In this essay, I will highlight major events in the origin and evolution of the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame. Founded in 1999 as an initiative of the Office of the Provost, ILS has thrived under four different directors and continues to provide critical leadership on campus, in the region, and across the nation on issues of social and ethnoracial justice that focus on the ever-expanding presence of Latino communities across the United States and in Puerto Rico. How did the university come to make this commitment? What focus did each director or codirector provide for ILS? What is the prospect for the continued essential work of ILS, during these times of growth, in understanding the continuing challenges facing the nation regarding issues of ethnoracial and social justice?
To explain ILS’s origins and continued existence, I will use the concepts of ideas, interests, and institutions as developed by Hugh Heclo in his important essay “Ideas, Interests, and Institutions” (1994). Although Heclo’s writing focuses on how major policy shifts occur in American federal government, his analytical framework is straightforward and therefore useful in understanding the origins of ILS. He argues that major shifts in policy occur when new ideas gain credibility within the public. I will use Heclo’s framework to explain the organizational discourse that characterized the founding of ILS. The new idea here was the need for a preeminent Catholic university to commit its intellectual, faculty, and financial resources to better understand Latino communities given their growing presence and significance to the future of both the Catholic Church and the nation. “Interests” refers to a leader’s, an organization’s, or a relevant constituency’s position that a specific idea serves their immediate and long-term goals for success. It is the convergence of these ideas and interests, at a specific moment in time, that leads to the possibility that the organization will adopt new policies that will lead to the establishment of new “institutions” that realize this convergence into immediate and long-term shifts in established policy. Stated differently, it is the convergence of ideas and interests that leads to new policies that, when implemented, lead to new institutional structures that give a presence, if not a priority, to changing the ways in which organizations operate.
BEGINNINGS OF A LATINX PRESENCE AT NOTRE DAME
As best one can determine, the first record of a Latinx student at Notre Dame is of Alexandro Perea, of New Mexico, who enrolled in 1864.1 It is not known how he came to Notre Dame, what his family background was, or what his major would eventually be. The university was officially founded under the authority of the territorial government of Indiana in 1842, so it can be claimed that after a mere 22 years of existence, there already was a Latinx presence at Notre Dame. By the 1870s, more Latinx students from New Mexico and Colorado enrolled at the university. This was in large part due to the efforts of John A. Zahm to recruit students from the Southwest. There is also record of an organization called La Raza being founded at the university in 1928. It was likely organized by students from Latin America, including Mexico. There is a record of that group organizing discussions of issues related to Spain and Latin America. It is reported that Samuel Adelo, a native of Pecos, New Mexico, became the first US-born Latinx president of La Raza in 1954. This was likely due to an increased presence of Latinx students at Notre Dame related to post-war opportunities such as those provided by the GI Bill, though we do not know for sure.
We do know that in 1959, Julian Samora moved from Michigan State University, where he was a professor of sociology, to Notre Dame. He had received his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in 1953 and became chair of the Department of Sociology at Notre Dame in 1963. Many would later describe Samora, who published a number of seminal works on Latinx communities, including their immigrant experiences, and who, beginning in the early 1970s, trained over forty PhD students in sociology, law, and economics with a focus on Latinx Studies, as one of the founders of Latinx Studies across the nation. With the support of the Ford Foundation, he established the Mexican American Graduate Studies Program, in 1971. This program operated until 1985. He also used monies from the foundation to establish a presence for Notre Dame Press in the area of Mexican American Studies, and the press became among the first consistent publishers of work in this area. His presence on campus is legendary, and he was known to be a consistent advocate for Notre Dame to do more to support research and teaching focused on Latinx communities. Although he retired in 1985, his work served as an inspiration for many students and scholars at Notre Dame who would later continue important elements of his work.
It was in the early 1970s that elements of the Chicano movement came to Notre Dame as well. In the spring of that year, students from Michigan State University and Notre Dame and activists from Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago attended the Midwest Conference on La Raza that was held on campus. From this meeting, Gilberto Cardenas, one of Samora’s graduate students at the time, pushed the university to diversify its curriculum and increase the enrollment of Mexican Americans at both graduate and undergraduate levels. These students made the argument that this was consistent with Notre Dame’s Catholic values and the civil rights work of then president Theodore Hesburgh on expanding civil rights across the United States.
Noteworthy among the initial presence of Latinas at Notre Dame was Graciela Olivarez. A native of Arizona, she met Hesburgh at a national meeting, and he invited her to study law at the university. Although she had never received a bachelor’s degree, Hesburgh arranged her admission, and she became the first Latina and first woman to graduate from the Notre Dame Law School, in 1970. She later would serve in the Carter Administration and on the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Importantly, an advisory board for the Hispanic Alumni of Notre Dame was first established in 1994. It is reasonable to understand that the formal presence of Latinx graduates within the Notre Dame Alumni Association was an indicator of the number of Latinx students who had graduated from the university and of their commitment to become part of the active and committed alumni community for which Notre Dame is very well known.
THE ORIGINS OF ILS
There are several claims as to the specific catalyst of the establishment of ILS in 1999.2 Some claim that students and alumni had been advocating for a formal commitment by the university to Latinx Studies for many years. Others claim that when Virgilio Elizondo, a leader of Hispanic ministry in the United States, received the Laetare Medal, in 1997, he challenged Notre Dame to do more to formalize its commitment to have more Latinx faculty, more research on Latinx communities, and more Latinx students. The presence of Notre Dame alumni Ignacio “Nacho” Lozano, class of
1944, and Arturo Velasquez, class of 1960, on the board of trustees in the 1980s and 1990s brought a perspective that let administrative leaders at the highest levels know that Notre Dame could do more to support Latinx faculty and student interests. Still others claim that the provost at the time, Nathan Hatch, a scholar of American religious history in the Department of History, had a sensitivity to the need for Notre Dame, as a preeminent Catholic institution of higher education, to consider how it might focus its resources on better researching and supporting Latinx Studies, and through that, Latinx faculty and students and all faculty and students at the university who were committed to better understanding the growing presence of these communities in the Catholic Church and in the nation as a whole.
