Citizens but Not Americans

Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials

Nilda Flores-González

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781479809479
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

An exploration ofhow race shapes Latino millennials’ notions of national belonging Latino millennials constitute the second largest segment of the millennial population. By sheer numbers they will inevitably have a significant social, economic, and political impact on U.S. society. Beyond basic demographics, however, not much is known about how they make sense of themselves as Americans. In Citizens but Not Americans,Nilda Flores-González examines how Latino millennials understand race, experience race, and develop notions of belonging. Based on nearly one hundred interviews, Flores-González argues that though these young Latina/os are U.S. citizens by birth, they do not feel they are part of the “American project,” and are forever at the margins looking in. The book provides an inside look at how characteristics such as ancestry, skin color, social class, gender, language and culture converge and shape these youths’ feelings of belonging as they navigate everyday racialization. The voices of Latino millennials reveal their understanding of racialization along three dimensions—as an ethno-race, as a racial middle and as ‘real’ Americans. Using familiar tropes, these youths contest the othering that negates their Americanness while constructing notions of belonging that allow them to locate themselves as authentic members of the American national community. Challengingcurrent thinking about race and national belonging, Citizens but Not Americans significantly contributes to our understanding of the Latino millennial generation and makes a powerful argument about the nature of race and belonging in the U.S.

1

Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials

Danila is a twenty-two-year-old second-generation woman of Mexican descent whose narrative provides a glance at Latino millennials’ experiences as citizens but not Americans when she says:

I don’t think I am an American. I would say that I am Mexican because I think based on my experiences I would identify as a Mexican. Like when people look at me they are not like “Oh yeah, she’s an American.” When they see me they think “Oh yeah, she’s Mexican.” Society doesn’t see me as an American. They see me as a Mexican. So I guess that’s why I don’t see myself as American, because others don’t see me as an American. If they don’t see me as an American, why should I see myself as an American?

Although Danila was born in the United States, her everyday experiences belie her status as an American. Her physical appearance marks her as Mexican and erases her Americanness. Her experiences underscore the role of race in notions of belonging to the American imagined community. Danila is not alone. Feeling that they are citizens but not Americans is the underlying theme I found in my research on second- and third-generation Latino millennials.

Why does it matter that these youths feel excluded? We should pay heed to what these Latino millennials say because, by sheer numbers, they will inevitably have a significant social, economic, and political impact on U.S. society. Latinos are the second-largest racial group, and Latino millennials specifically constitute one-fifth—and the second-largest segment—of the millennial population. As the largest generational cohort of Latinos in U.S. history, these youths—who in 2017 range in age from twenty to thirty-six—will propel the Latino population exponentially as they have children over the next two decades. Yet, we do not know much about Latino millennials beyond basic demographics, save for a few educational studies that point to their dim prospects for social mobility. The stories I present here tell how these U.S.-born children and grandchildren of immigrants from Latin America are becoming integrated into contemporary American society. In Citizens but Not Americans, I provide a deeper understanding of Latino millennials by examining how they understand race, experience race, and develop racialized notions of belonging.

I focus on race because in these youths’ narratives it emerges as the most meaningful social category attached to notions of belonging. As an essential social marker, race defines who belongs to the American imagined community. Race is indisputably the common thread in these narratives and plays a central role in how these young people perceive themselves, the position they occupy in the U.S. racial order, and their status as members of the polity. In exploring the centrality of race in shaping notions of belonging among Latino millennials, I argue that current racial ideas and practices impact the ways in which this group understands race, makes meaning of lived experiences as racialized subjects, and develops racialized notions of belonging that are marked by racial exclusion. I show how multidimensional and intersecting processes of racialization are particularly pronounced as Latino millennials navigate their daily lives and their place within American society.

The narratives presented in this book reflect three distinct yet interrelated themes—Latinos as an ethnorace, Latinos as a racial middle, and Latinos as “real” Americans—that emerged from interviews with ninety-seven U.S.-born Latino youths in 2009. Their narratives capture their feelings of exclusion from the imagined American community along three dimensions—racial categorization, racial hierarchy, and national inclusion. Racialized along these three dimensions, these youths find themselves outside of the boundaries of how “American” is defined. Yet their narratives challenge their exclusion and push for their recognition as Americans. These three themes are illustrated in the narrative of a twenty-one-year-old second-generation Mexican named Arielle, whose words capture the essence of what the Latino millennials in this study experience.

