Latinas/os are reshaping the United States, the Americas and beyond, and transforming the landscape of higher education. Humanities and social science scholars affiliated with the Latina/o Studies Program at Cornell focus on diverse Latino communities in the United States, and engage questions about community histories, im/migration, politics, labor, education, language and identity, health, literature, art and performance.

Drawn to the excitement of an emergent academic and interdisciplinary field of study, undergraduate and graduate students from many different majors are choosing to minor in Latina/o Studies. A focus on diverse U.S. Latino communities is highly relevant to many professions and careers—including medicine and health, law, social policy, education (community-based, school and adult), government, business and many other areas. A majority of Latina/o Studies Program courses are drawn from anthropology, history, government, English, comparative literature, sociology, performing and media studies, music and other departments across the university which offer courses that are cross-listed with the program.

The Latina/o Studies Program undergraduate and graduate minor is available to all students in any college at Cornell.

Department website

Monica Cornejo

Assistant Professor

Publications

 Cornejo, M., Kam, J. A., & Afifi, T. (2021). Discovering one’s undocumented immigration status through family disclosures: The perspectives of U.S. college students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Journal of Applied Communication Research.

 Kam, J. A., Cornejo, M., & Marcoulides, K. (2021). A latent profile analysis of undocumented college students’ protection-oriented family. Journal of Communication.

 Kam, J. A., Cornejo, M., Mendez Murillo, R., & Afifi, T. (in press). Conceptualizing and communicating allyship from the perspective of college students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz

Assistant Professor

Publications

Forensic Performances: Searching for Justice in NAKA Dance Theater’s BUSCARTE: Duet,Theatre Research International. 2022. 40 (1). pp 46-62.

Pleasure in Circulation: Erotic Power on the Migrant Road to Amarillo,Investigaciones en Danza y Movimiento, 2020, (v.2, n.3, July-December 2020, pp. 2-17)

Violence and Performance Research Methods: Direct-Action, ‘Die-ins,’ and Allyship in the Black Lives Matter era.” Performance as Research: Knowledge, Methods, Impact. Eds. Bruce Barton and et al. New York: Routledge, 2018. 311-332.

The Global Graduate: Graduating in the Time of the Global University,” with Lisa Skwirblies, In  International Performance Research. Eds. Sruti Bala et Al. Cham: Palgrave, 2017. 83-94.

Choreographic Mobilities: Embodied Migratory Acts Across the US-Mexico Border,” In Attending to Movement: Somatic Perspectives on Living in this World. Eds. Sarah Whatley, Natalie Garrett Brown, Kirsty Alexander. Devon: Triarchy Press, 2015. 62-74.

Invited Book Reviews

2023                “To Feel and to Move: Tracing the Borders of Dance Studies and Refugee Studies” Dance Chronicle, Forthcoming

2021                “Moving Otherwise: Dance, Violence, and Memory in Buenos Aires by Victoria Fortuna” Investigaciones en Danza y Movimiento, August 2021.

Lyrianne González

History Ph.D. Candidate

Publications

González, Lyrianne. Review. Sarah Coleman, The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), in Journal of American Ethnic History (Spring 2022).

González, Lyrianne. “Listening to Migrant Workers and Material Culture,” Cornell Public History Initiative, Website, Cornell University, September 2021. https://phi.history.cornell.edu/news-and-stories/listening-to-migrant-workers-and-material-culture/.

González, Lyrianne. “Joy and Aspirations: How Black Female Farmers Revolutionized How I Approach Oral Histories,” Humanities New York Community Partnership Grant, Society for the Humanities’ Rural Humanities, Website, Cornell University, August 2021. https://rural.as.cornell.edu/news/community-partnership-gonzalez.

González, Lyrianne E. “Centering Climate Disaster: A Labor Immigration Driving Force.” Latin American Literary Review 48, no. 96 (Summer 2021): 119–22. https://www.lalrp.net/articles/abstract/10.26824/lalr.259/

 

Sofia A. Villenas

Associate Professor

Publications

Books (Edited)

2010 (co-edited with E. Murillo Jr., R. Trinidad Galvan, C. Martinez, J. Muñoz, and M. Machado-Casas) (2010).  Handbook of Latinos and education: Theory, research and practice. NY: Routledge and Taylor Francis Group.

2006 (co-edited with D. Delgado Bernal, C.A. Elenes and F. Godinez). Chicana/Latina education in everyday life:  Feminista perspectives on pedagogy and epistemology.  Albany:  State University of New York Press.  

1999 (co-edited with L. Parker, and D. Deyhle)  Race is ... race isn’t:  Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education.  Boulder, CO:  Westview Press.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

2020. (with Carolina Osorio Gil). Latinx cultural programming as public pedagogy: Mobilizing cultura (culture) in a small town community in Upstate New York. In J. Hurtig and C. Chernoff (Eds.), Contested Spaces of Teaching and Learning: Practitioner Ethnographies of Adult Education in the United States. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

2019. The anthropology of education and contributions to critical race studies. Equity and Excellence in Education, 52(1), 68-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2019.1632758.

