Mexican American, Latinx, and Borderlands Studies

Do work that matters. Vale la pena. 
~Gloria E. Anzaldúa 

MISSION
The mission of the Mexican American, Latinx, and Borderlands Studies Program at Texas A&M University-San Antonio is to serve students through a multi-disciplinary academic program that provides opportunities for civic engagement and enhances cultural competency with particular attention to the study of Mexican American, Latinx, Chicanx, Indigenous, Latin American, Afro-Latinx, and immigrant communities with an emphasis on border regions. In line with the mission of the University, the program strives for interdisciplinary knowledge creation, community engagement, and strengthening research in underrepresented areas. This curriculum will provide students with transformational learning opportunities and practical skills that will prepare them for meaningful careers and inform positive social change in their communities and beyond. The recent designation of this institution as an HSI drives this initiative forward. 

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The program as a whole recognizes the valuable contributions Mexican American and Latinx history and culture have contributed to our shared American narrative. The unique geographic location of A&M-SA on the Southside of San Antonio, Texas, and in the heart of the Borderlands, creates a prime opportunity to study the rich heritage, arts, language, cultural practices, and socioeconomic condition of the region in relation to the larger concerns not only of the many, heterogeneous Latinx communities living in the United States, but also, more broadly, to the Américas as a whole. In so doing, the program encompasses the study of the Borderlands through both transnational and transdisciplinary perspectives. The minor is a tremendously useful supplement to a student’s primary field(s) of study by highlighting particular knowledges, histories, cultural practices, socio-political developments, and economic trajectories of residents across multiple spaces. A student with a minor in Mexican American, Latinx, and Borderlands Studies can transplant this lucrative interdisciplinary tool-kit of knowledge and skills to occupations such as law, education, healthcare, public service, political office, arts and humanities, human resources, social services, criminal justice, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and more.