Américo Mendoza–Mori is an interdisciplinary scholar trained in literary, linguistic and cultural studies. His research focuses on Latin American, U.S. Latinx, and Indigenous issues, currently at Northeastern University.
From 2021-2024, he was Lecturer in Latinx Studies and Latinx Studies Working Group (LSWG) Faculty Director at EMR, as well as founding Faculty Director of the Harvard Quechua Initiative on Global Indigeneity which then hosted the national Quechua Alliance‘s 7th Annual Meeting at Harvard in 2023.
Mendoza-Mori’s work has appeared in a variety of academic journals, has been presented at the United Nations, and has been featured in The New York Times, a TEDx talk, NPR, Remezcla. He received his B.A. from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima (Peru), and has a Ph.D. from the University of Miami, Florida.
Before joining Harvard, Dr. Mendoza-Mori took on innovative leadership roles: founder and coordinator of the University of Pennsylvania’s Quechua program, co-founder of The Quechua Alliance, and co-founder of the Thinking Andean Studies international conference. He has been a cultural consultant for theater and film, including Paramount Pictures’ movie Dora and the Lost City of Gold in 2019. Additionally, he has been involved in educational and community-based initiatives in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and the United States.
At EMR, he taught seven unique courses on Transnational Cultural Studies, Education and Language, and Critical Latinx Indigeneities:
- EMR 1010: Topics in Latinx Studies (Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023)
- EMR 147: COVID-19, inequality and the Latinx community (Fall 2021)
- EMR 148: Indigeneity and Latinidad (Spring 2022, Spring 2023)
- EMR 149: Latinx Representation in Media, Films, and Pop Culture (Spring 2022, Spring 2023)
- EMR 151: Quechua, Indigenous language revitalization and Global Indigeneity (Fall 2022, Fall 2023)
- EMR 160: Environmental Practices and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (Spring 2024)
- EMR 161: Urban Latinidad: Barrios, Public Space, and Social Movements (Spring 2024)
Selected scholarly Publications
– Mendoza-Mori, A., & Sprouse, R. (in press). Hemispheric Quechua: Language education and reclamation within diasporic communities in the United States. International Journal of the Sociology of Language.
– Mendoza-Mori, A. “Lenguas y culturas originarias en la construcción de identidades: las oportunidades del Quechua” in Osiris A. Gómez, Sara Poot Herrera, Francisco A. Lomelí (eds.) Caleidoscopio verbal: lenguas y literaturas originarias. México (2020): Oro de la Noche Ediciones, pp. 32-39
– Mendoza-Mori, A. “Quechua Language programs in the United States: Cultural hubs for Indigenous cultures”, Chiricú Journal: Latino Literatures, Arts and Cultures, v.2 (Spring 2017)