On February 26, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at the University of Chicago co-sponsored a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Aresha Martinez-Cardoso featuring William López, Maureen Graves, Michael D. Rodriguez, and Dr. Linda Rae Murray.

In conversation with the UChicago community, the panel examined the politics and lived consequences of immigration raids in Chicago and across the Midwest, drawing on insights from López’s book Raiding the Heartland. Together, the speakers reflected on how enforcement operations, from rural Midwest raids to the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, reshape immigrant communities, public health, and local governance.

On February 12, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at the University of Chicago hosted Prof. Allison Bigelow (Associate Professor of Spanish and Colonial Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame).

In her lecture with the UChicago community, Prof. Bigelow explored how the silence of the colonial archive can serve as a starting point for collaborative digital scholarship, prompting us to rethink authorship, textual authority, and Indigenous knowledge in colonial Latin America.

On February 5, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at the University of Chicago hosted Alejandro Poiré (Visiting Research Fellow at the Chicago Center on Democracy and Distinguished University Professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey).

In conversation with the UChicago community, Alejandro Poiré examined Mexico’s democratic crisis within the broader context of Latin America’s ongoing struggle to address the unchecked influence of moneyed interests in collective decision-making. He advanced a systemic perspective that invites us to rethink democratic legitimacy, institutional reform, and the future of governance in the region.