MAS 301 introduction to mexican american and latina/o studies

Archives are repositories of our collective memories. What happens when certain minoritized individuals and communities do not exist in traditional archives in an extensive way? In this introductory course, we will start from the premise that there are gaps in the archive, particularly around Latine/x/a/o and queer people. We will examine queer Latine archives by studying oral histories, theories around archiving, fiction, non fiction narratives, and multimedia. In more specific terms we will use podcasts, queer literature, and digital archives that showcase LGBTQ+ history to explore the following questions: why is it important to archive queer stories? How have queer histories been archived? What do digital archives offer that is different from non-digital ones? What can we learn from using oral histories, podcasts, and interviews as methodology? Authors such as Emma Pérez, Saidiya Hartman, Maria Cotera, José Esteban Muñoz, Lorgia García-Peña, and other Ethnic Studies scholars will help us think through these questions. In addition, we will visit LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections and the Harry Ransom Center. Utilizing these sources will help us explore what it means to create our own archive.