CCAS 217U.S. Central American Racial Constructs and Cultural Diversity
Chicana/o and Central American Studies · 4 units · Graduate courses (200-299)
Limited to graduate students. Exploration of indigenism, indigeneity, afro-indigeneity, Blackness, mestizaje, mulattaje, ladinization and other racial-gendered constructs in Central America by critically engaging scholarship, census data, and oral histories to understand Central American communities in U.S. Analysis on their origins and how these racial-gendered stratifications were naturalized through cultural practices. Engages cultural practices as strategies of survival for populations working against historical erasure especially enacted by nation-state. For example, why is Blackness erased in national narrative of El Salvador, why problematize Costa Rica’s claim of racial equality, why and how do Garifuna communities assert their indigeneity while also engaging multiple practices and discourses of Blackness? Examination also of how these communities face genocide, ethnocide, feminicide, and strategies of racial passing and resistance.
S/U or letter grading.
When it runs
Not on the schedule for any of Fall 2025 through Spring 2027. UCLA publishes only that window, so this does not mean the course is gone — check the official listing.
Requisites
UCLA lists no requisites for this course.
Requires
Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.
Nothing — this is an entry point.
Unlocks
What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.
No course in the catalog lists this as a requisite.