Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race

Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race is pathbreaking in its focus on how Latinxs are racialized through language. In a moment when the relationship between race and Latinidad is hotly debated, Rosa's text helps us to better understand not only how Latinxs make sense of race but also how they seek to assert racialized difference within white supremacist and colonial structures of power. * Marisol LeBrón, American Anthropologist *
Whether this work was intended for educators, linguistic anthropologists, or researchers generally, by troubling the otherwise co-naturalized relationships between race and language Rosa challenges all audiences to rethink how we understand and talk about race, language, difference, and belonging. In this way, the book is not so much discipline-specific as an exercise in theoretical reimagining and self reflection that can speak to any reader. * Kimberly Ann Strong, International Journal of the Sociology of Language *
Rosa's detailed analysis of language and race in the construction of US Latinidad is illuminating for scholars and students alike who are interested in disrupting naturalized social categories and interrogating their production. * Molly Hamm-Rodríguez, Latino Studies *
Rosa is a gifted storyteller, and a major strength of his project lies in how he writes his student subjects and narrates their identities and experiences. For an ethnographic project reliant on the experiences and vulnerabilities of young human subjects, this storytelling is key ... Rosa's book is a must-read for students and educators interested in scholarship that foregrounds race and interrogates racial categories. It is also an exceptional example of an ethnographic study that analyzes the formation and naturalization of Latinidad in the United States. * Sarah Glessner, Language, Discourse & Society *
Rosa's work challenges us to consider the way mainstream notions of academic success might reproduce, not empower marginalized students. This book paves the way, setting in motion new inquiries to imagine an educational otherwise ... Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race dares us to go beyond "practical" theorization into a more critical and imaginative realm. * Omar Davila Jr, Urban Education *
In guiding us through moving ethnographic accounts of Latinx students' lived and embodied experiences of Latinidad, Rosa provides a brilliant contribution to the linguistic anthropology of education. I particularly appreciate his approach of anthropological activism, and his delicate handling of the theoretical, analytical, and ethnographic complexities of his research. His arguments and analyses are thoroughly grounded in linguistic anthropological theory, while simultaneously offering elaborations and expansions on key concepts within the field. * Doğa Tekin, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology *
Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race is pathbreaking in its focus on how Latinxs are racialized through language. In a moment when the relationship between race and Latinidad is hotly debated, Rosa's text helps us to better understand not only how Latinxs make sense of race but also how they seek to assert racialized difference within white supremacist and colonial structures of power. * Marisol LeBrón, American Anthropologist *
Whether this work was intended for educators, linguistic anthropologists, or researchers generally, by troubling the otherwise co-naturalized relationships between race and language Rosa challenges all audiences to rethink how we understand and talk about race, language, difference, and belonging. In this way, the book is not so much discipline-specific as an exercise in theoretical reimagining and self reflection that can speak to any reader. * Kimberly Ann Strong, International Journal of the Sociology of Language *
Rosa's detailed analysis of language and race in the construction of US Latinidad is illuminating for scholars and students alike who are interested in disrupting naturalized social categories and interrogating their production. * Molly Hamm-Rodríguez, Latino Studies *
Rosa is a gifted storyteller, and a major strength of his project lies in how he writes his student subjects and narrates their identities and experiences. For an ethnographic project reliant on the experiences and vulnerabilities of young human subjects, this storytelling is key ... Rosa's book is a must-read for students and educators interested in scholarship that foregrounds race and interrogates racial categories. It is also an exceptional example of an ethnographic study that analyzes the formation and naturalization of Latinidad in the United States. * Sarah Glessner, Language, Discourse & Society *
Rosa's work challenges us to consider the way mainstream notions of academic success might reproduce, not empower marginalized students. This book paves the way, setting in motion new inquiries to imagine an educational otherwise ... Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race dares us to go beyond "practical" theorization into a more critical and imaginative realm. * Omar Davila Jr, Urban Education *
In guiding us through moving ethnographic accounts of Latinx students' lived and embodied experiences of Latinidad, Rosa provides a brilliant contribution to the linguistic anthropology of education. I particularly appreciate his approach of anthropological activism, and his delicate handling of the theoretical, analytical, and ethnographic complexities of his research. His arguments and analyses are thoroughly grounded in linguistic anthropological theory, while simultaneously offering elaborations and expansions on key concepts within the field. * Doğa Tekin, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology *
Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race is pathbreaking in its focus on how Latinxs are racialized through language. In a moment when the relationship between race and Latinidad is hotly debated, Rosa's text helps us to better understand not only how Latinxs make sense of race but also how they seek to assert racialized difference within white supremacist and colonial structures of power. * Marisol LeBrón, American Anthropologist *
Jonathan Rosa's Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of Latinidad might be one of the most powerful books written on race and language of the past few decades, which I do not state with any intended hyperbole, but in a matter-of-fact consideration of how the book ambitiously accomplishes what it sets out to do. * Casey Philip Wong, Language in Society *
Jonathan Rosas brilliant theorizing of the ideological codependency of race and language, grounded in his rich ethnographic work with Latinx youth, is excitingly fresh and urgently needed. Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race is a powerful rejoinder to researchers, educators, journalists, and politicians who seek to control and contain the complex meanings of Latinidad." * Mary Bucholtz, Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara *
This is the book that scholars of language, Latinx studies and comparative racial studies have been waiting for. It is an essential volume for understanding the co-naturalization of language and race and the key role language plays in the racialization of Latinx youth. Rosas raciolinguistic approach provides a welcomed pathway for understanding, and transforming, systems of domination and should serve as model for all linguistic analyses. * Arlene Dávila, Professor of Anthropology and American Studies, New York University *