Courses Related to Diversity and Racial Justice - Fall 2021

AFROAM 597M – Third World Marxism

Wednesdays 6:00-8:30 p.m., NAH 309

This seminar has two goals first, to introduce students to the views of Karl Marx on non-European societies, and second to explore how Marx's general theories have been adopted and modified to address the circumstances of nonwhite peoples. The primary focus will be on writings produced in the western hemisphere by African Americans such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Cedric Robinson, Angela Davis and Harold Cruse; West Indians such as C.L.R. James, Sylvia Wynter, and Walter Rodney. We also will include writings by influential Latin American marxists such as Jose Carlos Mariategui. For the sake of comparison, some attention will be given to the development of marxist traditions in China and in Africa. This will be a reading seminar with heavy emphasis on class participation, including the leading of at least one class discussion.
3 credits (undergraduate/graduate)

AFROAM 597P – Black Presence at UMass Amherst

TuTh 4:00-5:15 p.m., NAH 302

This course will provide an opportunity for students to assist in researching and selecting materials for a Black Presence at UMass website and for a short history, with photos, of the presence of Black folk at UMass since its founding in 1867. The goal for the website is to be as comprehensive as possible in identifying students, staff, administrators, faculty that made up the UMass Afro-descended community. We also will be preparing lists of key individuals and events to be included in the short history. Where feasible we will be doing short (5-10 minute) videos for the website throughout the semester and during Homecoming weekend. The large portion of the work will take place using the resources of the Du Bois Library. There will be visits to community sites in Amherst, Springfield, and other relevant towns and cities. The efforts of all students involved will receive appropriate acknowledgement on the website and in the book. The class also will serve as informal advisors on academic and artistic programming for the Malcolm X Center for the 2020-21 school year. These are projects of great and lasting significance. Student input is vital.
3 credits (undergraduate/graduate)

AFROAM 667 – African American Presence in American Literature

Tuesdays 1:00-3:30 p.m., NAH 309

An intensive survey of the portrayals of Afro-Americans in American literature, examining how characters, themes, and ideas are portrayed when filtered through the race, gender, class, politics, historical time frame, and individual artistic aesthetic of a variety of writers.
4 credits

AFROAM 691F – Black Politics and the American Political System

Tuesdays 4:00-6:30 p.m., NAH 309

An historical examination of the black political struggle for equality and citizenship in America—the obstacles placed in the path of that struggle by the American political system in general and by the American state in particular—and the countless ways in which racial politics have shaped the system that is called American Democracy.
4 credits

AFROAM 692J – African American Literary Movements

Thursdays 2:30-5:00 p.m., NAH 309

The New Negro Harlem Renaissance writers (1920s), the Chicago Writers (1930s and 1940s), the Black Arts and Aesthetics Movement writers (1960s and 1970s), and Black Womanist/Gender issues writers (1980s) mark four distinct periods of heightened literary production among African American writers. Participants in this course will investigate formative themes and concepts (protest/social literature, Pan-Africanism, uplift, Black aesthetic, among others) that have shaped these movements and will examine the cross-talk—shared concepts, ideas, and ideals—that gives these movements as well as twentieth-century African American literature certain recognizable features that have been shaped and reshaped over time.
4 credits

ART 795 – Graduate Art Seminar

Theory and Practice Based Seminar exploring contemporary theory that intersects social, economic, philosphical issues with an emphasis on studying non-Western writers. Artists of color across the globe will also be explored.

ENGLISH 115H – American Experience Honors

TuTh 10:00-11:15am

Using the thematic of immigration to and migration within the United States, this course will explore "American experiences" from the early 20th century to the present. Course materials will include literature, films, visual art, and other media forms, with an eye to how each text gives representational shape to the experiences they depict. We will concentrate especially on how they negotiate issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. This course satisfies the DU and AL General Education Requirements.

ENGLISH 204 – Intro to Asian American literature

TuTh 11:15am-12:45pm

This course will introduce students to literature and film by, for, and about Asian Americans. Students will learn a reading practice that consists of contextualizing the texts in their historical production as well as close-reading and critical thinking. Through reading, writing, discussions, and a final group video project, students will explore how Asian American literature shapes the construction of heterogeneous, diasporic, and transnational subjectivities that challenges the very notion of “Asian American” as a uniform identity and object of knowledge.

