The minor in Latino Studies will prepare you to examine the history and culture of Latinos in the United States and connect current trends of this US population with perspectives from other schools, departments, and programs.
In our Program, you will explore the challenges facing the Latino community and the ways in which the community uses its numbers and cultural capital to address these challenges. You will study the Latino culture with the demographic and cultural change occurring in the United States.
You will broaden your perspectives by participating in civic engagement activities, study abroad programs in Latin America, and exposure to the cultural and artistic products of Latinos.
Housed within the School of Liberal Arts, you can easily complete the minor in Latino Studies in conjunction with a number of different majors and/or minors from various schools at IU Indianapolis.
Many of the courses that count toward the minor in Latino Studies have rotating topics that change every semester. Work with your academic or faculty advisor to choose your elective courses.
“I started classes in Latino Studies during my first semester as a Freshman Spanish Major. I did not know what to expect, so I treated the Latino Studies program as supplementary to our culture studies in Spanish classes, which often do not cover the United States perspective of United States Spanish-speaking cultures. After all, the US is second to Mexico in total number of Spanish speakers in the world.
However, as I went through the program, I realized it is not just a study of Hispanic cultures in the United States. It is about the deep history of Spanish-speaking peoples in the United States; it is about how Latinos have been represented in our films for the past century; it is about studying Latin American immigration in order to get to the bottom of why so many Latin Americans fight and (in some cases die) just for a chance to live here. Latino Studies makes us empathetic toward the struggles they continue to face and urges us to stand up and fight alongside them.
I have continued working alongside the Latino Studies Program throughout my time at IU Indy. I have been helping to catalog the massive book collection in the Luis Alberto Ambroggio Center for Latino Studies, and I have received the Ambroggio scholarship to help further my education. Latino Studies has changed my perspective on Hispanic peoples here in the US and encourages me to get involved in educating others, too. I truly would not be where I am today without Latino Studies.
— Levi Watters, ’23 B.A. Spanish and English, Latino Studies minor
Levi is also in the IU Indianapolis Honors College.
The combination of concentrated and diversified courses in the Latino Studies minor will help prepare you for the demands of a more progressively globalized and competitive market. A Latino Studies minor will better equip you for a career in one or more of the following: administration, government, public policy, politics, journalism, law, education, diplomacy, business, local and government service agencies, non-governmental and non-profit organizations, community organizations, national and international corporations, as well as language- and culture-related organizations.
To declare the minor in Latino Studies, complete the online declaration.
Contact Rosa Tezanos-Pinto.
