A timely and groundbreaking argument that all Americans must
grapple with Latinos’ dynamic racial identity—because it impacts
everything we think we know about race in America
Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to
popular culture, yet many people instinctively regard them as recent
immigrants rather than a longstanding racial group. In Inventing
Latinos, Laura Gómez, a leading expert on race, law, and
society, illuminates the fascinating race-making, unmaking, and
re-making of Latino identity that has spanned centuries, leaving a
permanent imprint on how race operates in the United States today.
Pulling back the lens as the country approaches an unprecedented
demographic shift (Latinos will comprise a third of the American
population in a matter of decades), Gómez also reveals the nefarious
roles the United States has played in Latin America—from military
interventions and economic exploitation to political
interference—that, taken together, have destabilized national
economies to send migrants northward over the course of more than a
century. It’s no coincidence that the vast majority of Latinos
migrate from the places most impacted by this nation’s dirty deeds,
leading Gómez to a bold call for reparations.
In this audacious effort to reframe the often-confused and
misrepresented discourse over the Latinx generation, Gómez provides
essential context for today’s most pressing political and public
debates—representation, voice, interpretation, and power—giving
all of us a brilliant framework to engage cultural controversies,
elections, current events, and more.