Leo Yu presented his new scholarship project – Racialized Allegiances – in two national conferences: LatCrit 30th anniversary conference in Denver, Colorado and the Critical Race Studies Conference in Los Angeles, California.
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In October, UMass Law Professor Leo Yu presented his new scholarly project, Racialized Allegiances, at two national conferences: the LatCrit 30th Anniversary Conference in Denver, Colorado, and the Critical Race Studies Conference in Los Angeles, California. The project situates itself at the intersection of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), exploring the nexus between race, imperialism, and democratic participation. In this work, Yu examines the relationship between U.S. imperialism and the domestic crisis of democracy, arguing that the current political climate imposes an unspoken prerequisite on people of color—particularly those of immigrant backgrounds—before they can fully participate in American democracy: they must unconditionally endorse U.S. imperialism. He develops this argument through a legal-historical analysis of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), demonstrating that its enforcement history has strayed far from Congress’s original intent to counter Nazi propaganda. Instead, Yu contends, FARA has consistently been deployed to police the political loyalties of people of color, reinforcing racialized expectations of allegiance to the American imperial project.
Yu’s presentation received positive feedback from conference participants and fellow scholars. Both events were attended by many internationally renowned CRT and LatCrit scholars, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Robert Chang, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, and Laura Gómez, among others, making the conferences vibrant spaces of critical engagement and scholarly exchange.