Rutgers University’s Center for Latin American Studies is a clearinghouse and center of coordination for research, pedagogy, and extra-curricular events pertaining to Latin America and its worldwide diasporas. CLAS offers a major and minor in Latin American Studies, providing students with a strong grounding in Latin American history, culture, economics, politics and languages. The mission of the Center for Latin American Studies is to foster learning and research across disciplines and geographic boundaries, and to bring the richness of the scholarship on Latin American culture, history, art, language and literature to the larger Rutgers community. Academic courses together with concerts, visiting writers, film series, conferences and lectures highlight topics in migration, health, environmental issues, human rights and democracy, cultural performance, literary innovation, linguistic and political change in Latin American and greater hemispheric contexts. The Center moves beyond traditional regionalisms towards a more thorough understanding of culture and society throughout the Americas.

CLAS builds linkages across the disciplines, campuses and schools of Rutgers University. Affiliated faculty have backgrounds in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, and come from a range of departments including Anthropology, Geography, Spanish and Portuguese, Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, Africana Studies, History, Political Science, Economics, Music and Sociology, among others. We recognize that the study of Latin America includes all disciplinary and subdisciplinary areas, including the sciences. CLAS affiliates study topics in transnational migration, health, nutrition and environment, and the politics of global security, through working groups sponsored by the Center. CLAS and Rutgers University hold a membership in the Hemispheric Institute for the Study of Performance and Politics, reflecting the research interests of many CLAS faculty. We share aspects of our mission with the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, with which we coordinate events, teaching and other goals.

In addition, CLAS is an active participant in the Latin American communities of New Brunswick and greater New Jersey, reaching out to collaborate with community organizations and institutions to promote broader understanding of Latin American issues in our own neighborhoods. Our students participate in internships, service-learning programs, and other local initiatives to bridge the academic/community divide.

CLAS faculty and students are active supporters of and participants in study abroad and international service-learning programs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. We value and encourage international education and international experiences for all our students, recognizing that in this transnational world, our job as educators is to prepare our students to be knowledgeable and ethical global citizens.