Alvarez anniversary, kindly organized by past LASA presidents Carmen Diana Deere, Susan Eckstein, and Lars Schoultz: one entitled, “Tumultuous Times: LASA in the 1960s,” and the other, “The Never-Ending Cold War: The United States, Cuba, and LASA’s Battle for Academic Freedom.” Two featured sessions inaugurate LASA’s new programmatic initiative “Other Americas/Otros Saberes”, to be formally launched by Vice President and President-elect Charles R. We will have two special sessions commemorating LASA 40th Sonia E. Featured sessions, generally also solicited by the president and program chairs, are those we wish to foreground in the Program due to their particular relevance to the Association’s Strategic Plan and programmatic priorities. My debt of gratitude to the colleagues who graciously agreed to organize these stellar, intellectually provocative plenary sessions is immensurable.

The thematic plenary sessions include: European Perspectives on the Field of Latin American Studies Transnational Dialogues on Globalization and the Intersections of Latina/o- Chicana/o-Latin American(s) Studies The Place of Puerto Rico/Puerto Ricans in Latin American Studies: Perspectives from the Diaspora Repensando los Andes Redefining the Caribbean Estudios Latinoamericanos en América Latina y el Caribe Recentering the Periphery: Non-Latin Latin Americanism The Relationship of Brazilian Studies to Latin American Studies and Recentrar los márgenes: El lugar de Puerto Rico en los estudios latinoamericanos y latinos. Plenaries are invited sessions designed to speak directly to the Congress theme and together will provide an unprecedented overview of the diversity, breadth, and depth of the field across the globe. LASA2006 plenaries, featured sessions and other special events will offer an inter-related set of conversations which will hopefully spark debate among our members about issues broadly related to LASA’s new Mission Statement. The Congress program builds on the wide variety of approaches and epistemologies that emerge from multiple positionalities and diverse geopolitical locations in collectively re-imagining Latin American studies for the 21st century. The Congress theme, “Decentering Latin American Studies,” will advance the transnationalization of the field by exploring how the study of Latin America, the Caribbean and its peoples is practiced within the United States, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in other regions of the world. We also hope this XXVI International Congress in Puerto Rico will continue to point the way toward LASA’s future as a more thoroughly transnational association which will reflect the spirit of our new Mission Statement: “LASA fosters intellectual discussion, research, and teaching on Latin America, the Caribbean, and its peoples throughout the Americas, promotes the interests of its diverse membership, and encourages civic engagement through network building and public debate.” LASA2006 is an invitation to all of us to engage in scholarly and pedagogical interdisciplinary debates across all sorts of borders which would further that mission. LASA2006 marks our Association’s 40th anniversary and this Congress will carry on LASA’s finest traditions of promoting scholarly debate and collegial collaboration across the Americas. MESSAGE FROM THE LASA PRESIDENT We come together in San Juan to commemorate LASA’s past, to debate the cuttingedge issues that are shaping the field in the present, and to work collectively in building the future of Latin/o-a American Studies.

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