ENGLISH 269 – American Literature and Culture after 1865

TuTh 10:00-11:15am

Figures of Contestation in American Literature and Film. In this class, we will address literary and theoretical works that tackle America’s changing cultural landscape from 1865 to 1930. In mainstream entertainment culture, fiction constituted the one of the nation’s most popular forms of artistic and political expression, creating spaces for dissent and hagiography alike. From images of workers in industrial squalor, poverty and prostitution in urban city streets to utopian depictions of feminist communities and rallying orations at national conventions, this course will introduce turn-of-the-century figures of contestation taken from the Civil War, Gilded Age, Women’s Rights and the Harlem Renaissance eras. Canonical and lesser-known readings include Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Sport of the Gods, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and the 1915 propaganda film Birth of a Nation. Alongside core readings and film viewings, students will have an opportunity to experience the textual formats and iconography that undergirded past reading cultures using digitized historical newspapers and image archives. Assignments include discussion, a class presentation and short critical responses.

ENGLISH 300 – Junior Year Writing, Section 2

TuTh 1:00-2:15pm

Topic: Race and Rhetoric. How do texts shape our understandings of race? Critical race scholars have argued that writing conventions may obscure race, hinder our ability to write against racism, and even foster racial injury. Such scholars, as a result, challenge us to play with writing in order to make race and racism visible and to imagine racial accountability. In this course, we begin with an introduction to critical race theory, and the semester unfolds in three parts, where we apply basic tenets to several forms of writing about race:

• comparative literary analyses of two novels
• analyses and writing of personal essays and creative nonfiction
• rhetorical analyses of and responses to news and social media.

Readings will include Chang Rae Lee's Native Speaker, R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's, Eula Biss' No Man's Land, and select essays on critical race theory and rhetorical analyses of racial representations. We have two goals here. One, we’re working to understand how literary and rhetorical forms impact our understandings of race and racism. Two, as a junior-year writing seminar meant to support your writing within the English major, this course asks you to analyze and write about text types that are foundational to English studies: literary, personal, and rhetorical. My hope is that this course will help you advance your understanding of why analytical and imaginative writing in English studies matters in this world.

ENGLISH 300 – Junior Year Writing, Section 3

MW 2:30-3:45pm

Topic: Writing Human Rights. Although the Declaration of Human Rights was ratified post-World War II, the US public has seen a recent resurgence in the circulation of human rights stories ranging from Malala Yousafzi’s plight for girls’ education in parts of Pakistan, to images of migrants along the US-Mexico Border and in southern Europe, and even consumer program that gives money to human rights organization for purchasing products. This circulation has sparked conversation about and activism against human rights abuses in the general US public. This course seeks to read stories of human rights abuses (found in social media, documentary films, novels, short-stories, non-fiction) through the lens of writing criticism and rhetoric (i.e. considering the arguments that each story makes and why they make them) and against the legal documents that define and guide our understanding of human rights. Some questions that will steer us include:

• What and who defines a human rights abuses or crises?
• Why do some crises/abuses capture the imagination of the public and others fall flat?

ENGLISH 300 – Junior Year Writing, section 5

TuTh 11:30am-12:45pm

Topic: Literatures of Conflict. In times of “conflict” we all have a vested interest in exploring this complex term: How do we define conflict and, more importantly, how do we perceive the outcome of conflict? Where do we locate ourselves in moments of conflict? Do we have control over our individual and collective identities? What role can language play in the formation of identity as expressed in literature and art? These are a few of the many questions that we will be asking throughout the semester. Our selection of texts is global in scope, and includes novels from Iraq, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the United States (in relation to Algerian migration).

