In mainstream discourse, Latino Americans are usually thought of in terms of the urban centers of the East and West coast. In a lecture on Wednesday, Comparative American Studies Professor Gina Perez and Professor of History Pablo Mitchell attempted to give a new perspective on this immigrant group with their studies on Latino ethnography and the history of travel in Latino communities.

The main theme of Mitchell’s talk centered on “the truth of human bodies” and how it added to the experience of Latinos.

His current research focuses on Lorain County’s Mexican community in the mid-20th century. In the Lorain Morning Journal during that time period there seemed to be a sense of “inclusion and exclusion of Latinos,” said Mitchell.

This paper detailed events in the Latino community such as marriages, obituaries and community organizations, so there was “a sense of inclusion but there were also examples of a social inequality,” said Mitchell.

According to Mitchell, there are references to Latinos as “other than fully American,” paralleling the African-American experience with “mention of their racial denigration,” as well as public identification of arrested individuals as Mexican.

The second half of the lecture was on Perez’s research. She spoke about the Puerto Rican experiences of displacement and migration in Chicago during the post-war era.

Since 1996, Perez has studied the migration and displacement of Puerto Ricans, especially in Chicago. She began research in this field because her family is from Puerto Rico and she believes that there is a tendency for people to “end up studying who they are.”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Puerto Ricans had poor economic performance. One theory that was prevalent at the time was that “Puerto Ricans engaged in high levels of migration. They moved too much and as a result failed to create attachments to the job force,” said Perez.

However, Perez’s alternate theory is that the reason Puerto Ricans migrated was because they were poor.

“It was a strategy to make ends meet, to ensure material survival,” she said.

Another issue that Perez addressed in her talk was how there is a high recruitment of Latinos in the military.

“They are seen as an untapped reserve in military recruitment,” said Perez. Youths are encouraged by parents to enlist because of financial concerns.

“It is a way to help their families make ends meet,” she continued. “There are 10,000 Latinos in Junior Reserve Officer Training Core in the Chicago school systems [and] there are more females than males participating in these programs.”

The point of her current research is to discover “a new line of inquiry in research of Lorain County and the Midwest for Latinos.”

Perez specifically wants to address the present realities of these communities and to prove that Latinos are not restricted to coastal areas such as California or New York.

Perez and Mitchell’s current research is still developing but future accomplishments could include an oral history project or a project incorporating Latino community organizations.