In Search of Unconditional Hospitality: Latin American & Hispanic Student Experiences at Luther College

During the 2021-22 academic year, Luther Professor of Anthropology, Anita Carrasco, conducted research drawing inspiration from anthropologist Sharam Khosravi’s concept of unconditional hospitality (2011) broadly understood as being open to a person who is not like oneself. Under her direction, three student research assistants from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Chicago conducted close to 50 interviews collecting stories from other Latin American and Hispanic students reflecting on what it meant to be of a minority background at a majority white institution like Luther College.

In this talk, Professor Carrasco will address some of the themes covered in the conversations which include:

1. What expressions of hospitality offered students positive experiences at Luther College?
2. What expressions of hostility gave them negative experiences?
3. What did unconditional hospitality mean for the students themselves?
4. What can be done by institutions of higher education like Luther College to become places where minority students get to experience unconditional hospitality?