Majoring in Spanish
This piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Ignacio Sánchez Prado about how the study of Spanish is discriminated against and dismissed made me think a lot. There are so many important elements in there, but I am going to shift to my own narrow undergraduate experience, because I keep thinking about it. One of his points is that we need to preserve and emphasize Spanish-language literature as an important thing to study, research, and teach to students. I can't agree more based on my own life.
Defending Latin American and Iberian culture at large is of particular importance in this age of Hispanophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. We have the capacity to fight these phenomena, and a growing responsibility to do so. At a time when administrations are less likely than ever to invest in our growth, we need to bring into our departments subfields like Central American studies, Latinx Hispanophone literature, Afro-Hispanic studies, and indigenous studies. These are urgent areas of study — and there is student demand for them. If we are to deliver cultural recognition, inclusion, and justice to the largest immigrant populations and the speakers of the second-largest national language in the U.S., Iberian and Latin American studies should be front and center in conversations about literary studies. I hope that other humanists will fight alongside us against the existential crisis that threatens us all.