FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Partners in the University of Arkansas’ Latin American studies program have three new reasons to celebrate the program’s 25^th year - new professors in foreign languages, history and anthropology whose research and teaching focuses on issues south of the U.S. border.

The University’s strength in this area has become particularly important in Northwest Arkansas, where Hispanic immigration has soared in the past several years and international business has become a way of life.

"From the Rio Grande to Patagonia, there are all those Spanish speaking nations," said James Horton, director of the Latin American Studies program. "Some are our most immediate neighbors." With the North American Free Trade Agreement, business with Mexico has increased, and the two cultures have more and more need to understand each other, Horton said.

"Our program offers marvelous opportunities for cross-cultural understanding," Horton said. "We are confident the new faculty will make valuable contributions to the program."

Steve Striffler, assistant professor of anthropology, has studied labor issues in Ecuador, focusing on United States multinational companies. He also plans to study Latino migration in the U.S. South.

Jason Summers, assistant professor of foreign languages, studies prison and exile literature.

"Latin American literature is a history of exile," Summers said, citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa as world-renowned authors forced to flee their homelands for political reasons.

In many countries where dictators ruled, including Chile, Uruguay, Cuba and Argentina, "writers either went into exile or didn’t write about things that are problematic," Summers said.

Bryan McCann, assistant professor of history, also studies culture under dictatorship, but he focuses on radio as a medium. His specialty is in Brazilian radio in the 1930s, 40s and 50s under the dictator Vargas.

"Radio was really the first medium to help people receive information from the capital," McCann said, since the high illiteracy rate meant most people could not read newspapers. Radio helped to nationalize a country divided by jungles and large rivers that acted as physical barriers to travel.

These new faculty members will create new courses that will increase and enrich the Latin American Studies curriculum. The program will be able to offer a greater number of annual courses that deal with Latin America, Horton said.

To celebrate the quarter-century old program and the new faculty members, the Latin American Studies program has planned a series of events being held this week. They are co-sponsored by the Fulbright Institute for International Relations, the Departments of Political Science, Foreign Languages, History, Anthropology, Geosciences, all in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and the department of Economics in the Walton College of Business Administration and the Sigma Delta Pi Spanish Honor Society. The events include:

"Central Station," a Brazilian film, at 5 p.m. Sept. 29 in Mullins Library, room 104.

"The United States in Panama During the 20^th Century," a lecture given by University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Margaret Scranton, at 7 p.m. Sept. 30, Giffels Auditorium, Old Main.

"U.S. Confederates in Brazil," a brown-bag presentation by master’s degree candidate Carol Johnson, at noon Oct. 1 in the southwest room of the Union Food Court.