Find your path in Latina/Latino Studies

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Why Study Latina/Latino Studies?

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Professor Mirelsie Velázquez shares the value of the major, favorite spots in Champaign-Urbana, and why the Latina/Latino studies department is the best kept secret on campus in an interview with the College of LAS.

Intro Latina/Latino Studies

Interdisciplinary introduction to the basis for a Latina/Latino ethnicity in the United States.

LLS 100

Race, Medicine, and Society

The idea of race has historically been central to how Western cultures conceptualize and think about human difference. This course examines the historical significance of race through one domain of knowledge: medicine.

LLS 479

Mexican-American History

Examination of the history of Mexican Americans living within the United States from the Spanish Conquest to the twentieth century. Explores the process of migration, settlement, assimilation, and discrimination with emphasis on continuity and change in Mexican cultural development.

LLS 279

Latina/o Popular Culture

Provides an introduction to Latina/o popular culture in the United States. Specific modes of popular culture might include mass media, music, film, video, performance, and other expressive forms.

LLS 240

Chicana/Latina Autobiography, Memoir, Testimonio

Focuses on how Chicanas/Latinas describe their own experiences and how they both understand and negotiate their sense of self, and centers on the new crop of memoir and autobiography, as represented in the most recent texts by well-established Chicana writers, such as Sandra Cisneros, Gloria Anzaldúa and Ana Castillo.

LLS 365

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Antonio Ortega

Alumni spotlight: Antonio Ortega ’14 – Instructional Technologist, School of Professional Studies, Northwestern University

Being a first-generation college student, I remember electing Latina/Latino Studies 100 as one of my initial courses during my first fall semester at the University of Illinois. I was so enthralled by what I was learning. The history of the Latino/Latina population in the United States. Subjects and topics that were never discussed in my elementary and high school history classes. The history of “mi gente.” I was so fascinated that I chose Latino/Latina Studies as my second major to go along with my History major. I became an elementary school teacher in the South side of Chicago and took...

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Natalie Lira

Faculty spotlight: Natalie Lira

Natalie Lira is an interdisciplinary scholar who examines the politics of reproduction and histories of medicine in the United States. Her research interests include the politics of reproduction, histories of medicine, and the ways that struggles for racial and reproductive justice intersect.