Arielle

Arielle is a college student who lives in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Her parents are immigrants from Mexico who met in Chicago and have struggled to make a life for themselves and their children. Arielle likens her family’s experiences to those of other minority groups. She explains:

I am part of the working class. My parents do work hard, but they never had the luxury of being happy and saying, “Oh, I am middle class or upper class.” [They are] only happy with just being able to have a house and being in the U.S. raising their kids [with] everyone in school. I feel like I am definitely part of the working class and part of a somewhat subordinate group. Because we are a majority, but we also don’t get as much representation as people who are white or I think anyone who is not white [can] kind of relate to us because we are all in the same mix, [in] the same boat.

Being U.S.-born, Arielle has views on the American dream that differ from those of her immigrant parents. While her parents are content with what they have accomplished in comparison to their lives in Mexico—holding stable jobs, owning a house, sending their children to college—Arielle notices the inequities that mark her life as a racial minority in the United States and that prevent her from sharing the privileges enjoyed by whites. The limits of the American dream are apparent to Arielle, who believes that despite the fast growth of the population, Latinos’ numerical majority does not translate to equality. She stresses that being a Latina, “it is like a constant struggle because even though we are growing and becoming a majority, even if the whole U.S. becomes half Hispanic, we will still be viewed as being beneath anyone who is white or American because just the fact [of] the history and the color of our skin.” To her, Latinos will continue to stand out as nonwhite and non-Americans even if they reach a numerical majority. Implied in Arielle’s words are the three themes—Latinos as an ethnorace, a racial middle, and “real” Americans—that characterize these millennials’ narratives of belonging.

The idea of Latinos as an ethnorace—the first theme in these Latino millennials’ narratives—illustrates how the exclusion of Latinos from conventional U.S. racial categories has eroded these youths’ sense of belonging. Like Danila, Arielle is aware that based on her appearance, “people assume a whole list of things I could be,” but white and American are not among them. Inverting the general usage of terms, Arielle identifies racially as Mexican American and ethnically as Latino and Hispanic. Like Arielle, the Latino millennials in this study found themselves in a racial quandary, knowing that they do not fit in the white or black racial categories that are imposed on them, but also do not have an officially recognized racial category to claim as their own. Yet they assert racial labels that are meaningful to them as well as to others. In the absence of an official racial category, they appropriate ethnic and panethnic terms such as “Mexican” and “Hispanic/Latino” as racial referents. This seemingly inconsistent racial identification pattern among the youths reflects a problematic racial categorization scheme based on abstract notions of race that do not align with how people think about, experience, or practice race in everyday life.

My analysis reveals that these youths conceptualize themselves as an ethnoracial group (see Alcoff 2006). Their ethnoracial categorization includes racial and cultural attributes about what makes up the stereotypical Latino, such as “tan” skin color, Spanish language, particular foods and music, family values, and Latin American ancestry. Arielle identifies skin color as a visible marker of her ethnoracial status when she says, “Being a Mexican American, either way I am not white, I am still a different color skin from someone else that automatically like singles me out and stuff.” In addition to physical traits, Arielle points to ancestry and culture as additional markers of her ethnoracial status when she states, “I think if you are of any kind of Latino or South American descent, you know, if you can speak Spanish or you know someone in your family is from a country that speaks Spanish or something, that makes you that [Latino].” These youths understand that to others, and to themselves, they constitute a separate ethnoracial group made up of people of Latin American ancestry, even when this is not officially recognized. Having no proper designation in the U.S. racial scheme, and feeling forced to choose from racial categories (e.g., white or black) that do not befit them, Latino youths find that their racial miscategorization leaves them with a diminished sense of belonging.

The second narrative—Latinos as racial middle—is rooted in the youths’ sense of marginalization derived from their subordinate status in the racial hierarchy. Just as they do not fit in conventional racial categories, these youths do not fit in a racial order characterized by a sharp color line that places whites at the top and blacks at the bottom, and that assumes that Latinos fit on one or the other side of the color line. Not fitting within these conventional racial categories, Arielle believes that Latinos “fall in the between, [in] the gray area,” because they are “viewed as being beneath anyone who is white or American.” Like Arielle, many other millennials understand themselves as occupying an “intermediate” or “racial middle” social position that is lower than that of whites but higher than that of blacks.

