About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

19 Chicano-Latino L. Rev. 187 (1998)
Constructing Latina/O Identities

handle is hein.journals/chiclat19 and id is 197 raw text is: CONSTRUCTING LATINA/O IDENTITIES LAURA E. G5MEZf This section draws together seven selections that focus on issues of identity and group membership as related to the LatCrit enter- prise. Because LatCrit is a fledging intellectual project, they are important in helping demarcate the boundaries of this field, which seeks to center Latinos in studies of the law's impact and to draw linkages to earlier scholarly projects like Critical Race Theory, Feminist Legal Theory, and Critical Legal Studies. I will use this brief introduction to say a few words about each piece and then to make some more general comments about the future of LatCrit scholarship. The provocative essays by Leslie Espinoza' and Robert Chang2 raise important questions for the LatCrit enterprise. Espinoza urges Latina/o legal academics to ask a self-critical question: will we have a positive impact, or merely be a larger urban renewal project? Chang invokes the icon of Tiger Woods to foreground the changing nature of racial identity. In so doing, he invites us to consider the generative role that asking new questions serves-even when we cannot provide easy answers. Both writing squarely as law professors, Kevin Johnson3 and George Martinez4 re-view the negative impact of legal classifications that bear heavily on Mexican Americans. Martinez reminds us that the law often formally reinscribes Mexican Americans as white, even as American social practices and racial ideology other us as non-white.5 Martinez then applies his critique to a contemporary t Acting Professor of Law and Sociology, UCLA School of Law. Ph.D., Stan- ford (Sociology), 1994, M.A., Stanford (Sociology), 1988, J.D., Stanford, 1992. 1. Leslie Espinoza, A Vision Towards Liberation, 19 CHICANo-LATINO L. REV. 193 (1998). 2. Robert S. Chang, Who's Afraid of Tiger Woods?, 19 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 223 (1998). 3. Kevin R. Johnson, Immigration and Latino Identity, 19 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 197 (1998). 4. George Martinez, African-Americans, Latinos, and the Construction of Race: Toward an Epistemic Coalition, 19 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 213 (1998). 5. In my view, Martinez might have elaborated both on concrete examples of the law's whitening effect as well as on the long history of Mexican and Mexican Ameri- can advocacy for white classification (which can be traced to the nineteenth century and includes twentieth century projects like the founding of the League of United Latin American Citizens in the 1920s). See Martha Menchaca, Chicano Indianism: A Histori- cal Account of Racial Repression in the United States, 20 AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST 583-

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most