Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices Discursive Spaces (Sexual Cultures 24)

About this book

An examination into queer identity in relation to Latino/a America According to the 2000 census Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined. Juana Mara Rodrguez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices Discursive Spaces by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language the law culture and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the projects case studies: activism primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each Rodrguez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields. As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other Rodrguez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.