A New Concentration Focused on Latin America: Preparing Students to Address the Region’s Most Pressing Challenges

The state of Texas is no stranger to border and immigration issues that have been in the forefront of national headlines for years. The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University recently expanded its regional focus to include Latin America, providing a rigorous and interactive option for those interested in studying the border, Mexico, and Latin America. Dr. Aileen Teague brings a global perspective to the coursework, both as a PhD in diplomatic history specializing in U.S.-Mexico relations and having travelled the world in a military family before serving in the Marine Corps.

What makes the Bush School’s Latin America concentration unique?

With the Brownsville-Matamoros border crossing located only 6.5 hours south of our College Station campus, the interdisciplinary Latin America concentration—drawing from history, politics, development, and border studies—provides students with a dynamic curriculum and practical tools to gain expertise in the region.

Our faculty help students gain a multi-perspectival understanding of regional issues both within nation-states and across country borders, where the social, political, and economic interconnectivity between the United States and its Latin American partners have reverberations on a global scale.

Students’ training in U.S.-Latin America relations integrates cutting-edge academic research with high impact learning experiences. For instance, as an historian of the drug trade in Mexico, I instill in my courses an appreciation for the ways in which historical legacies contextualize and complicate current policymaking.

American domestic politics and interactions also play a role when we bring in practitioners and policymakers to engage in dialogue with our students. A former assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security joined us in seminar recently to discuss the possibilities for comprehensive immigration reform and improved border security, given the highly partisan political environment.

Additionally, a capstone project features students interfacing with real-world governmental and nongovernmental agencies operating in Latin America and internships that help students develop their professional networks. With the backing of one of the largest public universities in the country and alumni dedicated to giving back and supporting service, our students make their mark all over the world.

How does the Bush School promote new voices and new perspectives in U.S. relations with Mexico and Latin America?

While research is a bedrock of our Latin America concentration, we also highlight a range of perspectives from U.S. and foreign practitioners. In 2020, we launched “The Other Side of the Border: Ties that Bind and Issues that Divide,” a speaker series featuring human-centered and practitioner perspectives on issues related to the border, Mexico, and Central America.

We live in uncertain times when it comes to achieving reforms in immigration and border security in the post-Trump era. This project aims to facilitate dialogue between policy practitioners and our graduate students and is intended to unearth “o -the-book,” grassroots perspectives, which are o en where the road begins to achieving reform. This year, for example, the series will feature a discussion with a Mexican journalist on the dangers of reporting on the drug war, as well as a conversation with an Amazonian activist on the challenges of utilizing international aid in the a ermath of the 2020 fires.