In her contribution to the “Sociolinguistic Frontiers” series, Adrienne Lo reflects on how scholars of language use have engaged with issues of race and racialization in the United States since the 1970s. She traces how scholars’ emphases have shifted between a focus on the “real” and authentic productions of language varieties by racialized groups and the ways political, economic and cultural forces shape how that language use is represented and (de)legitimized. Lo concludes with a discussion of the stakes of sociolinguistic study of race given the contestations around “race” as a concept, and argues that research in this space should seek to engage broader publics.