Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1998

Abstract

This Essay, in three parts, explores bridge building among communities of color with the purposes of creating, maintaining, and developing alliances. The first part, Personal Narratives, shares with readers some cuentos (stories) as a method and path in which to position the lectors: to contextualize my frontiers and familiarize them with my daily travels through diverse and varied borderlands; the many communities with which I intersect and interact, and in which I live- all of them my communities; and in all of which I am both insider and outsider. Part II, Incoherent Paradigms, suggests that the prevailing race-based legal paradigms are, today, imperfect and under-inclusive because they force an epistemological perspective that is not adequate or appropriate for the inspection and study of the myriad identity issues permeating present day society and consequently law- from the classrooms to the courtrooms, from the prisons to the boardrooms, from the streets to the bedrooms.

Finally, in Plural Citizens, the Essay proposes a globalization of our interests, views, and positions. We are increasingly complex beings, communities, and societies. In prior works I have proposed that we shift from a myopic single-trait analytical framework to a multidimensional framework that moves those who are most at the margins to the center of identity discourse.

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