Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race

By Arlene Dávila

Latino Spin, by Arlene Dávila, a professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Social and Cultural Analysis, cuts through the spin about Latinos’ supposed values, political attitudes, and impact on U.S. national identity to ask what these caricatures suggest about Latinos’ shifting place in the popular and political imaginary. Dávila, whose previous works include Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People and Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City, illustrates the growing consensus among pundits, advocates, and scholars that Latinos are not a social liability, that they are moving up and contributing, and that, in fact, they are more American than “the Americans.” But, Dávila contends, this change is not an entirely beneficial one for Latino communities. Dávila follows the spin through the realm of politics, think tanks, Latino museums, and urban planning to uncover whether they effectively challenge the growing fear over Latinos’ supposedly dreadful effect on the “integrity” of U.S. national identity.
    “Dávila depicts the frenzied efforts of post-industrial America to corral more than 40 million diverse Latinos into a single homogenized market,” writes Juan Gonzalez, a columnist for the New York Daily News. “Whether it’s peddling consumer goods, monetizing art and culture, engineering barrio land development, or shaping a new political voting bloc, Latino Spin brilliantly dissects Hispanic-American reality in the 21st century.”

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