Introduction: Dimensions of Empire and Resistance: A Forum on the Past, Present, and Future of US (Un)Equal Rights

This essay serves as an introduction to “Dimensions of Empire and Resistance: A Forum on the Past, Present, and Future of US (Un)Equal Rights,” an American Quarterly forum that stems from a panel at the American Studies Association conference in November 2012. The forum attempts to understand the simultaneous expansion of gay and lesbian rights through the vehicle of marriage equality and the retraction of Mexican American civil liberties through anti-immigrant legislation. It argues that the example of queers and Latino/as offers a stark contrast in the doling out of rights and citizenship. In addition, it argues that we should not lose sight of the fact that African Americans and Puerto Ricans have also been faced with these issues in the last year.