About Latino Studies

NYU’s Latino Studies Program has a distinctive profile that develops four elements that give intellectual weight and a distinctiveness to it:

Strength in the arts.  Latino Studies programs often have a social science base.  Here the strengths of both NYU and New York make possible a program built around synergy among the arts, social sciences, and humanities. 

Research training. NYU’s program should be distinguished by its ability to offer students training in research, both field-based and archival, including opportunities abroad. This feature is particularly appealing to students, and we know of no other program that has it.  Because a good deal of Latino-related research goes on outside FAS, developing this dimension requires working across schools.

Co presence of Chicano and Puerto Rican Studies.  The presence of Chicano scholars offers the possibility of a comprehensive program that draws on both the west coast Chicano side of the field as well as the east coast Caribbean side. This will be particularly valuable in the study of the burgeoning Mexican population in NYC.

Bilingualism. Benefiting from the experience of others, NYU develop a program that approaches language through the study of bilingualism, the politics of language, and the study of cultural texts. It should offer students the opportunity to develop as bilingual scholars through content-based courses designed to develop bilingual research abilities. Existing resources in the Spanish and Portuguese department would support such a project. The City itself is an inexhaustible laboratory for language research and major projects on languages in contact are underway here.