Cristina Beltran, New York University

DateFebruary 2, 2017

Time12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location
4357 Bunche Hall 

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Abstract:From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump, our politics are increasingly defined by anxieties over the meaning and limits of sovereignty. This paper argues for placing Latinos at the center of our racial analysis in order to better understand how concerns and dreams regarding sovereign power are shaping American public life. Focusing on the split between neoliberal multiculturalism and right-wing nativism, this research puts conservative critiques of immigration alongside examples of undocumented activism to explore the fundamental yet contradictory role Latinos occupy in the U.S. political imaginary, positioned within American democracy as both political necessity and demographic threat. Drawing on an interdisciplinary body of scholarship that includes Latino studies, political theory, and queer theory, this paper analyzes how Latinos’ rapid growth nationally has produced a potent combination of political desire and hostility, giving Latinos a distinct (and affectively charged) status within America’s political culture. In this way, Latinos negotiate a political climate in which their political actions are often perceived as indicative of sovereignty’s crisis.

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