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Religious Rituals And Latcrit Theorizing, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

After the first annual LatCrit conference held at La Jolla, California, Professor Keith Aoki observed that "issues of religion and spirituality are submerged not far below the surface of emerging Latina/o Critical Theory." He proposed that LatCrits begin to "unbracket" religious affiliation and identity in the construction and representation of individual and group racial identities. Professor Aoki further posited that "[i]n a paradoxical way, religion simultaneously may be both more and less difficult to voluntarily discard than race, language or nationality as a constitutive element of one's individual and group identity.