Introduction to Latina and Latino Studies (201-0-1)

Instructors

Elvia Mendoza
Crowe Hall, Room 1144

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-410: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

LATINO 201 introduces students to the spatial logics of Latina and Latino racial formations. The course offers students an overview of imperialism, colonialism, race, and capitalism to foster critical perspectives on how the Americas came to be. We will further explore how Mexican/Mexican American/Chicanx, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central American, and South American peoples are made and how individuals and communities from these backgrounds become Latinas, Latinos, Latines, and Latinxs in the United States. The aim of LATINO 201 is to give students a foundational understanding of how race and ethnicity intersect with gender, sexuality, and class to create the forms of pervasive socio-spatial inequality that Latina and Latino Studies was originally designed to challenge.

Learning Objectives

Students will

1. Recognize and explain Latina and Latino subject formations as social constructions produced through space and place, along with the real-life effects of these social constructions.

2. Differentiate and relate the distinct histories and contemporary experiences of various national-origin groups identified under the rubric of "Latino" — Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban-American, US Central Americans, and US South Americans — and engage in comparative and relational analysis that considers African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, and other racialized communities.

3. Articulate and apply to thinking how intersections of race, class, gender, age, sexuality, nationality, and other constructions of social difference mutually and simultaneously operate within structures of power and in understanding and negotiating ways of knowing and ways of being.

4. Discuss and critically reflect on institutional and economic power structures, social and political change, and forms of agency and resistance.

Class Materials (Required)

Reading will be available on Canvas

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Distro Area
Interdisciplinary Distro-rules apply
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area