Latino Studies initiative taking off

In an effort to pioneer a Latino studies program, faculty members, administrators and students have stepped up the efforts of the Latino Curricular Transformation Project this semester.

The project has been working on developing Latino studies at Tufts since the late 1990s, but now it is increasing initiatives to educate students and determine how Latino studies should fit into the Tufts curriculum.

The project is run by a committee of about ten administrators and faculty members, as well as students. Juliana Zapata, the culture representative for the Association of Latin American Students on the Tufts Community Union Senate, was invited to the most recent meeting of the committee and will work with two or three other students to add student perspective to the project.

There are various ways that Latino studies could be integrated into the Tufts curriculum more formally. In a speech and workshop at the Latino Center last semester, Juan Flores, an expert on the development of Latino studies programs, described three basic ways to create a Latino studies program, according to Peter Winn, a history professor and the director of Latin American Studies.

The three approaches, which are currently being considered by the group, are linking the Latino studies program to the existing Latin American Studies, American Studies or ethnic studies programs.

Flores, a professor at the City University of New York's Hunter College, has helped develop Latino studies programs at several other schools, including Princeton University. This year, the project will invite other experts to speak about the three approaches.

Some are already advocating a continued connection between the Latino and Latin American studies programs. "The Latin American [Studies program] here really supports Latino studies," Director of the Latino Center Rub?©n Salinas-Stern said. "I would like to see this relationship continue."

However, the closeness of this connection sometimes blurs the distinction between the two academic programs, confusing some students. "There is not a lot of understanding about what Latino Studies is," Salinas-Stern said.

Alison Clarke, the TCU Senate Historian and one of the students working on the project, agreed that "even the terminology is difficult." Both Latino Studies and Latin American Studies examine the history, politics, literature and culture of people of Spanish and Latin American descent in the Americas. Latin American Studies, however, focuses on Latin American countries, while Latino studies examines the situation of Latinos in the United States.

The project will not choose its official approach until its 2003 Summer Institute. The institute will be a two- to three- day workshop during which different approaches to curricular diversification will be explored. In the meantime, the project will also determine "the classes that we want and the type of professors we want," Zapata said.

Whichever approach is adopted, Clarke and Zapata would like Latino studies courses to count towards the University's world civilizations and culture requirements, thereby increasing student interest in such courses. Although African-American courses and Native American courses already fulfill those requirements, students need to petition individually for Asian American and Latino courses to count.

"When it was created, the culture option model was meant to encourage students to study cultures other than their own," Salinas-Stern said, but now the University is unsure about how to include different courses.

As it examines ways of creating a Latino studies program, the Latino Curricular Transformation Project plans on seeking input from the student body. The results of a survey about the Spanish program conducted by the TCU Senate may provide indications of how students want Latino studies to develop at Tufts. Although the Senate is not directly involved with the curriculum project, its survey will include questions about currently offered Latino courses and perceived deficiencies in the University's offerings.

The project also plans on educating the university population about the purpose of Latino studies and increase awareness of its existence, according to Clarke.

Throughout the year, the group hopes to schedule events aimed at achieving these goals. Special events, including talks by Latino filmmakers and performances by Latino singers and dancers, will bring Latino culture to the Tufts campus.

The programs will be funded by a grant from the Tufts Diversity Fund, an initiative of Mel Bernstein, the former vice president of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering, to diversify its curriculum and faculty.

Salinas-Stern said the Latino Curricular Transformation Project received less money than it requested, and "might not allow us to be as visible." More money would have allowed for a greater number of special events, he said, but "...we can still do some good things."

Winn plans to circumvent the financial problem by recruiting more local, and therefore less expensive, visitors.

After last year's diversification efforts focused on promoting Asian American studies, proponents of a Latino studies program point to statistics which suggest that the time might be right for a new focus on Latino Studies. Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States, according to the 2000 Census, and Hispanic populations are booming in states not traditionally been known for attracting Hispanics, including North Carolina, Illinois and Massachusetts.

At the same time, the number of Latino students at Tufts has also grown. About seven percent of the freshman class describe themselves as Hispanic. Since many Latino students want to study their heritage, the demand for Latino studies courses has also increased.

"Ideally we'd like [Latino studies] to become a major," Salinas-Stern said. "But it's a piecemeal thing."