The Center for Latin American and Border Studies (CLABS) at New Mexico State University (NMSU) was created in 1979 after receiving generous grants from the Nason Family and other sources. The Center’s mission is to promote excellence in teaching, research and community outreach on issues concerning Latin America, the US-Mexico border, and border studies in general. The Center hosts lectures, workshops and conferences, supports outreach activities with local communities and schools, and promotes undergraduate and graduate courses in Latin American and Border Studies at NMSU. It is located in Las Cruces in southern New Mexico, less than an hour from the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez.

The Center accomplishes this mission by pursuing the following broad objectives:

• Stimulate scholarship on Latin America

• Encourage excellence in academic programs related to Latin America

• Provide outreach to the public and to public schools on Latin America

• Encourage grant writing relevant to Latin America

• Serve as a clearinghouse for activities related to Latin America on the NMSU campus

CLABS serves the entire NMSU community and is governed by an advisory board, whose members include representatives from all Colleges at NMSU as well as community members. Within the board, there are five sub-committees working on various projects.

CLABS offices are in the Nason House, a historical Prairie School Architectural building   protected by the city of Las Cruces and the State of New Mexico. In 1918, Henry C. Trost designed the Nason House for the President of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. During its 61 years (1919-1980) as a residence, it housed nine families. Between 1981 and 1983, the former residence was renovated to accommodate the Center for Latin American and Border Studies. In 1987, the building was dedicated to Willoughby Nason, an NMSU 33-year-old Vietnam War Veteran graduate student who died suddenly in 1979, prior to completion of a master’s degree thesis on Mexican Revolutionary War History. A memorial fund was also established in honor of Willoughby Nason and is used to provide scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students with interests in Latin American studies.

Inside the house, The Center has a reading room containing a vast collection of more than 2,000 books, artifacts, prints, and photographs concerning Latin America, collected by Willoughby Nason’s father, Charles. The collection has a number of unique and rare items, including books that deal with the early explorations of Central America and a collection of rare archaeological items from Meso-America.  His father was an engineer in Guatemala and was the inspiration for his interest in Latin America. Within the building is the “Charles and Willoughby Nason Reading Room” where visitors can view the extensive book collection and artifacts.

The Center has had many directors over the years. Most recently, In August 2020, former NMSU Provost Carol Parker appointed Dr. David G. Ortiz as the Provost’s inaugural faculty fellow to lead CLABS. During his tenure, the Center has offered academic and student support in various ways. CLABS has awarded 18 scholarships to graduate and undergraduate students to support research and studies in Latin America totaling more than $10,000 dollars. The Center currently supports the Latin American Studies supplementary major at NMSU and helped with the creation of the newly established Transborder and Global Human Dynamics Ph.D. program at NMSU. CLABS also supports SALAS, the Student Association for Latin American Studies, and advises students interested in, or participating in, the Latin American Studies supplementary major.

As part of its recent scholarly efforts, CLABS has hosted an ongoing speaker series highlighting the work of more than 30 scholars, practitioners, and governmental and non-governmental individuals whose expertise is in Latin American and U.S.-Mexico Border issues. The series is broadcasted via Zoom every month and it is attended by an average of 175 people from around the world. The speaker series talks are also recorded and posted on the CLABS YouTube channel for public viewing.The Center has also organized an international symposium on the “Impacts, Responses, and Challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US-Mexico Borderlands” that consisted of 20 panelists from Mexico, Spain, NMSU, UTEP, UC Boulder, UC San Diego, and New Mexico’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Bureau, amongst others. CLABS has co-sponsored and hosted several international conferences including the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, and the First and Second Binational Mental Health Conferences which were attended by more than 3,000 participants. 

CLABS has also sponsored many different organizations and events within NMSU that share our common interests, such as the Diversity and Dialogue Reading Series, Imagining and Shaping Pluriversities Dialogue Series, Latino Week Event, Chicano Programs Scholarly Talks, Borderlands and Ethnics Studies Programs Talk Series, Center for Border and Economic Development (C-BED) Speaker Series, and the Education & Mental Health Beyond Borders: Tearing Down Walls Symposium, to name a few.

As part of its dissemination and community engagement efforts, CLABS also houses a searchable database of NMSU Faculty with interests in Latin America and the U.S.- Mexico Border. This includes personalized pages for each scholar. The webpage is periodically updated for CLABS events, co-sponsored events, scholarships, student resources, board and committee meeting information, as well as information and links to grants, projects, and other NMSU organizations that have similar interests. In 2022, the Center was a co-host for the Inter-American Institute of Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) visit to NMSU, where an agenda for cooperation was established between our institutions. Finally, CLABS has a large social media presence to disseminate efforts to the public at large, with Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Follow us @NMSUCLABS if you want to find out more about our activities, and if you find yourselves in southern New Mexico, please come by and visit us. We would love to welcome you!

About the author

David G. Ortiz is Associate Professor and Department Head of Sociology, as well as Inaugural Faculty Fellow for the Center for Latin American and Border Studies (CLABS) at New Mexico State University. He was born in Mexico City and served as international observer in elections throughout Latin America with Alianza Cívica and President Jimmy Carter.

References:

Nason House: https://clabs.nmsu.edu/nason-house/index.html

CLABS Overview: https://clabs.nmsu.edu/index.html