The Center for the Americas CFA was established in 1996 to support research and curricular development, and to promote institutional exchanges with other institutions in our hemisphere. The Center facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty members in all colleges and professional schools, with a special focus on Latin America and those working comparatively across national and linguistic borders in the Americas. The "Americas" in the name of the Center is, then, emphatically plural: we aim to foster comparative and interdisciplinary projects in, about, and across North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean. The University and the city of Houston are perfectly positioned as cultural, social, economic, energy, health, and technology gateways between North and South.