Call for Abstracts

Call for Papers for Special Series

On

Latinos and the Right

Editors: Cecilia Márquez and Daniel Martinez HoSang

The online site Latinx Talk for research, commentary, and creativity invites abstract submissions (300 words) for papers (2000 words) to be included in a special series on Latina/o/xs and the Right co-edited by Cecilia Márquez and Daniel Martinez Hosang.

For many, the emergence of “Latinos for Trump” in the 2016 and 2020 elections drew into sharp relief the important role Latinos were playing in right-wing politics. While historical work on conservative politics amongst Latinos suggests that this is not a new phenomenon, the past decade has marked a sea change in popular interest in Latinos involved in right wing politics. This growing interest comes, in part, from the growing electoral support of Republican candidates by Latino voters, the increasing number of Latinos running as GOP candidates themselves, and high profile moments like former President Donald Trump’s dinner with Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio’s participation in the January 6th insurrection, and the explicitly white supremacist ideologies of the shooter in McAllen Texas. Essays in this collection will help us better understand the world of which these voters, politicians, and activists are a part.

This special series defines “the Right” broadly and welcomes papers that examine the range of political ideologies held by Latinos on the right. It is not bound by the category of “Republican” and is interested in Latino involvement in all kinds of right-wing political movements and formations. Political scientists, feminist scholars, historians, and others have long documented the varied political orientations within the Latino community. This series is interested in all forms of these right-wing ideologies even if they exist outside of the boundaries of electoral politics. This could include Latinos in mainstream Republican politics, right-wing movements, far-right movements, militia movements, digital conservatism, etc.

An important goal of this collection is to complicate our ideas of “Latino Politics” and “Latino Social Movements.” Generations of Ethnic Studies and Latino Studies scholars have carefully articulated the resilience, creativity, and dynamism of movements for social justice within Latino communities. Less, however, has been written about the conservative individuals and ideologies that have long also been a part of Latino community life.

Designed to reach a broader audience, these 2,000-word essays should make original scholarly contributions in addition to connecting to the broader frameworks necessary to understand Latino right-wing identity. Our goal is to create a set of texts that allows our students, colleagues, journalists, activists, and politicians to better understand this diverse and evolving group of Latinos.

Some potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• Diasporic Latino conservatism: connections between U.S.-based and Latin American right-wing movements and diasporic politics
• Sexuality, gender and Latinos on the right: trad wives, role in anti-trans and pro-life organizing, cultural productions and gender, masculinity and fascism etc.
• Latinos on the digital right: digital Latino influencers on the right, Latino conservatism and social media, use of digital platforms in creating and expanding Latino right-wing communities
• Race and the Latino Right: questions of race and white supremacy in Latino right wing ideologies, presence or absence of Afro-Latinos in these movements
• Policing: role of Latinos in policing and border patrol groups and their role in conservative politics
• Violence and the Latino right: analysis of Latinos participation in right-wing violence or ideas about violence
• Politics: voting trends, evolution in electoral politics, electoral organizing, Latinos and GOP party politics
• Funding: the role of right-wing political movements among Latinos, the funding behind the individuals, organizations and movements that make up Latino right-wing politics
• Book Banning, Anti-DEI: how Latinos have been involved in right-wing battles over K-12, higher education, and libraries, The role of Conservative school board and library board members

Submission Information

Those interested should send a 300-word abstract via email directly to the issue co-editors at cecilia.marquez@duke.edu and daniel.hosang@yale.edu by October 15th, 2024. Those accepted will produce a 2,000-word paper for inclusion in the series by January 31, 2025.

More information on Latinx Talk: Latinx Talk is an online, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and moderated forum for the circulation of original research, commentary, and creative work in brief and diverse formats ranging from 500-2,000 words. For more information about the genres in which we publish, please see our Submission Guidelines.

Please send any questions to issue co-editors at cecilia.marquez@duke.edu and daniel.hosang@yale.edu

Issue Co-Editors

Daniel Martinez HoSang

Daniel Martinez HoSang is Professor of American Studies and Political Science and an interdisciplinary scholar of racial formation and racism in politics, culture, and the law. HoSang’s current research projects include a volume of essays co-edited with Joe Lowndes titled, The Politics of the Multiracial Right, that will be published by NYU Press in 2025; a collaborative investigation into the history and afterlives of Eugenics research at Yale documented through the Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale; and a practice-based project on anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy for K-12 educators.

His most recent book is A Wider Type of Freedom: How Struggles for Racial Justice Liberate Everyone (University of California Press, 2021). HoSang is the co-author (with Joseph Lowndes) of Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) and the author of Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California (University of California Press, 2010).

