Lionel Cantú Memorial Award and Human Rights Investigations Lab applications are now OPEN!

Dialogues without Borders

Founded in 1992, the Research Center for the Americas (RCA)* is the first in the University of California system to advance a broad program of interdisciplinary research that brings together Chicanx/Latinx and Latin American Studies. We are a faculty-led research center with expertise in multiple scholarly areas including migration, the arts, indigeneity, and California’s Latino and immigrant communities. We collaborate with researchers across the campus to advance cross-disciplinary perspectives linking the Americas.

We host world-class scholars, sponsor initiatives between the campus and the community, offer graduate student research support, and mentor undergraduate students interested in research. In 2019, the RCA established the Human Rights Investigations Lab for the Americas, which trains students on how to use the internet as a critical tool for fact finding and evidence gathering for human rights violations and to promote social justice.

The current RCA Director's Initiatives includes the Human Rights Investigations Lab and Brazil Online. A previous initative, the Audio Visual Journalism project, published its public curriculum in September 2019.

The RCA is proud to sponsor a broad spectrum of events that are open to the public. For a listing of events, please check out News and Events.

*The RCA was previously known as the Chicano Latino Research Center. Its name changed in 2018.

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