The Hispanic Condition: Reflections on Culture and Identity in America [Paperback]

Ilan Stavans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996

A searching and pioneering psycho-cultural profile of the culture and identity of the 22 million Hispanics in America today.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Stavans brings to this thoughtful, probing, often lyrical analysis of the history, culture, and identity of Latinos in the U.S. the perspective of his own experience of "life in the hyphen." As a middle-class Jew raised amid poverty in Mexico City, as a white Mexican student moving into the multicolored, multiethnic Latino communities of New York City, Stavan views each of his subjects--the ethnic groups that compose the U.S. Latino population, U.S. Latinos as a group, U.S. Anglo culture and politics, and the Americas as a region--as both insider and outsider. Exploring history and literature to understand backgrounds (in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico) and attitudes (on race, machismo, and homosexuality, for instance) of ethnic groups, The Hispanic Condition insists that the focus of attention should not be Latinos as yet another immigrant group in the long succession of U.S. immigrant groups but "the hyphen" itself: the centuries-long, hemispheric "encounter between Anglos and Hispanics," an interaction in which assimilation and change flow in both directions. A provocative, often enlightening analysis. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Savvy and engaging. Stavans is an inventive interpreter of the contemporary cultures of the Americas." -- --Henry Louis Gates, Jr.A

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Perennial (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060926937
• ISBN-13: 978-0060926939
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,104,692 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The hyphenated condition, June 26, 2001

By 

"the_drone" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hispanic Condition: Reflections on Culture and Identity in America (Paperback)

I must say I find very suspicious all of those brief, five-star anonymous reader reviews below, all supposedly from different parts of the country but all praising the book with the exact same language: "a classic", "insightful" and even comparing it to the classic by Octavio Paz 'A Labyrinth of Solitude.' The 'Labyrinth of Solitude' this book is NOT. I approached this book--and the work of Stavans in general--based on the blurbs by writers and authors of such high reputation as Henry Louis Gates, Gregory Barrasa and others but I am sorely dissapointed. I'm happy if Stavans can exist as a 'Hispanic' (rather than a Latino) in the 'hyphens' Americans tend to create to label non-whites, but language is not the only force shaping cultures. This books seems to shine only if you forget the historic forces that have forced millions of Latinos to be labeled with the hyphens of compound identities. His posturing on a number of important issues--bilingual education, Latino sexuality, affirmative action--is more often than not biased and superficial, and worse of all, feels like the posturing of an academic unconcerned with the fate and the condition of Latinos in general. This makes you realize that there is no such thing as a 'Hispanic condition.' A thought-provoking but ultimately confused and superficial book. Strictly to please white 'Hispanic' academics. Read or reread 'The Labyrinth of Solitude' by Octavio Paz and 'Massacre of the Dreamers' by Ana Castillo for more compelling reading on the 'Latino Condition.'

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Already a classic, July 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hispanic Condition: Reflections on Culture and Identity in America (Paperback)

The attention--and place--this book has already earned in mainstream AND Hispanic America is well deserved. Try this book alongside earlier classics like Octavio Paz's LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE and more personal, recent autobiographies and essay collections like Jack Lopez's CHOLOS AND SURFERS and Mary Helen Ponce's HOYT STREET/CALLE HOYT. Read together the experience is even richer.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memorable, August 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hispanic Condition: Reflections on Culture and Identity in America (Paperback)

I loved this book. It is insighful, open-minded, intelligent, and unorthodox. A great read!