The Trouble with Unity

Back in 2010, my husband Matthew set up this rudimentary site using TypePad . . . and a couple of weeks ago, he happened to see that TypePad would be shutting down, imminently. And indeed, it’s gone! He managed to move the site to WordPress. But it still needs a lot of work, graphics-wise, not only because TypePad offered users zero (0) assistance but because nothing is as intuitive as it should be. Fingers crossed.

With the election looming, I spoke with David Rind about Harris and Trump and the Latino vote. The podcast link is live here. Check it out!

"If conservatives are uncomfortable confronting our violent and complicated past, we progressives struggle with how to celebrate this place we also love. Indeed, such political speech makes many of us skittish: How can we express civic pride in an era of right-wing backlash? How can we speak love of country when that country was built by stolen labor on stolen land?"

For the Fourth this year, I pulled together some thoughts on patriotism for an essay for Politico.

My first New York Times guest essay is headlined, "America's Increasingly Diverse Security State Is Changing Communities." The ways in which America’s prison culture and military commitments have transformed the nation's cultural and economic landscape—particularly among communities of color—is a subject I had been mulling over for a couple of months and finally put into op-ed form. Great to be able to launch it into the world in the most prestigious opinion forum there is!

I was honored to learn that the APSA Committee on the Status of Latinos y Latinas in the Profession had awarded me the 2022 Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell Mentor Award for Exemplary Mentoring of Latino/a Junior Faculty in Political Science. Sosa-Riddell, the first Latina to earn a doctorate in political science, has long been an inspiration to me and my colleagues.

And lovely to see, in Political Science Now's article, University of the District of Columbia assistant professor Jasmine Noelle Yarish's generous words: “Like Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell, Dr. Beltrán’s commitment to listening to and supporting the next generation is about deepening the democratic project of abolition—that is, collective liberation.”

Was an honor to have Cruelty as Citizenship named one of two recipients of the APSA Latino Caucus's 2020 Best Book Award, alongside Holding Fast: Resilience and Civic Engagement Among Latino Immigrants by James A. McCann and Michael Jones-Correa. (Thanks to Betina Cutaia Wilkinson for tweeting this photo, with Angela X. Ocampo.)

With Spanish-language activists targeting Latino voters in particular, manipulating communities with mis- and disinformation, Providence College professor Tony Affigne and I wrote an op-ed explaining the problem and offering some ideas for addressing it. This version of our essay was published in the Sunday, July 31, Providence Journal. (Click on the op-ed to read a larger version.)

A real pleasure to catch up with Melissa Harris-Perry and talk about Cruelty as Citizenship for her WNYC show The Takeaway. She and Dorian Warren then used the conversation as a jumping-off point for a broader discussion of political cruelty. It's a great listen. Check it out!

Got to be on Velshi with Ali Velshi and Ray Suarez, talking about redistricting as a form of racial erasure and why Democrats need to describe multiracial democracy not as demographic destiny but as a beautiful world we fight for together.

Had a chance to discuss the issues in Cruelty as Citizenship with Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland for their Majority Report podcast! Available on the program's website, Apple Podcasts, Audacy, etc. Check it out!