125 Stanford Stories

NO. 67
Stanford Today

Latin American Studies @ 50

Mombacho
Allie Balesterros '16 photographed Volcán Mombacho, Nicaragua, in March 2016 on an immersion trip for a class on Latin American liberation movements. She wrote her capstone paper on the environmental and social risks of the proposed Nicaraguan Canal.
Allie Balesterros
Jin Wu
Master's student Jun Wu, fourth from left, conducted research in 2015 on indigenous people in Cerrado, Brazil, with guidance and assistance from the staff at the Long Term Ecological Site in Minas Gerais.
Center for Latin American Studies
Bolivar house
Latin American Studies directors from across the nation recently met at Bolívar House, home of Latin American Studies at Stanford. Ecologist and Stanford center director Rodolfo Dirzo is second from left.
Center for Latin American Studies
La infancia vuela
"La infancia vuela: Childhood flies by, perhaps too quickly," notes Magdalena Fitipaldi '16 of this streetscape in Havana, Cuba.
Magdalena Fitipaldi
toledo
"I am the president of Peru but at the end of the day - don't tell anyone - I am still a rebellious Indian fighting for the cause of the poor," said Alejandro Toledo MA '72 MA '74 PhD '93 in his 2003 Commencement address.
Linda A. Cicero/Stanford News Service

Stanford scholars pursue a complex region’s preservation, development and understanding

No prestigious university is doing what Stanford is doing. … I am so proud of that. I have been a direct witness of the enormous effort that the center has done these past 50 years to enrich the study of Latin America.

—Alejandro Toledo MA ’72 MA ’74 PhD ’93, president of Peru 2001-06

For more than 50 years, Stanford’s interdisciplinary Center for Latin American Studies has shaped future heads of state, diplomats and leaders in government, business and civil society.

It began in the Cold War era, when the U.S. government helped to fund global studies centers in hope of promoting democracy and stability. Today, as knowledge grows both of the world’s challenges and humanity’s potential to solve them, the Center for Latin American Studies frames its mission far more broadly.

Its more than 60 affiliated scholars work on questions of access to economic, social and environmental resources, from water to health care to credit. They work on preservation, development and understanding of a huge region that is nuclear weapons free and lacking interstate conflict, but that is nonetheless plagued by challenges such as poverty, corruption and transnational organized crime.

“The complexity of the Latin American region is formidable,” says ecologist and center director Rodolfo Dirzo.

Dirzo studies, among other topics, the biological diversity of Latin American ecosystems and the deep knowledge of the indigenous peoples who live there. Political scientist Beatriz Magaloni works to improve police accountability in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Ecologist William Durham explores how ecotourism can create synergies between local economies and environmental protection in Costa Rica.

The center offers a master’s degree and an undergraduate specialization within the Global Studes minor. Its affiliated Bing Overseas Study Program in Santiago, Chile, which includes summer options, opens the overseas study experience to Stanford student-athletes and others whose academic-year schedules preclude their participation.

Scholars from throughout Latin America and Iberia teach at Stanford through programs such as the center’s Tinker Visiting Professorship. Public talks at the center’s Bolívar House showcase topics from Cuban architecture to the rise of the Brazilian middle class.

The center’s outreach programs include science enrichment for K-12 and community college teachers in the Bay Area. Its distance-learning courses allow students nationwide to study Latin American languages that are rarely taught but vital to cultural understanding.

Learn more about the Center for Latin American Studies in this video.