DOI: 10.1111/josl.12610
BOOK REVIEW
The Spanish language in the United States:
Rootedness, racialization, and resistance.
José A. Cobas, Bonnie Urciuoli, Joe R. Feagin, and Daniel J. Delgado (Eds.),
New York and London: Routledge. 2022. 162pp. Hardback (9781032190563)
96.00 GBP, Paperback (9781032190556) 26.39 GBP, Ebook (9781003257509)
26.39 GBP
Lara Alonso
City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
Email: laraalonsopinero@gmail.com
The Spanish language in the United States, edited by José A. Cobas, Bonnie Urciuoli, Joe R. Feagin,
and Daniel J. Delgado, aims to illustrate the sociopolitical situation of Spanish and Spanish speakers
in the United States by addressing the rootedness of the language in the country, its racialization,
and the resistance of Spanish speakers toward that racialization. To do so, the book takes an activist
stance that openly condemns and resists the racialization of the Spanish language and its speakers.
The authors situate the issue within its historical and geopolitical context, analyzing how colonization,
slavery, and the annexation of Spanish speaking territories have shaped the present scenario of racial
discrimination. Finally, the different chapters show how this process is resisted by Latinx communities
in their daily lives. The contributors also demand a series of steps that could be taken to counter the
damaging consequences of the discrimination of Latinxs’ linguistic practices.
The book is novel as it is the first co-authored volume that specifically focuses on the racialization of
Spanish in the United States from an interdisciplinary approach. It combines sociological, historical,
demographic, political, sociolinguistic, discursive, and anthropological studies, incorporating a broad
spectrum of theoretical frameworks and methodologies. This breadth of scope shares a focus on racial-
ization and a foundation in critical race theory. The book is thus oriented toward a broad public: on the
one hand, it engages readers interested in further exploring how the co-naturalization of language and
race operates and affects racialized speakers, while, on the other hand, it is productive for an audience
interested in the study of Spanish in the United States specifically. This volume is also accessible to
readers who want to know more about the sociopolitical situation of Latinxs in the country.
The volume is organized in four sections: I. Language, race, and power, an introduction to the book
content and political mission; II. Rootedness, which builds on the belonging of Spanish and Spanish
speakers to the United States with historical and demographic arguments; III. Racialization, the main
section, which focuses on the co-naturalization of race and language that affects Latinxs in the United
States; and IV. Resistance, aimed at showing strategies implemented by Latinxs in the United States to
Journal of Sociolinguistics. 2023;1–5. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/josl