Housed in the department of Humanities, History and Social Sciences but drawing from many departments across the college, the Latino and Latin American Studies minor offers the opportunity for students to explore the histories and cultures of U.S. Latinos and Latin American peoples through an interdisciplinary approach of language, history, social institutions, literature, and the arts. By critically engaging with the ethnic and geopolitical experience of the Latino and Latin American population in the Americas, students will expand their knowledge about the transnational and transcultural complexity and richness of their worlds. The minor provides an academic experience that complements the students’ majors by strengthening their cultural and historical literacy with a multicultural perspective that helps students become better informed global citizens.

As a result of successfully completing program requirements, students should be able to:

• reflect on and enrich their understanding of the specificities of U.S. Latino and Latin American societies and cultures in regards to politics, religion, ethnicity, race, class, gender, sex and sexuality through historical documents and the cultural and artistic production in the Americas of these populations;
• engage with issues of cultural and national identity, cultural change, resistance, and political agency in the historical and geopolitical contexts of colonialism, modernity, and globalization from a variety of perspectives; and
• complement their majors by strengthening their cultural and historical literacy in a decidedly globalized world; and
• enhance their ability to comprehend cultural difference in a complex and nuanced manner.