Diálogos Latinoamericanos ISSN: 1600-0110
[email protected] Aarhus Universitet Dinamarca Negrón Goldbarg, Rosalyn; Negrón, Wilneida Negotiating Latina/o Ethnicity in NYC: Social Interactions and Ethnic Self-Presentation Diálogos Latinoamericanos, núm. 16, 2009, pp. 35-57 Aarhus Universitet Aarhus, Dinamarca Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=16212429003 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Diálogos Latinoamericanos 16, 2009 Negotiating Latina/o Ethnicity in NYC: Social Interactions and Ethnic Self- Presentation Rosalyn Negrón Goldbarg & Wilneida Negrón.1 Today, an increasing number of people regularly switch from ethnicity to ethnicity in normal discourse, in an attempt to maximize their economic and political interests. This paper focuses specifically on ethnic flexibility among Latina/os in New York City. Drawing on ethnographic, linguistic, and social network data we explore how Latina/os in NYC negotiate between multiple ethnic identities in everyday contexts. Through language and dialect switches, accents, and even calculated silence the Latinos in our research negotiated NYC’s multi-level system of categorization. We hope to show that no one-to-one relationship exists between subjective feelings of ethnic belongingness and the use of ethnic markers. Ethnic markers, particularly