University Libraries Presents Latino Americans: 500 Years of History

University Relations

Juan José Bustamante, assistant professor of Sociology and Latin American and Latino Studies, will discuss The New Latinos tomorrow at Fayetteville Public Library.

On Thursday, Sept. 10, at 6 p.m., please join the University of Arkansas in partnership with Fayetteville Public Library, to view The New Latinos, episode 4 of Latino Americans. Refreshments from Ayala Family Bakery in Springdale will begin at 5:30 p.m. Juan José Bustamante, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American and Latino studies, will discuss the episode after the screening. The entire event takes place in the Walker Community Room at Fayetteville Public Library. It is free and open to the public.

Bustamante leads the research program The Southern Latina/o and Migrant Voices Project, which conducts fieldwork and gathers interviews and visual materials to document and study significant life events of Latina/os as social actors new to Southern communities.  This archive fills a gap in Southern scholarship related to Latinos, and gives Latinos the opportunity to vocalize their life experiences and challenges to new audiences. Dr. Bustamante is also the author of Transnational Struggles: Public Policy, Gender, and Family Life on the Texas-Mexico Border (LFB Scholarly Publishers, 2013). 

Latino Americans is the first major documentary series for television to chronicle the history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape North America over the last 500-plus years. The New Latinos, episode 4 in the series, traces families who left their homes in Latin American countries (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic) to move to North America. Receiving segregated educations, often struggling to find jobs and fighting prejudices, many Latino Americans went on to find successful careers in acting, writing, and politics. 

This event helps kick off a month of programming in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, as well as a year-long series of programming related to Latino Americans: 500 Years of History.

Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, a public programming initiative produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), is part of the NEH initiative, The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square.

University Libraries received an NEH and ALA grant earlier this year, in coordination with the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, and the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, to bring this programming to the Northwest Arkansas community.

For more information about this event, please visit Fayetteville Public Library's calendar entry, or call 479-856-7000. For more information about how your organization can get involved with Latino Americans: 500 Years of History please contact the University of Arkansas Libraries at 479-575-6702.