I had a hard time with this book. Due to the vast and diverse nature of the Latino population the history of it requires covering a wide range of histories in Latin America and I found that the way those histories were written it was difficult to follow and the transitions and connections between different histories were lacking for me. This book is on an important topic but the writing did not do it any justice.

I really enjoyed this book! I think it's very well-structured and super informative.

This book breaks down specific aspects of Latin American history: the effects of American imperialism and colonization in Central America and the Caribbean, anti-Black and anti-Indian sentiment among Latinos, the way Latinos straddle the line between White and Black and how that's worked for them politically, and the importance of how Latinos are counted in the U.S. census.

While the book is academic, it is not inaccessible. Laura does a great job of keeping the language comprehensible for general audiences by defining Spanish terms and maintaining a voice throughout the book. This would be a great supplement in an ethnic studies course. I think everyone can learn something from it. I was particularly enraged in regards to the American imperialism part—not at all because it was written badly, but because of how really foundational the U.S. government was in essentially destroying Central America.

I can't speak on if the book is redundant (in the case of someone who is fluent in Chicano Studies), but for someone who was unable to take a Latinx studies course in college, I think this is a great introduction. There is so much to take away, and the book's ending chapters are particularly relevant to the 2020 census and election.

Highly recommend! Thank you to The New Press and Net Galley for the ARC!

An extremely comprehensive and engaging history of Latinx people and the creation of the Latinx identity. The book is grounded in contemporary politics and weaves current events into historical fabrics and matrices. Wonderful!

Inventing Latinos is a must read for 2020. A fantastic primer on what Latino identity can encompass, how it came to be, and how it affects the course of the United States as it moves forward.

Inventing Latinos should be on everyone's shelf this year. Laura Gomez breaks down historically how Latinx communities in the United States have gained recognition and faced oppression in the United States, starting from the inception of our country. It gives a great primer of US involvement in Latin American politics, giving readers a perfect start to read books like Open Veins of Latin America to delve even deeper into US involvement in Latin America. Gomez lays out her points in four well-paced chapters that cover everything from how citizenship and belonging was formed as a national identity to the current 2020 census and its impact on Latinx communities. For anyone wanting to understand the issues facing Latinx communities and the historical context that is absolutely needed, this is a GREAT place to start. It is an accessible text without too much jargon that many academic books have, making this the perfect introductory or standalone text for a classroom or interested party.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of Inventing Latinos for me to review!

I was thoroughly excited to read this, being a Hispanic and a Chicana interested in learning more about her own history and the history of Latino/Latina/Latinx peoples.

While the book offers well-researched data for the evolvement of Latinos, it fell a bit flat in the way of information overload and felt more like a history book than a tale Latino evolvement.

"Inventing Latinos" by Laura Gomez is a really important read about the history of Latinos in the United States. This book provides a brief history of how the United States interfered in Central American politics and caused massive cultural, economic, and political destruction to the countries whose citizens we are turning away at our border. On the topic of borders, Gomez reminds us of how much of this country once belonged to Mexico. Also, this book taught me a lot about the ongoing argument about how Latinos are defined racially, and despite being historically categorized as white, which is now changing, Latinos face racism and prejudice in so many areas of American life. This is such a necessary read!

As a student of ethnic studies, learning about how categories of race came into existence is always an interesting historical excavation deeply rooted in the United State's history of xenophobia and racism. In "Inventing Latinos" Laura E Gomez pulls from history, sociology, and anthropology to understand who and what was and wasn't considered Latinx in America. Starting with the Mexican American War of the 1800s to Trump's modern day immigration policies, Gomez shows how policies and politics are a direct result of historical conflict between Latin America and the United States. Most importantly, Gomez provides context for the stereotypes of Latinx folk that we see in the media to the United State's discriminatory and violent policy both abroad and at home. A comprehensive, well researched whirlwind of a read!

Laura Gomez's Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism is an exploration of the history of Latinos and the racism they encountered both in their countries of origin and in the United States. The history of Latinos is not an easy one to tell due to all the particular contexts one needs to establish, including South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Gomez does tell that history but it seems to suffer because of the sheer breadth of these diverse histories. One chapter is simply not enough space to tell all those histories from colonization to the 20th century.

The strength of this book lies in the cogent chapter (Ch.3) which argues that Latinos occupied a median position between white and Black people in the U.S. Gomez uses fine examples such as educational cases (e.g. Bastrop, Del Rio) to demonstrate how Latinos initially experienced discrimination due to racist school districts that set up separate "Mexican schools" for Spanish speakers. Under the auspices of being English deficit and missing school due to migrant farm labor, Mexican children often received substandard education in separate schools. Gomez shows that once Latinos became recognized as "white" they were able to be coopted into white educational settings. Thus, receiving a modicum of advancement not open to Black peers.

In sum, the book would have been stronger if there were more examples of racialization in the U.S. and less time spent trying to detail the whole colonial histories. That scope may have been too ambitious as in the end it felt like there were two different studies here--one on the history of Latinos and the other on racialization process in the U.S.

I a great read and talks about the history about the Latin history. It was very interesting to read and learn about things I didn’t know before.

As a Colombian woman living overseas for almost a decade, I understand the importance and relevance of this book. However, this book was not exactly what I was expecting. It is a perfect theory/academic book, but not the ideal "leisure" reading as it is very heavy in history. And although I know the book is about American racism, it would have been good to explore the same experience in different cultures (Europe, Asia, Australia, etc).