The Latino Threat

Leo R. Chavez is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society (1998) and Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation (2001).

Praise for the First Edition "Leo R. Chavez makes a forceful case for the proposition that Latino immigration to the United States is everything its supporters and opponents say it is - and much more. There is no secret reconquest conspiracy among Mexican immigrants - but Chavez also highlights the more subtle effect: Latino immigrants are changing the culture of the United States in much the same way as did every previous surge of new residents. This is a book with rich rewards for the serious student of the entire phenomenon of Latino immigration into the United States." - Bill Richardson, Former Governor of New Mexico Praise for the First Edition "Leo Chavez has produced a superb, well-argued, and thought provoking book. Tackling subjects such as the Minutemen in Arizona, immigrant marches, Latino reproduction, and organ transplants, the book not only sheds a critical light on how, through the mass media, Latinos have been constructed as illegitimate members of society, it also provides powerful evidence to undermine the taken-for-granted truths marshaled to marginalize this population." - American Ethnologist Praise for the First Edition "In this tour de force volume, Leo Chavez offers a penetrating analysis of how Latinos have been socially constructed as a threat to the American nation by bigoted political actors for their own cynical purposes and draws expertly on logic, facts, and reason to expose the mythical threat for the intellectual fraud and moral travesty that it truly is." - Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University "Chavez offers us a thoughtful analysis of conflicts over the meaning of citizenship in an increasingly globalized world. In an era of debate over immigration reform, this book is essential reading for scholars, policy makers, and a thoughtful public alike." - Caroline B. Brettell, Southern Methodist University