Tomas Almaguer

Tomas Almaguer is professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. His book, "Racial Fault Lines:
The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California,"
was re-released with a new preface by the University of California Press in 2008.

Abstract

"Race, Nationality, and the Conundrums of Latino Identity"
           
The United States has undergone a dramatic change in its racial landscape in the past forty years. One of these dramatic changes has been the tremendous increase in the size of the Latino population. In the year 2000, the “Hispanic” or Latino population actually surpassed African Americans as the largest racial-ethnic group in the U.S. This paper explores the implications of this demographic change and the accompanying impact on the meaning of race and race relations since the late 1960s. It specifically explores the shifting meaning of racial identity among the pan-Latino population who, according to the U.S. Census, is a distinct “ethnicity” that can be of “any race.” For example, there are White Latinos, Black Latinos, and Latinos that racially identity as Indian, Asian or a combination of the racial categories used in this country. Other Latinos racially identify with the intermediate, mixed-race categories used in their countries-of-origin (such as mestizo, mulato, trigueno, Indio claro, Indio oscuro etc.) or use their nationality as a proxy for race (e.g. Dominican, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Mexican, etc.). This racial complexity and ambiguity generally results in approximately half of the Latino population being racially classified by the U.S. Census as belonging to “some other race.” This paper explores the complex way that the pan-Latino population constructions their racial identity based on their initial Spanish colonial experiences and subsequent re-racialization under the logic of how racial lines are drawn in the United States. How is the pan-Latino population racially categorized in one racial regime and then re-racialized in the other? How do these different constructions of race among Latinos impact on the recent intra-group conflict documented in numerous ethnographic studies on urban Latino populations? These are among the various questions and nettlesome issues that this paper explores.

This topic will be presented on Saturday, April 18th at 9:00 a.m. as part of the Panel III discussion "Shifting Racializations, Violence and the Nation."

Select Publications

“Looking for Papi: Longing and Desire among Chicano Gay Men” in A Companion to Latina/o Studies. Edited by Renato Rosaldo and Juan Flores. (New York: Blackwell, 2007)

“Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California”, University of California Press, 2004.