Latino Peoples in the New America: Racialization and Resistance

"Latinos" are the largest group among Americans of color. At 59 million, they constitute nearly a fifth of the US population. Their number has alarmed many in government, other mainstream institutions, and the nativist right who fear the white-majority US they have known is disappearing. During the 2016 US election and after, Donald Trump has played on these fears, embracing xenophobic messages vilifying many Latin American immigrants as rapists, drug smugglers, or "gang bangers." Many share such nativist desires to build enhanced border walls and create immigration restrictions to keep Latinos of various backgrounds out. Many whites’ racist framing has also cast native-born Latinos, their language, and culture in an unfavorable light.

Trump and his followers’ attacks provide a peek at the complex phenomenon of the racialization of US Latinos. This volume explores an array of racialization’s manifestations, including white mob violence, profiling by law enforcement, political disenfranchisement, whitewashed reinterpretations of Latino history and culture, and depictions of "good Latinos" as racially subservient. But subservience has never marked the Latino community, and this book includes pointed discussions of Latino resistance to racism. Additionally, the book’s scope goes beyond the United States, revealing how Latinos are racialized in yet other societies.

José A. Cobas is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Arizona State University. His recent publications include (with Jorge Duany and Joe R. Feagin) How the United States Racializes Latinos: White Hegemony and Its Consequences (Routledge/Paradigm, 2009), and (with Joe Feagin) Latinos Facing Racism: Discrimination, Resistance and Endurance (Routledge/Paradigm, 2014).

Joe R. Feagin is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Among his books are The White Racial Frame (Routledge, 2013) and (with J. Cobas) Latinos Facing Racism (Routledge/Paradigm, 2014). He is the recipient of the American Association for Affirmative Action’s Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Sociological Association’s W. E. B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, and the American Sociological Association’s Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award. He was the 1999-2000 president of the American Sociological Association.

Daniel J. Delgado is Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University at San Antonio. He is writing a book on the everyday racial politics of middle-class Mexican ancestry people. He has published in edited volumes and in the Journal of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, and in the Journal of Critical Sociology.

Maria Chávez is Associate Professor and Chair of the Political Science department at Pacific Lutheran University. She is author of Everyday Injustice: Latino Professionals and Racism (2011). Her new book Latino Professional Success in America: Public Policies, People, and Perseverance is scheduled for publication (Routledge, 2019).