Cecilia Márquez

Cecilia Márquez is the Hunt Family Assistant Professor in History at Duke University. Her research focuses on the history of Latinx people in the US South. Dr. Márquez writes and teaches about the formation of Latinx identity, Latinx social movements, and the importance of region in shaping Latinx identity.

Márquez is the author of Making the Latino South: A History of Racial Formation (UNC Press 2023) which received an honorable mention for the 2024 Theodore Salutos Prize from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. Márquez is currently working on a book about the history of Latino conservatism in the United States. She is also a contributing author to the edited collection, The Politics of the Multiracial Right.

Her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Schedule

Abstracts due: October 15

Deadline for full 2,000-word article: January 31

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Call for Papers for Special Series

on

Deportation and Coerced Return in the Américas

Editors: Perla M. Guerrero and Gretel H. Vera-Rosas

This CFP is now closed. This series was published in spring 2024. 

The online site Latinx Talk for research, commentary, and creativity invites your submission of 2000 words or less on deportation and coerced return.

Much U.S. scholarship on deportation has focused on the spread of deportation and policing beyond the border region; the federal, state, and local policies and practices that target and/or terrorize specific groups for detention and expulsion; and the growth of detention centers. Mainstream narratives focused on figures such as  the “Dreamer” (a young undocumented person forced to return to a country of their birth because of opportunities foreclosed in the U.S.) or the “criminal” (an individual whose infractions led to incarceration, detention, or deportation) tend to obscure the complexity of undocumented people’s lives in the United States and in the countries of forced return. New research directions in deportation studies includes the examination of a growing call center industry in Mexico and Central America that uses younger deportees’ English language fluency as a marketable and exploitable skill as well as the challenges that children, families, and school systems in countries of origin face when English-dominant children are deported. Yet, there is much more to be considered.

We invite submissions to this special series on Latinx Talk that seeks to expand what we know about deportation and coerced return. We especially invite people who have been shaped by deportation and return to share their insights and perspectives with the Latinx Talk community. We welcome submissions addressing some of the following questions: How are children affected by deportation and coerced return of family and community members? How do race, gender, LGBTQ+ identity, and disability shape deportation and return? How does centering culture as a site of ongoing political and social struggle complicate our understanding of deportation, belonging, and social justice? What type of collectivities and unlikely alliances and organizing has this type of structural violence and displacement produced?

Please email the issue co-editors with any questions: guerrero@umd.edu and grosas@csudh.edu

Issue Co-Editors: Perla M. Guerrero and Gretel H. Vera-Rosas are co-authors of “Immigrant Identity is ‘Twin Skin’ to Linguistic Identity: Tracing the Afterlife of Deportation in Mexico City,” American Quarterly 73 (3): 1–28. doi:10.1353/aq.2021.0034. Perla M. Guerrero is Associate Professor of American Studies and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research and teaching interests include relational race and ethnicity with a focus on Latinxs and Asian Americans, space and place, immigration and legality, labor, U.S. and Mexican history. She has received multiple awards including a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and two from the Smithsonian Institution to be a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Museum of American History (NMAH). She is the author of Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and Remaking of Place and is currently working on her second book, Deportation’s Aftermath: Displacement and Making a Life in Exile. She has published an interview with Maggie Loredo on deportation and coerced return, “To Belong Aquí y Allá” in Southern Cultures. Gretel H. Vera-Rosas is a mother-scholar, poet, and Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her poetry and work on visual culture, immigrant maternity, and displacement in the Américas has been published in The Acentos Review and The Chicana Motherwork Anthology, as well as scholarly journals such as e-misférica, Feminist Formations, Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, and American Quarterly. Vera-Rosas current research explores the limits and opportunities offered by visual cultural production to critically think about the social worlds destroyed and produced by the drug wars and security and immigration policies. She is working on a book manuscript that centers film, silk-screening, performance, and photography to analyze the visual economies of deportation, migration and the war on drugs in Mexico.

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General Call for Submissions

Spring to Fall 2023, Ongoing

The online site Latinx Talk for research, commentary, and creativity invites your submission of 2000 words or less on any topic related to Latinx Studies or Latinx communities. 

