“It’s ridiculous. It’s 2015. Pretty much every other college in the United States has a Latinx Studies program; at this point, it’s almost like Harvard is deliberately trying to not have one.”
As I sit at the Dunster House dining hall table over dinner, Itzel Vasquez-Rodriguez ‘17 explains her dissatisfaction with the lack of a Latinx Studies program at Harvard. Vasquez-Rodriguez looks small in her chair, and her voice is calm and soothing, but her argument is part of a much larger movement here on campus. As a native of California and the daughter of two Mexican-American parents who are both heavily involved with Chicanx Studies at UCLA, Vasquez-Rodriguez plans on concentrating in Sociology at Harvard, although she longs to study her true passion: Latinx Studies.
“When I applied to Harvard, the College gave me the option to list three or so intended fields of study. I, of course, put down Latinx Studies because I assumed Harvard would have it.”
Latinx Studies, with the “x” in place of the traditional “o” or “a” to convey inclusivity for all genders, can very broadly be characterized as an academic discipline concerning the experiences of people of Hispanic ancestry in the United States. The field emerged in California in the 1960s as the product of student activism on college campuses. Although it initially focused on historical analysis of Hispanic experiences, Latinx Studies have since expanded to include the many aspects of ethnic studies, such as critical race theory, the construction of a national identity, racial identity formation, and ethnicity’s affects on studies of gender.
According to a 2013 Latinx Studies proposal directed at Harvard’s administration, Harvard is the only Ivy League school without a Latinx Studies program. Many other institutions of higher education outside the Ivy League have Latinx programs as well. Several schools even go beyond Latinx Studies programs, creating numerous subfields of specialization, such as Chicanx Studies and Intersectional Studies. Despite the prevalence of Latinx programs in colleges across the nation, though, Harvard continues to discourage their creation.
Worthwhile Knowledge Production
At the simplest level, Latinx Studies matter because of the changing demographics of the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2012 there were 53,027,708 Latinxs living in the United States, a 592 percent increase in population size since 1970. In contrast, the overall U.S. population has grown by 56 percent over the same period. Data from the 2014 U.S. Census indicates that by 2060, there will be almost 120 million Latinxs in the United States. The massive increase in size of the Latinx population suggests that there might be value in constructing a program of study that encourages thinking critically and academically about the country’s fastest-growing demographic group.
However, the sheer number of Latinx people in the United States is not reason enough to create a Latinx Studies program. The impetus to create the program should be derived from the immense value in studying Latinx experiences in the United States, which are inherently intertwined with the history of this country. Like previous immigrant groups, Hispanics have infused this nation with diversity, and their experiences comprise a significant part of the broader U.S. cultural identity. The interdisciplinary characteristics of Latinx Studies allow students to explore the social, political, economic, cultural, and historical identity and experiences of Latinxs. By building bridges between various fields of study, Latinx Studies hopes to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a “Latinx” in the United States.
Ultimately, the decision-making power to establish a Latinx Studies program lies within the complicated webs of Harvard administration. For example, a Latinx Studies program could exist as its own department or as a concentration that does not belong to a particular department, like Social Studies. Yet no remarks have ever been made by the administration explaining its stance on the desirability of Latinx Studies. Harvard Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality lecturer Juli Grigsby, who received her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Chicanx Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles, says that in the absence of an official statement, it is hard to state whether or not Harvard administration considers Latinx Studies a valuable form of knowledge construction, but adds, “When you do not have a set curriculum or disciplinary emphasis, the message that is received is that [Latinx education] has no value.”
To many students, the university’s reticence has come across this way. “We have all of the resources, and students and faculty have asked again and again,” explains Vasquez-Rodriguez. By the end of our hour-long conversation, she has chronicled a saga of frustrated students grappling with various administration members, but her tone remains calm and unruffled. “But Harvard keeps on making up excuses as to why we shouldn’t have one.”
The Underground War
While recent pushes for Latinx education may suggest that these movements are relatively new, Harvard has a very long history of students advocating for this field of studies. According to the second volume of the Harvard Hispanic newsletter Palabritas, the first organized attempt to bring Latinx Studies to Harvard was in 1972, and since then there have been over 25 attempts to establish the academic discipline. In general, previous efforts have at most led to the creation of bureaucratic committees set up to discuss the future of ethnic studies, with very little emerging out of the curricular draft stage. Most notably, in 2002 the College came as close as ever to creating a Latinx Studies program, until Harvard president Lawrence Summers rejected the proposal in a letter directed to its two co-presenters, stating that “there is currently a significant investment in this area” and citing the presence of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and faculty members who are “directly interested” in Latinx issues.
