Juan Crow and the Erasure of Blackness in the Latina/o South

This essay examines the use of the term Juan Crow in protests against anti-immigrant legislation in the South. Using the passage of Alabama’s 2011 HB 56 law and the subsequent resistance to the legislation, this essay considers the limits of Juan Crow as a framework for immigrant justice. More specifically, it argues that the term erases the historical and contemporary presence of Afro-Latinos/ as in the South and that those deploying Juan Crow often inadvertently stage Jim Crow as a historical relic and Juan Crow as a present concern, thereby erasing contemporary black oppression in the region.