What is unquestionably clear is that, in 1997, Hatch assigned the responsibility of determining what Notre Dame could do to more formally demonstrate its commitment to Latinx Studies. He was especially interested in what the university should do given that other Latinx Studies centers, such as those at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Los Angeles, had been in operation for some time. Timothy Scully, a professor of political science and senior associate vice provost at the time, was tasked with making a set of recommendations to the provost. Scully had some previous exposure to Latin American cultures during time in Mexico, where he learned Spanish, and later in Chile, where he worked. He had also worked in a Latinx- dominant parish in Hayward, California, during the time that he was earning his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. Although his specific area of research focus was Latin American politics, he felt confident that he had some grounding in understanding the added value that a focus on Latinx Studies could bring to Notre Dame.
Later that year, Scully organized a conference on campus on Latinx Studies, with a focus on determining what Notre Dame’s options might be. He invited leaders in Latinx Studies to the meeting, as well as a number of directors of centers and institutes from across the country. After a series of robust discussions, Scully decided that Notre Dame needed an institute for Latino Studies, under the authority of the provost, so that it could be university-wide, and with a sizeable budget and sufficient space to have a clear presence.
Perhaps among the most important decisions made by Scully was his choice for the founding director of ILS: Gilberto Cardenas Jr., professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at UT-Austin. Not only did Cardenas bring years of experience researching and teaching about Latinx communities, but he also brought considerable administrative experience, having directed CMAS for a number of years.
In many ways, Cardenas was the perfect choice to be founding director. He had received his PhD from Notre Dame in 1977, under Samora. He was known both regionally and nationally. He had a powerful entrepreneurial spirit to build. Perhaps most important, with the right set of incentives regarding staffing, salaries, and space, he would seriously consider moving to South Bend, Indiana. After a series of challenging negotiations, the right combination of incentives was put together, and ILS was established with Cardenas as director, professor of sociology, and associate vice provost.
What is critical to note about the founding of ILS that distinguishes it from other centers and institutes was that it had the clear and overwhelming support of the provost. Without that support, ILS would not have happened. Relatedly, ILS was not a university response to heightened demand from students and alumni. Whatever the origin of the idea for ILS, Hatch saw how important it was for Notre Dame to have a clear commitment to the study of Latinx communities if it was going to remain the preeminent Catholic university in the United States. Latinx peoples are now estimated to comprise between 35% and 40% of all self-identified Catholics in the country. A survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research on the American Apostolate, at Georgetown University, estimates that 52% of Catholic millennials are Latinx. Despite declining rates of Catholic self-identification among Latinx peoples in the United States consistent with nationwide trends, Latinx Catholics are the primary source of growth among Catholics in the country. One can argue they are an increasingly significant part of the future of the Catholic Church and, as such, must be an increasingly significant part of how Notre Dame understands its own future.
This is where the convergence of ideas and interests appears. The idea for ILS was in Notre Dame’s self-interest, in the interest of Latinx students and alumni, and in the interest of all the university’s faculty, both Latinx and non-Latinx, interested in Latinx Studies. Moreover, this convergence of interests was supported by the willingness at the highest levels of the administration to do something bold and significant—not a token, symbolic commitment, but a sizeable administrative and budgetary commitment. After much negotiation, led by Cardenas, ILS was born.
ILS INITIATIVES UNDER FOUNDING DIRECTOR GILBERTO CARDENAS JR.: LATINX ART AND COMMUNITY-BASED RESEARCH
When ILS opened at Notre Dame, on October 10, 1999, with a mass, reception, and dinner, Cardenas said that his goal for the institute was to make the university the “premier place in the nation to study Latino populations.”3 He would build upon his experience running the CMAS at UT-Austin, and he would also bring his leadership of the Inter-University Consortium for Latino Research (IUCLR), a national consortium of Latinx research centers and institutes from across the United States, to Notre Dame. Not surprisingly, ILS soon made its presence known across campus.
Building on his standing as an expert on Latinx art, Cardenas established the Galería America at ILS in the institute’s inaugural year. The gallery opened with an exhibition of Jean Charlot’s Chemin de la Croix portfolio and later exhibited works by renowned Latinx artists including Lalo Alcaraz; Carmen Lomas Garza; Rubén Trejo; and Notre Dame professor of art, art history, and design Maria Tomasula. In the same year, the Julian Samora Library was established to facilitate research on Latinx communities with a growing archive.
The first meeting of the ILS advisory council, a group of Notre Dame alumni who are appointed by the university president to give advice and provide financial support, occurred in 2001. This was a major step in focusing on ILS’s need for private fundraising. Working directly with what is now called the Office of University Relations, the overall goal of the group was to work to raise endowments to support the work of ILS.
Among other major events—and there were many—that occurred during the time of Cardenas’s leadership were the visit of renowned actor Edward James Olmos to the Cinco de Mayo scholarship fundraising dinner, in 2000, and the first annual Día de los Muertos celebration, in 2001, held in the university’s Snite Museum of Art. Also noteworthy were the Sueños Sin Fronteras: Making College Dreams a Reality program, which brought local high school students to campus, in 2002, and the first Virgen de Guadalupe mass, held in December of that year.
Of special significance was the initiation of the Metropolitan Chicago Initiative, in 2000. The goal of this effort was to provide research that was directly relevant to Chicago-area Latinx communities. Studies were completed in these communities in the areas of health-care access, civic engagement, and economic advancement. As is evident, the goal was to leverage ILS analytical capabilities to directly contribute to the solving of some of the most perennial challenges confronting Latinx communities in the Midwest.
