Homies in the New Latino Diaspora

“Homies” are a series of figurines created by a California artist, whose images are also available in other media (clothing, comics, videogames, stickers, the internet). The artist claims that these images represent people one finds in “the barrio.” As the images circulate, however, different audiences interpret them differently—some decrying the glorification of gangsters, others lauding the portrayal of less commonly represented social types. This paper traces the uptake of Homies images in one suburban American town, where the recontextualization of Homie imagery sometimes results in the homogenization of identities, and sometimes mediates less familiar identity projects.