Latino Immigrants in the United States

This timely and important book introduces readers to the largestand fastest-growing minority group in the United States - Latinos -and their diverse conditions of departure and reception.

A central theme of the book is the tension between the fact thatLatino categories are most often assigned from above, and how thosedefined as Latino seek to make sense of and enliven a shared notionof identity from below. Providing a sophisticated introduction toemerging theoretical trends and social formations specific toLatino immigrants, chapters are structured around the topics ofLatinidad or the idea of a pan-ethnic Latino identity, pathways to citizenship, cultural citizenship, labor, gender, transnationalism, and globalization. Specific areas of focusinclude the 2006 marches of the immigrant rights movement and therise in neoliberal nativism (including both state-sponsoredrestrictions such as Arizona's SB1070 and the hate crimesassociated with Minutemen vigilantism).

The book is a valuable contribution to immigration courses insociology, history, ethnic studies, American Studies, and LatinoStudies. It is one of the first, and certainly the most accessible, to fully take into account the plurality of experiences, identities, and national origins constituting the Latino category.