Ricans.10
More recently, with the growing acceptance of gender as a non-binary category, some Latinos have begun using the term “Latinx” to describe themselves and their communities – a framing that attempts to break down the gender binary inherent in the use of Latina/o and to provide space for the inclusion of Latinos who do not identify as male or female within the identifier. Some have critiqued the term as another form of US imperialism, given that “x” does not exist in Spanish; no Spanish speaker would automatically understand what the “x” in “Latinx” means. But the term does seem to be gaining traction. In a 2020 statewide poll of Latinos in California, 24 percent of Latino registered voters reported using the term “Latinx” to describe themselves, and 56 percent said that they were familiar with the label.11
Despite the fact that these pan-ethnic terms have been in use for decades, studies have consistently shown that people tend to prefer to use their national-origin identifier, such as “Mexican American,” “Cuban American,” etc. There are also sub-identifiers within national-origin groups. The word “Chicano” is meant to describe, specifically, individuals of Mexican origin in the United States. This term came directly out of the political organizing within the Mexican American community in the US southwest during the 1960s; hence, its usage often presumes a certain political consciousness, in addition to being a national-origin identifier. “Boricua” is a term used to describe Puerto Ricans on the island and in the United States (it comes from the name of an indigenous group native to the island), and “Nuyorican,” more specifically, is sometimes used to denote individuals of Puerto Rican origin living in New York City. “Quisqueya/o” is sometimes used to describe Dominicans (it is the indigenous word for the island of Española).
Thus, there are many terms which are used to describe individuals of Latin American origin living in the United States; some of them are national-origin-specific, others spring directly from the political mobilization of the community or from the desire of group members to come up with new terms to describe themselves. For the sake of simplicity, this text uses the term “Latino” to refer to groups of Latin American origin generally, and national-origin-specific terms to describe the experiences of individuals from particular countries. By doing so, we do not mean to imply that latinidad is gendered in a binary way. We are simply adopting one of the most commonly used terms. Its use should not be interpreted as excluding or minimizing the importance of non-female or male-identified Latinos. This discussion should make clear that these labels come into and out of style and can be politically or personally important. Many Latinos choose to use different words to describe their identities – terms that are grounded in their particular historical, personal, and political experiences.
Latinos’ “Ethnicity” and “Race”
The fact that this book focuses on the experiences of Latinos in the United States implies that Latinos constitute a social group, one that should be the focus of the present study. But what does it mean for a group of people to be a social group? Political theorist Iris Young described a social group as “a collective of persons differentiated from others by cultural forms, practices, special needs or capacities, structure of power, or privilege.”12 According to Young, what makes a collection of people into a group is “less some set of attributes its members share than the relation in which they stand to others.” In other words, defining Latinos as a social group does not mean that we need to assume that all Latinos are the same, share the same experiences, identify in the same ways, or have the same goals or aspirations. We will see in the next chapters that this is not the case. Latino national-origin groups have had very different experiences in the United States. They arrived at different points in American history, migrated for very different reasons, settled in different geographic settings, and have been treated in disparate ways by the US government. There are important experiential and demographic differences within Latino national-origin groups as well; these are due to geographic location, class status, nativity, generation, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors. Despite this heterogeneity, what is similar about the experiences of all US Latinos is where they were placed in the US racial hierarchy and how that placement has affected their social, political, and economic opportunities.
Given their differences of experience and background, if Latinos are a social group, are they a racial group or an ethnic one? The distinction between these two characterizations has been the source of ongoing debates among scholars – debates which will not be resolved here. The term “race” presupposes a common biological or genealogical ancestry among people. “Ethnicity” places more of an emphasis on culture than on common genetic traits. In an attempt to bring together both concepts, Michael Omi and Howard Winant define race as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies.”13 They emphasize social conflicts in order to get us away from biological understandings of what race is. There is no biological foundation for separate “races” of humans. As recent DNA tests have proven, many individuals whom we see as “Black” are in fact more European than African in terms of their DNA. For example, Henry Louis Gates, a prominent African American intellectual, found he has as much European DNA as West African DNA (most African Americans are about 20 percent European). This kind of testing forces us to reconsider what “race” means and to see how these categorizations have more to do with society than with biology.
Feminist philosopher Linda Alcoff suggests using the term “ethnorace” to describe the Latino experience in the United States. For her, “ethnorace” is a concept which combines the experiences of both ethnicity and race. She argues that “using only ethnicity belies the reality of most Latinos’ everyday experiences, as well as obscures our own awareness about how ethnic identifications often do the work of race while seeming to be theoretically correct and politically advanced. Race dogs our steps; let us not run from it else we cause it to increase its determination.”14 The term “ethnorace” is meant to describe the ways in which factors often attributed to culture, such as language, can be racialized. In other words, ascriptive attributions can be based on linguistic or cultural practices that are not “racial” (or biological), but still can have racialized consequences. Because we believe the lived experiences of Latinos in the United States include both racialized and ethnic/cultural traits, we describe them as an ethnoracial group. Scholars like Omi, Winant, and Alcoff are attempting to find ways to define a social phenomenon which has historical roots and important material consequences, but which is nevertheless artificial in that its underlying reality is fluid and changes over time.
In order to describe race in a way that recognizes this fluidity, scholars explain ethnoracial processes as social constructions. Social construction means that the values attached to particular external attributes, such as skin color, are defined, or constructed, by society. Put another way, the problem is not that of the recognition of ethnoracial differences among people, but rather that of the values, or hierarchies, attached to those differences. For the bulk of United States history, being defined as “white” gave members of that group access to social, legal, economic, and political privileges which were closed to those not defined as “white.” For example, one of the first laws passed by the United States Congress in 1790 was a citizenship law which stipulated that no non-white person could become a naturalized citizen of the United States. This restriction remained in force until 1943, when individuals of Chinese origin were allowed to be naturalized for the very first time. This racial restriction on naturalization was finally removed completely for all groups in 1952, with the McCarran Walter Act. In addition, many states made it illegal for a non-white to testify in court against a white, to serve on juries, to live where they wanted to live, or to work in the most skilled jobs. These restrictions limited non-whites’ access to the protection of the legal system and their possibilities for social, political, and economic mobility. Thus, racial constructs have been directly related to access to fundamental items such as resources, citizenship rights, and the protection of the state (that is, to having a criminal justice system that actually defends your person and/or your property). Therefore, race may be constructed, but which category an individual belongs to has had, and
