Join the KU Office of Faculty Affairs as University Distinguished Professor Marta Caminero-Santangelo, Ph.D. presents her inaugural lecture, “Imagining a Latino Heartland: Storytelling in Kansas, Then and Now” at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in the Kansas Room at the KU Memorial Union. The event is free and open to the public.
 

The story of Latino/a/x people in the United States frequently centers on the regions where they have historically concentrated: New York, Florida, California, and the Southwest. The term Heartland, by contrast, has conjured a particular idea of “Americanness” in the national imagination—traditional, agrarian, and white. This nostalgic view of the Heartland, however, ignores the long-standing historical presence of Latina/x/o people in the region. This presentation discusses a long history of Latine cultural production—corridos, essays, short stories, oral histories—in and about Kansas. Reviewing a century and a half of Latino storytelling, Caminero-Santangelo discusses how Latines have imagined the Heartland as home.
 

This lecture will not be live-streamed, however it will be recorded and posted on the Office of Faculty Affairs website: facultyaffairs@ku.edu/distinguished-professors.
 

Please RSVP HERE. Reception to follow lecture.