Latin American Studies Resources: Home

CLAS is designated a Comprehensive National Resource Center on Latin America by the U.S. Department of Education. While maintaining one of the strongest concentrations of Brazilianists of any university in the United States, the Center’s faculty members also have particular strengths in Mesoamerican and Andean anthropology and archaeology, the study of democracy building and economic development, Latin American literature and languages, and the study of African populations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Vanderbilt’s collection of Latin American materials is one of the library’s principal strengths. Vanderbilt established the first Institute of Brazilian Studies in the United States in 1947; hence, Brazil, particularly Brazilian history, has been a focus of the collection. Andean and Mayan studies, particularly in archaeology and anthropology in Peru and Guatemala are other strengths. 

The Colombian collection is Vanderbilt's most distinctive Latin American Collections offering scholars a rich array of highly varied primary resources:  

• J. León Helguera Collection which includes 19th and early 20th-century manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets and newspapers, among many other rare materials

• The Manuel Zapata Olivella Collection of manuscripts, papers, transcriptions and recordings–a treasure trove of ethnographies, literary manuscripts and other Afro-Colombiana belonging to the acclaimed novelist, anthropologist and physician.

• The Delia Zapata Olivella Collection which focuses on the performance arts, especially music and dance and Afro-Hispanic traditions.

Other special collections include early travel accounts of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Simon Collier tango collection and the ever expanding digital collection, Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies, including Brazil, Colombia, and Cuba.