Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS)

The Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS) of the University of Massachusetts Amherst promotes research, training, and public engagement on the histories, cultures, and politics of Latin American and Caribbean peoples across the Americas and throughout the world. Bridging the divide that historically has separated Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies as institutionalized knowledge formations with distinctive intellectual genealogies, political trajectories, and bureaucratic moorings at U.S. universities is central to our mission. The Center seeks to be a hemispheric, crossborder space for critical reflection, exchange, and intellectual production. We aim to engage in genuinely inter-disciplinary work, fostering the creative convergence of discipline-based knowledges. CLACLS is committed to sustaining links with Latin American and Caribbean communities in the U.S. and across the Americas, as well as to bringing the alternative knowledge produced in those communities to bear on our teaching and research.

The faculty affiliated with CLACLS continue to contribute to the academic work involved in the Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies certificate and minor programs, which are now managed by the Spanish and Portuguese major. CLACLS remains committed to supporting interdisciplinary academic initiatives that enhance the learning experience for students in these fields.