Portland State launches new degree in Chicano/Latino Studies amid growing Latinx population

Shortly after starting at Portland State in 2020, Xochi Carrera took a course in Chicanx/Latinx Studies. She says for the first time in her life, she had the opportunity to examine her own identity in the context of larger systems.

“It was validation,” said Carrera, who was born in Mexico but grew up in Massachusetts. “I’ve never seen any representation in the curriculum of my heritage or people like me. … It was one of those a-ha moments where I felt that somebody actually recognizes me, sees me and was telling me, ‘This world was designed against you but you have the power to overcome it.’”

She was hooked. A double major in liberal studies and social science, Carrera began working towards the Chicano/Latino Studies minor and eventually the 36-credit certificate with its Spanish language proficiency requirement. She says she found a home in the program — and she’s not alone.

Increased student interest and growth in the minor and certificate as Portland State’s Latinx student population has grown spurred a new degree program. The long-awaited bachelor’s degree in Chicano/Latino Studies launches this fall. The new degree explores the histories, politics, experiences and cultures of Chicanx/Latinx populations in the U.S. through a critical lens of race, ethnicity, language, sexuality, gender and other social identities.

FIRST OF ITS KIND

Portland State’s Chicano/Latino Studies program was the first of its kind in Oregon when it began in fall 1994 — and nearly 30 years later, PSU will be the first university in the Pacific Northwest to offer a major in Chicano/Latino Studies.

In fall 2022, 67 students were declared for the minor and four for the certificate. The growing interest follows an overall jump in PSU’s Latinx student population from 7% in 2011 to 18% in 2022. PSU is on track to meet the 25% undergraduate enrollment threshold to become a Hispanic Serving Institution in the next few years.

“A major in Chicano/Latino Studies is long overdue, as it gives our expanding Latinx student population a home where their experiences matter and where they’re validated,” said professor and director Cristina Herrera, who arrived at PSU in 2021 and began working to establish the degree. “A CHLA major, in addition to other campus programs and opportunities, is integral to truly serve and support our Latinx students, especially as we become a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution.”

But through the years, the growth of the program — whose name recently changed to Chicanx/Latinx Studies to be more inclusive of trans, queer and nonbinary identities — continued in spite of a lack of investment. Since its inception, the program has had nine different directors, only two of whom have had academic connections to the program. For 10 years, the program only had one tenure-track professor and two or three part-time instructors. Former director Roberto de Anda, who retired in 2021, wanted to offer a bachelor’s degree but the lack of resources made it impossible.

Recognizing the importance of Ethnic Studies for an increasingly diverse student body, PSU made a strategic investment in the program in 2021 when it welcomed three new faculty as part of the cluster hire in the School of Gender, Race and Nations: Herrera; assistant professor Martín Alberto Gonzalez; and assistant professor Melissa Patiño-Vega, who also teaches Heritage Spanish. The trio are frequently invited to offer keynotes, guest lectures and other presentations at PSU’s La Casa Latina, local high schools and elsewhere in the community, which has boosted their recruitment and outreach efforts.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had professors that have cared this much or have pushed me this much or have given me material that’s so enlightening,” Carrera said.

This coming year, assistant professor Jessica Ramirez will join the program as part of a shared faculty line with the School of Social Work, but the faculty hope that’s only the start as they look to grow even more.

“As we’re thinking about how PSU is becoming an HSI, it’s just not enough to give us the major,” Patiño-Vega said. “There’s still a lot of things that need to be done, that can be done and that we want to do, but in order to accomplish that, we need more brazos, more brains, more hands to join us.”

A SAFE SPACE

Inle Gonzalez, a second-year certificate student who is considering adding the new major to her social work studies, says the course topics initially drew her into the program but it’s the professors who keep her coming back term after term. Beyond feeling represented in the course materials, she says the professors create a safe space where it’s OK to speak Spanglish and have nuanced conversations about topics that are often stigmatized in the Latinx community like anti-Blackness, homophobia and transphobia.

“These classes give us the space to have those conversations to actually learn about how we have our internal biases and how we have to eliminate them in order to actually help people the way we should,” Gonzalez said.

When she graduates, she plans to return home to eastern Oregon as a counselor or teacher for her predominantly Latinx agricultural community and says Chicanx/Latinx Studies is providing her with the tools she’ll need to succeed.

“It teaches me a lot of how to work with the community I want to work with and how to properly do that, keeping in mind the past traumas that these communities have and the systemic barriers they have faced,” she said. “The Chicanx/Latinx department often highlights those systemic issues and barriers that we don’t even know about.”

Assistant professor Martín Alberto Gonzalez says the interdisciplinary nature of Chicanx/Latinx Studies makes it applicable to anyone who wants to better understand the largest ethnic minority in the state and country.

“Chicanx/Latinx Studies provides that critical lens to business, that critical lens to engineering, that critical lens to architecture,” he said. “Students know it’s going to help them better serve their communities, regardless of what field of study they are interested in.”