The Department of American Studies presents the 2023 David Noble Lecture, featuring Jason Ruiz, Associate Professor and Chair of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. 

Based on Ruiz’s forthcoming book, this talk examines the history of pop culture representations that have linked Latinx people and communities to illegal narcotics.  Since the official start of the War on Drugs in the early 1970s, U.S. media-makers have produced thousands of texts—from schlocky true crime memoirs to critically acclaimed Hollywood blockbusters—that frame particular groups as heroes, villains, and victims in the War on Drugs.  From Scarface to Breaking Bad, Latinos and Latin Americans have fared particularly poorly in pop culture narratives of the War on Drugs and are frequently depicted as the sources of America’s drug problems. The talk posits that these texts perform the significant but misunderstood cultural work of framing Latin America and U.S. Latinos as enemies in that metaphorical war and that, through them, latinidad has become synonymous with the dangers of the drug trade.

5:00–6:00 p.m. CT — Event with Q&A
6:00 p.m. CT — Reception