The Latin@ writer's challenge as terribly complex. Mainstream erasure manifests in blatant ways (like the Tucson School District's ban of Chican@, Mexican-American and Latin@ writers and historians and dismantling of Mexican-American Studies programs) and in more subtle ones (gatekeeping in the publishing world, lack of access, minuscule number of Latino agents, etc.).  

Is there a predisposition in the mainstream to demand that Latin@ work be urban, and if so, where does that leave the Tejan@ writer, or the Southern or Midwestern Latin@ whose work may be rural or set in small towns? Likewise, is the mainstream more prepared to hear immigrant voices than those of sixth-generation citizens? Regional differences between us are such that for some the term "Latino" itself is erasure of history, of coalition, of identity. 

I’m interested in language questions that have reemerged recently and that are particularly thorny within the Latin@ community — ideas of authenticity tied to Spanish-language use or ability; the tensions of otherness that have made Spanglish a battlefield; the criminalization of accent, and the “Skippyjon-ing” of Spanish by Anglo authors. 

Language loss, retention, bilingualism — all of these come into play in terms of our trajectory and marketing as U.S. Latino writers — and so whether we're relegated to Spanish-language imprints of major publishing houses or pushed to small presses who’ll publish us in English.

I proposed a freeform conversation panel for Readercon 25 in Burlington, Mass., so that a group of writers and editors I respect could explore where we've been, where we're going, the challenges of representing our own particular cultures within the umbrella term "Latin@," and the challenges of being Latin@ within a overwhelmingly Anglo genre that asks us to assimilate or pass for white if we want to succeed (or even just get a first read).

Writers Daniel José Older and Carlos Hernández from New York, writer Julia Rios of Boston, and Matt Goodwin, a professor of comparative literature at University of Massachusetts at Amherst who recently moved to the Philadelphia area, engaged in a lively conversation with me about differences in regional Latinidad, and combatting the “Latinos don't read-Latinos don't write” fallacy, among other topics.

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We are not the only writers, editors and academics discussing this top. UC-Riverside held a conference on Latino Science Fiction recently; national anthologies are being planned; articles are being written. 

East, West and everywhere between, Latin@s are writing. So let’s talk about it.

Video courtesy of Scott Edelman