Past Events

Join us to celebrate graduating majors and minors in Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies. Food, refreshments, and music! We will also recognize department honors and graduates who complete requirements for the Certificate in Latino and Caribbean Studies.

Join us to celebrate graduating majors and minors in Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies. Food, refreshments, and music! We will also recognize department honors and graduates who complete requirements for the Certificate in Latino and Caribbean Studies.

Alejandro Heredia is a writer from The Bronx. He is the author of LOCA, a finalist for the 2025 Center for Fiction First Novel prize, and You’re the Only Friend I Need, winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction chapbook contest. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dominican Studies Institute, Kenyon Review, Trinity College, and UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute. Heredia’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, LitHub, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College.

Heredia currently serves as an artist in residence at Trinity College, where he teaches creative writing. 

Bebo, a teenager from a coastal Puerto Rican town, lives with his brother in a public housing complex. They fish for a living, but growing desperation drives them to illegal dealings that promise easy money. When a job goes wrong, and blood is spilled, Bebo flees with Lola, a wealthy girl seeking to escape her troubled reality. As they navigate the labyrinthine mountains, they encounter remnants of a fading way of life, contrasting with the violence that follows them. As his inner demons rise, Bebo must confront his choices and decide if redemption is possible, or if the sea will be their final escape.

This presentation explores the largest living archive of Black Cuban oral histories, based on 95 interviews with Black Cubans in the United States.

Q&A w/ Producer & RU Alum Daniel Torres

Attend “Jueves de Cine” at Rutgers Cinema for a screening of Selena y los Dinos from 7pm to 9pm and join us for a Q&A with Producer Dan Torres after the film. (105 Joyce Kilmer Ave, Piscataway, NJ)

With a focus on showcasing the cutting edge and innovative work of scholars in Latinx and Caribbean Studies, this speaker series highlights the work of scholars who have utilized a wide array of topical, narrative, digital, community-centered, and stylistic approaches in ways that unsettle disciplinary boundaries.

With a focus on showcasing the cutting edge and innovative work of scholars in Latinx and Caribbean Studies, this speaker series highlights the work of scholars who have utilized a wide array of topical, narrative, digital, community-centered, and stylistic approaches in ways that unsettle disciplinary boundaries.

Come to this event to learn about a dynamic digital humanities project by two interdisciplinary scholars of Black Central America.

With a focus on showcasing the cutting edge and innovative work of scholars in Latinx and Caribbean Studies, this speaker series highlights the work of scholars who have utilized a wide array of topical, narrative, digital, community-centered, and stylistic approaches in ways that unsettle disciplinary boundaries.

Food and beverages will be served!

Come meet LCS & CLAS Faculty!

Faculty will be present from 4:30 - 6:30 PM.

Dr. Curiel explores cultural productions that expose some of the deadliest immigration enforcement strategies in the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Moreover, she reckons with the ethics of constructing migration narratives, the position of collective trauma in the study of immigration, and the possibilities of community healing through art and grassroots economies.

Join the editors, aldo A. Lauria Santiago and Ulla D. Berg, and the 20 contributors of the first book on Latinos in NJ!

This collection brings together innovative and empirically grounded scholarship from different disciplines and interdisciplinary fields of study and addresses topic including the demographic history of Latinos in the state, Latino migration from gateway cities to suburban towns, Latino urban enclaves, Latino economic and social mobility, Latino students and education, the New Jersey Dream Act and in-state tuition act organizing, Latinos and criminal justice reform, Latino electoral politics and leadership, and undocumented communities.

Help us recognize and celebrate graduating majors and minors in Latino and Caribbean Studies

Join us for a timely and thought-provoking Symposium at Rutgers University in New Brunswick where we will delve into the past, present, and future of Elizabeth Detention Center. This symposium features both academic, policy, detainee, and activist perspectives on the challenges surrounding the struggle to end immigrant detention in New Jersey and the United States.

The symposium is coordinated by the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies in collaboration with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), First Friends of NJ and NY, and Detention Watch Network, and with the support from the following Rutgers units: School of Arts and Sciences (SAS), Institute for the Study Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ), Global Latinx New Jersey, the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies (LCS), Rutgers Center for Immigration Law, Policy, and Justice, the Department of Sociology, Rutgers Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies (RAICCS), and the Program in Criminal Justice.

During the 2023-2024 academic year, the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies will be hosting events to celebrate 50 years of teaching, research, and service.

Join us and check back throughout the year for more events!