The Chicago Latin American/Latino Activities and Studies Arena (LACASA CHICAGO),  along with the Latin American Studies Program, and the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) proudly announces its  post -Latin American Studies Association (LASA) meeting, Mapping Latino/Latin American Chicago (MLAC), to be held at UIC September 28-29.  Admission to the conference will be free to Chicago-area students and faculty.  A minimal charge will apply for lunch and receptions.

Co-sponsored by UIC's Nuveen Center of International Relations, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, the Institute for the Humanities, the Institutes Globalization Study Group, along with the Campus Committee Serving Latinos (CCSL) and the Rafa el Cintron Ortiz Latino Cultural Center, MLAC  will hold over key Latin American and Latino Cultural Studies specialists already present in the city to participate in LASA, for the purpose of meeting with Chicago and Midwest Latin Americanist and Lat ino Studies scholars and cultural workers and activists to explore  the history, present state and future implications of Chicago's Latino emergence, and to theorize the parameters for the study of Chicago as a hybrid but significantly Latin American ized city for the twenty-first Century.

Chicago is the city where the two major Latin American immigrant groups from Mexico and Puerto Rico arrived in the greatest composite numbers, and where they joined with significant numbers of other Spanish Caribbeans, Central Americans and South A mericans to vanguard more composite and emergent Latin American/Latino intermixtures, alliances and identifications.  Because of the recent explosive growth of this population in urban and suburban areas, because of its particular patterns of accultu ration and group assertion, as well as its development of cultural activities and organizations, Chicago Latino life and connections are a growing part of and are indeed increasingly important to the larger totality of U.S. and hemispheric Latin American development. 

Chicago Latino life  is notoriously understudied and unknown, even after a wave of recent conferences and a growing publication list.  It is therefore important for us to draw upon the expertise of visiting Latin American/Latino cultural studies specialists, and bring them together with local interested parties, so that the visitors gain some considerable insight into Chicago Latino developments and that they contribute to conceptualizing the city as part of Latin America. and the U.S. La tino world.  The goal will also be to determine what kinds of action might be most crucial in fostering a positive Latino agenda, even as new century and millenium trends and conflicts begin to emerge in Chicago as in other Latin American and U.S. La tino centers.  Another key goal will be to see how Chicago Latin American/Latino studies might well enrich our theoretical models and our understanding of other Latin American and U.S. spaces.

MLAC will review contemporary Latin American and Latino cultural studies theory (above all, those theoretical dimensions dealing with questions of hybridity, globalization, post-modern resistance, etc.) and explore its applicability to cultural que stions related to Chicago Latino immigration, settlement and developmental patterns from the early 1900s to the present, from the insertion of Latinos in Chicago's industrialization process to more recent patterns of post-industrial transnational developm ent.  The visiting specialists will provide perspectives stemming from their studies of other Latin American and U.S. Latin Americanized city spaces as local participants bring Midwest and specifically Chicago concerns to the fore.  Questions of global, Latin American/Caribbean and Latino developments will provide the context, then, for a look at Chicago Latino and Latin American cultural patterns and organizational forms (from groups and gangs to informal and formal organizations and institutio ns) as well as the problems Chicago Latinos face in a post-industrial phase of the city's history (and this at a time of increasing gentrification and the conversion of the city into a new Midwest tourist center).

Theory and history, urban anthropology, art and literary studies will provide contexts for exploring cultural dimensions and their relation to overall processes especially as forces of globalization come to the fore.  The prime question will b e what recent cultural studies perspectives can bring to the study of a city's socio-economic and political transformations and its changing ethnic character.  More specifically, how can contemporary Latin American and Latino cultural studies orienta tions enrich the study of Chicago as an emergent Latin American city and of Chicago Latino cultural life and institutions?  How can it help us to deal with questions of globalization, transforming labor and neighborhood relations, growing tensions am ong Latino groups and between Latinos and others?  How can a positive Latin American agenda be forged in the midst of current processes?  How can Chicago findings be applied elsewhere?

Currently, MLAC Conference plans include:

1. Preparation of conference materials, including essays on urban theory and a booklet on Chicago Latino developments, plus the preparation of bibliographical materials, and the development of abstracts and initial outlines by participants (much of this material to be brought onto the LACASA Chicago and Latin American Studies Websites;
2. An opening evening on the town, starting with a reception at the Aldo Castillo Gallery, a Latin American music/jazz/ blues session at the Hot House and then a voluntary visit to nearby clubs;
3. An intensive guided tour of the city, highlighting Chicago's Latino communities and key centers therein (involving a Chicago Latin American/Latino art exhibit and meetings with key community figures) with a photo and/or video record of the day) and (4 ) a two-day conference, involving sessions on Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Latin American Cultural Theory and its Urban Dimensions, Transnational Migration,  Latin American and Latino urban cultures and Chicago Latino Perspectives involving major plenary addresses plus commentaries by key specialists and a wrap-up brainstorming session in which we explore key areas for future investigation and presentation..