Chapter 11 - Beyond Assimilation

Summary

In this essay, I show how Chicanx and Latinx writing critiques assimilation sociology for failing to account for histories of racialization that defy the telos of integration and harmonious coexistence. In addition, a range of Latinx writing demonstrates a different blind spot in assimilation sociology: namely, the way it neglects the inextricability of gender and sexuality from cultural identity. Finally, as I show in the concluding section, Latinx writing encourages us to attend to the role of the state in facilitating or impeding the integration of immigrant and racialized groups. In the last thirty years, immigration policy has been a particular, often violent obstacle for the integration of Latinx migrants, resulting in a situation where many migrants paradoxically assimilate without being assimilated. Assimilation sociology was once a discourse centering primarily on cultural citizenship, but in the absence of legal citizenship, contemporary Latinx writing suggests that cultural citizenship is not enough.