Latina and Latino Studies

Latina/o Studies is an interdisciplinary field that critically analyzes the local, national, and hemispheric importance of the Latino/s in the U.S. It draws from a variety of established disciplinary methods, including social sciences, history, and literary and cultural studies. It traces the birth and transformation of Latino communities within American society from the colonial period to the present. The field comparatively studies U.S. and Latin American contexts, and engages multilingual aspects of Latino culture. The field also studies the sociocultural experiences and cultural production of Latinas and Latinos. It serves as a bridge between the academic and non-academic worlds in order to understand the complexity of all the Latino national groups: scholars of the field often both document and engage with the struggles and political activism of Latino/as in their search for equality, representation, and social justice. (An area of local interest is the growth of immigrant populations in Pennsylvania.)