The Institute for Latino Studies | University of Notre Dame

History of ILS

The history of Latino students at Notre Dame goes back to the first quarter century of its history when, in 1864, Alexandro Perea of New Mexico became the first Spanish-surnamed student to enroll at the University. By the 1870s several more Spanish names from Colorado and New Mexico had appeared on the rolls. These enrollments reflect recruitment efforts by the Congregation of the Holy Cross that intensified in the late 1800s when Father John Zahm started canvassing the southwestern United States and Mexico by train to recruit Latino students to the University's collegiate and pre-collegiate programs. Until 1929 the "Minims" program, housed in St. Edward's Hall, provided dozens of young boys, including Latinos, with an elementary-level boarding school education at Notre Dame. These students were in many cases the first, but not the last, members of their families to obtain a Notre Dame education.

In 1928 Latin American students founded La Raza Club. It began simply "to provide an outlet for the longing" for home, but its mission quickly evolved and its activities expanded. By 1936 La Raza was hosting political discussions on Latin America and Spain and organizing celebrations of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The club even succeeded in introducing soccer to Notre Dame!

Originally founded for Latin Americans, La Raza started admitting US-born Latinos after World War II. In 1954 A. Samuel Adelo of Pecos, New Mexico, became the club's first US Latino president. Adelo was among the many veterans who returned to Notre Dame after the war to complete their education. There the Latinos among them found a renewed interest in the Americas and the Spanish language. Famed athletic director Moose Krause invited Adelo to travel with the football team as a Spanish tutor on long train rides, and several Holy Cross priests also took Spanish lessons from young 'profesor' Adelo.

During the 1960s and 1970s Latinos at the University felt the influence of the Chicano student and grassroots community organizations that were emerging across the country, from California to New York. Although Notre Dame had only a handful of Chicano students and one faculty member in 1970, a Chicano Civil Rights movement started on campus. Students wrote letters and staged protests, demanding that the University take steps to recruit more Chicanos, provide adequate financial aid, expand the Chicano studies curriculum, and interact more with the local Mexican American community. These concerns led student groups to focus their efforts on scholarship, regional advocacy, and communitybased research. Dr. Julian Samora's Latino studies lecture series brought Latino scholars to campus each semester, and under Samora's tutelage, Notre Dame produced a host of scholars in Latino studies active on the national scene—including prominent sociologists Jorge Bustamante and Gil Cárdenas, who were later to return to campus.

In 1985 Samora retired, and an era of successful activism and groundbreaking scholarship came to an end with Notre Dame's withdrawal of support for the Chicano studies program. Recruitment of Latinos continued, however, and these students gradually built their own network of groups and programs to acknowledge and enhance the Latino experience at Notre Dame. With this support structure in place, the Latino presence at Notre Dame continued to thrive, and by 1998 the Latino student population had reached ten percent.

Today Latinos are firmly established as a visible and vital part of the Notre Dame community. With expanded opportunities, the Latino presence on campus will further strengthen the University's mission to impart not only knowledge but also active compassion for the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many.

Highlights of the Institute’s First Ten Years

1998–99

Negotiations to open Latino studies center begin. Notre Dame VP Tim Scully recruits Gilberto Cárdenas to serve as director. Notre Dame uses a $1 million gift from the Follet Corporation to establish the Julian Samora Chair in Latino Studies. Director Cárdenas recruits Allert Brown-Gort, expert in US-Mexico relations, Latino studies, and immigration, as associate director. Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR, founded 1983) moves its national headquarters from the University of Texas to Notre Dame. Center upgraded to Institute.

1999

Inauguration! Symposium features panels on ethnicity and social justice and inter-American integration. Former Rhodes Scholar and ND graduate John Phillip Santos signs his 1999 book Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation. Serigraph Un nuevo amanacer commissioned for the occasion from Malaquias Montoya.
Institute's Galería América opens with an exhibition of Jean Charlot's Chemin de la Croix portfolio, followed by exhibitions of student work and work of nationally recognized artists, such as Malaquias Montoya, Alan Pogue, Carmen Lomas Garza, Esperanza Gama, Rubén Trejo, and Paul Strand.
Julian Samora Library, Archives, and Special Collections opens.

2000

Office of Minority Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, funds IUPLR HIV/AIDS prevention initiative "Prevenir es vivir." Some 160,000 awareness posters distributed over next five years.
Major five-year grant from the MacNeal Health Foundation (later the Arthur Foundation) launches the Center for Metropolitan Chicago Initiatives (CMCI), directed by Sylvia Puente.
Rev. Virgilio Elizondo, recognized by Time magazine as a leading global spiritual innovator and widely acknowledged as a pioneer among Hispanic theologians for his work on mestizaje, joins the Institute's Latino Ecclesial and Pastoral Concerns (later the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture).
US Census Bureau designates IUPLR an official Census Information Center. www. nd.edu/~iuplr/ cic.htm

2001

In conjunction with the Center for Social Concerns the Hispanic Leadership Internship Program (later renamed the Latino Leadership Internship Program) is expanded, giving undergraduates service-learning opportunities in Chicago. The program is replicated in Los Angeles in 2008.
First meeting of the Institute's Advisory Board (later designated an Advisory Council).
First Día de los Muertos festivities held at the Snite Museum of Art—an event that has become an annual celebration, attended by growing numbers of Latinos and non-Latinos alike from the ND and local communities.

