“Latino history is Duke history.” Cecilia Márquez is spreading the word, and the Hunt Family Assistant Professor of History is far from alone in that effort.
From course offerings to faculty research to entire programs of study, Latinidad — a Spanish-language term often used by scholars to refer to the cultural and social identity of people of Latin American descent — is expanding at Duke, reflecting changes in student population.
“Latinos, Latinas, Latinx, Latines” — all terms that have evolved over time and vary across generations — comprise 11% of Duke undergraduate students and are the fastest growing demographic in North Carolina. They are also at the center of Duke’s specialized program of study, Latino/a Studies in the Global South (LSGS).
The LSGS program, which offers courses and a certificate, focuses primarily on the study and knowledge of people of Latino descent living within the United States, including immigrants to the U.S. as well as people whose families have lived in the U.S. for generations.
In a complementary contrast, Duke’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) focuses on the countries and cultures of Latin America, including Brazil and the Caribbean.
Through LSGS and CLACS, as well as through coursework and faculty-led research across campus, students have a wide range of opportunities to engage in multidisciplinary learning and to immerse themselves in the rich cultures, history and language of Latin America and the Latine diaspora.
Students are not only benefiting from these intellectual opportunities, they are actively helping faculty to create them. In Márquez’s Latinx Social Movements class, students curated a bilingual history exhibit documenting the complex past and contemporary status of Latiné student life at Duke over the past 100 years.
During opening remarks at the exhibit launch, Dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Gary G. Bennett recognized the student-curators’ success in creating a dialogue through the exhibit, and commended them for being part of a long tradition of Duke students who have begun important conversations through “activism, advocacy and scholarly activities.”
“This exhibit is about celebrating the amazing contributions of Latino students,” echoed Márquez, a historian of Latinx people in the U.S. South whose research explores the ways region impacts Latinx identity.
Just across East Campus, a strong sense of regional identity influences Sophia Enriquez’s approach to teaching. “Before I’m a professor at Duke, I’m a part of this community,” she said. Working at the intersection of Latino and Appalachian music, migration and regional culture, the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Music, teaches a popular course exploring the legacy of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla, who used music to navigate a complex Mexican-American identity. Enriquez, who is also an assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies and co-director of the Fandango de Durham, works to blend student learning and Durham community engagement in her LSGS introductory course.
Connecting classroom learning with the community outside of Duke is something that Bethzaida Fernandez, Senior Lecturer of Romance Studies and award-winning undergraduate teacher, has been practicing for years in her advanced-level Spanish course, Bridging Cultures: Latino Lives and Experiences in North Carolina. Born from a grant that invited undocumented students to enroll tuition-free in the course, Fernandez promotes intercultural competence and bidirectional learning by addressing immigration, health, education and local economy.
Bidirectional learning and research between Duke and Latin America is a topic of particular interest for CLACS Director Liliana Paredes, professor of the practice of Romance Studies and International Comparative Studies. Paredes — who cultivates multilingual community in her language classes — is piloting a new course on community health and intercultural awareness. Duke students will travel to Cusco, Peru where they will learn about indigenous perspectives on illness, the body and nature. “It’s work that requires intercultural health training from the Latin American perspective, not just from the [North] American perspective,” she said.
The importance of examining questions from a Latin American perspective permeates the research of faculty across campus, including Bacca Foundation Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology Christine Folch. An expert on one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world, situated on the border between Paraguay and Brazil, the Carnegie Fellow, studies water, energy and environmental impacts on marginalized communities. “People and communities are at the center of my research,” she said.
A lack of Latin American perspectives and cultural representation in psychological research inspired Cristina Salvador to conduct new studies that include broader sample populations. “To me, it was always — ‘this study is interesting, but I don’t think it would replicate in a different cultural context. It just doesn't make sense for Latin Americans, and maybe for a lot of other people in the world,’” said the assistant professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. The findings from Salvador’s Duke Culture Lab are revising existing theories in the field, which have been based on decades of research using a very narrow sample of study participants.
The Latin American perspective wasn’t new to Christina León, the new assistant professor in the department of Literature, whose debut book explores feminist and queer inscriptions of Latinidad. But seeing it made explicit as a graduate student in a Caribbean literature class changed her way of thinking. “Recognizing that narrative part of what happened to my own family changed my life and started new research addressing how we encounter differences rather than putting them in silos,” she said.
Fernandez, a Duke faculty member for more than 20 years, recalls a time when Duke itself felt siloed and closed off from the rest of Durham. “When I first came to Duke, the walls of this campus were closed,” she said. “Students were not encouraged to be a part of Durham. Things have evolved a lot, and now we get out into the community. Now, there is connection.”
Kathryn Kennedy, Trinity Communications
Cara August, Trinity Communications