ENGLISH 315 – Speculative Fiction

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

Science Fiction. This class will introduce students to the concept of literary genre via readings in the area of science fiction and speculative fiction. Although our focus is on speculative genres, students with an interest in literary theory more broadly will also find the course useful as a focused introduction to critical methodologies. Students will learn how to use genre to conduct analyses of literary texts, as well as to think about the way historical context influences literary work. Some questions we will ask will concern when and how the speculative fiction genre began to take shape, and what some of its signature early works are. We will ask how we identify genres, and we use genre to think about history and historical change. We will devote a particular focus to how political commitment and forms of resistance take literary form, and we will read texts that seek to represent and reconfigure uprisings of all kinds, from slave rebellions to labor stoppages, to feminist and LGBTQIA struggles. Texts and authors will include: Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, Victor LaValle, Mary Shelley, Amitav Ghosh, Larissa Lai, N.K. Jemisin, Patrick Chamoiseau, Jeff VanderMeer, Mohsin Hamid, and others.

ENGLISH 317 – (Dis)ability and Literature

TuTh 1:00-2:15pm

This course will delve into the thriving field of disability studies as it engages with literary texts and the arts. Reading and viewing from a range of genres, we will explore how texts portray disabilities across the human spectrum. A primary goal will be to investigate how disabled and non-disabled writers alike communicate physical experiences that depart from the idealized human form of Western culture. Paradoxically, an equally important goal will be to become less sure of what disability is, questioning our received notions. We will hope to develop insight into human physical variation, suffering, and our accountability to one another, while fostering the empathy and self-reflection that make for a humane society—as potential caregivers and responsive, informed human beings. This is a service-learning course, where students will partner with adults with cognitive differences to create a project. The service-learning will be integrated into regular class hours.

ENGLISH 362 – Modern Novel: 1945-Present

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

Topic: Contemporary Arab American Fiction This course examines the significance of contemporary Arab American fiction within a transnational American setting. We will begin by positioning Arab American fiction in relation to sociopolitical and cultural preoccupations in the US. We will investigate Arab American literature as a burgeoning literary tradition in its own right, and as a critical lens through which we can better gauge US cultures and politics. The selected novels will allow us to see the ways in which Arab Americans both contribute to and are influenced by the sociocultural and political landscapes of the US. Our selected novels employ a range of literary techniques, including playing with form, interpolating non-English words into the texts, disrupting time, and complicating narrative point of view. We will engage the relationship between aesthetics and politics in these textual interventions, and consider the effect of this relationship on the representations and receptions of Arab Americans. The course will probably include works by Zaina Arafat, Omar El Akkad, Laila Halaby, Mohja Kahf, and Laila Lalami. We will also watch and discuss two films. Critical essays and cultural theory will guide our readings and film viewings.

ENGLISH 371 – African American literature

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

This course will offer students an overview of the important literary works produced by African American authors throughout the twentieth-century. We will examine the ideas, concerns, and preoccupations of African American authors as expressed in various literary pronouncements. ENG 371 will also allow students to assess the values and aesthetics that are not only representative of African American literature of the twentieth-century, but that define the particular genre and historical context from which the literature emerges. Using this critical orientation and throughout this course, students will discuss and write about texts with respect to how these works address challenges to gender, racial, economic, and national identity in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. Furthermore, by focusing on African American literature since 1900, ENG 371 offers students the ability to chart the development of African American authors’ literary sensibilities across the twentieth-century and within multiple genres. Such endeavors will enable students to figure the literature produced by African Americans as indictive of a collective artistic imagination and representative of a process by which African Americans employed the written word in their demand for recognition and personhood. In essays and discussions, students are to consider the development of twentieth- century African American letters within the four specific literary areas we will encounter: Early Twentieth-Century and the Harlem Renaissance, The Realist/Modernist Movement, The Black Arts Era, and Literature Since 1975. In your writing, and discussion, make sure to engage these questions: What claims does African American literature make for itself given its political and aesthetic contexts? How ultimately does literary art function for the disenfranchised?

ENGLISH 386 – Studies in Writing and Culture

TuTh 10:00-11:15am

What is writing? How does writing inform our understandings of race? How might such understandings affect how we engage in discussions about race? This course is, first, an introduction to foundational questions about "writing" and "culture." Scholarship from writing studies and critical race theory will prompt students to define writing as a social act and explore how writing impacts identity formation and social movements. With this conceptual framework, we will then analyze how texts enact race, including but not limited to discourses about race circulating in universities; course readings will be, for the most part, nonfiction texts that are written for academic as well as more public audiences. In short, our purpose is to examine how everyday written texts reinscribe and/or interrupt understandings of racial identity and racial injustice and to write back to contemporary conversations about race. Course requirements will include writing short academic responses to readings, one discourse analysis of race-focused discussions in universities, and one interview-based case study.

