About
What and who is Latinx? What is the difference between Latina/o and Latinx? How do Latinx imaginaries shape and how are they shaped by the so-called “American” experience? This course provides an overview of how Latinxs have created competing representations of their experience in contemporary cultural production within the United States. We will examine the factors that determine the overrepresentation or underrepresentation of certain Latinx groups. Therefore, this class will consider the Chicana/o and Caribbean-American diaspora experience, as well as less-represented groups such as Central American-Americans, Brazilian-Americans or “Brazucas,” and Afro-Latinxs. By critically engaging with the cultural specificities of local Latinx communities through community-engaged learning, we will develop a theoretical and experiential understanding of the continuities and discontinuities that characterize their relationship with Latin America and Spain. We will pay close attention to how their experiences and encounters with different rural and urban settings have shaped Latinxs' understanding of national belonging to the United States, Latin America, and the Spanish-speaking world at large. Ultimately, what is at stake is the consideration of how linguistic, cultural, and political dis-encounters remap the US-Latinx American experience in relation to the American experience per se.
(Traditional - Engaged Research)
