Critics' Opinion:
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Published Aug 2020
336 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
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.
"While not all Latinos agree with Gómez's call for censuses to treat 'Latino' as a race and not an ethnicity, she delivers a rigorous and provocative study of the liminal zone Latino/as inhabit in America's racial continuum. Required reading." - Library Journal (starred review)
"In this thoughtfully argued study, which draws from historical and sociological sources, Gómez provides much-needed insight into the true complexity of Latinx identity while revealing the ways in which the dominant culture continues to mask the many racist currents within American society. An insightful and well-researched book." - Kirkus Reviews
"[L]ucid...Though Gómez's prose tends toward the academic, she exposes the racism that underlies representations of Latinos as 'perpetual foreigners' in the U.S. with precision. This incisive survey of Latino history packs a knockout punch." - Publishers Weekly
"A[n] incisive study of history, complex interrogation of racial construction, and sophisticated legal argument, this title proves especially timely, what with the controversial 2020 census on its way, and expands brilliantly on the work Gómez began in Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race." - Booklist
"In her pioneering book, Laura Gómez puts racism, colonialism, white dominance, and community resistance exactly where they should be: at the heart of the conversations about Latinos today, and the nature of race in the United States tomorrow." - Ian F. Haney López
"Gómez reveals that history is not past. Instead, she shows us that as racism evolves, the U.S. commitment to racism remains steady, creating, but never quite controlling, Latinos as a distinct racial group. But if racism's allure continues to tug powerfully at some segments of the United States, Inventing Latinos reveals that creative resistance is never far away." - César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Migrating to Prison
"The critically important story of Latinx racial formation told here requires the impressive skills and knowledge of a scholar like Gómez. Inventing Latinos is informed by a hemispheric sweep centered on U.S. empire, an ability to trace history over centuries, and an appreciation of class relations and power." - David Roediger, author of How Race Survived U.S. History
This information about Inventing Latinos was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Laura E. Gómez is a professor of law, sociology, and Chicana/Chicano studies at UCLA. She is the author of Manifest Destinies, Mapping Race, and Misconceiving Mothers. She lives in Los Angeles.
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