Dr. Rebeca Gamez is currently on her first book project titled Latinx Youth Formations in Black Geographies, which examines how middle school students of Latin American and Caribbean origin construct Latinidad against the backdrop of Black geographies and antiblack practices. Based on ethnographic research in two schools and neighborhoods in Greenside, a pseudonym for a predominantly African American city in the southeast experiencing significant Latinx demographic shifts in the last thirty years, the book reveals how these youths navigate and redefine their marginalized and subaltern positions. 

Complicating discussions of the term Latinidad as inherently denoting a bounded, panethnic group with connections to Latin America while centering the ways in which racialized space and place relate to its formation, the book uncovers diverse interpretations and constructions of Latinidad in Greenside. Some of these constructions perpetuate antiblackness while others confront it and espouse more inclusive and expansive Black Latinidades. Latinx Youth Formations in Black Geographies demonstrates how these varied     L  atinidades stem from racial discourses about Blackness, Latinidad, and immigration prevalent in their middle school environments. This examination extends beyond the schools, tracing the roots of these discourses in Greenside City's history and the distinct Black geographies of the neighborhoods where the schools are located. Despite varying backgrounds in terms of generation, citizenship, race, origin, and language, students' experiences highlight intersecting racial discourses that impact their access to resources and subject them to different disciplinary practices. These interactions also contribute to a collective, spatially bounded understandings of Latinidad, influencing the interplay between Black and Latinx identities amongst youth. In other words, this book shows how and why Black geographies matter for Latinx youth formations in the United States.  

This project intersects four academic domains: theories of space and place, critical Latinx studies and Latinx anthropology, feminist and Black geographies, and the study of schools' roles in shaping social categories.