Reading Human Rights: Inventing Latinos by Laura E.Gomez

Reading Human Rights is a monthly book discussion hosted by the Howard County Office of Human Rights & Equity and Howard County Library System. We read books that promote cultural awareness, diversity, equity.

An NPR Best Book of the Year, exploring the impact of Latinos’ new collective racial identity on the way Americans understand race, with a new afterword by the author

Who are Latinos and where do they fit in America’s racial order? In this “timely and important examination of Latinx identity” (Ms.), Laura E. Gómez, a leading critical race scholar, argues that it is only recently that Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and others are seeing themselves (and being seen by others) under the banner of a cohesive racial identity. And the catalyst for this emergent identity, she argues, has been the ferocity of anti-Latino racism.

Laura E. Gómez is the Rachel F. Moran Endowed Chair in Law at UCLA and also a professor in the departments of sociology and Chicana/Chicano & Central American studies. She is a member of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino scholarly advisory committee and the author of Manifest Destinies, Mapping “Race,” and Misconceiving Mothers, as well as Inventing Latinos (The New Press). She lives in Los Angeles.

Please register with an email address to receive an immediate registration confirmation. Please note that your email may be shared with Howard County Office of Human Rights & Equity for communication related to this event.

Registered customers should place a hold request on the title using their library card in order to receive a copy to read before the discussion.  Availability of physical copies is not guaranteed.