In 2003 another major milestone was reached with the establishment of the Latino Studies minor, under the College of Arts and Letters. This was also a first-ever achievement. Nineteen students declared a minor in Latino Studies that inaugural year. In 2004, through an agreement with renowned Latinx poet Francisco Aragón, ILS initiated the Letras Latinas program. Its founding documents indicate that its mission was to “enhance the visibility, appreciation, and study of Latinx literature both on and off campus of the University of Notre Dame” (Aragón, 2020). This program has had considerable success as a founding member of the Poetry Coalition and in establishing the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, and it continues to have a significant presence in both national and international Latinx poetry circles.
In 2005 Latino Studies at Notre Dame was approved to have a supplemental major, where undergraduate students can declare Latino Studies as a major, provided they also have a major in a traditional department. One of the most interesting events organized under Cardenas’s leadership was a naturalization ceremony on campus developed in collaboration with US Citizenship and Immigration Services and community partners including La Casa de Amistad.
This is just a sampling of a rich set of events, conferences, programs, and invited lectures that were sponsored by ILS under Cardenas. What is clear is that he focused a great deal of ILS’s work on art and community engagement. These were major accomplishments that would not have happened without the institute. ILS became known as a major center for art exhibition and a catalyst for community engagement both in the broader Chicago area and the local South Bend community. Cardenas and his staff were responsible for securing millions of dollars in outside grants for these efforts and using these resources to supplement the budget provided by the Office of the Provost.
It cannot be denied that ILS allowed Notre Dame to have a presence in the field of Latinx Studies that it had not had since Samora’s time. Cardenas’s leadership established a type of academic machine that generated great knowledge, developed collaborative relationships off campus, and established a curricular presence, through the supplemental major and minor, that undoubtedly institutionalized many elements of the convergence of ideas and interests that were at the heart of ILS’s origin. One must recognize, however, that the university was not able to develop the benefaction that would endow ILS’s operating budget and its programs. Cardenas did establish a number of programmatic endowments, but the university had made a commitment to him that it would, within a few years, find the donor or donors who would endow ILS in perpetuity. This did not occur, and ILS, as it evolved into the future, would have to depend upon the goodwill and continued support of the provost’s office to continue to build upon the work that Cardenas and his staff had established over 13 years.
JOSÉ LIMÓN: RECENTERING ILS ON ITS INTELLECTUAL WORK
José Limón, the Notre Dame Foundation professor of American literature and concurrent professor of anthropology, was appointed director of ILS in 2012.4 Timothy Matovina, professor of theology, was appointed executive director of ILS in the same year. ILS moved from its direct reporting line to the Office of the Provost to that of Dean John McGreevy, of the College of Arts and Letters, at this time as well. The dean charged Limón with ensuring that ILS recenter its mission to directly support the identification and work of first-rate faculty who, through their research and teaching, would enrich the intellectual presence of Latino Studies at Notre Dame and to support the work of faculty already at the university who worked in the field. This approach was consistent with what Limón had done at the CMAS at UT-Austin, where he had served as director for a decade. Limón knew that in focusing on the faculty, the foundation of a strong Latinx Studies program would be established and its worth directly proven to the university.
Recentering ILS was not easy. Some staff had to be laid off and others had to be repositioned. New budget models had to be developed. This all had to happen in short order. It was largely Matovina’s responsibility to get this done, and he did it with great professionalism, sensitivity, and effectiveness. His work was critical to the realization of McGreevy’s new vision for ILS.
Limón received McGreevy’s support to hire six assistant professors in Latino Studies, in direct collaboration with traditional departments. By housing the faculty in such departments, the breadth and depth of Latino Studies would be expanded and the next generation of Latinx intellectuals would be seeded at Notre Dame. Additionally, Limón and Matovina held a meeting with all Latino Studies–related faculty and asked them how ILS could best support them, their research, and their teaching.
This two-pronged strategy served ILS extremely well. Not only were a number of stellar junior faculty hired, but a renewed relationship with existing Latino Studies faculty was developed. Among the new activities that were initiated under Limón were the following:
- A Latino Studies seminar, where ILS- affiliated faculty fellows would present research in progress, was established. The purpose of this seminar was not only to hear about the important emerging work of colleagues; it was also designed to allow that work to be informed by distinct disciplinary perspectives, to broaden the analytical frameworks and literatures that might inform that work.
- The Young Scholars Symposium (YSS) was organized to bring high-powered junior faculty and advanced graduate students from Notre Dame and across the country to work directly with an invited senior scholar of Latinx Studies and to have a chapter or article manuscript reviewed by both that outside scholar and senior scholars at Note Dame. The purpose of YSS was to directly contribute to the development of Latinx Studies across the country as well as to expose senior and emerging scholars to directly contribute to the development of Latinx Studies across the country as well as to expose senior and emerging scholars to the interest and capacity of the university to support the field. One YSS was held per year and all expenses for participants were paid by ILS.
- Conferences were organized in conversation with the work of Latino Studies faculty fellows.5 As an example, assistant professor Jennifer Jones organized a major national and international conference entitled Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas. This conference was a major success and led to the publication of a book edited by Jones. A number of participants indicated that the support
Jones received from ILS would not have been available at their home institutions and that they had not known how committed Notre Dame was to Latinx Studies.
Significant hires of Latino Studies junior faculty occurred in a number of departments across the College of Arts and Letters. Both ILS and the departments had, in effect, veto power over any specific hire that would come from the six positions McGreevy had committed to ILS. If a department wanted to hire a junior faculty member through one of these lines but ILS did not think the person’s work focused sufficiently on Latino Studies, the person was not hired. Similarly, if a stellar candidate, according to ILS, was being considered by a department, but the department did not want to make them an offer, the person was not hired. The result of this practice was that those who were hired had the full support of both ILS and the relevant department. This was a recipe for success. Additionally, ILS’s new emphasis on supporting faculty meant that these new hires knew that the institute was there for them with counsel, resources, and strategic advice regarding renewal, promotion, and tenure. Initially, two faculty members were hired with these lines, a third was hired a year later, and at one point, all six lines were filled by faculty whose primary work emphasized Latinx Studies.
