New Books In Latino Studies

Political Scientist Efrén Pérez’s new book, Diversity's Child: People of Color and the Politics of Identity (U Chicago Press, 2021), explores the term and category “people of color” and how this grouping has been used within politics, but also how it is has been used by those who are classified as people of color. Pérez examines group identity, language and public opinion, and implicit cognition to explain how marginalization of non-white groups can form a collective group identity that is interchangeable for the individual. Diversity’s Child fills in a rather substantial gap in research about racial and ethnic identity in the United States by surveying people of color about how they think and feel about racial disparities that impact them as well as other groups that are often categorized as people of color. Part of what Pérez finds in the multi-method approach is that politics can be seen as a solution to the inequality that many of those within this broad umbrella category experience and understand. Pérez’