{"id":58895,"date":"2019-09-18T01:03:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T01:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58895"},"modified":"2019-09-18T01:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T01:03:31","slug":"the-problem-with-latinidad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58895","title":{"rendered":"The Problem With Latinidad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Problem With Latinidad<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Nation<\/a>
\n2019-09-16<\/p>\n

Miguel Salazar<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A growing community of young, black, and indigenous people are questioning the very identity underpinning Hispanic Heritage Month<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Every September 15, a flurry of independence days across Central America<\/a>\u2014in Nicaragua<\/a>, Costa Rica<\/a>, El Salvador<\/a>, Guatemala<\/a>, and Honduras<\/a>\u2014kicks off National Hispanic Heritage Month<\/a>, a celebration of Latin culture that lasts through mid-October. For Latin Americans and their descendants, the month is a time to celebrate shared cultures and customs across nationalities. For others in the United States<\/a>, it provides an opportunity to educate Americans about a growing demographic that, like most minorities, has long been relegated to the margins of US history and, over the past half-century, has worn many hats\u2014\u201cLatin American,\u201d \u201cHispanic,\u201d \u201cLatino,\u201d and most recently, \u201cLatinx<\/a>.\u201d Now, however, a growing number of writers, activists, and academics are questioning the very underpinnings of this common identity, an idea known as Latinidad<\/a> (loosely translated as \u201cLatino-ness\u201d).<\/p>\n

Historically, the forging of this ethnic identity has been understood as a necessity in the face of white supremacy and anti-Mexican Juan Crow<\/a> laws. In response to recent events, it\u2019s been useful for raising awareness of migrant family separations, Washington\u2019s insistence on militarizing borders in Mexico<\/a> and Central America, and mass shooters warning of a \u201cHispanic invasion\u201d of the United States. Even so, its most vocal critics, who are often young and black or indigenous, have not minced words in their critique of what they see as an exclusionary identity fabricated by\u2014and for the benefit of\u2014white and mestizo<\/a> elites and the American political class.<\/p>\n

I spoke about the recent rejection of Latinidad with the journalists, organizers, and thinkers at the forefront of this conversation. We talked about what determines who is allowed to claim the term, what purpose it serves, and whether the identity is useful as a category anymore…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A growing community of young, black, and indigenous people are questioning the very identity underpinning Hispanic Heritage Month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14646,8,26,23674,394,20],"tags":[30089,21251,30266,26539,23408,30267,30268,9847,2831],"class_list":["post-58895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-social-justice","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-alan-pelaez-lopez","tag-amanda-alcantara","tag-daniel-alvarenga","tag-hispanic-heritage-month","tag-janel-martinez","tag-kristian-hernandez","tag-miguel-salazar","tag-rosa-clemente","tag-the-nation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58896,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58895\/revisions\/58896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}