Making Face and Latine Neurodiversity

This book examines how neurodivergent Latines encounter racialized ableism and explores methods for dismantling it. Neurodivergent Latines are made invisible in the dominant society, when neurodiversity is framed as an issue of individual embodiment rather than social justice. At the same time, communities of color disavow disability due to how it is used to justify racism. To challenge these issues, the book explores Latine neurodiversity through a Christian ethical perspective. The central metaphor of this work is “haciendo cara.” “Haciendo cara,” or “making face,” is a Latine expression to describe an expressive face. Building upon Gloria Anzaldúa’s use of the metaphor, this book transforms it into an ethics for resisting racialized neuroableism. The metaphor draws upon the wells of Latine culture to challenge the marginalization of neurodivergent Latines. Rudolph P. Reyes II deploys this metaphor as a tool to not only “make” one’s own face or identity, but also to begin “making” a more just society. To “make face,” as we learn, is the continual process of being unapologetically neurodivergent, transforming oppressive realities, and imagining neuro-futures