Introduction
The introduction takes issue with the tendency of Chicanx and Latinx studies to read representationally. Beginning instead from the premise that both text and bodies are part of the physical stuff of the world, the author redefines reading as a mode of physical interaction with text that produces moments of affective chicanidad. To see reading as the intellectual processing of represented things is to approach text with expectations and preconception. Instead of learning what they already know, by contrast, readers of Racial Immanence will witness the objects gathered therein fostering networks of connection that deepen human attachment to the material world. Readers will be challenged to think of text as a physical engagement and to see reading as a process of connection rather than interpretation. To consider reading as merging with the stuff of the world opens the door to an ethics of shared vulnerability that reimagines the political.