Launched in October, UW–Madison’s Puerto Rican Studies Hub is the first initiative of its kind in the Midwest and is already emerging as a dynamic center for scholarship, public engagement, and community connection. Supported by a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Hub brings together historians, artists, students, and community members through lectures, performances, fellowships, and collaborative programming. Its inaugural event—a musical performance and storytelling program by Los Pleneros de la Cresta from Ciales, Puerto Rico—drew more than 200 attendees to Memorial Union’s Great Hall, setting the tone for a project rooted in both academic rigor and community celebration.
The Hub is co-directed by Associate Professor of History Jorell Meléndez-Badillo and Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies Aurora Santiago Ortiz, whose scholarship and personal histories shape the Hub’s mission. Meléndez-Badillo, a historian of Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and working-class intellectual traditions, is originally from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, while Santiago Ortiz, whose work focuses on feminist movements, student activism, and community-based methodologies, grew up moving between San Juan and New York. Together, they envision the Hub not as a single academic program but as “the center of a wheel,” connecting UW–Madison to Puerto Rican communities and scholars across Wisconsin, the Midwest, Puerto Rico, and beyond. Their work builds on a long tradition of Puerto Rican studies at UW–Madison, shaped by generations of scholars and student organizations dating back to demands for Puerto Rican studies in the late twentieth century.
At its core, the Puerto Rican Studies Hub aims to create a pipeline that supports scholars, artists, and community members at every stage, from undergraduates to senior faculty, while remaining grounded in the field’s community-driven origins. Its programming is organized around three pillars: Imagining Puerto Rican Futures, which includes public lectures and a symposium interrogating the future of the field; Solidarity Ecosystems, which supports postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, artists, and writers; and Learning and Unlearning Together, a community-focused initiative that includes film screenings, culinary and cultural festivals, and future study-away opportunities in Chicago and Puerto Rico. As Meléndez-Badillo and Santiago Ortiz emphasize, the Hub reflects an extension of the Wisconsin Idea—producing knowledge in service of broader communities—and positions UW–Madison as a catalyst for new, interdisciplinary conversations about Puerto Rico, its diasporas, and its global significance.
Read more about the Puerto Rican Studies Hub
The hub has been featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Badger Herald, and Wisconsin State Journal. Most recently, it was spotlighted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You can also follow the Hub on Instagram @prstudieshub, subscribe to the hub’s newsletter at linktr.ee/prstudies.hub reach out to the program about ways to get involved at prstudies.hub@wisc.edu.