My findings challenge the assumption that Latinos are “becoming white” and are therefore situated closer to whites in the racial hierarchy. These millennials’ narratives show that they do not locate themselves at the upper end of the racial hierarchy alongside whites, but neither do they locate themselves at the very bottom with blacks. Theirs is a racial middle that tilts toward the lower echelons of the racial hierarchy—much closer to blacks’ subordinate status than to whites’ superior status. Arielle says, “I definitely feel closer to pretty much the African American or other like Hispanic ethnicity. I feel like we are all kind of viewed as one big kind of group of people, that since we are not white we are automatically viewed as not bad but not good for the country or something. I can relate to that because we are all in the same boat in the end trying to fight to be equal to everybody else.” Latino millennials in general felt closer to—and had a sense of solidarity with—blacks, with whom they share a marginal status, as well as with Middle Easterners, particularly those with Arab and Muslim backgrounds.

In contrast, these youths feel distant from Asians and whites mainly because they generally have much less interaction with people from these groups. But by far those they feel most distant from—and those they perceive as occupying a privileged position in the racial hierarchy—are whites. Arielle distances herself from whites when she says, “I definitely feel different from the American, you know, white people and a few Asians simply because they haven’t had to go through the struggle we had growing up and as a grown-up they also have an upper hand you know. . . . I don’t think they will ever truly know what it’s like to live the life that we do. They have not always had it easy, but they had that extra push.” Like Arielle, these youths’ self-location in the bottom half of the racial hierarchy is based on both structural and everyday racialized experiences that mark them distinctively as nonwhite. These struggles make them question their status as Americans and differentiate them from whites and Asians, whom they view as occupying an advantageous position.

The last theme—Latinos as “real” Americans—speaks to the youths’ struggle to insert themselves within the boundaries that define who is American. Despite their birthright citizenship, upbringing, and socialization into American culture, these youths are reluctant to call themselves Americans. This reluctance sprouts from their ethnoracial exclusion—or not having the racial and cultural traits required to be seen as full-fledged members of the American imagined community. Using familiar American tropes, these youths offer a counternarrative that challenges their ethnoracial exclusion and demands inclusion on their own terms.

Like most of the Latino millennials interviewed for this study, Arielle understands herself as a citizen mainly because, as she says, “I was born here, I have my papers straight, they’ve been straight since birth.” For Arielle, birthright or naturalization is the determinant for citizenship. Yet she falters when asked how she understands herself as an American. She responds, “When I think of the term ‘American,’ the first thing I think of is like any person being born in the U.S., or actually any Caucasian or white person who is being raised in this country all their life on American values from back in the day, pretty much . . . I think technically anyone who is born in the U.S. will be American.” While “technically” an American is anyone born in the United States, there are racial (white), cultural (values), and generational (from back in the day) criteria to being American that Arielle does not meet. Arielle states that “the only reason why I fit into this definition is because I am Mexican American because obviously I am not 100 percent Mexican. I was not born in Mexico, but since I was born in the U.S. that makes just the term, just a label of American, but I am Mexican because that’s what both of my parents are, and that is how I was raised.” Although she is technically American, Arielle uses the term “Mexican American” to denote that she is U.S.-born of Mexican descent. Like Arielle, those youths who identify in this way do so to distinguish themselves from their foreign-born counterparts.

Being othered as noncitizens and non-Americans, these youths develop an awareness and an understanding of the limits of citizenship and Americanness. Although they are citizens by birth, they are aware that they are seen by non-Latinos as noncitizens because their Latin American ancestry—disclosed by their looks, cultural manners, and/or surname—points to their immigrant background. Conjectures about their immigrant roots call into question their legality, as others assume that anyone who is “Latino” must be undocumented. Arielle faces the stigma of “illegality” in everyday life, such as when “the student who never experienced other races automatically thought that my family, you know, had a lawn-mowing business, or they thought they were illegal, and that was not true.” She adds, “When I encounter people who are against immigration and they see that I am Mexican or Latino or Hispanic descent, they view me as ‘You people are always coming here illegally’ or they automatically think that I am an immigrant or I am here illegally or my family are related to being illegal, and they do not see the whole story.” These racialized experiences erode Arielle’s sense of belonging and lead her to form a pragmatic view of belonging that stresses legal rather than cultural membership in the American imagined community.

