New Books Network Cecilia Márquez, "Making the Latino South: A History of Racial Formation" (UNC Press, 2023)
Feb 22, 2026
Cecilia Márquez, Hunt Family Assistant Professor of History at Duke, studies Latinx history in the U.S. South. She explores provisional whiteness for non-Black Latinos, shifting labels from 'hardworking Hispanic' to 'illegal alien', and how Blackness and region shaped racial boundaries. The conversation traces recruitment, civil rights-era organizing, backlash after the 1990s, and links to contemporary racial politics.
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Provisional Whiteness For Non-Black Latinos
- Non-Black Latinos in the Southeast often experienced provisional whiteness that granted access to key white institutions without full inclusion.
- Cecilia Márquez shows this meant attendance at white schools and neighborhoods pre-1980s while being barred from clubs and full social acceptance.
Three Eras Of Latino Racialization
- Latino racial status in the South shifted across decades from provisional whiteness to hardworking Hispanicness to criminalized illegal alien.
- Márquez maps changes: postwar elite migrants, 1990s labor-driven welcome, then post-9/11 and Great Recession surveillance and harsh anti-immigrant laws.
Carla Galarza Expelled For Being Not Black
- Carla Galarza, stepdaughter of organizer Ernesto Galarza, was expelled from a Black vocational school in D.C. for being not Black despite attending white high school.
- Márquez uses this case to show administrators prioritized non-Blackness over whiteness when enforcing segregated resources.
