ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a way of thinking about the conflictive processes by which Latinas and Latinos claim "home" in the United States—at the national level, within our own communities, within academia, and within our varying shades of skin. Latinas and Latinos in the United States are often perceived and represented as newly arrived or illegal immigrants. The sweeping notion of Latinos as foreigners who steal jobs from US citizen’s fuels exaggerated ideas about the threat of Latin American illegal immigration to the United States. Latinas, like other women of color in the United States, experience simultaneously the triple jeopardy of racism, sexism, and classism. Latinas who subvert traditional models of womanhood risk alienation and rejection from our families, our churches, and our communities. In both cases, Hollywood reproduces the distorted stereotype of the Latina/Latino "threat" to the White neighborhood, both at the community and the national level.