2002

Publication of Bordering the Mainstream: A Needs Assessment of Latinos in Berwyn and Cicero, Illinois attracts considerable attention in the Chicago area.
Grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts launches the Center for the Study of Latino Religion (CSLR), directed by Edwin I. Hernández.
"Sueños sin fronteras: Making College Dreams a Reality" is launched—first in what has become an annual event. With support from the Institute and participation by the events coordinator and associate director, ND undergrads bring local high school students to campus.
Galería América retrospective exhibition opens: The Latino Student at Notre Dame: From Early History to the Modern Experience, 1864-2001. Gaia Distinguished Fellowship in Latino Studies established to provide funding for Notre Dame students pursuing PhDs in any relevant discipline.
Institute cosponsors an international conference honoring the work of "Father of Liberation Theology" Gustavo Gutiérrez OP (Institute Fellow) on the preferential option for the poor.
First campus celebration of Virgen de Guadalupe mass, which has become an annual, widely-attended ND tradition.

2003

James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, gives the keynote address at the CSLR inaugural symposium "Faith at Work in the Latino Community."
IUPLR opens new site office in Washington DC.
Minor in Latino studies established — the first ever undergraduate program in Latino studies at Notre Dame. The supplementary major debuts in fall 2005.
Chicago Fact Finder web portal, funded by the Chicago Community Trust and the MacNeal Health Foundation, is launched.

2004

Letras Latinas, directed by Francisco Aragón, holds Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize competition, awarded every other year to a first book by a Latino/a poet published in the Institute's series with the University of Note Dame Press.
International conference "Migration and Theology" codirected by Rev. Daniel Groody csc, director of the Institute's Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture.
Crossroads Gallery opens in Notre Dame offices in downtown South Bend.

2005

"Siglo XXI: Latino Research into the 21st Century" opens a biennial series of national IUPLR conferences.
Dying to Live: A Migrant's Journey, first in a series of videos on immigration, theology, and human rights, is produced by Father Groody and distributed nationwide.
Findings from first in an annual series of monographs by Institute researchers on The State of Latino Housing presented at Esperanza USA's National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast.
The Institute begins its partnership with the Office of Pre-College Programs to host the Latino Community Leadership Seminar for rising high school seniors.
Office of Minority Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, funds IUPLR National Latino Overweight and Obesity Education and Prevention Campaign; posters commissioned and distributed nationally.
Institute monograph State of Latino Chicago: This Is Home Now released at a first-of-its-kind regional policy forum, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, garnering coverage from more than 30 media outlets including a frontpage story in the Chicago Tribune.

2006

NEA-funded, traveling exhibition "Poetas y Pintores: Artists Conversing with Verse" opens at Saint Mary's College.
Two thousand young adults, diocesan coordinators, and parish leaders from across the country attend "Primer Encuentro Nacional de Pastoral Juvenil Hispana/The first National Encuentro for Hispanic Youth and Young Adult Ministry" hosted by the Institute and Notre Dame.
"Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos" exhibition, cosponsored by the Institute and the Snite Museum of Art, opens curated by Institute Fellow Amelia Malagamba-Ansótegui, who also edited the catalogue raisonné. Go to http://www.carasvemos.org/ to read the catalogue and take a virtual tour of the exhibition.
Cosponsored national conference held at ND, "Guadalupe Madre del Sol, Madre de América: Narrative, Imagery, and Devotion," organized by Cushwa Center Director and Institute Fellow Timothy Matovina.

2007

David Abalos's Latinos in the United States: The Sacred and Profane (considerably revised, expanded, and updated version of the 1986 classic) is published—the first academic publication in the Institute's new book series with the University of Notre Dame Press. Go to latinostudies.nd.edu/pubs for a list of books in the series and other Institute publications.
Conference held at Notre Dame "Transnationalism, Transition, Transnation: A Dialogue on the Americas," cosponsored by the Institute's Center for Migration and Border Studies, directed by Karen Richman.
Julian Samora Library launches website, with the Midwest Latino Arts Documentary Project, a guide to researching US Latino arts, and the Oral History Project.
Metropolitan Mayors Caucus partners with the Institute's Center for Metropolitan Chicago Initiatives to host roundtables on Latino integration; publication Forging the Tools for Unity ensues.
Institute helps to plan third annual Notre Dame Forum. Topic: immigration.

2008

IUPLR "Latino Art Now!" conference opens in New York City, to be held on alternate years to Siglo XXI conferences.
With funding from the Getty Foundation, Toward the Preservation of a Heritage: Latin American and Latino Art in the Midwestern United States, a first-of-its kind monograph, is published.
Launch of the $2 million Chicago Latino Community Research Collaborative Donor-Advised Fund, underwritten by the Chicago Community Trust and the Arthur Foundation.

2009

Ten-Year Anniversary Celebration! Festivities include a ten-year retrospective exhibition in Galería América, a symposium "Latino Studies: Past, Present, and Future," a literary presentation by Letras Latinas, and the rededication of the renovated and expanded Julian Samora Library