ENGLISH 481 – Individual American Authors

TuTh 11:30am-12:45pm

Race, Struggle, and Democracy in 19th-Century US Literature. Americans today are living in an important and exciting time, when the Black Lives Matter movement has brought powerful new pressures to bear on white racism, exposing its systemic and pervasive permeation of American culture. In the spirit of this movement, in this course we turn to the nineteenth century – arguably the period when white racism became firmly established in the US – and we read the literature of the period in relation to that development. How and why did anti-Black racism take hold at that time? What position did white writers like Emerson, Whitman, Stowe, Phelps, Thoreau and Melville take on slavery, abolition, and race? The central figure in this course and our guide in this exploration will be the great Black abolitionist and anti-racist writer Frederick Douglass. We will try to see this period and its literature through his eyes. We will delve into his penetrating analyses of race and American culture. And we will discover that those analyses speak to our time as cogently as they did to his own.

HISTORY 112 – Introduction to World Religions

MW 10:10-11am + discussion

What is religion, and why do people care so much about it? This course will examine the origins and development of some of the world's major religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We will read sacred texts and travel to sites of worship. We will also consider how religion continues to shape current affairs. Students will prepare analytic essays, participate in group discussions, and attend off-campus field trips. The course will demonstrate that understanding religion is critical to participating in a global community and will neither advocate or denigrate religious participation. (Gen. Ed. I, DG)

HISTORY 117 – Science and Society in Modern China

MW 12:20-1:10pm + discussion

Science has meant many things in modern Chinese history. It has been pursued as a force for sovereignty, enlightenment, civilization, modernity, economic development, social transformation, political liberation, state authority, democracy, populism, individual opportunity, international solidarity, global power, and more. This course will explore how science has shaped modern Chinese history and the roles played by scientists in supporting and challenging the state. It will also examine how specific social, cultural, and political contexts have shaped the practice and policy of science in China, and how the specific visions for science that have emerged there have influenced and inspired people within the country and around the world. Throughout the course, we will be attuned to the effects of power relations on the history of science in China, including the Chinese state’s geopolitical maneuverings in the contexts of colonialism and the Cold War, revolutionary challenges to ivory-tower elitism, and scientists’ struggles to find their voices within and against the state. (Gen. Ed. HS, DG)

HISTORY 120 – Colonial Latin America

MW 12:20-1:10pm + discussion

General view of the cultural, economic, and political development of Latin America, 1492 to 1824. Topics include the Iberian and Indian backgrounds; Spanish and Portuguese imperial organization; role of Indians, Blacks, and Europeans in the New World; the coming of independence. (Gen.Ed. HS, DG)

HISTORY 130 – Middle East History I

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

This course will provide an introduction to the history of the Islamic world from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in 570 CE to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258. It will focus on the origins and the tenets of Islam, then turn to an investigation of the cultures and societies that emerged from the interactions of Islam and the Muslim community with existing cultures and political systems. The course will address such issues as the military and political realities of the Islamic empires, economics and trade, the interaction between nomadism and sedentary life, and Middle Eastern models of just rule. It will also examine questions of religious sectarianism, race, philosophy and spirituality. (Gen. Ed. HS, DG)

HISTORY 220 – Capitalism and its Alternatives in Latin America

MW 10:10-11:00am + discussions

Why have poverty and inequality proven so persistent in modern Latin American history? What strategies have people proposed to deal with these problems, and with what consequences? This course surveys the major periods in Latin American and Caribbean economic development, focusing on the last 150 years: the liberal export era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the state-led industrialization efforts of the mid-twentieth century, experimentation with radical alternatives to capitalism in Cuba and elsewhere, the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s and after, and recent attempts to forge alternatives to neoliberalism. We'll look at the views of politicians, intellectuals, and businesspeople, but also at those of workers, women, indigenous people, migrants, and others typically marginalized in public debate. No prior experience with Latin American history or economics is necessary. (Gen. Ed. HS, DG)

