The Pacific Institute for Latin American and Caribbean Studies aims to be a clearing house for the extraordinary wealth of expertise about Latin America and the Caribbean on the Pacific Coast of Canada and the US North-West.
The Institute encompasses 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.
These are also 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 and Cortes and Valdes Islands.
The Institute comprises:
- Latin American Studies at UBC
- UBC Okanagan Latin American Studies
- The Latin American Studies Program at Simon Fraser
- 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