There is an extraordinary wealth of expertise about Latin America not merely at UBC, but also at neighbouring universities.
In effect, if not in practice, we already have the makings of something like a Pacific Institute for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. This might be imagined as encompassing the region of so-called Cascadia or, roughly, what used to be the Oregon Country, whose southern limit was defined by the northern border of Mexico before the Mexican-American war and the US annexation of what is now California and much of the US Southwest.
Alternatively, we might imagine ourselves as inhabiting the coastal areas delimited by the Mexican/Spanish expeditions of 1774-1791, which established a fort at Nootka on Vancouver Island and bequeathed us placenames such as Juan de Fuca Straight, Cortes and Valdes Islands, and Alberni Street in downtown Vancouver.
The institutions contributing to a Pacific Institute for Latin American and Caribbean Studies might include:
- Latin American Studies at UBC
- UBC Okanagan Latin American Studies
- The Latin American Studies Program at Simon Fraser
- Latin American Studies at Langara
- Latin American Studies at the University of Victoria
- Latin American Studies at Western Washington University
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Washington
- Latin American Studies at the University of Puget Sound
- Latin American Studies at Portland State University
- Latin American Studies and the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of Oregon
There were some tentative discussions in this direction a few years ago, when a “Northwest Latin American Studies Network” was mooted. Perhaps this is an idea whose time has come again?