In Citizens but Not Americans, I examine the effect of racialization on Latino millennials’ understanding of their marginal status in U.S. society. Ancestry, skin color and phenotype, social class, education, gender, language, and aspects of culture converge and shape how these youths experience and navigate everyday racialization. Racialized along three dimensions—as an ethnorace, as a racial middle, and as not “real” Americans—these youths remain outside of the boundaries of “American.” Identifying as citizens but not Americans belies their status as full members of U.S. society and points to the entrenchment of race in notions of belonging to the American imagined community. My purpose in writing this book is to contribute to our understanding of Latino millennials’ place in U.S. society, and particularly of how they make sense of themselves as Americans. To understand why these youths feel they are citizens but not Americans, we need to examine how they come to understand and define themselves as such.

Race as a Social Construct

In examining how these youths come to understand and define themselves as citizens but not Americans, I use a social constructionist theoretical framework. Like Omi and Winant (2014), I view race as a fundamental organizing principle in U.S. society, but one that is socially constructed. This approach posits that race has no factual scientific biological basis and that its relevance is due to the social meaning given to physical or phenotypic characteristics. Through the process of “race making,” people are “othered,” or made different, based on their physical features, but this “othering” also includes cultural traits. In “othering,” a group’s presumed physical and cultural characteristics are essentialized and believed to be endemic. Racialization happens when racial meaning is given to a group, and that group’s categorization is created and re-created in social interactions and structures.

As Omi and Winant (2014) pose, race is ubiquitous in that it is embedded in individual and institutional social relations and in the social, economic, political, and cultural structures that permeate everyday life. The perniciousness of this racial social system lies in its quotidian and increasingly elusive nature with a popular discourse on color blindness that underplays the continuing significance of race. Bobo and Smith (1998) argue that the systematic, overt, and violent racism that characterized the Jim Crow era has been replaced by gentler laissez-faire racism. Likewise, Bonilla-Silva (2003, 2013) argues that this post–civil rights racism is characterized by the rearticulation of racism in seemingly imperceptible and covert ways. Today’s racism is manifested in the repeated and frequent discrimination that happens in everyday life (Bonilla-Silva 2003, 2013; Essed 1991; Feagin and Cobas 2014) and that is manifested in what Pierce et al. (1978) have labeled racial microaggressions. These everyday “put-downs” directed at a person or group are intended to exclude and marginalize racial groups as inferior and undesirable (Pierce et al. 1978). As is apparent in ideologies, policies, and practices that disadvantage nonwhite people in order to protect white privilege, race has real and definite social consequences for different racial groups (Bonilla-Silva 2003, 2013; Omi and Winant 2014).

In the United States, race is characterized by a sharp color line that divides whites and blacks, and a racial hierarchy that parallels the distribution of and access to resources. This color line is closely guarded by clearly demarcated racial boundaries that are policed in informal and formal ways by individuals, institutions, and the state. While individual policing takes the form of prejudice and discrimination, institutional and state policing of racial boundaries involves unequal access to resources, as well as legalized and institutionalized forms of surveillance, profiling, confinement, incarceration, and violence directed at racial minority groups (Omi and Winant 2014). The institutionalization of Latino racialization permeates Latinos’ daily life experiences and impacts their life chances.

In this book, I unpack the process of “race making” by examining how Latino millennials experience “othering” in everyday life and how these experiences shape their understanding of themselves as marginal members of the U.S. polity. While staying firmly grounded in sociology, I use an interdisciplinary approach that borrows concepts developed by political scientists, historians, anthropologists, philosophers, and legal scholars to examine the centrality of race to young Latinos’ understanding of themselves and their social positions. I also use an intersectional lens to unravel the complexities of Latinos’ self-understandings that lead to a diminished sense of belonging to the national community. In simple terms, intersectionality examines the ways that various forms of discrimination, oppression, and privilege act together. It also draws attention to the obvious and not so obvious connections between different social categorizations such as race, gender, sexuality, legal status, and social class. While each of these social categorizations individually increases or decreases chances for discrimination, when they are combined, the chances and impacts of discrimination may magnify or lessen. Intersectionality purposely engages in linking social categorizations to uncover how particular connections—or configurations—minimize or accentuate social articulations such as racial identification. An intersectional approach thus provides the critical means—and the analytical power—required to identify how members of the same group experience racial dynamics differently, and are impacted differently, due to their specific locations within interlocking systems of oppression.

Although I draw on an intersectional approach to guide my analysis of the experiences that youths articulated in their interviews, its application is not alwa...