The following articles discuss issues related to Hispanic/Latinx identity and the law, but address other topics as well.

Brandon Johnson, Whitewashing Expression: Using Copyright Law to Protect Racial Identity in Casting, 112 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1137 (2018).

Porchlight Music Theatre, a non-equity theatre company in Chicago, decided to capitalize on the popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton by producing one of Miranda’s earlier works, In the Heights. This earlier work tells the story of a predominantly Latinx community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood. Porchlight’s production, however, received significant negative attention when it was revealed that the lead character—Usnavi, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic—would be played by a white actor. While casting white actors in nonwhite roles is nothing new and has been a persistent (and persistently criticized) practice in both theatre and film, the casting for In the Heights struck a nerve. This particular production incensed the Chicago theatre community because of the importance of racial identity to the story. In the Heights focuses on the lives of immigrant families and their daily struggles with the gentrification of their neighborhood. Casting a white actor in the lead role in such a story elicited a significant backlash.

Naomi Mezey, Erasure and Recognition: The Census Race and the National Imagination, 97 NW. U. L. REV. 1701 (2002).

This Article is concerned with the constitutive power of the census with respect to race. It is an examination of the U.S. Census as an aspect of what Angela Harris calls race law, "law pertaining to the formation, recognition, and maintenance of racial groups, as well as the law regulating the relationships among these groups." While others have noted and explored the epistemological and constitutive functions of the census race categories, my aim is to unpack this insight in the context of two specific examples of categorical change and contest: the addition of a Chinese racial category in 1870 and the debate over a multiracial category in 2000. In addition, I analyze the differing sites of categorical reimagining in each instance, further exploring how the census has been deeply influential in two different directions: informing, defining and naming the racial identity of specific groups, and informing an imagined racial identity of "the nation."

Joseph Seliga, Gautreaux a Generation Later: Remedying the Second Ghetto or Creating the Third, 94 NW. U. L. REV. 1049 (2000).

This Comment argues that the Gautreaux judgment order has not remedied the second ghetto and has the potential to contribute to the creation of a third ghetto. The Comment will recommend that the defendantsthe CHA-move to modify the judgment order. The scattered-site program should be replaced by a mobility program encouraging integration through the provision of Section 8 housing vouchers, as well as a redevelopment program for demolished public housing projects. Such a modification would provide a swifter remedy for the Gautreaux plaintiffs. It also would give the CHA greater flexibility to implement redevelopment programs that have the potential both to benefit public housing residents and to provide assurances that residents have opportunities to live in desegregated housing. It also would enable the conditions that would have prevailed in the absence of the constitutional violation-integration and improved public housing in majority African-American neighborhoods-to become reality.