Acknowledgments
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 this project and to both Deb and Lawrence M. La Fountain-Stokes for being exceptional co-editors. I learned so much from working with both of you and felt honored to witness your hard work, cooperative spirit, generosity, and humor. I also want to thank all of the contributors who participated in this project and provided us with brilliant entries; to the external readers for their thoughtful suggestions and critiques; and to the New York University Press editors, especially Eric Zinner, for giving us the room to expand, complicate, and rethink. In the process of putting together this project, it was clear that this field we call Latina/o/x studies is dynamic, powerful, and more important than ever.
Lawrence M. La Fountain-Stokes echoes Deb’s and Nancy’s sentiments. It has been an adventure completing this book, from figuring out what keywords to include and reaching out to our authors, to offering words of encouragement and keeping track of the multiple revisions! Latina/o (or Latinx) studies is a field near and dear to my heart and becomes more crucial every day. Thanks to my colleagues in American Culture, Latina/o studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Women’s studies at the University of Michigan for their support, and to my great co-editors Deb and Nancy. I also wish to thank all of the authors—those whose work appears here, as well as those who were a part of this process at some moment and perhaps might join in the future. We all greatly hope that this book will make a difference.