We welcome all research, commentary, and reviews and  are especially interested in the following topics:

Latinx Literatures of Migration 2023

Following our series in 2020, Latinx Talk invites submissions about migration in the literary imagination. The decades-long irresolution of U.S. domestic policy on immigration quotas and pathways to citizenship has led to an abundance of Latinx creative expression addressing the condition, situation, and experience of migration and immigration, the difficulties of incorporation into the U.S., and the ethical, moral, and philosophical questions this poses for the U.S. as a nation. This abundance has manifested in virtual reality installations such as Carne y Arena by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (2017), performances such as Teatro Vista’s production of Brian Quijada’s Somewhere Over the Border (2022), first-person accounts of migration, life in mixed-status families, or adaption to the U.S.  such as Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s Children of the Land (2020), Myriam Gurba’s Mean (2017) and Reyna Grande’s A Distance Between Us (2012), Javier Zamora’s Solito (2022), as well as fictional portrayals such as Angie Cruz’s How Not to Drown in A Glass of Water (2022), Cristina Henríquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans (2014) or Manuel Muñoz’s The Consequences (2022). This wealth of literature in multiple genres and formats explores questions of belonging, sexuality, disability, labor exploitation, divided families and families divided by immigration policy or detention. We welcome pieces that analyze, unpack, critique, and reflect upon these and other literary and performative explorations of migration in Latinx communities. 

Sustainability

A second topic on which we invite submissions is sustainability. The climate report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2023 sounds the alarm on the need for immediate changes in sustainability practices. In line with this new research we welcome submissions that address the following questions: How are Latinx communities responding to the climate crisis? What are Latinx responses to the varied diagnosis and proposed solutions? What knowledges do our communities hold that might be valuable in developing solutions to the climate crisis? How are Latinx communities particularly vulnerable to climate crisis? What is Latinx research showing us about our role? 

Latina Reproductive Health Care

A December 13, 2022 policy paper by Josefina Flores Morales and Julia Hernandez Nierenberg for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute found that “in abortion-restrictive states, a greater share of Latina women are of childbearing age compared to non-Hispanic white women,” making this denial of reproductive health care a dire situation for Latinx communities. How have Latinas organized and fought for  reproductive rights in the U.S.? How have Latinas been harmed by the attacks of reproductive rights? What are the current experiences and situations of Latinas facing these new restrictions? How do these restrictions intersect with immigration status to delimit who has access to reproductive rights? Why are people in Latin America organizing toward the codification of full reproductive rights whereas in the U.S. we see movement toward restriction? 

Latinx Media

In addition to several new and exciting series about Latinx life that have emerged on streaming platforms – some perhaps with too-short screen lives – we have noticed an increase in podcasts and radio programs geared toward Latinx audiences.  In what new ways do streaming/television series imagine Latinx life? What accounts for the early cancellation of Latinx media productions in English? How is gender significant in these new series?  Is Spanish-language media more appealing to Latinx audiences than English-language media? Radio and podcast programming has grown in both mainstream and independent sources in English, Spanish and indigenous languages. This has opened space for innovation and depth of coverage. With reference to radio and podcasts, beyond language preferences, how do the soundscapes of Latinidad and indigeneity shape a listening positionality? What can we learn about audiences, media productions, and digital storytelling by Latinx and indigenous creatives in radio and podcasting?

Submissions will be accepted throughout 2023 via email at latinxtalk@gmail.com.  They will then be sent out for peer review and afterwards scheduled for publication. Please direct submission and/or any questions to latinxtalk@gmail.com.

Latinx Talk is an online, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and moderated forum for the circulation of original research, commentary, and creative work in brief and diverse formats ranging from 500-2,000 words. For more information about the genres in which we publish, please see our Submission Guidelines.

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Queer and Trans Latinx (or Queer and Trans Latinidad/es): A Special Forum

This CFP is closed. The Queer and Trans Latinx series was published in 2022. Follow this link for essays in this series.

 Guest Editors: Maylei Blackwell, Francisco Galarte, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

Latinx Talk invites short (500-2,000 word) contributions on queer and trans or LGBTQIA+ Latinidad/es, or reflections that engage and challenge the concepts of queer, trans, and Latinx. We also welcome reflections on queer and/or trans Latinx identities, practices, or communities in and outside of the United States and Canada. What are the most pressing concerns at the intersection of queer, trans, and Latinx? How have these been addressed in activism, cultural production, and scholarship? How have they been transformed by electoral politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other local, national, or global situations? What happens if we think of queer and trans Latinx issues in a hemispheric framework? Or in relation to the queer of color and trans of color critique? Or in relation to queer and trans diaspora studies, or to specific ethnic studies fields? How are queer, trans, and Latinx being addressed in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and professional disciplines? What happens when we center queer, trans, and Latinx in academia, or outside of it?

