Gateway to the Americas: The Roots & Routes of Latinx New Orleans

Catalog description

For much of the twentieth century an enormous, iron sign spanned Canal Street celebrating New Orleans as the “Gateway to the Americas.” In recent years politicians have labored to swing this gate shut, imploring America to build a wall instead. Yet this open gate has made New Orleans the unique culture it is today. This TIDE approaches current immigration debates from a local perspective, examining New Orleans and Tulane University as vibrant sites of intercultural intellectual, economic and social collaboration and exchange with Latin America and more specifically, Central America. Readings and activities will complicate the rhetoric of “invasion”—which reduces immigration to one-way street—by acknowledging the multidirectional movement of people, goods, ideas and cultures to and from New Orleans and Tulane across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Toward this, we will examing policy, literature, art, film and food as they are affected by and effect the formation of culture and identity. You, as a student, are part of this and we will engage your American origins as well, toward developing an empathetic understanding of the immigrant experience and the responsibilities of citizenship. Finally, we will explore how students can be more involved in struggles for social justice and human rights at Tulane and beyond: A) Discussing the skills and experience needed for careers in advocacy, activism, social work, education, immigration law, public health and other professions related to the Latinx community that your education here can provide; and B) Examining opportunities for volunteer work, service learning and internships with organizations that serve New Orleans’ Latinx and immigrant communities while you are here. Toward these objectives, we will engages many voices across the New Orleans and Tulane communities, inviting activists, artists, and professionals into the classroom and venturing out of the classroom to experience people, places and life in New Orleans beyond our campus.