Latinxs and Racial Frames: The Evolution of Settler Colonial Ideologies in New Mexico

Abstract

I leverage the case of Nuevomexicanos, New Mexico’s long-standing Mexican American population, to extend our understanding of how legacies of Spanish and American conquest—that is, double colonization—can inform Latinxs’ understandings of discrimination and race. I show that while most Nuevomexicanos reported experiences with discrimination, they often minimized their racialized experiences because such instances were incompatible with the idea that living in a Hispanic-majority state sheltered them from racism. The Hispanic-majority frame was often paired with rationales that addressed spatial comparisons, cultural diversity or class inequality to deflect race. Nuevomexicanos struggled with viewing themselves as a low-status group due to their substantial representation in New Mexico yet still managing White racism. I argue that Nuevomexicanos’ race-minimizing frames parallel strategies that date back to Spanish colonization to leverage whiteness in order to contest discrimination. Nuevomexicanos race-minimizing claims, therefore, embody resistance strategies to claim equality with Whites. This study details how double colonization and region reflect variations in Latinxs’ conceptions of race.