İBienvenidos!

The Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota welcomes everyone to the 2012-13 academic year! Please watch The Making of Chicano Studies, a video on the department's founding featuring former students who helped to establish the department, current faculty, alumni, and students.

We hope you had a fantastic summer, be it enjoying some well-deserved rest and relaxation, working, or traveling to visit family or friends, or conducting research. After an ambitious and highly successful year-long calendar or activities to commemorate the establishment of the Department of Chicano Studies, we are excited to begin this year with a new name and a new website. After extensive discussion about the department's mission, the ongoing demographic changes occurring in Minnesota and throughout the nation, and the importance of being enhancing awareness of our presence on campus, Department faculty agreed that it was time to evolve into the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies. With this change we remain deeply committed to our focus on the lived experience of people of Mexican descent in the United States, but we acknowledge that a comparative and transnational approach that showcases the intra-cultural diversity of the Latina/o population is important in fulfilling our educational mission at the university to ensure that students are well-informed about the complexity of the Latina/o community. Our deep thanks to CLA's web team helping us design this beautifully designed site. Please take some time to explore the site. We welcome feedback and suggestion for making it more user-friendly. We hope you take the time to watch the video we created last year on the "Making of Chicano Studies." Our thanks to all involved in the project. I look forward to seeing you in Scott Hall soon!

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Chicano Studies has a new academic advisor!

We're happy to welcome Alexandra (Ali) Miesen to the department. Ali will also serve as an advisor to American Indian Studies and the College of Liberal Arts Languages and Mathematics Student Community.


Ali is excited for the opportunity to work with students interested in the diverse communities of Minnesota. In addition to academic advising, Ali's background includes student programming, career advising, and residence life experience. When she is not at the University, Ali enjoys yoga, coaching youth swimming, and spending time with her family. Ali holds an M.A.: Leadership in Student Affairs from the University of St. Thomas and a B.S. in Communications with an International Studies Minor from the University of Wisconsin - River Falls. While she joins us near the end of the academic year, we look forward to her being part of the Chicano-Latino Studies community. Her office hours and contact information can be found on our website.