LLAS 205 Latino/a Politics

The purpose of this course is to examine the causes of the political transformation of contemporary Latino communities in the United States, and to assess how these communities seek political empowerment, as activists and as voter-citizens. The analysis will focus on understanding the institutional contexts of Latino life, such as the economy, the state, and the cultural system, on the one hand, and the voting behavior and electoral integration of Latinos on the other hand. This approach concentrates on the identification and examination of the relationships between the following elements: (1) the various waves of Latino/a immigration to the United States; (2) state policies and social responses to Latinos' presence in the United States; (3) the formation of a pan-ethnic identity and the tension between this identity and other in-group stratifications, based on race, class, gender, national origin, and generation; and (4) the mobilization of Latinos as a voting bloc in congressional and presidential elections.