Course Description
This seminar will offer a critical approach to the role that law has played in the shaping of the Latino and Latina communities in the United States. It will also critically analyze legal issues of particular relevance to the Latino(a) communities in the United States. The course will explore sociological and historical readings to address questions of who Latinas/os are in terms of demography and the multiplicity of latino(a) identities. The course will also use case studies (based principally around governmental policies and programs and U.S. or state Supreme Court opinions) to explore issues of relevance to the Latino(a) communities : civil rights, colonialism, litigation over the right to serve on juries, education, language regulation, radical latino(a) movements, incarceration, identity issues and various issues in immigration law. In studying the legal issues affecting Latina/os, much attention will be paid to Critical Race Theory and critical Latina/o (LatCrit) theory and intersectionality. The readings are interdisciplinary in focus and include research in the social sciences and the humanities as well as legal sources.