Latinos constitute today the largest ‘ethnic minority’ demographic in the United States, and as result, over the past several decades, a steadily increasing number of academic programs and centers have dedicated themselves to studying this population. But where do those ‘latinos’ come from? Who are they? What do they leave behind in their (or their ancestors’) countries of origin? Is it possible to study U.S. Latinos from Latin America and the Caribbean? The Program for the Study of Latinos in the United States was founded under the auspices of Casa de las Américas, Cuba’s leading institute for cultural and literary studies, in  order to address precisely these questions. In this talk, Ana Niria Albo, assistant director of the Programa de Estudios Sobre Latinos en los Estados Unidos will discuss the program’s efforts to foster a unique critical dialogue about U.S. Latino culture by emphasizing the important relationship between sending and receiving countries in shaping Latino lives.