Description
2022 Honorable Mention, John Leo & Dana Heller Award for Best Single Work, Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in LGBTQ Studies, Popular Culture Association (PCA)
2023 Honorable Mention, Outstanding Book, Latinx Studies Section of Latin American Studies Association (LASA)
Is Latinidad a racial or an ethnic designation? Both? Neither? The increasing recognition of diversity within Latinx communities and the well-known story of shifting census designations have cast doubt on the idea that Latinidad is a race, akin to white or Black. And the mainstream media constantly cover the "browning" of the United States, as though the racial character of Latinidad were self-evident.
Many scholars have argued that the uncertainty surrounding Latinidad is emancipatory: by queering race--by upsetting assumptions about categories of human difference--Latinidad destabilizes the architecture of oppression. But Laura Grappo is less sanguine. She draws on case studies including the San Antonio Four (Latinas who were wrongfully accused of child sex abuse); the football star Aaron Hernandez's incarceration and suicide; Lorena Bobbitt, the headline-grabbing Ecuadorian domestic-abuse survivor; and controversies over the racial identities of public Latinx figures to show how media institutions and state authorities deploy the ambiguities of Latinidad in ways that mystify the sources of Latinx political and economic disadvantage. With Latinidad always in a state of flux, it is all too easy for the powerful to conjure whatever phantoms serve their interests.
Author: Laura Grappo
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 08/23/2022
Pages: 312
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781477325209
ISBN10: 1477325204
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Hispanic American Studies
- Social Science | Gender Studies
About the Author
Laura Grappo is an assistant professor in the American studies department at Wesleyan University.