The Problem With Latinx as a Racial Construct Vis-à-Vis Language and Bilingualism: Toward Recognizing Multiple Colonialisms in the Racialization of Latinidad

• In Event: Discursive Moves in the Racialization and Education of Latinx Students

Abstract

Objective: This presentation is based on a conceptual manuscript meant to stimulate discussion about the racialization of Latinxs. The author aims to speak to those who may question whether or how Latinx students form a racial category. Asserting Latinx is a racial group, the author argues that Latinxs’ racialization is founded on—even bounded by—the Spanish language and Spanish/English bilingualism, even if these are implied/assumed, and even though the author later problematizes defining Latinidad’s racial boundaries with the constructs of language/bilingualism because this definition erases Spanish colonialism from the racialization of Latinidad.

Perspective: The author assumes that language and bilingualism form part of one’s identity, and that language is a principal field of struggle for colonial subjects to assert recognition and self-determination. Given this assumption, this presentation moves beyond the idea of language’s significance for Latinxs to instead contend with questions about the role of the Spanish language and Spanish/English bilingualism in marking the racial boundary of Latinxs.

Key Definitions (instead of methods): By racialization, the author means the process of hierarchical categorization into racial groups (Omi & Winant, 2015), which is always relational to other groups (Molina, HoSang, & Gutiérrez, 2019). The author does not use racialization as a synonym for racial discrimination or racial identity. Race refers to a European-originated classification and ideology where socially constructed differences are meant to signal humanness and worthiness (Wolfe, 2016), and whose caste hierarchies result in Whites materially benefiting at the expense of those racialized as Others.

Sources/Materials: The author provides experiential, personal knowledge as examples of how there is ambivalence in academia and popular culture regarding Latinxs’ racial versus ethnic status. The author also points to the U.S. census’ designation of Latinx as an ethnic group rather
than a race as negatively impacting the Latinx community.

Argument: The author argues that Latinx is a racial group that is defined by Spanish language and Spanish/English bilingualism (including an imagined, assumed Spanish language), and by the essentializing of that language and Latin American culture. The author then complicates basing Latinxs’ racialization on a shared Spanish language and tying a shared culture or race to Spanish/English bilingualism. These seemingly contradictory arguments are explained by shifting how the racial category of Latinx is understood: as referring to those who suffer from double colonization (Gómez, 2018) or multiple colonialisms, including settler colonialism and contemporary U.S. imperialism abroad (González, 2011).

Scholarly Significance: This presentation speaks to scholars of race and education, to scholars of bilingual and language education, and to those interested in the racialization of Latinx/a/o. By not considering Latinx a race and learning about the racialization of Latinxs, educational scholarship contributes to the racialization of Latinxs as an “off-white” and/or “honorary white” group, which adversely affects attempts to build cross-racial coalitions. Thus, it is important to recognize Latinxs’ multiple colonialisms as a more historicized definition of Latinxs’ racial boundaries.

Author

• Laura Carolina Chavez-Moreno, University of California - Los Angeles