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.

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