Latin American Studies

Latino/a and Caribbean Studies is of great interest to me because of my cultural background. I was excited to research the ways in which the program is executed in different universities. I first compiled a list of ten schools, ensuring that they were different from each other based on size, location, type of school, whether or not the school is a “Minority-Serving Institution” (MSI). For the purpose of this essay and page limit constraint, I will be focusing on the key finding of the names of the programs for Latino/a and Caribbean Studies, their goals, and the fall courses that are offered under this discipline.

As I conducted my research, I found that not many institutions offer Latino/a and Caribbean Studies. Out of the ten schools listed

above, only three schools offer Latino/a and Caribbean Studies (Miami University-Oxford, Mount Holyoke College, and UMass Amherst). A possible explanation is my method of sampling did not produce enough schools that have Latino/a and Caribbean Studies and it is not an indication of percentage of universities/colleges that provide Latino/a and Caribbean Studies. Miami University-Oxford calls Latino/a and Caribbean Studies as “Latin American, Latino/a, and Caribbean Studies,” while Mount Holyoke College named the discipline as “Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies”, and UMass Amherst offers their Latino/a and Caribbean Studies under “The Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS)”.
Even though, most of the schools did not have a Latino/a and Caribbean Studies, I tried to find an equivalent to the programs. I found most of the schools have a version of Africana Studies and Latin American Studies. I do want to note that both community colleges do not offer Ethnic Studies as a course. Most courses are geared towards “core curriculum”, such as, English, math, and science courses that will assist them in the workforce. The lack of Ethnic Studies in community colleges is indicative of the notion that Ethnic Studies is for the elite—the small percentage of people who are able to go to a four-year university and theorize/discuss identity.
The schools that did not have Latino/a and Caribbean Studies, but had Africana studies and Latin American studies named their programs very differently.

The following are names for Africana studies at these universities: Department of Afro-American Studies, African American & African Diaspora Studies, Africana Studies, African Studies, and African American Studies. The following are names for Latin American studies: Center for Latin American Studies, Latin American/Latino Studies, and Latin American Studies. The names signify a particular focus on the discourse of a particular group of people, such as African American in African American Studies, and lightly touch on other groups that falls under the umbrella of the identity, such as Caribbean. The limited classes offered serves as a great indication as whether or not Caribbean or Latino/a experiences are a minor focus on the discourse of the department. Ideally, using broad names such as Africana Studies and Latin American Studies allows more room to discuss a variety of identities that have a shared history, while also promoting solidarity. However, based on the courses offered, they typically focused mostly on African or African American experiences or Latin American experiences. Furthermore, where do groups that have shared histories, but do not identify the same way go, for example Dominicans and Haitians have a connected history, but many Dominicans view themselves as Latin American, then African—can these department

represent these groups accurately?
After reviewing the missions of the three universities (Miami University-Oxford, Mount Holyoke College, and UMass Amherst) that provide Latino/a and Caribbean Studies, I found that their missions to be similar, but a bit contradictory. Although Miami University-Oxford and Mount Holyoke College call the discipline “Latin American, Latino/a, and Caribbean Studies” and “Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies” (respectively), their goals focus heavily on Latin America. On their website, Miami University states that this discipline is, “[…] an interdisciplinary program that introduces students to Latin America […] Courses examine and analyze Latin America's cultures […]” and Mount Holyoke asserts, “offers students the opportunity to show an area of specialization in Latin American studies in conjunction with or in addition to their majors […]” As I mentioned as a criticism for Pan-African and Latin American Studies at other universities, these goals continue to marginalize groups of people in the Caribbean. Based on these goals from Mount Holyoke and Miami University, people will assume that all of the Caribbean countries and cultures are Latin American based; despite the fact that majority of Caribbean countries do not speak Spanish.
Through their mission, UMass Amherst’s ensures that people are aware that Latino/as and Caribbean have a diverse complex history and culture: the discipline “promotes research, training, and public engagement on the histories, cultures, and politics of Latin American and Caribbean peoples across the Americas and throughout the world. Bridging the divide that historically has separated Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies as institutionalized knowledge formations […]”. The difference between UMass Amherst’s descriptions compared to the other universities makes the disciplines more inclusive to the diverse cultures in the Caribbean. Although Miami University’s goals do not promote a diverse Caribbean culture, their goals are similar to UMass Amherst’s goals and not Mount Holyoke’s goals, because they mentioned that their courses’ goals are to “examine and analyze”, indicating that they want to critically thinking and research on the discourse of the discipline. Since these universities mentioned examining and researching in their goals, they are addressing the criticisms that identity studies are academic enough and do not allow room for conversation.
Looking at all three universities’ courses, I saw various levels of courses offered in each university—they were not just overview/introductory level courses.

UMass Amherst courses do have methodology classes such as Ethnography. They also have interdisciplinary courses such as history, English, art, economics, and language. They put an equal emphasis on the discourse of Latin Americans and Caribbean. However, they do not have courses that provide an in-depth examination of intersectionality, like the relationship between gender and Caribbean and Latin American culture. I was pleased to see that there are courses on the politics and social movements within the

identity.
Surprisingly based on the goals given at Mount Holyoke, there are several courses that focus on the Caribbean. There is only one course that focus on one type of intersectionality, which is called, Afro-Latin America. There are not one particular course that focus on the multi-social groups that one can be categorized, for example, Latinos/as and homosexuality. These courses are multi-disciplinary because they are sociology classes, political science classes, history, performing arts, and language classes. These courses are not solely focusing on culture, but also about systematic oppression and contemporary issues such as the “Race, Racism, and Power” course and “Undocumented Latino Youth” course. As I expected, based on the goals given on the website, there was not a course dedicated to how to conduct research inquiry.
Similarly to UMass Amherst and Mount Holyoke, Miami University’s program is also multi-disciplinary with courses in English, language, anthropology, history, women gender studies, and more. Unlike the other two universities, Miami University have courses that examines intersectionality, for instance, “Identity: Race, Class, and Gender” class and “By or About (Afro-) Brazilian Women” class. Miami University had many classes that focus on researching the discourse of their discipline (field work courses).
In general, across all the universities that have some version of Latino/a and Caribbean Studies, it is interesting to find that there is contradictory between the name of the program, the goal of the program, and the courses. Some of the Universities leave out a group people in their mission or name, but have courses in the subject and vice versa. I left my web researching thinking should Caribbean Studies be attached to Latin American and Latino/a studies or be part of Africana studies? The Caribbean has diverse countries—from English speaking countries like Trinidad to Spanish speaking countries like Cuba. I wonder why do the universities do not discuss the complex identities of what does it mean to be Caribbean and American, but have courses that focus on the discourse within the Caribbean in the past, but have classes that focus on being Latino/a in America? How can that be problematic?