Another major development that occurred at ILS during Limón’s directorship was the hiring of the first endowed chair directly related to Latinx Studies. Through some excellent academic entrepreneurship, Limón was able to secure the support to hire an endowed professor of transformative Latino leadership. The idea behind this senior hire was to bring someone to campus who would not only further enrich the incredible progress that had been made in Latinx Studies but would also commit him or herself to developing a program on transformative Latino leadership. This person would also serve to mentor assistant and associate professors and otherwise further elevate ILS at the university. I was fortunate to be offered the chair. I accepted it and arrived on campus in fall 2014. I brought over 30 years of faculty and administrative experience to the position, and I knew that opportunities like this, to realize one’s dreams of having an impact in the academy, were few and far between. My goal for the position was to work directly with Limón, Matovina, and university administrators to develop research, curriculum, and programs that focused on the next generation of leaders for Latinx communities.
Under the leadership of Limón and Matovina, ILS turned a critical corner that was consistent with McGreevy’s charge for ILS to directly support research and teaching across a broad range of areas of Latino Studies that would be aligned with the central mission of the university: the promotion and dissemination of knowledge. The ideas of recentering ILS’s work served the interests of the university as a whole, the interests of the institute’s leadership, the interests of ILS’s faculty fellows, and the interests of both graduate and undergraduate students at Notre Dame. This recentering, stated differently, gave immediate credibility to ILS’s work and has been a foundation upon which the institute has been able to build in subsequent years.
LUIS RICARDO FRAGA AND TIMOTHY MATOVINA AS CODIRECTORS: CONTINUING ILS’S NEW DIRECTION
Luis Ricardo Fraga, professor of transformative Latino leadership and political science, and Matovina, professor of theology, were appointed for a two-year term as codirectors of ILS in 2014.6 Together they worked to further solidify ILS’s relationship with its faculty fellows, develop new programs, and continue the hard work of building endowments for its operations and programs.
The Latino Studies seminars (LSS) and Young Scholars Symposium (YSS) continued to flourish. It became customary at the LSS for faculty fellows to give presentations of about 20 minutes on works in progress to faculty and graduate students, who would respond and build upon the work that was presented. Attendance at these events was always considerable. The YSS continued to invite major scholars in religious studies and political economy. Although only four to six young scholars were chosen for the seminar, the number of applications was always well over 20, indicating the broad interest there was in participating. Without a doubt, the high caliber of senior scholars invited to lead the seminars was an incentive for the large number of applicants. Fraga, Matovina, and the senior scholar chose the junior scholars. Many of these participants commented that the symposium was one of the highlights of their scholarly career thus far. The original goals of the YSS seemed to be fulfilled across several years.
A major addition to the ways in which ILS supported its junior faculty fellows was the establishment of a fund to support faculty who had successfully received their three-year renewal, and were, therefore, eligible for a university-paid one-semester sabbatical, to receive an additional semester of sabbatical supported by ILS. It was requested of the dean that the institute be allowed to invest reserve funds in the further support of ILS-affiliated junior faculty, to allow them more time to work on their research without any teaching responsibilities. This idea was enthusiastically supported by the dean as it served not only the interests of the faculty member, but also the interests of the home department, the college, and the university. The faculty member was required to apply for two outside grants to support this additional semester off, but if they were not successful in securing such support, ILS would cover the cost. Not surprisingly, the junior faculty who availed themselves of this support were very grateful, and this positioned ILS to be a major supporter of their career advancement.
Yet another faculty-related innovation was the organization of a book workshop for junior faculty who were ready to have their manuscripts considered for publication. The book workshop would bring three senior scholars from across the country into the faculty member’s area of expertise to comment on individual sections and chapters of the manuscript. ILS paid all expenses for what were usually one-day events. The ILS codirectors strongly encouraged the junior faculty member to invite senior members of their department, especially the department chair, to attend these sessions. In this way, not only would the junior faculty member receive excellent feedback on their work, but they could also demonstrate to departmental colleagues how senior scholars in the field assessed that work. These book workshops proved extremely useful and have been subsequently maintained.
A variety of speakers were invited by ILS faculty fellows to speak to their classes and, sometimes, give university-wide lectures as well. These speakers were often fully funded by ILS. The relationship between the faculty fellows and ILS was now fully developed, such that fellows often saw ILS as a first resource for funding their research and curricular ideas. At times, it seemed that the number of ideas was much greater than the resources available, but this was a good challenge, in that ILS was now seen as a collaborative partner in faculty’s work. This was a relationship upon which ILS would be able to build in its future.
As an example of faculty support, in December 2016, Fraga; associate professor Ricardo Ramírez, of the Department of Political Science; and Professor Gabriel Sanchez, of the University of New Mexico, organized a conference entitled Latinos in the 2016 Election, fully funded by ILS. Twenty-seven leading researchers and two major practitioners participated in the day-and-a-half-long event. This was the first time that scholars of Latinx politics had the opportunity to present essays on the many distinct aspects of Latinx voters’ role in the 2016 election, which led to Donald Trump becoming president. Among the issues examined were national versus local impact, gender differences in participation, variations in rates of contact, regional and state patterns of electoral support, and what this election might mean for the future of Latinos in national politics. This conference led to the exchange of many ideas and ultimately resulted in the publication of an edited volume with Michigan State University Press, in 2020.
