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.
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 Harvard's EMR, he plans to teach courses on Transnational Cultural Studies, Education and Language, and Critical Latinx Indigeneities. For Fall 2021 he will teach the course “Topics on Latinx Studies”, and the seminar “COVID-19, Inequality and the Latinx community.” On Spring 2022 he will teach a seminar on “Indigeneity and Latinidad”.
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)