{"id":45483,"date":"2026-02-26T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/?p=45483"},"modified":"2026-02-26T12:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:44:23","slug":"a-new-perspective-on-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/a-new-perspective-on-puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Perspective on Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_45484\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-45484\" class=\"wp-image-45484 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82.jpg\" alt=\"A male and female stand side by side in a lush outdoor setting with large green plants behind them, the female wearing a patterned top with visible tattoos and the male dressed in a dark turtleneck and blazer.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Puerto-Rican-Studies-Hub-2025-12-15AD-0000-82-900x600.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-45484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Santiago Ortiz and Mel\u00e9ndez-Badillo hope to put UW\u2013Madison at the forefront of discussions of Puerto Rican history and politics. <span class=\"credit\">Althea Dotzour<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The new Puerto Rican Studies Hub at UW\u2013Madison launched in October. In addition to public programming, it will fund a pair of postdoctoral fellowships and support a cohort of six students for a new mentorship program. To strengthen partnerships beyond the university, it also plans to award grants to community, cultural, scholarly, and artistic initiatives connected to Puerto Rico and its diasporas.<\/p>\n<p>The hub\u2019s founding is timely, says <strong>Aurora Santiago Ortiz, <\/strong>assistant professor of gender and women\u2019s studies and Chicanx\/e and Latinx\/e studies, who has spearheaded it along with associate history professor <strong>Jorell Mel\u00e9ndez-Badillo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see changes in migration patterns, in that there are many Puerto Rican communities outside the major metropolitan centers and throughout the Midwest,\u201d Santiago Ortiz says.<\/p>\n<p>The first of its kind in the Midwest, the Puerto Rican Studies Hub was made possible by a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. <span style=\"font-size: 1.125rem;\">Mellon Foundation. At a time when ethnic studies programs are under threat around the country, Mel\u00e9ndez-Badillo says, he hopes it puts UW\u2013Madison at the forefront of discussions of Puerto Rican history and politics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want it to be a place for connecting folks, not only in the Midwest, but nationally and internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UW\u2013Madison launches a hub to explore the island\u2019s culture and history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":45484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus","subcategory-humanities-culture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45531,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45483\/revisions\/45531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/onwisconsin.uwalumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/proxy.goincop1.workers.dev:443\/https\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}