Home | El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies

We, members of the core faculty and affiliate advisory board members of UConn’s El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, & Latin American Studies, write to express our commitment to advocating for the rights and freedoms of our students and co-workers at the university and fostering a welcoming intellectual community of critically engaged scholars. President Trump’s administration has exacerbated a wide range of discriminatory, nativist, racist, misogynist, and heterosexist actions and targeted Latinx populations and undocumented immigrants in particular. Our research and teaching emerges from and is sustained by a long history of struggles for social justice in Latinx, Caribbean & Latin American communities. As such, we reaffirm our commitment to fight discrimination and division and to support diversity, equity, social justice and human rights. We stand in solidarity with all our UConn colleagues and students who are feeling vulnerable at this time and pledge to actively work to protect their rights and freedoms.

The History of the Largest Foreign-Born Population in the State
Dr. Fiona Vernal’s research on Connecticut’s West Indian immigration history has been featured on the Uconn Today page. Dr. Vernal’s research discusses– “Guest workers arrived in America through bilateral labor agreements between British West Indian colonies and the United States, says Vernal, whose family origins are in Jamaica. They were men who replaced the thousands of […]
Posted on November 16, 2018

Dr. Maria Martinez, Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success
Dr. Maria Martinez, Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success, will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Connecticut Association of Latinos in Higher Education (CALAHE) on Friday, November 16, at the Association’s annual meeting at Goodwin College. This is CALAHE’s highest honor, recognizing those individuals who have made significant contributions to the educational and […]
Posted on November 5, 2018