The chair for which Fraga was recruited was in transformative Latino leadership. As such, Fraga and Matovina developed the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series to bring major national figures to campus to give talks to university-wide audiences and smaller groups of faculty and students who were affiliated with Latino Studies. The first major speaker to be invited was Gloria Molina, the first Latina member of the California State Assembly, first Latina member of the Los Angeles City Council, and first Latina member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Fraga engaged her in a structured conversation about her incredible career successes and what it was like to
break so many significant glass ceilings. He also asked her about her experiences of gender bias and resentment while accomplishing so much. She was entirely transparent and gave us all a fundamental lesson in the hard work and coalition building to which one must be committed in efforts to transform systems of government to be more inclusive. Among those in attendance was a group of 20 Latina students from a local public high school. The counselor who brought them there wrote ILS later to say that he noticed a change in these young women after the event. They now felt more ambitious and empowered to succeed in achieving whatever goals they had. This was a major contribution ILS made to enriching both the intellectual life of Notre Dame and the aspirational lives of those in attendance.
The second major speaker brought to campus through this series was Associate Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, in early September 2015. ILS worked directly with the Office of the President and the Law School on this visit. Her presence at Notre Dame—like, frankly, her presence wherever she is asked to speak—was an incredible success that exceeded all expectations. When the announcement was made that her visit had been finalized, it became very clear that one of her major talks would have to be held in the largest auditorium on campus, which has just under 1,000 seats. The demand to see her was so great that there was a simulcast in a theatre next to the auditorium for another 350 students, faculty, staff, and community residents. It was decided that, rather than give a lecture, she would be interviewed by a Notre Dame alumna who was a news reporter. The conversation in which they engaged was captivating. Among Sotomayor’s practices in such circumstances is to take questions as she walks among the audience. She said that this was an important way to further break down barriers between high-level government officials and the people they serve. Additionally, as she walked through the audience, she invited all children under
12 in attendance to come to the aisle where she was standing and have the university photographer take a picture just of the two of them. At the end of her conversation with the interviewer and with students who asked her preapproved questions, she received a standing ovation. The event was a total success, and ILS’s standing was further solidified as a major contributor in enriching the intellectual discourse at the university and collaborating directly with the president’s office.
Additionally, ILS arranged for Sotomayor to have a private breakfast with 100 invited guests, who largely were ILS faculty fellows, Latino Studies–affiliated students, ILS staff, and other invited guests. At that event, Fraga engaged in conversation with Sotomayor directly. He asked her about her family background; her course of study; how she saw herself, as the only Latinx person, so far, ever to serve on the Supreme Court; and how she saw the state of American national politics today. What was most impressive about her responses was their honesty and transparency. She responded in ways that allowed everyone in attendance to deeply understand how she viewed herself, her work, and the country. Again, she received a standing ovation at the end of the event.
Among the goals of the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series was to bring major Latinx leaders in the Catholic Church to campus to engage in conversations about the growing presence of Latinx peoples in the Church, their visions of leadership, and what major challenges continue to be confronted by the Church as it works to become a more inclusive space where Latinx peoples are seen as full and equal participants rather than guests. The first leader brought to campus to address these issues was Jaime Soto, bishop of Sacramento, California. Soto was well-known for being an active leader in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on a number of these issues and for being a clear and consistent advocate for immigrant communities, since many of them are Catholic. He was extremely well received by all who attended his university-wide talk. He also participated in what has now become a tradition of this lecture series, a lunch with faculty fellows and selected students who may have special interest in speaking with a guest.
With the expertise and contacts of Aragón, yet another speaker who was brought to campus through the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series was US poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, in fall 2016. Herrera is a nationally recognized poet of Latinx life and culture and became the first Latinx poet laureate of the United States in 2015. He was welcomed by university president John Jenkins to a packed auditorium, and he dazzled the audience with readings from his substantial work. The event ended with a book signing, and many in attendance wondered how it was possible that ILS had brought someone of Herrera’s stature to Notre Dame. Little did they know that Aragón and Herrera had known each other for years in Latinx poetry circles and that their professional relationship virtually guaranteed that he would accept an invitation to come to campus.
In October 2016 ILS established an entirely new program that focused on undergraduate students. With the full and enthusiastic support of the Office of the Dean of Arts and Letters, the Office of University Relations, the Office of Admissions, and a founding repurposed gift from ILS advisory council member Lozano, a scholarship program was established that would offer monies to first-year students applying to Notre Dame who had demonstrated leadership in high school on issues important to the future of Latinx communities in the United States. This scholarship was merit-based—that is, not related to a student’s ethnoracial background or their family’s financial needs. It was based solely upon the work students had done to show that they were already leaders in their families and communities and that they wanted to further expand upon these interests as part of their undergraduate studies. The logic of the scholarship program was simple. Although the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series brought major figures to campus, it was necessary for Notre Dame to invest in the future leaders of tomorrow who were interested in directly empowering and serving Latinx communities. No other university in the country has such a program. The $25,000 scholarship, given each of the four years of the recipient’s undergraduate education, was among the largest merit-based scholarships at the university. Additionally, recipients were eligible to receive up to $5,000 in summer enrichment funding to participate in internships, do research, and otherwise deepen their understanding of Latinx communities. They also had unique opportunities to meet with invited speakers in small groups, such as for a private breakfast or lunch, and were part of a special cohort who would have ILS as a resource for the entire time they were students at Notre Dame.
of students is at 26, and 10 have now graduated. These Latino Studies Scholars Program (LSSP) scholarship recipients can major in any field. Most of them wind up having Latino Studies as a supplemental major or minor. Among their other majors are neuroscience, accounting, computer science, film, political science, economics, and theology. The only courses that these students are required to take are one entitled Latino Catholicism, taught by Matovina, and one entitled Latinos in the Future of America: Building Transformative Leadership, taught by Fraga. Financial support for the LSSP has grown substantially such that
it now has an endowment approaching $10 million. The goal is an endowment of $35 million, so that 16 students per year can receive the scholarship. This has become one of ILS’s signature programs and is beginning to be known across the country.
