The Department of Hispanic Studies of the University of Houston is the first and only in the nation to offer a Ph.D. degree in Spanish with a concentration in the literature, language and culture of Latinos of the United States. Latino or Hispanic peoples have resided in the portion of North American that became the United States before the founding of the British colonies and the American Republic. Over the course of centuries, a native Latino culture developed, consistently enriched by immigrants and exiles from Spanish-speaking countries producing what is today the largest minority population in the United States. To meet the educational and cultural needs of what eventually will be a third of the national population, the Department of Hispanic Studies has created the US Latino concentration with content and methodologies not only for teaching the US Latino heritage language, literature and culture, but also for researching and preserving them. The concentration provides ample opportunities for students to conduct research and report on their work at conferences as well as to publish their findings.