HISTORY 247 – Empire, Race, and the Philippines

TuTh 1:00-2:15pm

This course compares the colonial legacies of Spain, Japan, and the United States in the Philippines while examining local reception, resistance, and negotiation of colonialism. (Gen.Ed. HS, DG)

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the US

MW 1:25-2:15pm + discussions

This course explores the history and social meaning of medicine, medical practice, health care, and disease in the United States from 1600 to the present. Using a variety of sources aimed at diverse audiences students will investigate topics such as: the evolution of beliefs about the body; medical and social responses to infectious and chronic disease; the rise of medical science and medical organizations; the development of medical technologies; mental health diagnosis and treatment; changing conceptions of the body; the training, role, and image of medical practitioners and the role of public and government institutions in promoting health practices and disease treatments. We will pay particular attention to the human experience of medicine, with readings on the experience of being ill, the delivery of compassionate care, and the nature of the relationship between practitioners and patients. Course themes will include race, gender, cultural diversity, women and gender, social movements, science, technology, politics, industry, and ethics. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

HISTORY 297WL – Women & the Law: History of Sex and Gender Discrimination

TuTh 1:00-2:15pm

This course examines the legal status of women in the United States, focusing specifically on the 20th and 21st centuries. How has the law used gender, sex, sexuality, and race to legally enforce inequality between women and men (and among women)? We will examine the legal arguments feminists have used to advocate for legal change and how these arguments have changed over time, paying specific attention to debates about whether to make legal arguments based on formal equality, substantive equality, liberty, or privacy. We will also consider the pros and cons of using the law to advocate for social justice. Specific issues that may be covered include the civil and political participation of women (voting, jury service), employment discrimination, intimate relationships, reproduction, contraception and abortion, violence against women, women as criminal defendants, and women as law students, lawyers, and judges.

HISTORY 364 – Gender and Race in US Social Policy

TuTh 11:30am-12:45pm

What are the problems associated with developing equitable and just policy? Why does social policy in the United States continue to be marked by tensions between the principle of equality and the reality of inequalities in social, political, and economic realms? How might policy subvert or reinforce these differences and inequalities? This class examines the history of social policy in the United States, particularly those policies affecting concerns of gender, race, and class. We will examine a wide range of social policies, focusing on those affecting groups such as: women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and low-income people. We will study primarily empirical work, while asking questions about how political culture, interest groups, social movements, government institutions and other factor influence U.S. social policy.

HISTORY 397PRH – Power and Resistance in Latin America (Honors)

MW 2:30-3:45pm

Why have ordinary Latin Americans joined social movements, often at high personal risk? How and when have those movements achieved their goals, and what common obstacles have they faced? What factors have influenced the forms and strategies that movements adopt? This course surveys the history of Latin American and Caribbean social movements from the late nineteenth century to the present day, seeking to identify key patterns and lessons in the process. Some of the case studies will include labor movements in twentieth-century Chile and Cuba, peasant/indigenous movements in Mexico and the Andes, feminist and LGBTQ movements in Brazil and Honduras, mobilization against military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s, the transnational campaigns against U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s, and recent struggles in defense of natural resources and the environment. We will also consider some of the groups who have mobilized in opposition to these movements.

HISTORY 397RL – Rape Law: Gender, Race, (In)Justice

TuTh 10:00-11:15am

The history of the legal response to rape has often resulted in injustice for both the victim/survivor and the alleged perpetrator. This course will examine the evolution of the U.S. legal system's treatment of rape, paying particular attention to the movement against lynching in the post-civil war era, the rise of the feminist anti-rape movement in the 1970s and the student movement against campus sexual assault. Through an analysis of court cases, legislation, and other texts we will consider the role sexual violence has played in maintaining gender and racialized power relationships. We will examine how and why such violence came to be seen as a crime, including who is worthy of the law's "protection" and who is subject to the law's ? punishment." We will explore issues such as: rape as a form of racialized and imperial violence, especially against black and Native American women; the criminal legal treatment of rape and the evolution of the legal concepts of force, resistance, and consent; and the civil responses to rape under the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX. We'll also look at the international law responses to rape as a weapon of war. Finally, we'll think about how the legal responses, or non-responses, to rape have differed over time depending on factors such as the race/ethnicity, income level, immigration status, sexual orientation/gender identity, age, and marital status of the victim/survivor and the perpetrator. Finally, we?ll consider how the legal system can or should respond to rape, particularly in this age of mass criminalization and mass incarceration, and whether restorative justice responses might be preferable. Prior law-related coursework is helpful, but not required.