We invite a variety of submissions including those focusing on:

• The meanings of queer and trans Latinx or Latinidad/es in 2021
• Queering Latinx/Queering Latinidad or Transing Latinx/Transing Latinidad
• Queering/Transing Afrolatinidades and Indigenous Latinidades
• Queering/Transing Chicanx studies, Puerto Rican studies, Cuban American studies, Dominican American studies, Central American-American studies, South American-American studies, and/or Latina/Latino/Latinx studies
• Intersections of queer and trans studies and activism with other fields and social identities
• S. queer/trans discourses and culture in a hemispheric framework and/or in tension with cuir, marica, jotx, travesti or other concepts
• Jotería, mariconería, patería, locura as conceptual, artistic, and/or activist terms and practices
• New developments in the field. Intersections of queer/trans studies and Latinx studies
• New and emerging queer/trans/nonbinary (or other) Latinx artists, writers, scholars
• Language and queer/trans Latinx or Latinidad/es
• Cultural productions: Pose, Legendary, RuPaul’s Drag Race and others
• Geographic specificities, migration, and queer/trans Latinidad/es
• Archival approaches, archival practices in Queer and Trans Latinx Studies
• Performance, Nightlife and queer/trans Latinx community
• Disability Studies, Fat Studies, and other approaches to embodiment, desire and access in Latinx Studies
• Antiracism and queer/trans Latinx activism and culture

Submissions will be accepted through September 1, 2021 via email. They will then be sent out for peer review and afterwards scheduled for publication in October 2021. Please direct submission and/or any questions to latinxtalk@gmail.com.

Latinx Talk is an online, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and moderated forum for the circulation of original research, commentary, and creative work in brief and diverse formats ranging from 500-2,000 words. For more information about the genres in which we publish, please see https://latinxtalk.org/submission-guidelines/.

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Latinx Communities and the Movement for Black Lives

This CFP is closed. The Latinx Communities and the Movement for Black Lives series was published in 2020.

On June 5, 2020, the Advisory and Editorial Boards of Latinx Talk issued a joint statement of solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives. Following up on the commitments outlined in the statement, Latinx Talk invites submissions of short essays (500-1800 words) in any of our six genres (Research in Brief, Informed Commentary, On the Ground, In Academia, Roundtable, and Reviews) on the topic of Latinx communities and the Black Lives Matter Movement. We know that Latinx Studies scholars and community activists have been active in thinking about issues of policing/detention/incarceration; anti-blackness; inequity and inequality; systemic racism; and Black, Afro-Latinx, and Latinx intersectional and coalitional politics. As part of our commitment as a publication to highlight critical work addressing structural problems of racist violence in the United States, we will publish a series of essays on these topics as a means of uplifting Black, Latinx, and Afro-Latinx voices and experiences during this important historical moment.

We invite a variety of submissions, including those discussing:

• The importance of re-centering Blackness in conversations around issues of criminal justice reform, incarceration, (im)migrant detention, and racist violence
• Approaches and strategies for addressing anti-Blackness in the Latinx community
• The intersections of Blackness and Indigeneity in Latinx communities
• Coalition building between Black, Afro-Latinx, and Latinx communities both historically and in the present-day moment
• The difference(s) between performative allyship and allyship that involves the shifting/re-building of institutional structures and practices
• The urgency of including discussions of gender and sexuality as part of analyses of anti-blackness and racist violence

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CFP: Latinx Life in the COVID-19 Pandemic

This CFP is closed. The Latinx Life in the COVID-19 Pandemic series was published in 2020.

The effects of the health crisis are being felt unevenly by a variety of communities and nations across the world. We, at Latinx Talk, are eager for you to share how you and your networks are experiencing these events. How has the pandemic changed your daily life? How has the pandemic impacted you personally, emotionally, and culturally? How has it affected undocumented and mixed-status families and communities? What have been some of the highlights of generosity, empathy, and compassion you have witnessed or heard? And, in turn, what have been some of the low points as we struggle collectively to make sense of the calamity? Finally, what are the creative coping mechanisms you and others have developed to survive and thrive in the pandemic?

We invite a variety of submissions, including:

• discussions of past and current research in all disciplines as it relates to the current pandemic and its impact on Latinx communities
• first-person narratives of living with and through the pandemic
• essays that describe and discuss community resources and tool kits that might be good models for other cities or regions
• reflections on how the pandemic has influenced or affected your teaching, especially in Chicanx and Latinx Studies
• examinations of relevant policy and politics resources that are available particularly for Latinx communities

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Special CFP: LATINX YOUTH DISCUSS LIFE IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

We invite essays from students in junior high or high school on living and learning in the COVID-19 pandemic. Some questions that might be considered include:

• How have you experienced the pandemic?
• How have you adjusted to learning online?
• What are the ups and downs?
• How has the pandemic impacted your understanding of the world we live in and your hopes for the future?

We will begin peer reviewing submissions in early May, but will accept submissions until May 31, 2020, for publication in June and July 2020. Please direct any questions about either submission to latinxtalk@gmail.com.