The Neoliberal Policy Regime and Implications for Latino Studies Scholarship

Abstract

This essay considers how globalized capitalism affects Latino communities in the United States and suggests implications for Latino studies. Contextualizing US Latinos within a restructured economic system and the current neoliberal policy regime provides a lens for understanding their conditions. The essay examines structural dynamics based on the logic of economic imperatives, including the inexorable pressure to accumulate capital by cutting costs and expanding markets, and highlights impacts on Latino labor, immigration, and neighborhoods. An ideological apparatus of social messaging and mechanisms of social control support these imperatives and shift the blame for poor economic conditions to Latinos themselves. Values, principles, and research-based analyses stemming from the foundations of Chicano and Puerto Rican studies can help challenge the dominant discourse and address contemporary issues facing Latino communities. The call for renewed emphasis on the political economy and on research-based solutions is intended to place the output of Latino studies scholarship into discourse and policy debates and to make Latino presence in universities true to the social movements that brought them there.