Tendiendo puentes, compartiendo conocimientos: The International Conference on Chicano Literature in Spain (1998-2016) (original) (raw)

The situation has reverted in recent decades considerably. Our rulers, starting with King Felipe VI, have dedicated countless efforts to spread the knowledge of a Hispanic United States past on both sides of the Atlantic. But before our politicians realized that common history or paid attention to the Latino population in the United States, Spanish academics had begun to scrutinize them from different analytical angles, most of them focused on literature and culture. Numerous dissertations, research papers, publications, seminars, and conferences have been devoted to the study of the fastest growing group in the United States. Among the members of this heterogeneous community labeled as Latinos, Mexican Americans or Chicanos have deserved special attention by Spanish researchers. In this essay, I present the studies about Chicanos that have been carried out in Spain, both by Spaniards and by researchers from other nationalities who reside permanently in Spain, or those analyses developed by Spanish scholars outside our borders. While spending the summer of 2014 conducting research at the University of California in Santa Barbara, I was contacted by Professor Jesús Rosales to participate in his new academic project. He was compiling articles by Spanish scholars working on both sides of the Atlantic and whose major research interest was Chicano literature. I must confess that Rosales's first and logical thought, as I will explain 1. For more information, see