Defining Race and Troubling the Latinx Racial Construct

• In Event: Tensions of Latinx/Latinidad Through Different Lenses

Abstract

Education researchers often do not differentiate between concepts such as race and ethnicity and may show ambivalence toward naming “Latinx” a racialized group. These practices affect how the terms Latinidad/Latinidades rest in regard to racialization and ethnicity. I discuss the affordances of conceptualizing Latinx/Latinidad as racialized terms, pointing out that attempts to make these terms more inclusive and representative of ethnicity ignore how a key feature of racialization is essentialization, that is, ignoring cultural differences. Extending racial terms toward inclusivity based on a shared culture further obscures the racialization process. To prevent such obfuscation, I suggest scholars provide conceptual clarity about their focus of study. I anticipate that doing so would further expose the complications with the term Latinidades.

Author

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