2025-04-23
- Congratulations to the class of 2025!
2025-04-02 - The Department of Latina/Latino Studies is pleased to announce that professor Mirelsie Velázquez received a Campus Research Board grant from Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. The grant will fund her project, De Isla a Chicago: Stories of Puerto Rican Teachers, 1970-1990. The project will...
2025-03-12 - A new book by rhetoric and history scholars examines the origins of critical race theory in legal studies. The movement is an area of legal scholarship that seeks to understand the relationship between race and racism and the law and other societal institutions in the U.S., the authors said. It is highly controversial, with politicians at all levels of government trying to ban it from classrooms...-
2025-03-12 - The Department of Latina/Latino Studies is pleased to announce that professor Mirelsie Velázquez has been awarded a 2025-26 Campus Fellowship from the Humanities Research Institute for her project “Genealogies of Empowerment and the Makings of Home: Latina/o Activism at the University of Illinois, 1970–1992." Campus Fellowships are awarded to Illinois faculty and graduate students...
2025-03-11 - On May 5, 1992, a diverse coalition of more than 450 people, mostly students, gathered in and around the U of I’s Henry Administration Building with the goal of increasing institutional support for Latina/o students and programs on campus. Their demonstration followed a smaller, unsuccessful sit-in at the Office of Minority Student Affairs on April 29.The students’ demands called for the...
2025-03-05 - This spring, the Department of Latina/Latino Studies is excited to welcome professor Aja Y. Martinez as an associate professor. She is a critical race theory scholar and storyteller and author of the multi-award-winning book Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory....
2025-02-26 - We’re pleased to announce that LLS alumna Celina Villanueva (BA, ’08, Latina/Latino studies) has been awarded the LAS Outstanding Young Alumni Award. The award recognizes alumni who have demonstrated the values derived from a liberal arts and sciences education by outstanding achievement or who have...
2025-01-29 - Education professor Rochelle Gutiérrez has been named to the National Academy of Education. A professor of curriculum and instruction and of mathematics education, Gutiérrez challenges deficit views of racial minority students and believes that teachers must have more than pedagogical or content knowledge to be successful. An Illinois faculty member since 1996, Gutiérrez also holds appointments...
2024-12-11 - As an oral historian, Illinois history professor, Yuridia “Yuri” Ramírez records the stories of people who have never been written about in history books. “These people have, in some ways, made the most impactful legacies in their communities, and people don’t know...
2024-12-04 - LLS and anthropology alumna Teresa Ramos (BA, ’04; MA, ’08; PhD, ’12; anthropology with a minor in Latina/Latino studies) has been named the first secretary of the Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC). Ramos is currently the first assistant deputy governor for education in Governor JB Pritzker’s office. Pending state Senate approval, Ramos will begin her new role in January and the...
2024-12-04 - Taking the risk of applying for an internship can be frightening for any student. When Adriana Matsumoto, now a senior studying political science and Latina/Latino studies, applied for her internship with U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, she was not only following a goal to work on important legislative issues like immigration, but she was the first...
2024-11-20 - The fall 2024 LLS newsletter is here! Learn about the revival of the graduate student conference, research highlights, student internship updates, and more!
2024-11-13 - For most academics, sabbatical is a crucial time to focus on your research and a break from teaching duties. For administrators it’s especially essential, because their duties often leave little time to devote to their scholarship. For Isabel Molina-Guzmán, associate dean for student academic affairs for the College of LAS and professor of Latina/Latino studies and communication, it was a...
2024-11-13 - Powerful hurricanes, the COVID-19 pandemic, spiraling public debt and political corruption triggered humanitarian, economic and environmental crises in Puerto Rico. However, a new book suggests that the Puerto Rican and U.S. governments made these multilayered crises catastrophic through the socioeconomic, legal and racialized structures and conditions they created. ...- 2024-10-30 - As a unit committed to social justice and deeply invested in a rich tradition of social critique, the Department of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois condemns the offensive comments about Latinos, Black Americans, and Jewish Americans, as well as the misogyny, exhibited at a recent campaign event for Donald Trump. From reproducing tropes of Latina hyper-sexuality rife with anti-...