Who are "Latinos" and how have they
come to constitute a central ethnic/racial category in the contemporary United States?
This is the organizing question around which this course examines the experiences of major
Latino groups —Chicanos/Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans—and new immigrants
from the Caribbean, and Central and South America. We study U.S. colonialism and
imperialism in the Old Mexican North and the Caribbean; migration and immigration patterns
and policies; racial, gender and class distinctions; cultural and political expressions
and conflicts; return migrations and transnationalism; and inter-ethnic relations and the
construction of Pan-Latino diasporic identities.
