Critically interrogating the elusive sign: The new ‘race’ theories and a plausible alternative for understanding cultural racializations of Latino/a identities

Recent theorizations of the ‘race’ concept in Latino Studies are improvements over earlier social theories of race as ethnicity, class, or nation. Yet, theorizing race as hybrid, diaspora, difference, or other often reproduces the central limitation of defining race through metaphorical and tangentially related signs. Each of the four theories often shifts the discussion on race away from the interpersonal and institutional processes of racism. A plausible alternative is the notion of cultural racialization that rests upon the processes of racist practices, ideas, discourses, and institutions. The experiences of Latina/os as racialized groups provide the basis for this proposed reconceptualization. Responses to racism on the part of aggrieved Latina/o communities are seen as distinct from race, and best captured by conceptualizing new ethnicities coupled with the re-making of ancestral connections.