_Keywords for Latina/o Studies_ is a generative text that enhances the ongoing dialogue within a rapidly growing and changing field. The keywords included in this collection represent established and emergent terms, categories, and concepts that undergird Latina/o studies; they delineate the shifting contours of a field best thought of as an intellectual imaginary and experiential project of social and cultural identities within the U.S. academy. Bringing together sixty-three essays, from humanists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, among others, each focused on a single term, the volume reveals the broad range of the field while also illuminating the tensions and contestations surrounding issues of language, politics, and histories of colonization, specific to this area of study. From “**[borderlands](/latina-latino-studies/essay/borderlands/)**” to “**[indigeneity](/latina-latino-studies/essay/indigeneity/)**,” from “**[citizenship](/latina-latino-studies/essay/citizenship/)**” to “**[mestizaje](/latina-latino-studies/essay/mestizaje/)**,” this accessible volume will be informative for those who are new to Latina/o studies, providing them with a mapping of the current debates and a trajectory of the development of the field, as well as being a valuable resource for scholars to expand their knowledge and critical engagement with the dynamic transformations in the field. ### **EXPLORE THE SITE** Readers may browse the full list of essays by clicking **Essays** at the upper left **to bring up a menu**....

Instructors who use _Keywords for Latina/o Studies_ have employed it in multiple ways. Some use it to enhance required readings, others have structured assignments around individual keywords, and still others have used them to prompt discussions and complicate ideas. Utilizing keywords to enrich readings is the most common tool. They are often used to expand points and arguments. Terms such as [“Borderlands,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/borderlands/) [“Citizenship,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/citizenship/) [“Latinidad,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/latinidad-es/) [“Mestizaje,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/mestizaje/) [“Rasquachismo,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/rasquachismo/) and [“Raza,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/raza/) and so forth, either directly correlate or are _born_ out of the various fields that constitute Latina/o/x theories and methodologies. In this case, the different submissions assist in not only explaining the term, but also highlighting their epistemology and how they have influenced the field and beyond. For instance, questions concerning citizenship and illegality cannot be divorced from a long, problematic, and violent history of Latina/o/x migration to the United States. Terms like [“Latinidad,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/latinidad-es/) ["Mestizaje,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/mestizaje/) [“Rasquachismo,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/rasquachismo/) and [“Raza,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/raza/) necessitate a deeper conversation concerning identity, art, and third-world political movements (i.e. Chicano Movement, Brown Berets). By the same token, terms such as [“Capitalism,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/capitalism/) [“Culture,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/culture/) [“Film,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/film/) [“Food,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/food/) [“Housing,”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/housing/) [“Literature”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/literature/) and [“Sexuality”](/latina-latino-studies/essay/sexuality/) have been written by scholars in the field of Latina/o/x Studies to illuminate how the field has reinterpreted these terms to not only...

Over the last five decades, Latina/o studies has rapidly evolved and expanded. An amalgamation of multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, Latina/o studies has generated an expansive, innovative, and ever-evolving framework to understand the experiences of persons of Latin American and Caribbean descent in the United States as well as broader sociohistorical, political, and cultural processes. By using the knowledges and methodologies of such diverse fields as American studies, anthropology, art, cultural studies, economics, education, ethnic studies, geography, history, labor, language and literary studies (particularly English and Spanish), Latin American and Caribbean studies, linguistics, media studies, medicine, music, political science, public health, religion, social work, sociology, and women’s and gender studies, among others, Latina/o studies reveals facts and truths that had previously not been visible or accessible. In naming this book, we have chosen the term “Latina/o” with the full understanding that during the past decade a number of theoretical, epistemological, and identity projects have used “Latin@” and “Latinx” in seeking to challenge and overcome the gender binary implicit in the Spanish-language feminine and masculine endings of Latina/o (Scharrón-del Río and Aja 2015; Padilla 2016; Ramirez and Blay 2016; de Onís 2017). It is also important to point out that there...

We wish to thank, first and foremost, the sixty-five contributors to this volume on _Keywords for Latina/o Studies_, without whom we would never have been able to create this book. We are also enormously thankful to Eric Zinner, Lisha Nadkarni, and Alexia Traganas at New York University Press for their enormous encouragement and support at all stages of production. We also want to thank Ricardo Bracho for his editorial assistance compiling the list of works cited. Deborah R. Vargas would like to thank Eric Zinner for giving the three of us this opportunity to engage the field, to struggle over meanings and ideas, and to learn to apply a politics of _cariño y respeto_ in our debates. Thanks so much to Lisha Nadkarni for all of her expertise and assistance. I consider it a privilege to have had the opportunity to collaborate with and learn so much from Nancy Raquel Mirabal and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes. I addition to our work meetings I will always cherish sweet memories of ordering too many dumplings in San Francisco, inventing cheaterquiles in L.A., and being introduced to “Cuba H.P.” Nancy Raquel Mirabal, _mil gracias_ to Deborah Vargas for inviting me to be part of...