Diálogo: Latinxs and the American Suburbs

Call For Papers and Creative Work

“Latinxs and the American Suburbs”

A Themed Issue of Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Randy Ontiveros (University of Maryland, College Park)

Nicole Ramsey (University of Texas, Austin)

Edgar Sandoval (Williams College)

            We are editing a themed issue of the peer-reviewed journal Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary

Journal on the topic of Latinxs and the American suburbs, and we are in search of original,

compelling essays and creative work (e.g. poetry, photography, visual art, short fiction) from a

variety of disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives. The US suburbs are

generally imagined as neighborhoods made up of middle- and upper-class heterosexual families,

usually white, living in spacious single-family houses. These “bedroom communities” are an

important part of the suburban story, but their dominance within America’s suburban imaginary

has tended to obscure other types of suburbs, other types of suburbanites, and other types of

suburban experience. The major goal of our special issue is to give readers a fuller map of the

suburbs and the relationship of Latinxs to them. We also aim to explore how suburbs of different

types in different regions intersect with dynamics of race, class, citizenship, labor, gender,

language, sexuality, and other forms of social difference.

There exists a growing body of research that has observed the changing demographics of

suburban built environments and is asking complex questions about the past, present, and future

relationship between Latinxs and the suburbs–and not just the suburbs writ large but the suburbs

in their regional and demographic specificity. Among the many scholars whose writing directly

or indirectly shapes our thinking are: Jody Agius Vallejo, Eric Avila, Wendy Cheng, Marissa

Fuentes, Monika Gosin, Perla Guerrero, Stuart Hall, Douglas Massey, Katherine McKittrick,

Becky Nicolaides, Mary Patillo, and Karen Tongson. In our special issue, we aim to continue

existing critical conversations around race and place and to open new lines of inquiry. Below is a

non-exhaustive list of topics we are especially looking for:

• Transnational dimensions of the relation between Latinxs and the suburbs
• The gender and/or sexual politics of Latinx suburbanism
• Impact of local, state, and federal policy on the relationship between Latinxs and suburbs
• Latinx experiences of suburban life in relation to race, colorism, anti-Blackness, and
• proximity to whiteness
• Aesthetic representation of the relation between Latinx and the suburbs in film, TV,
• literature, theater, dance, visual art, or other mediums
• Heteronormativity, homonormativity, or other aspects of queer Latinx life in the suburbs
• Latinx religious beliefs and/or religious practices in the suburbs
• Afro-Latinx experiences in the suburbs and/or representations of the Afro-Latinx
• suburbanism
• Latinx family life in the suburbs
• Significance of multilingualism and/or code-switching to everyday life in the suburbs
• The suburbs as setting for Latinx indigeneity or anti-indigeneity
• Gentrification and suburbanization as forces affecting Latinx communities
• The suburbs in relation to Latinx support for “MAGA” and other right-wing politics
• Environmental justice, climate, and ecological change in Latinx suburbs
• Role of memory, storytelling, archives, and community history in Latinx suburban life
• Suburban schooling (bussing practices, etc.), racial segregation, and educational equity
• Race, migration, and the changing demographics of the suburban spaces
• The role of Latinxs in making and shaping suburban places
• The formation of Latinx spatialities within and across the suburbs

We welcome contributions from all disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including

history, urban studies, LGBTQ studies, literary studies, feminist studies, Black studies,

sociology, legal studies, anthropology, visual studies, and beyond. If you would like to be

considered for inclusion in this groundbreaking special issue, please send a 250-word abstract to

Randy Ontiveros at rjo@umd.edu by September 1, 2026. (Editorial decisions will be announced

by September 15, 2026 and first drafts of submissions will be due January 22, 2027.) Questions

can be directed to the same email address.