Dear Friends of Latino Stud­ies @ Princeton:

It is my plea­sure to wel­come new and return­ing stu­dents, fac­ulty, and alumni to par­tic­i­pate in the Latino Stud­ies Blog! As our pro­gram matures, this venue will help record the numer­ous events and accom­plish­ments that give our com­mu­nity a pres­ence at Prince­ton University.

I have so much good news to report. Three new assis­tant pro­fes­sors joined the LAO com­mu­nity effec­tive July 1 and will greatly enrich the course offer­ings that sat­isfy the require­ments for the Latino Stud­ies Cer­tifi­cate: Jes­sica Del­gado in the reli­gion depart­ment; Brian Her­rera in the the­ater pro­gram; and Ali Valen­zuela in pol­i­tics. In addi­tion, Rosina Lozano will join the his­tory depart­ment in fall of 2013! Jes­sica Del­gado, who was trained at UC-Berkeley, has been affil­i­ated with the reli­gion depart­ment since 2009 as a Stew­art Fel­low and lec­turer.  This semes­ter she will be teach­ing REL 378/GSS 378/LAS 379 Reli­gion, Gen­der, and Sex­u­al­ity in Early Latin Amer­ica; REL 505/LAS 505 Stud­ies in the Reli­gions of the Amer­i­cas — Reli­gion and Church in Mex­i­can His­tory; and REL 521 Reli­gion and Cul­ture Work­shop.  Trained at Yale, Brian Her­rera taught per­for­mance his­tory at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico before join­ing the Prince­ton fac­ulty. Pro­fes­sor Her­rera will offer THR 330 Spe­cial Top­ics in Per­for­mance Prac­tice – Cast­ing: His­tory, The­ory, Prac­tices in fall 2012. Ali Valen­zuela has been in res­i­dence at Prince­ton since fall 2011 as a research fel­low in the Cen­ter for the Study of Demo­c­ra­tic Pol­i­tics. In fall 2012, Pro­fes­sor Valen­zuela will offer POL 423/LAS 423/LAO 423 Sem­i­nar in Amer­i­can Pol­i­tics: Latino Pol­i­tics in the U.S. and POL 547 Iden­tity Pol­i­tics. We look for­ward to Lozano’s arrival next fall.

LAO exists, in part, because of the accom­plish­ments of its alumni and seeks to forge stronger ties with the Asso­ci­a­tion of Latino Prince­ton Alumni (ALPA). With the assis­tance of Jes­sica Gam­boa ’10, we seek to estab­lish ties with cer­tifi­cate recip­i­ents as well as ALPA mem­bers to plan activ­i­ties that will invig­o­rate the intel­lec­tual con­tent of the pro­gram offer­ings. For exam­ple, we will plan a ses­sion for reunions and wel­come your sug­ges­tions. Jes­sica will reach out to recent con­cen­tra­tors to solicit their sug­ges­tions but please use the BLOG venue to keep in touch.

We face sev­eral chal­lenges, includ­ing fund-raising to sup­port stu­dent activ­i­ties and aca­d­e­mic events on cam­pus. To date, LAO has largely assumed a “co-sponsorship” role, but with the vibrant fac­ulty addi­tions, LAO is now well posi­tioned to take the lead on new aca­d­e­mic ini­tia­tives. We wel­come your ideas.

The Pro­gram in Latino Stud­ies also wel­comes sub­mis­sions from stu­dents, alumni, fac­ulty, and mem­bers of the Prince­ton com­mu­nity.  If you are inter­ested in sub­mit­ting an arti­cle for pos­si­ble post­ing on the LAO blog, please send your sub­mis­sions to for review.

Finally, on behalf of the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee, I wel­come your ideas about ways to revamp the gate­way course so that it becomes a draw for stu­dents from across campus.

We look for­ward to hear­ing from you.

Marta Tienda