The final major innovations that occurred under the leadership of Fraga and Matovina were the opportunities they were provided to speak to major donors to the university about the work of ILS. This had never
occurred before. Given his area of expertise, Matovina would often emphasize how an investment in ILS was an investment in the future of the Church. This was a direct effort to help donors appreciate how much the Catholic Church has changed in the United States and how much it would continue to change in the future. Fraga would often speak about how it was the university’s investment in predominantly Catholic, predominantly working-class, predominantly immigrant and immigrant-derived communities—including Irish, Italian, and Polish communities—in the past, even when the families of these students and their related communities had very little, that had led to the incredible intellectual and financial contributions the descendants of these communities had made to Notre Dame, bringing it to its current standing and to its aspiration to be not only the top Catholic university in the country, but one of the best universities in the world. What are the predominantly Catholic, predominantly working-class, predominantly immigrant and immigrant-origin communities of today in which Notre Dame can invest? Among them, certainly, are Latinx communities. The ideas that Matovina and Fraga were advocating directly aligned Notre Dame’s origins and path to current greatness with the full and growing integration of Latinx interests into the university’s long-term goal of continuing to grow as a major institution of Catholic higher education. ILS was not an add-on program at Notre Dame; it was Notre Dame at its best, as proven by its own history and current successes.
What is evident in this sampling of the major successes of ILS during this time was the explicit convergence of ILS ideas and interests with the best founding ideas and current interests of the Notre Dame. The logic was that ILS would now be seen as central to the university’s longstanding mission and aspirations for the future. As Fraga often stated, “Latino Studies allows Notre Dame to once again recommit itself to its founding mission.” Few could argue against this convergence of ideas and interests.
LUIS RICARDO FRAGA, DIRECTOR OF ILS, 2017–PRESENT: BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Fraga became the sole director of ILS in the summer of 2017.7 This gave ILS a continuity of leadership and provided him the opportunity to build on programs and initiatives that had proven successful in ILS’s past.
Programs like the junior faculty support program were maintained. In fact, new ILS-affiliated faculty who were hired now had a memorandum of understanding in their initial appointment documents outlining the specifics of this support. The memorandum also specified that at least half of the courses taught by the faculty member had to be related substantially to Latino Studies. The presence of this memorandum directly helped with recruitment and clarified what role Latino Studies would have in the curricular offerings of the new hire. It is important to note that all formal annual reviews, third-year reviews, and tenure and promotion considerations were made at the departmental level. ILS offered letters of assessment that became part of the file considered by the department, chair, dean, and provost. Work that enhanced the impact of ILS across campus—such as bringing speakers, organizing conferences, and general program participation—was duly noted as a significant contribution by the faculty member. There was, however, no doubt as to who had the decision-making authority regarding any faculty member’s file. The junior scholar understood that they had to develop solid relationships in their department and that ILS was a resource to develop those relationships.
More junior faculty fellows also availed themselves of the book workshop. It served to give them confidence that their original work was moving in the right direction, that they were likely to receive a contract from a highly ranked university press, and that, once published, the book was likely to be well received in the academy. This direct contribution to the confidence of junior faculty, which can be one of the most significant sources of stress pre-tenure, served all interests and sectors of the university invested in the faculty member’s success.
The Latino Studies major and minor are now thriving. Latino Studies faculty fellows now offer at least 15 courses per semester, on issues ranging from immigration to politics to literature to language to the police state. An estimated 500 students, across a variety of ethnoracial backgrounds and majors, enroll in Latino Studies classes each semester at Notre Dame. Relatedly, over 60 students, who again come from a variety of ethnoracial backgrounds and traditional majors, are currently Latino Studies majors and minors. Under the leadership of professor and director of undergraduate studies Karen Richman, ILS’s many students are giving testimonials, including at graduation, as to how Latino Studies grounded a large part of their intellectual, social, and spiritual development at Notre Dame.
In 2019 the Cross-Cultural Leadership Program (CCLP), ILS’s summer immersion program, expanded from locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Building on the work of professors Marisel Moreno and Tom Anderson, in Romance languages, who had developed an excellent program on understanding Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, ILS was able to place eight students in San Juan to work with community-based one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Additionally, a formal relationship was developed with the Universidad de Santa Cruz, in San Juan, to offer a course on the history of Puerto Rico and how to maximize the benefits to both communities and students of doing community-based work. The internships ranged from working on issues of water quality to developing educational curricula to building the capacity of social service organizations. Moreover, for those students interested in using and enhancing their Spanish-speaking capabilities, this was an ideal summer internship. Student and faculty assessments of experience were overwhelmingly positive and, funds permitting, ILS would like to make this yet another permanent placement in the CCLP.
A variety of cultural celebrations sponsored by ILS were sustained, such as Día de Los Muertos and the mass celebrating the Virgen de Guadalupe. A new intellectual and cultural celebration was the formal acknowledgment of Hispanic Heritage Month on campus under the leadership of ILS. All types of events and speakers were on campus September 15 through October 15. This highlighted to the entire university that Latinx faculty, students, and staff at Notre Dame were proud of their heritage and intellectual contributions to the university and the larger community.
The Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series continued to bring prominent speakers to campus for direct interaction with students and faculty. Among the speakers invited was Jose H. Gómez, archbishop of Los Angeles. Gómez is responsible for ministering to the largest Latinx archdiocese in the United States. A native of Mexico, he has been in the United States for many years and is an American citizen. The goal of having him come to campus was twofold: (1) to help us better understand what it was like to minister to an overwhelmingly Latinx constituency, while recognizing that, on any given Sunday, Catholic mass is celebrated in over 99 languages in the Los Angeles archdiocese, and (2) to better appreciate the challenges facing the contemporary Catholic Church in terms of ethnoracial integration and serving immigrants largely from Mexico and Central America. In his interview with Fraga, Gómez was eloquent in addressing the moral necessities of thinking critically about the above two sets of issues. Just as significantly, when Fraga asked him why he became a priest, after some initial hesitation, the archbishop answered in a deeply personal and moving way about family, career aspi-
rations, and discerning for a life within the Church. Moreover, as is customary when a bishop or archbishop visits Notre Dame, he had a private meeting with president Jenkins to talk about how the university—and, as it turned out, ILS—could continue to help support him in his work. Fraga was invited to attend this meeting, and it was an extremely constructive consideration of how ILS could collaborate further with the archbishop and with the USCCB. Gómez’s talk was extremely well received, and it was clear that he gained an appreciation for ILS that will last for years to come.
Another major speaker brought to campus during this time was Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and founder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Her visit was secured using the contacts of the newly appointed associate director of ILS, Paloma Garcia-Lopez, whose parents had worked for the UFW for many years. At 83 years of age, Huerta filled one of the largest lecture venues at Notre Dame and, frankly, motivated all in attendance with her characterization of her life and the calls for social change that have always defined her work. After she was introduced by Jenkins, Fraga engaged her in conversation related to her early life, the responsibilities she had at the UFW, the challenges of being a woman in a position of direct leadership for many years, and what the goals of the Dolores Huerta Foundation were.
More than once, her comments solicited rounds of applause, and she received a standing ovation at the end of the event. Because she visited in spring 2018, she was also able to address the students in Fraga’s Transformative Latino Leadership class. She was magnificent in helping all of us understand how she has been able to maintain her commitment, energy, and hopefulness about the capacity of marginalized communities to become empowered to improve their families’ chances to advance politically, socially, and economically, despite the continuing systemic challenges that exist. Among the most impressive aspects of her visit was the energy she still has for her work. We were all inspired by her.
With the leadership of Jason Ruiz, associate professor of American studies, Rita Moreno, star of stage and screen, visited campus as part of the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series in 2018. Ruiz raised substantial funds from a variety of university organizations in sources, and ILS was happy to supplement these funds to make the visit happen. Moreno, winner of an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy, and many other major awards, dazzled those present for her multiple presentations on what it was like, and continues to be like, to be a Latina in the film, theatre, and television industries. In her primary university-wide interview, held in Notre Dame’s largest auditorium, Ruiz conducted a dazzling and revealing interview that covered the range of events in Moreno’s life, professional career, and continuing performances, including a new production of West Side Story. Additionally, Moreno participated in a special seminar discussion with 20 students, led by associate professor Anne García-Romero, of the Department of Film, Theatre, and Television, related to a close reading of her autobiography. Moreno’s generosity with her time and the honesty of her answers again inspired many in attendance to reach for their own goals and realize the challenges and sacrifices they were likely to confront in their pursuit. At her university-wide conversation with Ruiz, Moreno received the standing ovation that has become common at events organized under the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series.
Among the new initiatives pursued by ILS was the establishment of a formal relationship with the English as a New Language (ENL) program, in the university’s Alliance for Catholic Education and Institute for Educational Initiatives. This relationship focused on developing a Spanish-English two-way immersion program (TWI) at Holy Cross School, a Catholic school about a mile and a half from campus that had been facing enrollment and related challenges for a number of years. Fraga had been involved in establishing such a program in the Archdiocese of Seattle some years before and had published an article on two-way immersion in a special issue of the Journal of Catholic Education. At the request of the chair of the school commission at Holy Cross and in direct collaboration with Katherine Lichon, director
of the ENL program and an expert in English-language acquisition, the new TWI program was established with the full support of the parish school commission, parish council, and pastor. This was a new venture for the predominantly Polish parish, but the idea of bringing predominantly Spanish-speaking children together with predominantly English-speaking children was embraced and led to the full enrollment of the first class. The school is now in its fourth year of the program, and it is thriving. Students and their families have remained in the program, teachers have been found to teach in it, and student academic progress has been apparent. Moreover, a number of classes in the university’s Romance languages department have used the site as a placement for their students to complete translations and other important work in support of the teachers at Holy Cross.
The goal of ILS’ involvement in this effort was (1) to establish a formal relationship with the Alliance for Catholic Education and ENL, (2) to demonstrate how our academic expertise at the university could serve our local community, and (3) to show students and faculty how their own intellectual growth could be enhanced by working in a local Catholic school. By all accounts, the TWI track at Holy Cross School has been a major success and a number of Notre Dame faculty and staff have enrolled their children in the program.
In addition to the faculty- and student-focused programs discussed above, the incredible successes of the Transformative Latino Leadership Lecture Series, and the new program at Holy Cross, yet another major initiative pursued by ILS during this time was its renewed Hispanic Ministry Initiative. Building on ILS’s hosting of the Region VII Midwest Catholic Association of Hispanic Ministry’s Encuentro conference, which brought 175 parishioners, diocesan leaders, and bishops from the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin to campus in summer 2018, ILS participated in the national Encuentro, held in Dallas, Texas, in September of that year. Interestingly, one of ILS’s scholarship students, Aaron Benavides, had worked on aspects of the national meeting during his CCLP internship at the offices of the USCCB in summer 2018.
These efforts led to ILS hosting the third National Symposium on Catholic Hispanic Ministry, in collaboration with professor Hosffman Ospino, of Boston College. At this meeting, approximately 65 directors of Hispanic ministry, priests (and one bishop), theologians, and other scholars responded to a set of commissioned essays on current challenges Latinx people face in the Catholic Church, including those associated with leadership, parish development, intergenerational diversity, LGBTQ communities, and the persistence of poverty. Magnificent discussions were held, and an edited volume will be developed based on those essays.