Summers’s dismissal of these efforts shook the Hispanic community at Harvard. As a result, there has been a movement to propose Latinx Studies to the university administration every year since. These movements for the most part have been less visible than other movements that push for inclusivity and diversity on campus. Instead of popular protests or rallies, students and faculty members have spent considerable time speaking to administrators, hosting Latinx town hall meetings and important Latinx speakers, and creating written proposals outlining what a Latinx Studies concentration would look like (the most recent of which was published in May 2013).
To say that Harvard is totally unaccommodating to students wishing to study Latinx issues would be a mischaracterization. Founded in 1994, DRCLAS provides students with an avenue to learn about the “cultures, economies, histories, environment, and contemporary affairs of past and present Latin America.” While DRCLAS’s focus on Latin America is a very welcome recognition of the importance of politics in Hispanic countries, DRCLAS is neither interested in the study of Latinxs in the United States, nor is it a stand-alone department that provides a concentration or even a secondary.
The lack of Latinx programming is not for lack of interest. Vasquez-Rodriguez explains that while many faculty members are interested in Latinx programming, a recruitment problem persists, whereby Harvard struggles to attract potential Latinx professors due to the lack of a stable and institutionally supported Latinx Studies program. In short, Harvard already has some professors directly involved in Latinx research and education, but it lacks the critical mass of Latinx Studies professors to pressure Harvard to create a program. The issue proves difficult to solve due to its circular nature: one reason Harvard lacks a Latinx program is because Harvard struggles to attract and retain professors of Latinx Studies, and the reason Harvard struggles to do so is because of the lack of an official Latinx program.
The second resource, along with DRCLAS, that Harvard might recommend for students interested in Latinx Studies is the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights (EMR), an academic organization established in 2009 that offers students the option to earn a secondary in Ethnic Studies. While the EMR program has shown impressive growth over the past years, it remains limited, since it does not exist as a standalone concentration. Tessa Lowinske Desmond, the EMR program administrator and academic advisor, tells the HPR that the program is far from being complete in itself. Rather, she views it as a project that “incubates fields so that they can grow to become their own.” EMR, therefore, can be viewed as a way for Latinx Studies to eventually grow into a concentration.
Institutional Amnesia
While student activism was critical to get Latinx Studies rolling in places like California and Texas in the 1960s and 1970s, students and faculty members believe that this form of student activism translates poorly to Harvard’s current situation; hence, student activism for Latinx Studies at Harvard tends to be an iron fist in a velvet glove rather than an overt display of dissatisfaction.
Lowinske Desmond observes that student activists at Harvard experience the “four year problem,” whereby student activists are on campus for four years, and then they leave. One of the things that undermines pushes for these “discrete fields” of study, she says, is that “they are short bursts [of activism] and then they turn off.”
The second problem that these student efforts face is that they are often too antagonistic towards the University. In 2013, a proposal from a group of students was sent to the administration; the proposal was aggressive and didactic in tone, sharply criticizing the meager university resources for those seeking an education in Latinx topics and outlining how Harvard should respond. According to Lowinske Desmond, this type of approach fails because it does not attempt to cooperate with current academic structures, alienating Harvard administrators and faculty from student activists.
Students and faculty at Harvard suffer from bad institutional memory. Grigsby explains that because of the “four year problem,” students forget what previous student efforts looked like and what type of efforts were successful or failed. In interviews, many student activists in the movement today spoke about the 2002 proposal almost as if it were a myth from a bygone era; details were rough, factual errors were common, and mischaracterizations were abundant. Of course, Latinx alumni networks have gotten stronger over the past decade, but the existence of multiple, young alumni organizations that disagree on some of the issues surrounding Latinx Studies means that the university has not yet seen an organized donation effort made towards creating a program. The first step towards correcting these challenges, says Grigsby, is to figure out a way for student organizations like Fuerza Latina, Concilio Latino, and RAZA to pass on all of their hard work to their younger generations, ensuring gains are not lost because people have graduated.
Brick By Brick
The creation of a Latinx Studies program is a massive undertaking. Building a program goes beyond compiling a list of classes that can count for credit. The purpose of creating a department is to generate a space where there can consistently be an intellectual and personal exchange about topics and issues that pertain to Hispanics in the United States. This means creating safe and open social and cultural spaces where students can talk to their peers and professors without feeling like intruders. This means creating a system of academic and curricular support for students. This means paving the way for guest speakers, lecturers, and symposiums. This means accepting Latinx Studies as a critical part of academic life at the University.
It is no use trying to hide my biases when writing this article. I am a frustrated Latino who feels ashamed that Harvard, of all universities, sidesteps such an important academic field.The College ultimately exists to serve its students and faculty members, and we, as members of this community, have to hold Harvard accountable.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons