Latin American and Latino Studies

Latino and Chicano Studies examines how people of Latin American descent living in the United States construct identities, build communities, and navigate belonging across shifting historical and political landscapes. Scholars in this area draw on literature, history, and social theory to trace how colonialism, migration, and racial classification have shaped—and continue to shape—what it means to be Latino in America, including how gender and generation inflect that experience differently. Active debates center on whether "Latino" functions as a meaningful shared identity or obscures profound differences among communities with distinct national origins, languages, and relationships to U.S. power. Researchers are also pressing further into transnational questions: how do people whose lives span multiple countries sustain cultural memory, and what happens to those practices across generations born entirely in the United States?

Works

130,664

Total citations

462,615

Keywords

LatinoChicanoIdentityCultureGenderColonialism