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Latin American students finding a home at UArizona

Small but mighty Department of Latin American Studies boasts several opportunities
UA's Department of Latin American Studies is a small department with deep connections to its students.
Posted at 9:32 PM, Oct 02, 2022
and last updated 2022-10-03 00:32:45-04

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Sara Paim is a graduate student from Brazil now at the University of Arizona’s Department of Latin American Studies, which she first found through an online class.

“I fell in love for the department,” she said. “Because I felt that… the construction about the discourse about Latin America is very rich.”

She says that discourse goes beyond the traditional, colonialist view of the region’s history.

The small department has just a few dozen students between undergrads and graduate school. But it has several avenues for them.

Kristal Ambar Natera Tufic came to the U.S. from Venezuela.

She learned English, then transferred to UArizona. She ended up earning an undergraduate and graduate degree from the Department of Latin American Studies.

“You can take classes from like, political science, or anthropology, or language classes, or history as well,” she said. “So I really like how diverse it was.”

For her, the department offers more than just a deep education.

“Here in Tucson, I kind of slowly started building my own community,” she explained. “And since I moved here, I’ve always felt very like comfortable and it feels like home now, in a way. Especially the [department]. I always tell them they’re like my second family.

“I found really good mentors and it feels like a community. Which I love. And it should be like that.”

That community has been growing under department director Marcela Vásquez-León.

Under her leadership, the department has earned grants to hire more staff and fund projects in and student trips to Latin America.

It's also fostered a leadership institute with students from abroad.

For Vásquez-León, the university’s proximity to the border and strong faculty make it an ideal environment for students to analyze U.S.-Latin American relations, issues like immigration, and questions surrounding politics and social movements.

But she says the family-like connection between students and staff comes from the families these students grew up with.

“A lot of students who are interested in our program because their parents come from Latin America,” said Vásquez-León. “And they want to understand ‘Why my parents migrated here?’”

Whether they come from other countries or simply a Latin lineage, many students end up using that background as a reason to join the department.

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