Hispanic Heritage Month starts today at the Notre Dame and all over the nation.  Over 14% of incoming undergraduates self-identify as Latino/Hispanic students, making over 1000 of the 8731 undergraduates at ND Latinx, not including international and DACA students. The first record of a Latinx student at ND dates back to Alexandro Perea of New Mexico who enrolled in 1864.  More Latinx students from New Mexico and Colorado enrolled by the 1870s, due in large part to Fr. Zahm who recruited students from the Southwest to ND. In 1928, La Raza Club was formed by Latin American and Mexican students, later reporting its first U.S. born president in 1954: Samuel Adelo of New Mexico. Sociologist Dr. Julian Samora established the Mexican-American Graduate Studies Program at ND in 1971 to 1985, becoming known as a consistent advocate for Latinx students, mentor to dozens of graduate students, and the founder of Latino Studies nationwide.…

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When Yamil Colón arrived at the University of Notre Dame from Puerto Rico, he had yet to spend much time outside of the island. A chemical and biomolecular engineering major, Colón grew up in Bayamón, a city of about 200,000 in the northern coastal region of Puerto Rico, outside the capital of San Juan. His mother taught middle school. His father worked at the local television station. He spoke imperfect English.…

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As the child of immigrants, Kelly Liang has always felt herself leaning on different sides of her identity.

Yet unlike other Chinese-Americans strongly influenced by two cultures — that of their parents' and of their birthland — Liang's worldview has also been shaped by the Latino diasporas of her native Miami.…

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The economic effects of the coronavius in the U.S. have brought Americans’ preexisting financial precarity into stark focus. Karen Richman, director of undergraduate studies at Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies, found in a recent study that many people in the U.S. are relying on informal networks of family and friends to stay afloat.

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Dominique Vargas discusses how the body works as a metaphor in contemporary American literature and why it is important to question the global politics and economic institutions that dominate, regulate, and sometimes criminalize the body as commodity, labor, and threat. 

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Notre Dame anthropologist Alex Chávez has been named one of 10 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The award supports junior faculty whose research focuses on contemporary American history, politics, culture, and society, and who are committed to the creation of an inclusive campus community for underrepresented students and scholars. 

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Since high school, Erin Albertini has been focused on becoming a bilingual doctor serving children and families.

But the recent Notre Dame graduate’s path to medicine is uniquely intersectional. Eschewing traditional pre-med majors such as biology and chemistry, Albertini instead took on sociology, Latino studies, Spanish and early childhood literacy during her time at Notre Dame, which culminated this May.…

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Despite the pandemic currently embroiling most of the world, Notre Dame students this May are celebrating their degree conferral and other end-of-year accomplishments as a particularly long and trying semester winds down to a halt.

The Institute for Latino Studies, like the rest of the university, continues to support students in their educational endeavors.  This year, we are awarding certificates to twenty graduating seniors who majored and minored in Latino Studies. In addition, we congratulate Juan Valdez -- now Dr. Valdez -- for receiving his PhD in Political Science under the guidance of ILS director and Notre Dame Professor, Luis Fraga, and affiliated Political Science Professor, Ricardo Ramírez.…

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There’s no question the Latino vote will be crucial in this year’s presidential election. But to understand the impact of Latinos in 2020, it’s helpful to step back four years, to the victory of a president who has made anti-Latino and anti-immigrant sentiment a staple of his presidency.…

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As communities everywhere grapple with the new reality of the corona virus pandemic, the University of Notre Dame is highlighting the stories of students whose lives have been directly affected by COVID-19.…

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Notre Dame anthropologist Alex Chávez has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities long-term residential fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago. During the nine-month fellowship, Chávez will work on a second book project, tentatively titled Audible City: Urban Cultural History, Latinx Chicago, and the Sonic Commons, which explores the relationship between sound and the city of Chicago.

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Marie Lynn Miranda, the former provost of Rice University and a distinguished scholar in the field of children’s environmental health, has been elected the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost of the University of Notre Dame by its Board of Trustees. She will succeed Thomas G. Burish, who is stepping down July 1 after 15 years as Notre Dame’s provost.

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A dozen Notre Dame students and two alumni traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border in October as part of a social justice trip sponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies and the Latinx Catholic Leadership Coalition.  This Latinx Catholic Leadership Coalition was born from lay and ministry leaders who participated in the National Symposium on Catholic Hispanic Ministry. These lay leaders wanted to visit the border to see first hand what recent immigration rhetoric and policy actually looks and feels like through a teach-in for college students of Catholic universities and socially concerned Catholic leaders from across the nation.…

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(Please note, as of 3/11/20, this event has been postponed to the Fall of 2020)

This year the Institute for Latino Studies is proud to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its founding. The celebration will take place on Friday, April 17, in Corbett Family Hall’s Downes Club…

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Educated at Stanford University with a career in the Silicon Valley, Paloma Garcia-Lopez saw herself living her entire life on the West Coast that she loved.

Paloma was born and raised in California and her roots run deep in the state’s culture and history. Her parents worked closely with American labor leader Cesar Chavez, who ran the Community Service Organization and co-founded the United Farm Workers out of California. …

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Junior Aaron Benavides is pursuing faith through service, building community through writing and design, and understanding where in the world he stands through the study of politics and theology. Through all of those activities, on campus and abroad, he is further exploring his heritage — and contemplating its significance. 

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Kraig Beyerlein has been awarded a $290,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study change over time in characteristics of protests in the United States, such as size, demographic composition, presence of counterdemonstrators and the use of disruptive tactics.

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Call for Applications Submission deadline: January 6, 2020 Institute for Latino Studies - Young Scholars Symposium University of Notre Dame  April 29 - May 1, 2020 Annually, the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) convenes advanced graduate students and junior scholars from across the nation for a dynamic Young Scholars Symposium, to enhance their research in Latino Studies. The symposium is hosted by the Institute for Latino Studies Director Luis R. Fraga. Professor Fraga is the Rev. Donald P. McNeill, C.S.C., Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership and Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

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Jason Ruiz, an associate professor in the Department of American Studies, has won the 2019 Sheedy Excellence in Teaching Award, the highest teaching honor in the College of Arts and Letters. Created in 1970, the Sheedy Award honors Rev. Charles E. Sheedy, C.S.C., who served as dean of Arts and Letters from 1951 to 1969. Ruiz will accept the award at a reception in his honor on December 3. “It means the world to me to be recognized in this way, he said, “especially because the College is full of great teachers I admire.”

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Course listings for Latino Studies for the Spring 2020 semester.

20000 Level

• ILS 20011 The Hyphenated American: U.S. Theatre (CRN 32072) Anne Garcia-Romero - TR 12:30P - 1:45P
• ILS 20041 Latinos, Literacy and Gender(CRN 25780) Erin Moira Lemrow - MW 9:30A-10:45A
• ILS 20101 Race and Racism (CRN 28020)Agustin Fuentes - TR 2:00P - 3:15P
…

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