This weekend’s 15th Annual Latino Law Policy and Business Conference celebrated the rise of Latinos in the U.S. and Latin America, but also revealed Harvard’s most glaring weakness: After forty years, a Latino Studies Center is still missing on campus.
Among the topics discussed at the Conference, which featured former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, was a session focused on the possibility of a Latino Studies Center at Harvard and hosted by the Harvard Latino Student Alliance, a university-wide student organization. The session is part of a wider HLSA campaign that aims to establish a Latino Studies Center at Harvard University.
The motivation is simple: If you were a Colombian student or professor, would you go to the Argentine Center for support? If you were Ghanaian, would you get a degree in Nigerian Studies? Why should a U.S. Latino restrict themselves to issues and studies about Latin America? It essentially neglects their experience north of the border and ignores the fact that Latinos have a range of identities that include aspects of their countries of origin and the United States.
Since 1994, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies has been a great resource to students on campus. But the Center’s leadership also recognizes that their charter, focused on Latin America, cannot provide adequate coverage of the “U.S.” part of the Latino identity. In fact, in our Spring 2011 efforts to establish HLSA, the Rockefeller Center was unable to serve as our sponsoring entity because of this very issue. Fortunately, our application to become a university-wide organization received the support of Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, which has been an incredible resource and partner and is a key reason why HLSA exists today. READ MORE
Comments