Trumpism, Mexican America, and the Struggle for Latinx Citizenship

Book excerpt: For Latinx people living in the United States, Trumpism represented a new phase in the long-standing struggle to achieve a sense of belonging and full citizenship. Throughout their history in the United States, people of Mexican descent have been made to face the question of how they do or do not belong to the American social fabric and polity. Structural inequality, dispossession, and marginalized citizenship are a foundational story for Mexican Americans, one that entered a new phase under Trumpism. This volume situates this new phase in relation to what went before, and it asks what new political possibilities emerged from this dramatic chapter in our history. What role did anti-Mexicanism and attacks on Latinx people and their communities play in Trump’s political rise and presidential practices? Driven by the overwhelming political urgency of the moment, the contributors to this volume seek to frame Trumpism’s origins and political effects. Published in Association with School for Advanced Research Press.