To say that there are 50 million Latinos in the US is to suggest that the category of "Latino" is clear-cut and straightforward. But is that true? Tomas Almaguer highlights the ambiguities; he also examines how Latinos, a tremendously diverse population, have been racialized, and how they racialize each other. Almaguer brings up as key factors both the US Census and Spain's colonization of Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Keramet Reiter calls supermax prisons "the black hole" in this nation's system of incarceration: So little is known about them, and yet inmates in those facilities endure the most extreme form of punishment short of the death penalty. Reiter has investigated the rise of supermaxes, the conditions and terms of confinement, and the impact of such confinement on prisoners and society. (Encore presentation.)

As the 1960s turned into the '70s, militant Black nationalism and race-conscious identity politics came to dominate radical political organizing. That's how standard accounts of the period go -- but are they correct? According to Jason Ferreira, groups like the Black Panthers and Los Siete rejected narrow conceptions of identity, instead promoting cross-racial solidarity and creating inclusive communities of resistance. Also, Chris Carlsson describes the volume in which Ferreira's essay appears.

Keramet Reiter calls supermax prisons "the black hole" in this nation's system of incarceration: So little is known about them, and yet inmates in those facilities endure the most extreme form of punishment short of the death penalty. Reiter has investigated the rise of supermaxes, the conditions and terms of confinement, and the impact of such confinement on prisoners and society.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was a Black Puerto Rican born in 1874. After he moved to New York City in 1891, Schomburg was active in Cuban and Puerto Rican independence struggles; he later launched an effort to unite people of African descent across national boundaries. Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof has written about this celebrated activist, historian, and collector.

African Americans and Latinos acting in tandem could exert tremendous political force. Mark Sawyer examines factors that inhibit Latino-Black collaboration, including anti-Black racism among many Latinos, African American parochialism, and narrow visions of racial/ethnic identity. He also identifies points of commonality and convergence. And Juan Flores talks about the broader project of the book in which Sawyer's essay appears.