Locating Gender and Identity from an Inter-American Perspective (original) (raw)
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2009
identities is remarkable for several reasons. First, Latinos must develop an identification and a sense of identity in the context of stigmatization and oppression. In an important way, their development is unlike that described by Piaget for nonminority populations. Piaget conceived of children going through a gradual process of decentering, in which they realize that they are not the center of the world (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). Children become less egocentric as they realize their views are not more privileged than others’ views. In contrast, for Latinos and other minority groups, children’s decentering is accelerated. They learn that their group is not just one group among others—they also learn that their group is less privileged and is considered inferior relative to another group. Consequently, any naïve ethnocentrism necessarily dissipates for Latino children as awareness grows of their group’s stigmatized social status (see Quintana, 1994). Like Piaget’s, most long-standin...
Pigments of Our Imagination: On the Racialization and Racial Identities of ‘Hispanics’ and ‘Latinos’
How do “Latinos” or “Hispanics” fit in the country’s “white racial frame”? Are they a “race” – or more precisely, a racialized category? If so, how and when did that happen? Does not the U.S. Census Bureau insist (or has since the 1970s) on putting an asterisk next to the label – uniquely among official categories – indicating that “Hispanics may be of any race”? Is it a post-1960s, post-Civil Rights-era term, not fraught with the racial freight of a past in which for more than a century, in Texas since 1836 and the rest of the Southwest after 1848, “Mexican” was disparaged as a subordinate caste by most “Anglos”? The use of the label “Latino” or “Hispanic” is itself an act of homogenization, lumping diverse peoples together into a Procrustean aggregate. But are they even a “they”? Is there a “Latino” or “Hispanic” ethnic group, cohesive and self-conscious, sharing a sense of peoplehood in the same way that there is an “African American” people in the United States? Or is it mainly an administrative shorthand devised for statistical purposes, a one-size-fits-all label that subsumes diverse peoples and identities? Is the focus on “Hispanics” or “Latinos” as a catchall category (let alone “the browning of America”) misleading, since it conceals the enormous diversity of contemporary immigrants from Spanish-speaking Latin America, obliterating the substantial generational and class differences among the groups so labeled, and their distinct histories and ancestries? How do the labeled label themselves? What racial meaning does the pan-ethnic label have for the labeled, and how has this label been internalized, and with what consequences? This chapter considers these questions, focusing primarily on official or state definitions and on the way such categories are incorporated by those so classified.
Identity Orientations of Latinos in the United States
2007
Latinos and Latinas in U.S. organizations are often engaged in conversations in which they feel misunderstood, stereotyped, or categorized in ways that do not refl ect the full richness or complexity of their identities. This article reviews a model of Latino identity orientations, particularly as these relate to racial constructs, from the perspective of the workplace, discussing the dilemmas Latinos face in organizational life as well as the challenges of non-Latinos in understanding and collaborating effectively with Latinos. We suggest that our model offers Latino and non-Latino leaders with alternative strategies for communicating and developing as colleagues at work. A group of Latinos 1 in a large organization are discussing their common experiences. George mentions his frustration at being asked repeatedly, "What are you?" or "Where are you from?" Most heads in the room nod with recognition of the frequency of this experience. George goes on to tell about how the inquirer persists in asking the question over and over again, as if saying "I'm from here" doesn't answer the question. He describes the following exchange as an all too common one: Q: Where are you from? A: Here Q: But where are you from? A: California Q: But where are you from? A: San Diego Q: But I mean where are you really from? A: Well, I grew up in Colorado. Q: Well where are your parents from? A: New Mexico Q: But where are they really from? …and on, and on… 1 We use the term Latinos as inclusive of both men and women, following traditional usage in Spanish. Nevertheless, we have some discomfort with the exclusive use of the male-gendered noun or adjective and so sometimes use the longer terms Latinos/as or Latinos and Latinas. Also, we would like to highlight that the concept of Latinos as a group is particularly meaningful only in reference to people in the United States. In Latin America, people do not think of themselves and are not seen by others as Latino or Latina. When people from Latin America arrive in the U.S, though, they must then deal with being seen as Latinos, a new experience and perspective for many such new immigrants or sojourners.
