Citizenship and Belonging: The Construction of US Latino Identity Today

Abstract

Thus, while my aim in this essay is to discuss the impact of Latinos on the changing meanings of citizenship, this essay also serves as a reflection on the issue of “who is actually changing what?” in US society. I first look at the controversial history and ambiguous “placement” of Latinos as U.S. citizens and residents in the context of racialized labeling and profiling in U.S. society; I then explore the peculiar changes–a kind of facelift–which ethnicity has undergone under the new conditions of a national security ideology with its concomitant undermining of citizenship in the United States. Finally, I discuss some of the ways that, largely as a result of the recognition of their right to have rights, Latinos are contributing, in their own right, to the changing meanings of citizenship and belonging in the US context. Ultimately, I argue, it is through their participation in redefining the very meaning of citizenship in the post 9/11 period that Latinos are themselves (re)constructing and affirming their identity in the United States.