Travel: Race& Ethnicity in L.A

Catalog description

TRAVEL COMPONENT OF SPAN-350: This course explores discourses surrounding race and ethnicity in Latin America from the colonial period to modern day. Students will unpack ideologies that center national identity and language as a means to obscure deeply embedded racial hierarchies. The course will analyze how a variety of countries have developed and deployed their own unique set of social tools to shape how race intersects with ethnicity, indigeneity, hybridity, and purity at different historical junctures. Particular attention will be paid to the tension between celebrating mixed racial heritage-an important political project at specific historical moments-and Eurocentric values that favor whiteness and "purity." This course has a two-week travel component to a Latin American country where students embark in a comparative analysis of the topics studied in the semester with an on-site experiential learning. This course fulfills the Global perspectives Core 21 requirement. Although students with no Spanish language skills can apply, preference will be given to Spanish majors and minors.