This post was originally published on artnews.com
US Latinx art is a living history marked by activism and absent of neat art historical boundaries. With stakeholders that comprise the most ethnically and racially diverse demographic in the nation, it is also a contested field—one that arguably began before the establishment of the United States and extends beyond its borders; and one marked by the ongoing legacy of migration between the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This makes the US in front of Latinx a descriptor to be challenged even more than its ending with x, which garners disproportionate criticism that is divisive and distracting. The x in Latinx is a political refusal to be boxed in and a placeholder for our plurality. US Latinx art is necessary and critical to our story as Americans—those with and without citizenship, who are a majority working class, and some of whom remain colonized by the nation-state.