Hispanics and/or Latinos in the United States: The Social Construction of an Identity
Estudios del Observatorio / Observatorio Studies, 2020
The meaning of the terms 'Hispanic' and 'Latino' in the United States have been debated since their emergence. Some people who identify as Latino or Hispanic claim geographic origin is the identity's defining characteristic, while others argue that internal and external racial perceptions of the group, lived experiences of oppression, or common cultural components are more relevant. This study examines the conception of these identities in the second half of the 20 th century in order to understand part of their current meaning. It analyzes the population that the United States Census classifies as Hispanic/Latino, beginning with the social movements that arose during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s to bring an end to discrimination and achieve legal and representative equality in key U.S. institutions. As time has passed and more people from Latin America and Spain have arrived in the county, the meaning of the terms 'Hispanic' and 'Latino' have taken on new dimensions. Nevertheless, these terms refer to an identity that has always had a political component and has always brought together very disparate populations, which it continues to do today.
Changing the Way We Look at Race: Why Latinos Matter
Voices, 2013
For the first time in American history, there is a numerically significant population in the United States that cannot be defined primarily in terms of race. I will show how almost half of Latinos, when given a chance to self-define racially, pick labels that have nothing to do with color. It is through an expanded awareness of creative and defiant Latino racial identities that non-Latinos in the U.S. can greater appreciate how racial classifications are fluid and not essential cultural categories.
Pigments of Our Imagination: The Racialization of the Hispanic-Latino Category
2014
In Angelo Falcon, ed., “The Hispanic Question and the 2020 Census.” (New York: National Institute for Latino Policy, 2014). Pigments of Our Imagination: The Racialization of the Hispanic-Latino Category Ruben G. Rumbaut Race is a pigment of our imagination. It is a social status, not a biological one; a product of history, not of nature; a contextual variable, not a given. The concept of race is a historically contingent, relational, subjective phenomenon, yet it is typically misbegotten as a natural, fixed trait of phenotypic difference inherent in human bodies, independent of human will or intention. Racial categories (and the supposed differences that they connote) are infused with stereotypical moral meaning. What is called race today is chiefly an outcome of intergroup struggles, marking the boundaries, and thus the identities, of us and them along with attendant ideas of social worth or stigma. As such, race is an ideological construct that links supposedly innate traits of in...
Latino/a Sociology: Toward a New Paradigm
Sociology of race & ethnicity, 2020
Latinos/as figure prominently in ongoing debates about race and racism in the United States. Overt acts of White nationalism-such as the 2019 murder of 22 innocent people in El Paso, Texas, by a White supremacist looking to kill Mexicansreflects more than anti-immigrant rhetoric. This crime exemplifies the location of Latinos/as at the center of national and global tensions about race, growing inequalities, and heightened social injustices. As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted societies throughout the world, Latinos/as emerged on the front lines of both public health and economic crises. For example, in early April 2020, when Latinos/as made up 16 percent of the population in Boston, 40 percent of COVID-19 patients at Massachusetts General Hospital were Latino/a (The Boston Globe 2020). Latinos/as are also essential workers and therefore overrepresented in jobs at high risk of COVID exposure. In an economic crisis, they are among the hardest hit by job loss, pay cuts, and lack of adequate insurance and health care. Such catastrophes and inequities are shifting the scholarly treatment of Latinos/as in sociology from the periphery to the center. Research on the varied groups that make up this racial and ethnic category draws on a strong tradition and a large body of knowledge. Yet unlike Black sociology's well-chronicled history and firm place in the discipline (J. E. Blackwell and Janowitz 1974; Hunter 2018; Ladner 1973), Latino/a sociology is not widely known outside the field's research communities. We contend that Latino/a sociology is thriving, with considerable importance for many sociological specialties, most notably the field of race and ethnicity. As of this writing, however, the field 971326S REXXX10.