Jun 15, 2025. “Mexican Americans have a saying here, ‘They didn't cross the border, the border crossed them," said Gaspar Rivera Salgado, director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies, to The New York Times. The irony of accusations that Los Angeles has been "invaded" by immigrants is not lost on Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Rivera Salgado pointed out that their historical memory goes back to the invasion of Mexico by U.S. troops (among them, Marines) in 1847, during the Mexican-American War. The treaty that ended that war ceded over half of Mexico's territory, including California, to the United States.
At a recent Latin American Institute event, UC Irvine professor Alexander Huezo described how Afro-Colombian communities on Colombia's Pacific coast experience and resist environmental violence.
May 28 & 29, 2024. Director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies Gaspar Rivera-Salgado spoke to the LA Times about national elections in Mexico on June 2, and was interviewed by Spectrum News. "Por primera vez una mujer será la presidenta de México, eso es algo histórico y es un avance democrático; hay que celebrar ese hecho ... [Estas elecciones son ]un plebiscito sobre el trabajo que ha hecho Andrés Manuel López Obrador en este sexenio, es decir si la gente quiere que continúe Morena con sus propuestas o quiere algún cambio".
UCLA Magazine delves into the team of UCLA alumni and professors who played an instrumental role in creating the Getty Digital Florentine Codex. The entire 16th-century encyclopedia of Indigenous Mexican knowledge and culture is now easily accessible worldwide for the first time in its history.
Scholars from the UCLA Latin American Institute are celebrating Getty's release of the digital version of the Florentine Codex, an unparalleled repository of 16th-century Indigenous Mexican knowledge and culture.
Latin American Institute summer program prepares K–12 instructors to bring new knowledge into their classrooms.
A webinar series on education of children who grow up on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border has created a unique resource for teachers, social workers and policy makers looking to learn more about this unique youth cohort.
At a book talk for "Until the Storm Passes" about the Brazilian dictatorship of 1964–1985, author Bryan Pitts said the malleability of the Brazilian political class has made it possible for Brazilian democracy to become more representative over the past several decades.
Using quantitative and qualitative data, the report's analysis finds unprecedented violence against migrants in six northern Mexican border states and four southwestern U.S. border states during the period January 1, 2021–June 30, 2022.
The director of the Center for Brazilian Studies receives the Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography on March 24. In honor of the occasion, Hecht answers questions about the award, her research and the current state of Amazon rainforest.