars and community leaders about pressing social issues affecting the lives of Latinos and Latin Americans while making connections to other communities.
OPEN HOUSE for our Master of Arts in Latin American and Latino Studies
Thursday, November 17, 2011
4:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.
Unversity Hall - 1550 Conference Room
15th Floor
601 S. Morgan Street
Chicago, IL 60607
Meet our current students, faculty, and staff.
Find out more information about our masters of Arts in Latin American and Latino Student program.
Light refreshments will be served. RSVP to martae@uic.edu
Open House Flyer
Call for Applications:
The program of Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) at the University
of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is accepting student applications for the
Master of Arts (M.A.) in Latin American and Latino Studies. Applicants
wishing to start in the program during the Fall 2012 semester are encouraged
to apply before January 15, 2012 (for full funding consideration) but the
admissions committee will still review applications after that deadline.
The degree offers an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of Latin
American societies and Latinos in the United States. It encourages an
approach that ranges across the social sciences, humanities, literature and
the arts, cultural studies and history. The M.A. will train students to
reflect on and engage with social issues of contemporary importance in the
study of Latin American and Latino populations such as
globalization, colonialism, post colonialism, transnational's immigration,
development, and equality as well as questions related to identity and
membership, including race, culture, nationality, and gender. The program
will offer a unique set of research courses to prepare students, including a
semester placement with a community based organization in which students
learn a series of specialized skills that place them on a solid career path,
both in academic and non academic settings.
LALS Brown Bag and Book Presentation
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
at 12:00 p.m.
Latino Cultural Center - Lecture Center B-2
When "foreign" languages aren't foreign: Heritage speakers in the United States
presented by:
Kim Potowski
Associate professor of Hispanic Linguistics at UIC
"You're in America, Speak English".
"Multilingualism threatens our national unity."
"Today's immigrants are not learning English as quickly as those of the past."
These myths regarding language are fairly prevalent in the U.S. at the beginning of the 21st century. Approximately 20% of the U.S. population speaks a language other than English at home, yet several mainstream currents portray this linguistic diversity as a problem – with repressive and sometimes illegal results. But there have been growing countercurrents of awareness that heritage languages are in fact both a right for the communities that speak them and a resource for the nation generally, along with the understanding that there are good ways (and not so good ways) of promoting English language learning. Several cities have enacted initiatives to protect people’s right to maintain their heritage language without being accused of rejecting mainstream U.S. society, and several K-8 educational models teach other languages to our nation’s English monolingual children. This talk explores these issues making frequent reference to Spanish in the U.S. and to Chicago more specifically.
Kim Potowski is Associate Professor of Hispanic linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she directs the Spanish for heritage speakers program. Her research focuses on Spanish in the United States, and her book Language Diversity in the U.S. (Cambridge University Press 2010) profiles the 12 most commonly spoken heritage languages in the nation. She is currently completing a book about “MexiRicans” in Chicago.
This event is in collaboration with the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies and the Latino Cultural Center at UIC.
Join the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, The Latino Cultural Center and the Department of Sociology for Zona Abierta with author Tanya Golash-Boza who will share a time of reading and dialogue centered on her book "Immigration Nation". Her book provides a critical analysis of the impact that U.S. immigration policy has on human rights.
Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions and Deportations in Post - 9/11 America
Presented by:
Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
Thursday, October 20, 2011
3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
UIC Latino Cultural Center
Lecture Center B-2
Immigration Nation provides a critical analysis of the impact that U.S. immigration policy has on human rights. In the wake of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was founded toprotect America from the threat of terrorist attacks. However, along with dramatic increases in immigration law enforcement — raids, detentions, and deportations have increased six-fold in the past decade — American citizens, families, and communities have ultimately borne the cost. Although family reunification is officially a core component of U.S. immigration policy, these same policies often tear families apart. Pundits and politicians nearly always frame this debate in terms of security and economic needs, but here, Tanya Maria Golash-Boza addresses the debate with the human rights of migrants and their families at the center of her analyses.
Books will be available for sale.
Tanya Golash-Boza is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Studies at the University of Kansas. She is the author of Yo Soy Negro: Blackness in Peru (University Press of Florida, 2011), and Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions and Deportations in Post-9/11 America (Paradigm Publishers, 2012), in addition to over a dozen peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Social Forces, Social Problems, and Ethnic and Racial Studies, and dozens of essays in online magazines including The Nation, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice and Racism Review. Her scholarship recently earned the Distinguished Early Career Award of the Racial and Ethnic Minorities Studies Section of the American Sociological Association. She is currently writing a new book, Deported: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Deportation, based on over 150 interviews with deportees in Brazil, Guatemala, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. She maintains a writing blog at:http://getalifephd.blogspot.com/.
This event is a ZONA ABIERTA SERIES* event and it is free and open to the general public. For more information: call LALS at 312-996-2445.
*THE UIC's Latino Cultural Center Zona Abierta (Open Zone) series highlights the intersection of arts, humanities, science, culture and civic life with presentations by local, national and international artists, scholars and community leaders about pressing issues affecting the lives of Latinos and Latin Americans.
NEW PUBLICATIONS:
¡MARCHA! Latino Chicago and the immigrant Rights Movement, University of Illinois Press, 2010
Edited by Amalia Pallares and Nilda Flores-Gonzalez
Examining Latino Activism in Chicago - - from the local to global
¡Marcha! is a multidisciplinary survey of the individuals, organizations, and institutions that have given shape and power to the contemporary immigrant rights movement in Chicago. A city with longstanding historic ties to immigrant activism, Chicago has been the scene of a precedent-setting immigrant rights mobilization in 2006 and subsequent mobilizations in 2007 and 2008.
Contributors: Frances R. Aparicio, Jose Antonio Arellano, Xochitl Bada, David Leeden, Ralph Cintron, Stephen P. Davis, Leon Fink, Nilda Flore- Gonzalez, Caroline Gottschalk-Druschke, Elena Gutierrez, Juan R. Martinez, Sonia Oliva, Irma M. Olmedo, Amalia Pallares, Jose Perales-Ramos, Leonard G. Ramirez,Michael Rodriguez-Muniz, and R. Stephen Warner. online orders: www.press.uillinois.edu
"¡Marcha! brings together a diverse array of complementry analyses of the key actors, ideas, and institutions of the spring 2006 immigrants rights mobililization, the largest single wave of street protests in U.S. history." -- Jonathan Fox, author of Accountability Politics: Power and Voice in Rural Mexico.
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/56cmw5gd9780252035296.html
Marcha! Book presentations and a photography exhibit are planned for this coming fall …look for the dates and locations. For more information about the book contact LALS office at (312) 996-2445.