James Ferguson King grew up with a taste for travel. His father was a construction engineer who moved his family around from city to city, country to country, following big public works projects. As a boy, King picked up Spanish in Lima, Peru. The experience would one day lead Berkeley to become a pioneering institution in the field of Latin American studies.
Few institutions at Berkeley can claim roots as eclectic as the Center for Latin American Studies, which King would one day help found. Professor Arturo Torres-Rioseco, born in Chile, joined the university's Spanish department in 1928 and became the first scholar at the school charged with developing Latin American studies. Most scholarship in the department at that time focused on language and literature. Still, in the early 1930s, Berkeley began offering specialized interdisciplinary training in Latin American studies, becoming one of the first American institutions to offer a Ph.D. in the field.
The Center for Latin American Studies
After earning his bachelor's degree in three years from the University of Minnesota, King headed straight to Berkeley and Professor Herbert E. Bolton's pioneering seminar on Latin American history. His thesis on the history of slavery in colonial Colombia helped him advance quickly through the academic ranks. During World War II, King brought the managing editorship of the Hispanic American Historical Review to Berkeley. Under his guidance, Berkeley would soon become a leading source for other universities across the United States establishing new Latin American studies programs.
In 1950, scholars from a range of disciplines began meeting informally as the Latin American Colloquium. Sociologists, anthropologists, geographer, historians, and literary critics would gather to trade ideas and share resources to support one another's research in the growing field. In 1956, grants from the Ford Foundation established the colloquium as an official institution: The Center for Latin American Studies.
Today the center houses its own library and art gallery. It organizes more than 90 seminars, lectures, and public forums each year topics ranging from corporate globalization in Mexico to documentary filmmaking in South America. The center's triannual Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies has created a unique identity that is equal parts academic journal, reportage, and venue for some of the best photography to come out of the region.
Outreach to communities both local and international has also been central to the center's mission. From breakfast meetings with local civic leaders to curricula for elementary schools to conferences that bring together leading Latin America scholars from around the world, the Center for Latin American Studies continues to forge new connections between north and south. Through the center's wide-reaching embrace of disciplines and institutions, peoples and perspectives, the places James Ferguson King grew up seeing as a kid today have each gained their own place at Berkeley.
– Marcus Wohlsen