Among the unexpected results of ILS hosting and participating in this event was the convening of at least
25 participants who wanted to organize an event that would take a nationwide group to witness and accom-
pany the migrants at the El Paso–Juarez border and learn about the work of Catholic social service organizations in that area. This led to the formal organization of the Jornada por la Justicia/Pilgrimage for Justice, in which ILS was a key leader, in October 2019. Under the leadership of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL), in Chicago, and especially its director, Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, ILS brought faculty, students, and staff to the border. In collaboration with the HOPE Border Initiative and its leaders, Dylan Corbett and Marisa Limón (a graduate of Notre Dame), a series of educational seminars and discussions was held for an audience of over 300 participants. Fraga spoke at one of the plenary panels. This experience not only further solidified ILS as a key player in Hispanic ministry in the Midwest, but also led to a series of, by their own admission, transformative experiences for the Notre Dame participants, especially the students. So significant was this experience that the CSPL will lead a series of modules on empowering local communities from a Catholic social justice perspective for Notre Dame students in fall 2020 and
spring 2021.
All these continuing and new efforts and initiatives of ILS suggest that it is thriving in its capacity to serve faculty and students, build new relationships, and reach out to community partners, offering a rich and ever-growing set of experiences to members of the Notre Dame community. Moreover, the prospect of continuing this work is very strong and the emphasis on serving multiple constituencies simultaneously should guarantee that ILS can continue this work for years to come.
ILS, NOTRE DAME, AND THE FUTURE OF LATINX COMMUNITIES
What is clearly demonstrated by this narrative of the origins and selected accomplishments of ILS at Notre Dame is that it has contributed to the intellectual life of the university in ways that are unlikely to have occurred had it not been founded in 1999. The convergence of ideas and interests that led to the establishment of the institute is an example of what can be accomplished at a university when it is forward thinking and understands the critical role that Latinx communities, as faculty researchers, students interested in Latinx Studies, staff committed to implementing programs, and the leadership of visionary directors, have in building a dimension to Notre Dame that places it at the forefront of such programs around the country.
Whether it was bringing a plethora of activities to ILS with an emphasis on art and community-based research, as under founding director Cardenas; recentering ILS activities to focus directly on the full range of intellectual interests and capabilities of its affiliated faculty and related students, as under the leadership of Limón; further building upon this recentering with even more explicit emphasis on the successful progress of junior faculty, as under Fraga and Matovina as co-directors; or maintaining and enhancing these activities while developing new programs in leadership and Hispanic ministry, as under Fraga’s directorship, ILS has broadened and deepened the university’s capacity and standing to be a leader in Latinx Studies. This is no small accomplishment.
The tradition of president Jenkins welcoming and introducing major speakers is a further indication of the degree to which ILS is now part of how Notre Dame sees itself and its future. Moreover, when ILS moved to the third floor of Bond Hall, in March 2018, it was given space that was ideal for its current operations and future goals. The Julian Samora Latino Studies Scholars Lounge has already served as a multifunctional area where students can study at their leisure; meetings of faculty, students, and staff can be held; and invited speakers can give presentations. Its versatility is ideal, and the investment the university made in this space is a further indication of the value placed on ILS and its contributions to Notre Dame. Again, understanding all these efforts, initiatives, and successes as representative of the convergence of ideas and interests to further institutionalize the presence of Latino Studies at Notre Dame is undeniable.
The only area where more work needs to be done is in that of securing more endowment funding for ILS’s activities, especially a substantial naming donation to guarantee a sizeable operating budget, such as the one the institute had had in the past. Despite the best efforts of all directors and the support of the Office of University Relations, such a benefaction has not materialized. Most institutes and centers at Notre Dame have been established with such a donation, now in the range of around $20 million, and ILS has not been able to secure such a gift. Nonetheless, a revived and fully supportive advisory council has brought millions of new dollars to ILS through individual donations to both its operating budget and the LSSP. There is reason to be hopeful that the funds necessary to permanently institutionalize that convergence of ideas and interests will appear in the near future.
What is certainly apparent is that there are many individuals at ILS and in the university generally who are working to make sure this comes to pass. Once it does, the original vision of ILS as an intimate part of how Notre Dame sees itself and its future will finally be realized. Nonetheless, ILS’s work will continue, and faculty, students, and the entire university community continues to be seen as an asset contributing to their own intellectual growth. This is a major accomplishment that will also persist into the future.
Luis Ricardo Fraga is the Rev. Donald P. McNeill Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership, Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited seven books and over forty articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a book entitled America At Its Best: The 1975 Voting Rights Act.
NOTES
- This section is in part based upon two timelines developed by the Institute for Latino Studies, with no specific date. One of them can be accessed at https://latinostudies.conductor.nd.edu/about/history. The other is unpublished but is available from the author.
- This section is based in part on an interview with Timothy Scully, now professor of political science, on June 26, 2020, and Gilberto Cardenas, founding director of ILS, now retired, on June 27, 2020.
- This section is based in part on an interview with Cardenas on June 27, 2020. It is also based upon information contained in two timelines developed by ILS, with no specific date. One of them can be accessed at https://latinostudies.conductor.nd.edu/about/history. The other is unpublished but is available from the author.
- This section is in part based upon correspondence with José Limón, dated June 26, 2020, and on an interview with Timothy Matovina, on June 25, 2020.
- “ILS faculty fellows” became the term used to identify Notre Dame faculty with interests in Latino Studies.
- This section is based upon an interview with Matovina, held June 25, 2020, and on the author’s own experiences and related knowledge.
- This section is based upon the author’s own experiences and related knowledge.
REFERENCES
Aragón, F. (2020). Letras Latinas: 2004–2020. Unpublished document available from the author.
Heclo, H. (1994). Ideas, interests, and institutions. In L. Dodd (Ed.), The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations (pp. 366–392). Westview Press.