Welcome to our website! The material on this site was created by the students in the Robert D. Clark Honors College 434 Colloquium Class at the University of Oregon, instructed by Professor Monique R. Balbuena, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies.

Over the course of the Winter 2020 Quarter, we have studied the presence of Jews in Latin America, the construction and representation of Jewish identity, as well as the relationships established between Jews and non-Jews in different Latin American countries. We read literature written by Latin American Jews, watched movies that present their realities and conflicts in a very diverse region, and observed some of the Jewish contribution to the arts. We also listened to music by Jews in established Latin American genres, such as the tango and traditional Jewish Sephardic genres which are now being recovered by contemporary singers.

In engaging with this material, our course objectives were to:

• Understand the diversity of the Latin American experience and the spectrum of ethnicities, languages and cultures in the region
• Understand the role of Jews in the formation of Latin American countries, acknowledging their presence and participation in the very enterprise of colonization, and, conversely, the impact of Latin American realities in shaping a distinctive Jewish identity
• Recognize intra-Jewish difference and diversity
• Understand that the Jewish experience and identity in Latin America cannot be dissociated from the recent violent history of the continent

Throughout this endeavor, we have accumulated a wealth of knowledge in regard to these objectives. This website serves as a synthesis of our research. We hope that by making this material visible to others, we can contribute to the larger discussion about the historic relationship between Jewish diasporic identity and Latin America as a region.