After decades of denying racism and underplaying cultural diversity, Latin American states began adopting transformative ethno-racial legislation in the late 1980s. In addition to symbolic recognition of indigenous peoples and black populations, governments in the region created a more pluralistic model of citizenship and made significant reforms in the areas of land, health, education, and development policy. Becoming Black Political Subjects explores this shift from color blindn...

California has long been mythologized as the quintessential land of opportunity and reinvention—a place where anyone, regardless of origin, can forge a new life and realize their aspirations. Yet beneath this gilded narrative lies a starker reality: California ranks among the most unequal states in one of the world's most unequal countries, where the middle class finds itself increasingly squeezed. Economic inequality is not an anomaly but part of a broader global phenomenon, as disparitie...

Through a collection of theoretically engaging and empirically grounded texts, this book examines African-descended populations in Latin America and Afro-Latin@s in the United States in order to explore questions of black identity and representation, transnationalism, and diaspora in the Americas.