The Latinx Racial Disintegration Thesis: Whiteness, Democracy, and Latinx Identity

This chapter articulates and defends the Latinx racial disintegration thesis. This thesis holds that, as a social group, Latinx in the U.S. is losing its racial quality and quickly becoming a full-fledged ethnic group. This is due to the fact that in the U.S. there is a strong correlation between Whiteness and the composition of the electorate, such that Whites must constitute the majority-of-the-majority. Historically, this correlation has been challenged by demographic changes, but each time this challenge has been met through an expansion of U.S. Whiteness. This history provides us with strong reasons for believing that the oncoming demographic changes, which are driven primarily by the growth of the Latinx population, will not turn the U.S. into a “minority-majority” country. Instead, these changes will lead to the racial disintegration of Latinx.