Introduction

What precisely is one asserting when one claims to be Latina/o? A political identity, an experiential identity, or both? Is the Latina/o identity racial, or ethnic, or cultural? Is it even ideologically or ontologically manageable? My father happens to be an African Cubano. My mother is Jamaican. I was born and raised in England. Am I a Latino? Or am I finally "just Black"? But you may be asking, why be binary? Identity is never an either/or proposition. Perhaps I am a "Black Latino." If so, doesn't the "Black" preceding "Latino" signify some lesser claim to Latino identity (I've never heard a Latino referred to as a Brown Latino, though I have heard Latinas/os referred to as Brownskinned)? Doesn't Blackness here function as a qualifier, presupposing an identity that is "just Latina/o?" At any rate, who decides the question of who is and who is not a Latina/o. Who regulates the borders of this identity and by what criteria? Finally, what role does and/or should LatCrit Theory ("LCT") play in representing and giving content to this pan-ethnic, multiracial, multinational, multicultural identity? The politics of Latina/o identity formation is enormously important to LCT. After all, LCT has, as one of its theoretical starting points, the notion that la comunidad Latina is meaningful and ascertainable. Thus, part of LCT's political project is to articulate a vision of social justice that responds to and attempts to ameliorate the subordinated status of Latinas/os. Each of the essays in this cluster manifests this political commitment. More than that, the essays raise, and sometimes answer, provocative questions about identity formation and politics in Latina/o communities. What follows is an introduction to, and a brief comment on, each of the essays

Business · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Latin American and Latino Studies