At a Glance
I鈥檓 interested in this field of study. Can you tell me more about it?
Latin American and Caribbean studies is an interdisciplinary major that draws on the exceptional offerings of The Claremont Colleges, especially at Scripps and Pomona College where the major shares a senior seminar.
At Scripps, Professors Chancy, Bacsan, Alcenat, and Forster offer courses addressing the Caribbean, Arteaga and Morales are specialists in the Andean region, and 础濒肠补濒谩, Gonz谩lez, P茅rez de Mendiola, Sanju谩n-Pastor, and Vega teach in languages, culture, and the arts. The range of introductory courses at Scripps are offered by Vega (pre-independence era in Mesoamerica) and Forster (post-1800 period).
The expertise of our faculty has expanded from its traditional focus on Mexico to include South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Caribbean literature courses may also be found at Pitzer and CMC, and environmental and media studies courses that focus on Latin America are taught at Pitzer. Pomona offers a number of relevant art history courses as well as courses accepted for the introductory sequence.
What are some courses appropriate for first-year students interested in exploring this field of study?
Any course that interests or engages you is appropriate! Some courses are numbered below 100 explicitly to interest first-year students, such as Gender and Testimony in Latin American and the Caribbean, numbered HIST 48.
If I decide to major or minor in this field, are there certain courses that need to be taken in a specific sequence?
No sequence is required. No mastery of a language other than English is required, making the major attractive to those fascinated by the region but without the degree of fluency required in language-based majors.
Can students who major or minor in this field complete a second major or minor (as a double major or a major/minor combination)? If so, what are some common pairings?
This is common practice! The paired majors range from the sciences to the social sciences to the humanities. If you’re interested in the Caribbean, you may consider pairings with Africana studies majors or history majors. If you’re curious about other countries where Spanish is spoken, a common major pairing is Chicanx Latinx studies.
What other useful information should I know about this field of study?
You will need one Scripps reader for your thesis. The chair keeps track of students in the major and the minor, but may or may not be involved in the student鈥檚 chosen course of study. Many students in the major are native speakers of languages other than English. About half of the majors choose to study abroad.
Graduates of the major are teaching at the university level, engaged in the arts, finishing doctorates at Yale and UCLA, finishing law school, entering masters programs in administration in higher education and in social work, and preparing to apply to graduate school in history. A 2010 Latin American and Caribbean studies major was even elected by the students to give their 2024 commencement speech at graduation!