2019. Pedagogies of being with: Witnessing, testimonio and critical love in everyday social movement. QSE: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 39(2), 151-166.

2014. Thinking Latina/o education with and from Chicana/Latina feminist cultural studies: Emerging pathways, decolonial possibilities. In A. Darder & R.D. Torres (Eds.), Latinos and education: A critical reader. New York, NY: Routledge. Originally published in Zeus Leonardo (Ed.), Handbook of Cultural Politics in Education. Sense Publishers (2010).

2013. The legacy of Derrick Bell and Latino/a education: A critical race testimonio. Urrieta Jr., Luis and Sofia Villenas. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 16(4), 514-535.

2013. Race talk and school equity in local print media: The discursive flexibility of whiteness and the promise of race conscious talk. Villenas, Sofia and Sophia L. Angeles. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34(4), 510-530.

2012. Pedagogies from nepantla: Testimonio, Chicana/Latina feminisms and teacher education classrooms. Prieto, Linda and Sofia Villenas. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(3), 411-429.

2011. Critical ethnographies of education in the Latino/a diaspora. Villenas, Sofia and Douglas E. Foley. In R. Valencia (Ed.), Chicano school failure and success:  Past, present and future, 3rd edition.  New York and London:  Routledge and Falmer.

2007. Diaspora and the anthropology of Latino education: Challenges, affinities, and intersections. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 38(4), pp. 419-425. Reprinted in Roland Sintos Coloma (Ed.) Postcolonial challenges in education. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishers, 2009.

2006. Latina feminist postcolonialities:  Perspectives on Un/tracking educational actors’ interventions.  International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(5), pp. 659-672.

2006. Pedagogical moments in the borderlands:  Latina mothers and daughters teaching and learning.  In D. Delgado Bernal, C.A. Elenes, F. Godinez and S. Villenas (eds.), Chicana/Latina education in everyday life:  Feminista perspectives on pedagogy and epistemology (pp. 147-159).  Albany:  State University of New York Press.

2005. Between the telling and the told:  Latina mothers negotiating education in new borderlands.  In J. Phillion, M. F. He, and M. Connelly (Eds.), Narrative and experience in multicultural education (pp. 71-91).  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage.

2002. Reinventing educación in new Latino communities: Pedagogies of change and continuity in North Carolina.  In S. Wortham, E., Murillo Jr., and E. Hamann (Eds.), Education in the new Latino Diaspora:  Policy and the politics of identity (pp. 17-35).  Westport, CT:  Ablex Publishing.

2002. This ethnography called my back:  Writings of the exotic gaze, “othering” Latina, and recuperating Xicanisma.  In E. St. Pierre and W. Pillow (Eds.), Working the ruins:  Poststructural feminist theory and methods in education (pp. 74-95).  New York:  Routledge.

2001. To valerse por si misma (be self-reliant) between race, capitalism, and patriarchy:  Latina mother/daughter pedagogies in North Carolina.  Villenas, Sofia and Melissa Moreno. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14(5), pp. 671-687.

2001. Latina mothers and small-town racisms:  Creating narratives of dignity and moral education in North Carolina.  Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 32(1), pp. 3-28.

2000. Other encounters:  Dances with whiteness in multicultural education. Richardson, Troy and Sofia Villenas. Educational Theory, 50 (2), pp. 255-273.

1999. Critical race theory and ethnographies challenging the stereotypes: Latino families, schooling, resilience and resistance.  Villenas, Sofia and Donna Deyhle. Curriculum Inquiry, 29 (4), pp. 413-445. 1996

1996. The colonizer/colonized Chicana ethnographer: Identity, marginalization, and co-optation in the field.  Harvard Educational Review, 66(4), pp. 711-731. Reprinted in 2010, 2000, and 1998 in various edited collections.

