Latin American Studies

Keep Your Eyes on Guatemala Cover

Keep Your Eyes on Guatemala

"This 54-minute documentary tells the story of Guatemala’s National Police Historical Archive (Archivo Histórico de la Policia Nacional—AHPN) intertwined with narratives of past human rights abuses and the dramatic effects they had on specific individuals and the nation as a whole. In addition, it highlights present-day efforts to preserve collective memories and bring justice and reconciliation to the country."
Author
Gabriela Martínez Escobar
Publication
2013
Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles Book Cover

Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles

“Beset by the forces of European colonialism, US imperialism, and neoliberalism, the people of the Antilles have had good reasons to band together politically and economically, yet not all Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans have heeded the calls for collective action. So what has determined whether Antillean solidarity movements fail or succeed? In this comprehensive new study, Alaí Reyes-Santos argues that the crucial factor has been the extent to which Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans imagine each other as kin."
Author
Alaí Reyes-Santos
Publication
2014
Sad Happiness: Cinthya’s Transborder Journey

Sad Happiness: Cinthya’s Transborder Journey

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"This documentary explores the differential rights that U.S. citizen children and their undocumented parents have through the story of one extended Zapotec family. Shot in Oregon and Oaxaca, Mexico, and narrated by eleven-year old Cinthya, the film follows Cinthya’s trip to her parent’s home community of Teotitlán del Valle with her godmother, anthropologist Lynn Stephen."
Author
Lynn Stephen
Publication
2015
Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima Book Cover

Fractional Freedoms: Slavery, Intimacy, and Legal Mobilization in Colonial Lima

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"Fractional Freedoms explores how thousands of slaves in colonial Peru were able to secure their freedom, keep their families intact, negotiate lower self-purchase prices, and arrange transfers of ownership by filing legal claims. Through extensive archival research, Michelle McKinley excavates the experiences of enslaved women whose historical footprint is barely visible in the official record. She complicates the way we think about life under slavery and demonstrates the degree to which slaves were able to exercise their own agency, despite being caught up in the Atlantic slave trade."
Author
Michelle McKinley
Publication
2016
Care Across Generations: Solidarity and Sacrifice in Transnational Families Book Cover

Care Across Generations: Solidarity and Sacrifice in Transnational Families

"Global inequalities make it difficult for parents in developing nations to provide for their children. Some determine that migration in search of higher wages is their only hope. Many studies have looked at how migration transforms the child–parent relationship. But what happens to other generational relationships when mothers migrate? Care Across Generations takes a close look at grandmother care in Nicaraguan transnational families, examining both the structural and gendered inequalities that motivate migration and caregiving as well as the cultural values that sustain intergenerational care."
Author
Kristin Yarris
Publication
2017
When We Love Someone We Sing to Them Book Cover

Cuando Amamos Cantamos; When We Love Someone We Sing to Them

"This children’s book tells the story of a Mexican-American boy who learns from his parents about serenatas and why demonstrating romantic affection proudly, publicly, and through song is such a treasured Mexican tradition. One day, the boy asks his parents if there is a song for a boy who loves a boy. The parents, surprised by the question and unsure of how to answer, must decide how to honor their son and how to reimagine a beloved tradition."
Author
Ernesto Martínez
Publication
2018
La Serenata Cover

La Serenata

This project was funded in part by a CSWS grant.
"A Mexican-American boy learns from his parents about  serenatas, and why demonstrating romantic affection proudly, publicly, and through song is such a treasured Mexican tradition. One day, the boy asks his parents if there is a song for a boy who loves a boy. The parents, surprised by the question and unsure of how to answer, must decide how to honor their son and how to reimagine a beloved tradition."
Author
Ernesto Javier Martínez
Publication
2019
Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic Book Cover

Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic

"This book is an exploration of the ways that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer persons exercise power in a Catholic Hispanic heteropatriarchal nation-state, namely the Dominican Republic. Lara presents the specific strategies employed by LGBTQ community leaders in the Dominican Republic in their struggle for subjectivity, recognition, and rights. Drawing on ethnographic encounters, film and video, and interviews, LGBTQ community leaders teach readers about streetwalking, confrontación, flipping the script, cuentos, and the use of strategic universalisms in the exercise of power and agency."
Author
Ana-Maurine Lara
Publication
2020
Stories That Make History: Mexico through Elena Poniatowska’s Crónicas Book Cover

Stories That Make History: Mexico through Elena Poniatowska’s Crónicas

"From covering the massacre of students at Tlatelolco in 1968 and the 1985 earthquake to the Zapatista rebellion in 1994 and the disappearance of forty-three students in 2014, Elena Poniatowska has been one of the most important chroniclers of Mexican social, cultural, and political life. In Stories That Make History, Lynn Stephen examines Poniatowska’s writing, activism, and political participation, using them as a lens through which to understand critical moments in contemporary Mexican history."
Author
Lynn Stephen
Publication
2021