Law Commons^™

Beyond The First Decade: A Forward-Looking History Of Latcrit Theory, Community And Praxis, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Angela Harris, Francisco Valdés

UF Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Afterword sketches an overview of the jurisprudential and intellectual precursors that have influenced the emergence and development of LatCrit theory during this past decade. Part II turns squarely to the origins and the efforts of this enterprise, as we have endeavored to articulate the LatCrit subject position in socially relevant ways. Part III explains the special emphasis on internationalism manifest both in our symposia and more broadly in our portfolio of projects. Part IV then concludes with an outline of some key points that might help to inform our second-decade agenda. In presenting our account of …

Afterword - Outsider Citizenships And Multidimensional Borders: The Power And Danger Of Not Belonging, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this closing for the LatCrit VIII symposium, I adopt a collective view of the articles, and attempt to develop how the themes discussed in them fit within LatCrit scholarship. I will then interrogate the future of our enterprise by discussing the danger of succumbing to the seduction of the real or perceived need "to reinvent the wheel," or at least to clothe ideas in overly-developed language. Last, the Conclusion discusses how LatCrit scholarship is both promoted and challenged by the articles published here. I further include some suggested institutional responses to the opportunities for mentoring and nurturing that I …

Latcritical Encounters With Culture, In North-South Frameworks, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

A critical introduction of a group of articles in the LatCrit VI Symposium issue, discussing the authors' diverse approaches to Latin American legal cultures and contextualizing the publications in the growing body of LatCrit scholarship. The Essay discusses how the other essays in the issue fit within or challenge the themes of the specific roundtable, plenary, or workshop in which they were presented, and then locates the cluster within the present and the future of LatCrit Theory generally, and LatCritical praxi in particular. This Essay addresses each presentation, the specific conference context(s) in which it was delivered, and how the …

Reparations Theory And Postcolonial Puerto Rico: Some Preliminary Thoughts, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article primarily focuses on the plight of the Puerto Ricans on the island because, in addition to their flawed social construction by the United States and lack of national political power, they are also legally constructed as second-class citizens. In defining the legal rights of Puerto Ricans, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that territorial citizens are entitled to fewer constitutional protections than U.S. citizens residing in any of the fifty states. The racist and essentialist social construction of the Puerto Ricans as inassimilable, the denial of legal rights by the courts, along with the democratic deficit which deprives …

Literature And The Arts As Antisubordination Praxis: Latcrit Theory And Cultural Production: The Confessions Of An Accidental Crit, Pedro A. Malavet

UF Law Faculty Publications

I attend LatCrit conferences to be educated on what I regard as the most exciting legal scholarship being produced today. Therefore, I naturally jumped at the opportunity to help organize the Fourth Annual LatCrit Conference and to chair one of its Plenary Panels. I have penned this Essay for the purpose not only of joining Critical Race Theory ("CRT") discourse, but also to create a recorded history of LatCrit travels.

In Part I of this Essay, I will describe the process that led the Planning Committee to include the Literature and Arts as Antisubordination Praxis: LatCrit Theory and Cultural Production …

Latina Multidimensionality And Latcrit Possibilities: Culture, Gender, And Sex©, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay explores the multiple margins that Latinas inhabit both within majority society and their comunidad Latina because of their compounded outsider status in all their possible communities. Exploring the concept and theme of "Between/Beyond Colors: Outsiders Within Latina/o Communities" elucidates both the challenges and the possibilities the young LatCrit movement presents for Latinas.

From its inception, LatCrit has broadened and sought to reconstruct the race discourse beyond the normalized binary black/white paradigm -- an underinclusive model that effects the erasure of the Latina/o, Native, and Asian experiences as well as the realities of other racial and ethnic groups in …

Building Bridges Iii - Personal Narratives, Incoherent Paradigms, And Plural Citizens, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay, in three parts, explores bridge building among communities of color with the purposes of creating, maintaining, and developing alliances. The first part, Personal Narratives, shares with readers some cuentos (stories) as a method and path in which to position the lectors: to contextualize my frontiers and familiarize them with my daily travels through diverse and varied borderlands; the many communities with which I intersect and interact, and in which I live- all of them my communities; and in all of which I am both insider and outsider. Part II, Incoherent Paradigms, suggests that the prevailing race-based legal paradigms …

Indivisible Identities: Culture Clashes, Confused Constructs And Reality Checks, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay, an expansion of remarks delivered at the LatCrit I Conference -- the first conference ever convened to discuss and explore critical legal thought from a Latina/o perspective -- develops a basis for articulating a LatCrit theory. As the introductory section, "LatCrit: The Voice for Latina/o Narratives" sets out, Latinas/os are a diverse community, whose identity components -- race, sex, ethnicity, language, and sexuality to name a few of the pertinent ones -- are indivisible yet diverse and varied. Such diversity, to date, has not allowed for a cohesive Latina/o theoretical model to be articulated. Rather, it has been …

Borders (En)Gendered: Normativities, Latinas, And A Latcrit Paradigm, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay, developed in a prologue and three parts, adopts Latinas'/os' world traveling as a metaphor for Latina/o multidimensionality and as a springboard for LatCrit theorizing. The Prologue is a brief diary entry of unfin de semana viajando mundos - a weekend of actual traveling between New York and Miami; law and familia; profesora and learner; colleague and hija; español and English; norte y sur; normativa and other; indigenous and alien. This abbreviated record of a Latina's life reveals, exposes, and unveils Latinas'/os' daily crossdressing simply by virtue of their latinidad. This Prologue thus serves as a concrete backdrop for …