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Center for Latin American & Latino Studies

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The Center for Latin American & Latino Studies (CLALS) is a multidisciplinary center harnessing expertise from throughout the American University community and with counterparts in D.C. and around the world to serve as a catalyst for the creation of knowledge about Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino communities in the United States. Its work reflects enduring commitment to social inclusion, good governance, human security, equitable international relations, and understanding of societal challenges in the region.

The Center’s goals are to:

  • Empower changemakers throughout the hemisphere by giving them high quality data and analysis about Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino communities in the United States.
  • Raise the quality of debate, policy, and advocacy on and in Latin America and the Caribbean by generating and disseminating cutting-edge research.
  • Deepen understanding of the dynamics within and around Latino communities as integral participants in the national political, social, and economic life of the United States.
  • Promote community and inclusion among people of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and interests throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States through the open exchange of knowledge.

Message from Director Ernesto Castañeda
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Focus Areas

Center projects address Inclusion, Governance, Security, International Relations, Environment, and Regional and Country Studies. Learn more about these six key focus areas of our research below. 

Announcements

Religion, Migration, and Worldmaking in the Borderlands E-Forum Launched

CLALS is pleased to announce the online publication of a new forum, titled "Religion, Migration, and Worldmaking in the Borderlands." A first of its kind and the outcome of CLALS's years-long Henry Luce Foundation-funded project on “Religion and Environmentally-Induced Displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean," this forum explores intersections of religion with the experience of migration, humanitarian aid for migrants, and the increasingly securitized borderland spaces through which migrants move. Co-edited by CLALS Associate Director Rob Albro and Research Fellow Luciana Gandini, and the result of a workshop held in Tijuana, Mexico, in March of 2023, this collection of ten original essays includes a contribution by CLALS Director Ernesto Castañeda.

2023 William M. LeoGrande Prize and Award Winners Announced

We are happy to announce that the 2023 William M. LeoGrande Prize for the best book on U.S.-Latin American Relations is shared between two recipients:

The first awardee is Alberto Garcia, Assistant Professor of History at San Jose State University, for his well-researched and timely book, Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico, published in 2023 by the University of California Press. With this study, Garcia offers new insights about the Bracero guest-worker program, sponsored by the United States and Mexico from 1942 to 1964, and evocatively shows how local politics, religious conflicts, and previously neglected economic factors in Mexico helped to shape who participated in the program.

The second awardee is Susan Eckstein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Boston University, for her groundbreaking book, Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America, published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. Eckstein’s book illuminates how U. S. immigration policy during the Cold War favored Cuban migrants and directly contributed to the formation of one of the most influential domestic foreign policy lobbies in U.S. history.

We are also pleased to announce that the 2023 William M. LeoGrande Award, for the best book or article in Latin American or Latino Studies published by a member of the AU community, has been awarded to Professor of History (CAS & SIS) Max Paul Friedman for his study, “Making Peaceful Revolution Impossible: Kennedy, Arévalo, the 1963 Coup in Guatemala, and the Alliance against Progress in Latin America’s Cold War,” co-authored with Roberto García Ferreira and published in 2022 in the Journal of Cold War Studies. Prof. Friedman’s co-authored study offers an original argument about how the Kennedy era’s Alliance for Progress, its ideals and anti-communism, impacted the region by undermining possibilities for “peaceful revolution,” a legacy that continues to reverberate in countries like Guatemala today.

4-Part Training with Community Partner SAMU held in July 2024

The Center for Latin American and Latino Studies offered a four-session training program to incoming volunteers of SAMU First Response in late May and early June. The sessions included, Immigration Realities: History, Context, Current Challenges; Migrant Vulnerability, Trauma, and Self-Care for First Responders; Resettlement: The Migrant Experience and Community Institutions; and Immigration Policies, Unexpected Consequences, and Local Responses.

SAMU First Response is currently serving 1,500-2,000 asylum-seekers per month arriving in the DMV. Their programming provides food, medical attention, clothing, hygienic care, emergency respite and travel support, providing migrants arriving in the D.C. area with a warm welcome and a temporary place to stay and immediate food and hygiene kits.

Those who completed the training attended a graduation ceremony and received a certificate from the Center. The sessions were led by Ernesto Castañeda, Director; Maria de Jesus, Senior Associate Director of Community-Based Research and Engagement; and Rob Albro, Associate Director of Research.

Past News

Funder & Partner Highlights

The Center Announces a Research Project in Collaboration with FLACSO Costa Rica

The Center has been awarded a contract to partner with the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales - Costa Rica in efforts to disseminate findings of Vidas Sitiadas II, a multi-year, six-country research program focused on populations of vulnerable women in Latin America. With particular emphases on gender, youth, violence, and employment, the project's case studies on Costa Rica, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina offer fresh insights into dynamics of social and economic inclusion, and the sorts of policies and practices that might broaden opportunities for women across the region, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CLALS Receives a Grant to Study Illegal Fishing in Latin America

The Center has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State for its “Western Hemisphere Regional Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Assessment” initiative. Led by CLALS faculty affiliate and SIS Associate Professor Matt Taylor and CLALS Research Fellow Steven Dudley, this project assesses and maps fishing legislation; law enforcement capacity to address illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing); scope of crimes associated with IUU fishing; and the adverse economic and environmental impacts of IUU fishing across Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Funders & Partners