Work of the LSRI
As of the 2020 census, Latinos/as/x now constitute almost twenty percent of the nation’s population and of the state of New Jersey. Despite the growth of this significant demographic, Latinos/as/x have enjoyed little visibility in the public sphere except when discussed as “undocumented immigrants” or occasionally as celebrities or performers. Yet the population has had a presence in the United States’ 21st-century borders since the 16th century. They represent a wide range of racial identities and experience socialization based on skin color, class, and other factors in ways that both differ from and overlap with other racialized populations.
For the past fifteen years, faculty from the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies have managed various projects and programs with ad-hoc and minimal budgetary support exploring Latinos/as/x in the United States. Multiple colleagues share these initiatives in the department with formal and informal coordination but have had broader reach within the School of Arts and Sciences and the larger University community.
In 2017, Lilia Fernandez and Aldo Lauria Santiago initiated the Latino Studies Research Initiative (LSRI), an effort that organized a community of over fifty faculty and graduate students with research interests in Latino/a studies and ran multiple competitions for graduate student and faculty funding to promote Latino Studies research across the university. LSRI also held multiple symposia attended by dozens of faculty drawn from different schools and campuses to present their multidisciplinary research on Latinas/os.
More recently, Professors Lauria Santiago and Berg convened a large group of authors whose work focused on New Jersey to produce a book, the first to focus on pan-Latino research on the state. The work of the LSRI and this website will continue to promote and present research on Latinos in the tri-state area.
This is the past work of the Latino Studies Research Initiative since 2005.
Past work of the LSRI
Professor Lauria Santiago began these workshops in 2008 and continued through 2017. Professors Lorrin Thomas (Rutgers Camden) and Lilia Fernandez collaborated to develop these workshops. A large group of young researchers, many of whom went on to produce books and articles, presented early drafts of their work in an intensive seminar-like format.
LSRI funded various faculty and graduate student competitions with modest funding from The Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Latino Studies, Lilia Fernandez, and other sources.
Former Dean Jorge Schment and Professors Lauria Santiago and Yolanda Martinez San Miguel created the Rutgers Latino Information Network in 2010. Working closely with Prof. Lauria Santiago, journalist Robert Montemayor developed a model for an information network that intersected journalism and academic research. Montemayor assembled a team and implemented the model between 2010 and 2012. With support from Rutgers’s Central Administration and Verizon, the LINAR began to fill a major gap in New Jersey and soon enough at the national level. Montemayor positioned the LINAR as the promising space that would have become the public voice of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research. Despite its successes, the University withdrew its support.
Some LINAR resources:
- Leadership Confab — NJ Economics
- LIN@R Draft 2-15-11
- The Latino Information Network-1
- 091029 Proposed Latino Database
- The National Latino Database will serve as the initial project and catalyst for the Rutgers Institute on Latino Communities
- RLIN Suggested Web Page Thematic Frames
Professor Lilia Fernandez, now at the University of Illinois, Chicago, served as the Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Latino Studies. The Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Latino Studies was established to meet the strategic objective of bringing together diverse scholars at the university and the surrounding community to highlight and develop Latino Studies at Rutgers.
She drew on these funds to support the LSRI and distinguished lectures, colloquia, and other scholarly activities that enhanced and promoted teaching and scholarship in the area of Latino Studies.
The LSRI supported hosting the 2018 Puerto Rican Studies Association conference at Rutgers University. Amid the post-Maria crisis, the conference welcomed record attendance (over 220 registrants) and dozens of panels and papers.