Description:

Please join the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Workshop as they host Yalidy Matos, assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for a presentation titled "The Boundaries and Attributes of Latinidad".

ABSTRACT: Self-identified Hispanics/Latinos are one of the fastest growing groups in the United States (U.S.) and the largest minoritized group overall making up 19 percent of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022). However, we do not know what makes up this category we call “Latinos.” This paper asks, what are the boundaries and attributes that demarcate and define the category “Latina/o” among self-identified Latina/os and does it differ by race, gender, class, nativity, legal status, or other relevant categories? According to social identity theory, there are “good members” who are often also defined as prototypical members of the group. Who are the prototypical members? Is there consensus among the group? Do prototypical members share group interests? And are non-prototypical members different in ways that matter for politics? What are the rules for inclusion within Latinidad? What unifies Latinos and what divides them? Who governs these rules? And does it matter for politics? Using an original survey data fielded in January of 2024, I argue that the limits and boundaries of Latinidad are politically consequential.

Yalidy Matos, PhD is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Her scholarship sits at the intersection of race, ethnicity, and politics (REP), immigration, and identity politics. Broadly, her work explores how race and gender operate for various groups in the United States, by asking timely questions that investigate important topics such as immigration politics and policy, voting behavior, and political representation. In 2022, Matos was named a 2022 American Political Science Association Distinguished Junior Scholar in Political Psychology. She graduated from Ohio State University in Columbus, OH with a PhD in Political Science in 2015, and Connecticut College in New London, CT with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Gender and Women’s Studies, and a minor in English in 2009. Prior to Rutgers, she was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University.