This essay examines the performance of “race,” particularly the appropriation of “Blackness,” among U.S.-born Latinos and Latin American migrants in two neighborhoods in Newark, New Jersey. A main argument of this essay is that “Blackness”—a performance of race somewhat detached from actual Black bodies and often associated with Puerto Ricans in Newark—has become a more valued benchmark of belongingness among Latin American migrants than “whiteness,” a stature of belongingness among European migrants in the past. By deconstructing the concept of “urban competency,” an implicit knowledge and cultural capital associated with the valorization of “being urban,” modern, and cosmopolitan, the essay explores how racial performances are deployed by United States-born Puerto Rican and Brazilian migrant youth to mediate alternative constructions of citizenship and belongingness.
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