Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity

Join us for a special conversation with journalist and activist Paola Ramos, author of Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity. Ramos introduces readers to young Latinos across the United States who are redefining their identities, pushing boundaries, and awakening politically in powerful and surprising ways. Many of them—Afrolatino, indigenous, Muslim, queer, and undocumented, living in large cities and small towns—are voices who have been chronically overlooked in how the diverse population of almost sixty million Latinos in the US has been represented. No longer.

In this cross-country travelogue, Ramos journeys to find the communities of people defining the controversial term, “Latinx.” She meets the indigenous Oaxacans who rebuilt the main street in a post-industrial town in upstate New York, the “Las Poderosas” who fight for reproductive rights in Texas, the musicians in Milwaukee whose beats reassure others of their belonging, as well as drag queens, environmental activists, farmworkers, and the migrants detained at our border. Drawing on intensive field research as well as her own personal story, Ramos chronicles how “Latinx” has given rise to a sense of collectivity and solidarity among Latinos unseen in this country for decades.

Finding Latinx calls on all of us to expand our understanding of what it means to be Latino and what it means to be American. The first step towards change, writes Ramos, is for us to recognize who we are.