CLACS Institute takes teachers on a deep dive into Central America, immigration

This July at the southern border, thousands of migrants waited to cross into the United States in hopes of seeking asylum from political unrest and crushing poverty.

Hundreds of miles north, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dozens of teachers gathered at the CLACS annual summer institute in July to learn about the circumstances driving that migration.

“It comes down to the lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of ability to make a living and support a family. Violence, certainly,” said Julie Kline, the associate director of the UWM Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. “If people had a choice as to what was possible for them in the country they were born in, they would stay in a heartbeat. But somehow to them, the better choice is taking on a journey that is very dangerous and very uncertain.”

The UWM Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, or CLACS, is a federally funded entity tasked with helping students and educators alike understand the politics, history, and culture of Latino and Caribbean countries. As part of their ongoing mission to conduct teacher training, CLACS hosts a yearly summer institute devoted to a particular aspect of Central American or Caribbean studies, cosponsored with UW-Madison. This year, Florida International university also participated as a cosponsor.

This year, the theme centered on “Society and Politics in Contemporary Central America,” which explored not only migration to the United States, but the current societal and political situations in Central American countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

The flag of Costa Rica.

“It would have been hard not to choose this theme,” Kline said. “It matters in terms of listening to the news, making informed decisions about what you read and what you see, and noticing who’s telling the story.”

Though the topic had the potential to be controversial, given the current divisive state of American politics surrounding immigration policy, CLACS administrators strove to keep discussions as factual and unbiased as possible.

“My goal is not to sway anyone in terms of their political opinion; my goal is to give them the tools to think about problems and analyze what’s going on either historically or contemporarily,” said Natasha Borges Sugiyama, the director of CLACS. “We want to provide our educators with both broad and deep knowledge so that they can talk about what is appearing in the headlines with nuance and understanding.”

To help their attendees understand those nuances, organizer Seth Meisel at Northwestern University, with assistance from Kline, lined up a series of talks by speakers uniquely qualified to discuss the current state of affairs in Central America. The past president of Costa Rica spoke to the group via video conference one morning, while Salvadoran poet Jorge Argueta talked to the attendees via a shaky internet connection from his “Library of Dreams,” a small library he runs for Salvadoran children.

UWM historian Aims McGuinness talked to educators about using storytelling in their lessons and used the story of the 1989 Panama invasion as an example of how to do it, while journalist Lauren Markham taught audience members to critically analyze headlines concerning immigration and understand how word choice drives a political narrative. Other speakers discussed countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.

Independent journalist Lauren Markham discusses American rhetoric and policy surrounding the designation "unaccompanied minors" at the summer institute of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies in July. Photo by Sarah Vickery.

The lessons learned at this year’s Institute, and those from past institutes, have been invaluable to teachers from all over Wisconsin.

“These institutes give me updated, contemporary information about different topics. Since I teach courses with political and historical contexts, that’s very helpful,” said Elena De Costa, a Spanish professor at Carroll University who has attended nearly ever summer institute CLACS has offered. “That’s very important because my students rarely have contact with Hispanic communities. They don’t know the issues that impact Hispanic populations in Wisconsin and other places in the U.S.”

If Latin American communities and issues seem far away for Wisconsin students, they hit close to home for Francisco Ara’s students. A high school Spanish and social studies teacher from California, Ara attended the institute for the first time this year.

“A lot of my students are immigrants – first generation. They’re predominately Spanish speakers. They bring with themselves these stories of persecution or fear or threat of deportation. Some of them are unaccompanied minors when they came to the U.S.,” Ara noted. “There’s little bit of trauma. All teachers, it is not something that we are not taught as part of our teaching credentials, so it’s something that we have to learn. These CLACS events do precisely that. They raise awareness; they inform us about ways and methodologies to reach these students and keep them engaged in a very compassionate way.”

That’s why these institutes are essential, said Borges Sugiyama: They provide teachers with the tools to address political and social issues that impact students from across the country, no matter their immigration status or race.

“We have a role and a responsibility as educators to develop an informed and capable citizenry,” she added. “That’s one of the things that we need if we’re going to have democracy, if we’re going to have a space where people have a chance to participate and voice their preferences and hold leadership accountable.”

By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science