Spotlight

October 18, 2000

Latina Magazine Names Brooklyn College Professor Woman of the Year

Alice Newcomb-Doyle (718) 951-5882

Brooklyn, N.Y. -- Virginia Sánchez Korrol, chair of the department of Puerto Rican and Latino studies at Brooklyn College, has been named one of ten Latinas of the Year 2000 by Latina magazine. The announcement was made in the September issue. Dr. Sánchez-Korrol will also present an overview of Latina history during the second annual Latino Expo, on Sunday, November 5, at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel.

The magazine chose Dr. Sánchez-Korrol, a leading scholar of the Puerto Rican/Latino experience in the U.S., for her unique forthcoming reference work, Latinas in the United States: An Historical Encyclopedia, scheduled for publication by Indiana University Press in 2003. She was honored along with co-editor Vicki L. Ruiz, who chairs the department of Chicana and Chicano studies at Arizona State University.

The two-volume book is an historical encyclopedia of influential Latina women from the 1500's to present day. It was made possible by a $140,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to initiate the project.

"While the field of Latino studies has grown tremendously, very little academic research has focused on the Latina population and how these women have helped shape their own U.S. history," said Dr. Sánchez-Korrol. "Since we began our research, we have received a deluge of responses from all over the U.S. -- not just from the Puerto-Rican community -- but from people of all backgrounds who want the stories of unknown, influential Latina women to be told."

Feature articles on the editors and some of the women included in the encyclopedia have recently appeared in The New York Times, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Hispanic Magazine, The Bergen-Record, Puerto-Rico Herald, and several online publications.

According to Sánchez-Korrol, at least one-third of the encyclopedia will feature important, heroic women previously unknown. Included are profiles of Loretta Vásquez, a Cuban-American who fought in the Civil War dressed as a man, and María Latigo Hernández, one of the earliest women to struggle for education for Mexican-Americans.

Additional published works by Dr. Sánchez-Korrol include From Colonia to Community, the History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, (University of California Press, 1994), now in its fourth printing. It is among the few books that document the history of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.

Puerto Rican and Latino Studies is an interdisciplinary department that prepares students with a solid foundation and multi-disciplinary knowledge about the Latino experience in the United States and their countries of origin in Latin America, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico. The Department offers majors in Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, Puerto Rican/Latino and Business Studies, as well as concentrations for prospective bilingual professionals. Graduates pursue a myriad of careers in the teaching and health fields, law, medicine, business, community service and media.

Other Latinas of the Year 2000 include Grammy-Award winner Christina Aguilera, Olympic triathlete Jennifer Gutiérrez, and Lydia Camarillo, the first Latina to be named CEO of the Democratic National Convention.

Brooklyn College, founded in 1930, is one of the eleven senior colleges of the City University of New York. Located on a twenty-six acre tree-lined campus in Flatbush, it enrolls 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students who are representative of the diverse population of Brooklyn and New York City. The college is nationally known for its core curriculum, which has been hailed as one of the "bright spots" in American higher education. Visit the College Web site at: www.brooklyn.cuny.edu.

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