Academic Units

Puerto Rican Studies was established at Rutgers University in the fall of 1970, as a result of demands by 16 Livingston Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) students in the summer of 1969. In 2006 the department became the Department of Latino & Hispanic Caribbean Studies to better reflect the department’s current course offerings, mission, student body, and faculty scholarship.

Today, the Department of Latino & Caribbean Studies seeks to promote hemispheric and transnational approaches that more adequately consider the ways in which both U.S. Latino and Caribbean populations are transformed by globalization, while maintaining deeply localized historical legacies. As such, courses are organized around five themes Historical and Political Studies; Migration, Society and Community; Race, Ethnicity and Identity; Cultural Studies and Cultural Production; Gender and Sexuality studies. Both an undergraduate major and minor options are offered.

The Department of Spanish & Portuguese offers majors in Literary and Cultural Studies and Spanish Linguistics, an undergraduate major and a graduate degree in Spanish Interpretation & Translation, and a Spanish Minor.

The department also offers certificates in Spanish-English Translation & Interpretation, interdisciplinary Global Studies (with options in Hispanic World, Luso-Brazilian World, Latin America, and Iberian Peninsula), and a Teacher’s Certificate.