Vilma Santiago-Irizarry

Associate Professor

Publications

Academic Articles
2008 Transnationalism and Migration: Locating Sociocultural Practices Among Mexican Immigrants in 
the United States. Reviews in Anthropology 37(1):16-40.
2005 Language Rights. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinas and Latinos in the United States 2:466-472.
2003 Binary Oppositions: Re-Inscribing Ethnoracial Hierarchies in Institutional Settings. Journal for Latin 
American Anthropology 8(2):174-194.
2003 Environmentalism, Identity Politics, and the Nature of 'Nature'. Latino Studies 1(1):47-78.
2002 Transcending Dichotomies: How to do anthropology in real life/Transcendir les dicotomies: com fer 
antropologia a la vida real. Revista d'etnologia de Catalunya 20:64-73.
Books
2001 Medicalizing Ethnicity: The Construction of Latino Identity in a Psychiatric Setting. Ithaca, NY: 
Cornell University Press (CUP).
Chapters
2013 Labels, Genuine and Spurious: Anthropology and the Politics of Otherness in the United States. In 
Anthropology and the Politics of Representation. Gabriela Vargas-Cetina, ed. Pp. 78-97. Tuscaloosa, AL: 
The University of Alabama Press.
2007 Reflexivity and Visual Media: Entanglements as a Productive Field. In Doing Anthropology in 
Consumer Research. Patricia L. Sunderland, Rita Mary Taylor Denny, authors. Pp. 205-209. Walnut 
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
2001 Deceptive Solidity: Public Signs, Civic Inclusion, and Language 'Rights' in New York City (and 
Beyond). In Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York City. Agustín Laó-Montes and Arlene Dávila, 
eds. Pp. 449-473. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Karen Jaime

Associate Professor

Publications

 

The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida (NYU Press, June 2021).

“‘I’m A Stripper Ho’: The Sonics of Cardi B’s Ratchet, Diasporic Feminism.” Performance Matters, “Special Issue: Sound Acts, Part 2: Receiving and Reflecting Vibration.” Guest Editors: Patricia Herrera, Caitlin Marshall, and Marci McMahon, Vol. 8, No. 1 (May 2022): 83-96.

 “Talking about Joy, Legacies, and Afro futurity: An Interview with Lola Flash.” ASAP/J, 8 March 2021, http://asapjournal.com/talking-about-joy-legacies-and-afrofuturity-an-interview-with-lola-flash/.

“‘Chasing Rainbows:’ Black Cracker and Queer, Trans Afrofuturity.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, “Special Issue: The Issue of Blackness.” Guest editors: Treva C. Ellison, Kai M. Green, Matt Richardson, and C. Riley Snorton, Vol. 4, No. 2, (May 2017): 208- 218.

"'Da' Pa' Lo' Do:' Rita Indiana's Queer, Racialized Dominicaness." Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 19, no. 2 (July 2015): 85-93.

"De La Vega: Challenging Spaces and Minds.” Discovering New York Artist De La Vega, Ed. Rachel Goldberg. Miami: BookSurge Publishing, 2008, pgs. 68-75. 

“A Political Statement.” Latinas: Protests and Struggles in the 21st Century USA. Ed. Iris Morales. Red Sugarcane Press.

“Dominicaness Defined,” and “Changing Stations.” Flicker and Spark: A Contemporary Anthology of Queer Spoken Word and Poetry. Eds. Regie Cabico and Brittany Fonte. Lowbrow Press, March 2013: 232-235. 

“Smells Like Home.” The Best of Panic: En Vivo from the East Village.  Ed. Charlie Vázquez. FireKing Press, December 2010: 142-147.

"A Political Statement." Sinister Wisdom: A Multicultural Lesbian Literary and Art Journal, "Out Latina Lesbians," 97, Summer 2015: 117-119. Special Issue Eds. Nivea Castro and Geny Cabral.

 

Sergio I Garcia-Rios

Assistant Professor

Maria Cristina Garcia

Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow

Publications

Books

  • State of Disaster: The Failure of US Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).
  • The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America (Oxford University Press, 2017)
  • Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada (University of California Press, 2006).
  • Havana USA: Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida (University of California Press, 1996).

Edited Books

  • Whose America? US immigration policy since 1986 (with Maddalena Marinari), University of Illinois Press, 2019.
  • A Nation of Immigrants reconsidered: US Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965 (with Maddalena Marinari and Madeline Hsu), University of Illinois Press, 2019.

Books in Progress

  • Origin Stories: Myth and History in the American Immigration Experience (under contract)

Select recent articles, book chapters, and public access articles

Raymond B. Craib

Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History

Publications

Books:

Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age (PM Press/Spectre, 2022). Spanish translation forthcoming with Prometeo Editorial (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and poetry in interwar Chile (Oxford University Press, 2016) Published in translation as:  Santiago Subversivo 1920: Anarquistas, universitarios y la muerte de José Domingo Gómez Rojas. Trans. by Pablo Abufom Silva, LOM Ediciones, Chile, 2017

Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes (Duke University Press, 2004).  Published in translation as: México Cartográfico: Una historia de límites fijos y paisajes fugitivos. Trans. by Rossana Reyes, UNAM/Inst. de Geografía/CISAN, Mexico, 2014

Martirio, memoria, historia:  Sobre los subversivos y la expulsión de Casimiro Barrios, 1920 (Santiago: Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Serie Signos de la Memoria, 2015)

Edited books:

No Gods No Masters No Peripheries: Global Anarchisms [co-edited with Barry Maxwell] (PM Press, 2015). German translation, edition assemblage, forthcoming.

 

Subscribe to Latina/o Studies Program