This panel examines the dynamics of family in Latin America through the perspectives of race, sexuality, and religion. These subjects tap into some of the most vital scholarly concerns in Latin American history today. We expect to draw an audience interested in indigenous society, in issues of gender, and in Catholicism and its critics. These studies, too, benefit from good storytelling: a focus on the personal lives, of consideration of power dynamics, and of larger political import. The presentations will follow a traditional format, and we are honored to have two excellent historians to serve and chair and commenter. We expect a lively conversation with the audience.

Taken together, these papers provide insights into families and kinship, the most intimate element of personhood. While each scholar rightly stakes out his or her own area of expertise, the papers line up nicely to emphasize certain points. These commonalities include an exploration of individuals within a larger system, constraints and opportunities within families, gender roles in relationships, racial considerations within families, and the influence of religion on families. Of special note, the periodization of this panel allows for an examination of three key turning points: adjustments to colonial society after conquest, the long eighteenth century, and the early national period. In the first paper, Chad McCutchen uses the connections of families in early colonial Peru to question the scholarly consensus of fluid racial designations. Studies have held that individuals could opportunistically negotiate their racial designation between the “republics” of españoles and indios. This paper challenges this notion by examining the ties of family, kinship, and paternalism that both Native Andeans and Spanish expected from individuals. His research additionally shows the considerations of mestizos as they navigated between these differing and competing systems. Cory Conover examines forbidden families in eighteenth-century Colombia. Despite grave prohibitions, priests established long-lasting relationships with female parishioners and raised their children. Church investigations reveal everyday life of these families in unusual detail allowing for a glimpse of sexuality, gender roles, and race (many of the consorts were Black) in clerical households. This study connects these cases to the oft-repeated claims of a priesthood gone wild, accusations that justified strong-handed reforms by enlightened absolutists and later nineteenth-century liberals. Pilar Herr studies the separate diaries of a married couple in Chile of the mid-nineteenth century. David Trumbull served the local Protestant community as Presbyterian minister and together with his wife Jane ran a number of religious schools in Valparaiso. Their reflections show gendered interpretations of a married life that lasted more than thirty years. Diaries, too, demonstrate how the couple negotiated shared responsibilities over the Presbyterian ministry, schools, and lobbying the Chilean government for greater religious rights. Overall, this panel examines Latin America society through the complex connections of families without losing sight of individuals and their personal lives.