HISTORY 492MC – A global history of modern ethnic cleansing: testimonies, experiences, memories

W 2:30-5:00pm

This seminar explores the removal of peoples to create homogenous nation states in the modern world. Ethnic cleansing has been all too common, in all types of regimes, from democracies to dictatorships. We shall explore what brought it about, what are the particular modern characteristics of ethnic cleansing, and issues of property, restitution, and legal matters in bringing perpetrators to justice. We shall pay attention to testimonies of victims and perpetrators as well as their experiences.

ARTHIST 391P – Identity Politics and Art: 1960s to Today

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

This course historicizes identity politics in art from the 1960s to today, examining what social identity means and why it has been a contentious topic in contemporary art history. Students will consider the problem of discussing intersectional identities when they are shifting, open-ended, and complex constructions. We will study artists whose work raises personal and political questions about social experience and authenticity in ways that break down stereotypes. The role of performative works, photography, video, and installation will be considered in relation to more traditional artistic media such as drawing and painting. We will study the history of the Black Arts Movement, Feminist Art movements, and key texts from queer studies, feminist, and critical race theory in order to examine their intersections and divergences. The relationship of art to political protest movements, the AIDS crisis, Black Lives Matter and other recent developments will be addressed along with art world controversies such as the Culture Wars (1989–91) and the Whitney Biennials of 1993 and more recent years. The course also incorporates one field trip to a current exhibition that relates to these topics.

LINGUIST 101

MW 1:25-2:15pm, F Section

This course considers language from the viewpoint of nature and of society. A central concern is the question of what distinguishes a dialect from a language. We look at how accents and dialects are important markers of regional and social identity and closely examine the pernicious effects of dialect prejudice.

LINGUIST 413

MMWF 1:25-2:15pm

This course deals with three aspects of language variation and use: (i) Attitudes toward non-standard dialects in the USA; (ii) How people use language to construct their own identity or impose identities on others; and (iii) The social functions of speech, particularly being (im)polite.

THEATER 190SJ – The Voice as Social Justice (New number not designated yet)

MW 12:20-1:35pm

New course!

In times of cultural, political, and social upheaval, performance modalities are often transformed and reinvented. In the wake of the Trump administration and the global COVID pandemic, and in the midst of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, theatre and music as forms of social commentary and protest, and the act of protest itself, have radically evolved. This course explores the various manifestations of the voice––as performance––in protests, activism, and social justice movements in the United States, from the 20th century through current times. Through a creative and critical lens, we will examine political protest songs, theatre as a form of protest and activism, and the language and theatricality of protest chants. We will also study the perspective of voice and speech trainers and vocal coaches who are working at the intersections of activism, vocal health, and the arts, and how their unique skillset contributes to the sustainability and health of activists and protestors. (Gen.Ed. AT)

THEATER 130/130H – Contemporary Playwrights of Color

Section 1: TuTh 10:10-11:15am
Section 2: TuTh 11:30am-12:45pm
Honors: MW 4:00am-5:15pm

Theater movements of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, and the body of literature by contemporary playwrights of color within a historical context. (Gen.Ed. AL, DU)

THEATER 336 – Multicultural Theater and the Latin/x Experience

MW 2:30-3:45pm

This course will examine the landscape of American theater and its relationship to the politics of diversity in the U.S. We will study the theater work of Latinos/as in the U.S. to broaden our understanding of multicultural theater. In addition to studying the dramatic texts, we will also consider the political implications of the work and its relationship to social activism. We will also look at theater companies whose primary missions are to produce Latino/a theater and the history of the representation of Latinos on stage in this country.