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Abstract

In the tradition of LatCrit Afterwords, Professors Chang and Gotanda take the liberty of raising questions that extend beyond the particular themes of this LatCrit Conference and the papers published in this Symposium. They return to two questions - ethnicity versus race and black exceptionalism - that were raised in early LatCrit Conferences but which have since been moved to the background. They ask what LatCrit Theory and Asian American Jurisprudence might teach us about minority on minority conflict and other ethno-racial fault lines. They present an analytic model to help understand commentaries on racial conflict and coalition. This model is organized around a loose historical and theoretical progression, beginning with first order binary analyses that focus on majority-minority relations; moving to second order binary analyses that focus on minority-minority relations; and then to third order multigroup analyses that examine the relationships among the majority and two or more minority groups. They then use this model to examine the comparative racialization projects in Asian American Jurisprudence. In Asian American Jurisprudence, they note that there have been explorations of both the racial and the ethnic and that in analysis of legal doctrine and legal materials, race is the dominant analytic mode. They suggest that the language of race may facilitate a comparative analysis around white supremacy that can provide a basis for coalition around a common platform of anti-racist politics. They speculate that despite the significant success LatCrit has had in fostering coalitions (within the Latina/o group and with others), LatCrit's failure to address squarely those early questions and challenges may in time jeopardize this success. Also in the tradition of LatCrit Afterwords, Professors Chang and Gotanda end with more questions than answers but hope that their set of questions will provide useful guideposts during LatCrit's second decade.

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