This timely and important book introduces readers to the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States - Latinos - and their diverse conditions of departure and reception. A central theme of the book is the tension between the fact that Latino categories are most often assigned from above, and how those defined as Latino seek to make sense of and enliven a shared notion of identity from below. Providing a sophisticated introduction to emerging theoretical trends and social formations specific to Latino immigrants, chapters are structured around the topics of Latinidad or the idea of a pan-ethnic Latino identity, pathways to citizenship, cultural citizenship, labor, gender, transnationalism, and globalization. Specific areas of focus include the 2006 marches of the immigrant rights movement and the rise in neoliberal nativism (including both state-sponsored restrictions such as Arizona’s SB1070 and the hate crimes associated with Minutemen vigilantism). The book is a valuable contribution to immigration courses in sociology, history, ethnic studies, American Studies, and Latino Studies. It is one of the first, and certainly the most accessible, to fully take into account the plurality of experiences, identities, and national origins constituting the Latino category.

This book explores the extent to which the varied political status of Latinos is changing the meaning of citizenship and belonging in the United States. It brings together broad theoretical considerations of citizenship with discussions of historical and contemporary case studies pertaining to Latinos and current debates on citizenship. Focusing on Latinos' historical and continuing struggles against exclusion, the authors of this anthology discuss issues such as Latinos' multiple national allegiances, dual citizenship, the changing meaning(s) of belonging, their transnational political and social participation, the question of language and citizenship, regional cultural citizenship and loyalties, and the mobilization of Latino youth in their struggle to affirm their rights and belonging in US society.

Latinos in Israel charts the unexpected ways that non-citizen immigrants become potential citizens. In the late 1980s Latin Americans of Christian background started arriving in Israel as labor migrants. Alejandro Paz examines the ways they perceived themselves and were perceived as potential citizens during an unexpected campaign for citizenship in the mid-2000s. This ethnographic account describes the problem of citizenship as it unfolds through language and language use among these Latinos both at home and in public life, and considers the different ways by which Latinos were recognized as having some of the qualities of citizens. Paz explains how unauthorized labor migrants quickly gained certain limited rights, such as the right to attend public schools or the right to work. Ultimately engaging Israelis across many such contexts, Latinos, especially youth, gained recognition as citizens to Israeli public opinion and governing politics. Paz illustrates how language use and mediatized interaction are under-appreciated aspects of the politics of immigration, citizenship, and national belonging.

Through years of ethnographic work in Latino centers in San Antonio, Los Angeles, New York, San Jose, and Watsonville, California, eight prominent Latino scholars from disciplines such as anthropology, political science, and literary and legal studies explore the dynamics of Latino community-building and "cultural citizenship"-the use of cultural expression to claim political rights in the larger culture while maintaining a vibrant local identity. Chapters detail acts of cultural affirmation in Christmas festival celebrations in Texas, cannery strikes in California, educational programs in New York, and much more. A pathbreaking work of Latino scholarship, this book will help redefine the conversation about the future of community and the nature of citizenship in the United States The scholars in the interdisciplinary Inter-University Project (IUP) who wrote this book include Renato Rosaldo (Stanford University), Richard R. Flores (University of Wisconsin), Ana L. Juarbe (Hunter College), Blanca G. Silvestrini (University of Puerto Rico), Raymond Rocco (University of California, Los Angeles), the late Rosa Torruellas (Hunter College), and the volume's editors, William V. Flores (California State University, Northridge) and Rina Benmayor (California State University, Monterey Bay).

“Drawing on the Athenian tradition of ‘wielding citizenship as a weapon to defend a contingently defined polis,’ Hector Amaya has crafted an elegant and sophisticated analysis of the contemporary policies designed to contain and criminalize Latina/os. Citizenship Excess demonstrates that he is one of the leading Latina/o Media Scholars today.” —Angharad N. Valdivia, General Editor of the International Encyclopedia of Media Studies and author of Latina/os Drawing on contemporary conflicts between Latino/as and anti-immigrant forces, Citizenship Excess illustrates the limitations of liberalism as expressed through U.S. media channels. Inspired by Latin American critical scholarship on the “coloniality of power,” Amaya demonstrates that nativists use the privileges associated with citizenship to accumulate power. That power is deployed to aggressively shape politics, culture, and the law, effectively undermining Latino/as who are marked by the ethno-racial and linguistic difference that nativists love to hate. Yet these social characteristics present crucial challenges to the political, legal, and cultural practices that define citizenship. Amaya examines the role of ethnicity and language in shaping the mediated public sphere through cases ranging from the participation of Latino/as in the Iraqi war and pro-immigration reform marches to labor laws restricting Latino/a participation in English-language media and news coverage of undocumented immigrant detention centers. Citizenship Excess demonstrates that the evolution of the idea of citizenship in the United States and the political and cultural practices that define it are intricately intertwined with nativism.

In Transforming Citizenship Raymond Rocco studies the “exclusionary inclusion” of Latinos based on racialization and how the processes behind this have shaped their marginalized citizenship status, offering a framework for explaining this dynamic. Contesting this status has been at the core of Latino politics for more than 150 years. Pursuing the goal of full, equal, and just inclusion in societal membership has long been a major part of the struggle to realize democratic normative principles. This illuminating research demonstrates the inherent limitations of the citizenship regime in the United States for incorporating Latinos as full societal members and offers an alternative conception, “associative citizenship,” that provides a way to account for and challenge the pattern of exclusionary belonging that has defined the positions of the Latinos in U.S. society. Through a critical engagement with key theorists such as Rawls, Habermas, Kymlicka, Walzer, Taylor, and Young, Rocco advances an original analysis of the politics of Latino societal membership and citizenship, arguing that the specific processes of racialization that have played a determinative role in creating and maintaining the pattern of social and political exclusions of Latinos have not been addressed by the dominant theories of diversity and citizenship developed in the prevalent literature in political theory.

Race and Belonging Among Latino Millennials -- Latinos and the Racial Politics of Place and Space -- Latinos as an Ethnorace -- Latinos as a Racial Middle -- Latinos as "Real" Americans -- Rethinking Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials