Center for Writing Studies Brownbag: Dr. José A de la Garza Valenzuela

In this presentation, José A. de la Garza Valenzuela traces the legal and literary histories of the new legal grammars of U.S. citizenship in an introduction to his recently published book, Queer in a Legal Sense: Brown Citizenship and Other Lawful Fictions (University of Texas Press, 2026). Analyzing a legal corpus narrowly codifying sex and gender against a gay Chicanx literary tradition challenging the terms on which queer and Chicanx political movements sought what he terms ‘brown citizenship,’ Dr. de la Garza Valenzuela interrogates the ‘lawful fictions’ through which we have and continue to understand being a citizen at each other’s expense.