Latino/a Popular Culture [Paperback]

Michelle Habell-Pallan (Editor), Mary Romero (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0814736254 | ISBN-13: 978-0814736258

Cover artwork by Diane Gamboa. Credit-Click here

Latinos have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. While the presence of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture in the United States buttresses the much-heralded Latin Explosion, the images themselves are often contradictory.

In Latino/a Popular Culture, Habell-Pallán and Romero have brought together scholars from the humanities and social sciences to analyze representations of Latinidad in a diversity of genres - media, culture, music, film, theatre, art, and sports - that are emerging across the nation in relation to Chicanas, Chicanos, mestizos, Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, Central Americans and South Americans, and Latinos in Canada.

Contributors include Adrian Burgos, Jr., Luz Calvo, Arlene Dávila, Melissa A. Fitch, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Tanya Katerí Hernández, Josh Kun, Frances Negron-Muntaner, William A. Nericcio, Raquel Z. Rivera, Ana Patricia Rodr'guez, Gregory Rodriguez, Mary Romero, Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez, Christopher A. Shinn, Deborah R. Vargas, and Juan Velasco.

Cover artwork "Layering the Decades" by Diane Gamboa, 2002, mixed media on paper, 11 X 8.5". Copyright 2001, Diane Gamboa. Printed with permission.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A collection of 16 thought-provoking essays centered on media, music, theater, art, and sports, this multidisciplinary and multiethnic project stresses "the need to amplify the investigation of Latino popular culture within a larger context of the Americas." Challenging the perception of Latinization in culture, the contributors, mostly scholars from the humanities and social sciences (Arlene D villa, Luz Calvo, and Ana Patricia Rodriguez, to name a few), almost without exception follow the theme of identity among Latin groups typified in the opening essay on Latino portrayals on Spanish-language television. MTV International is the topic of a disturbing piece on music videos and social activism led by a border band. The phenomenon of Mexican American boxer Oscar de la Hoya is the subject of an essay on the Latino rejection of a cultural icon thought to be too Anglicized for many in the Los Angeles barrios. More focused on the influences of North American Latino culture than the recent Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction, this collection deserves a space on shelves in all academic libraries. Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"With stunning, eloquent, and insightful essays Latina and Latino Popular Culture offers the best guide to the cultural production of the largest group of people of color in the United States. The essays broaden both our knowledge of Latino/a cultural production and challenge the traditional paradigms of cultural and ethnic studies doing so through accessible, historically informed approaches."

-Mary Pat Brady,Cornell University

"Latino/a Popular Culture greatly contributes to the genres of both cultural studies and Latino studies. The editors exhort undergraduate and graduate students to continue looking at Latino/a popular coluture as "as site of invention, critique and pleasure" (p.16) since much work still needs to be done in this area."

-Harvard Educational Review,

"The book provides an insight into the current struggles that Latinos who live in the norhern hemisphere face."

-MELUS,

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (June 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814736254
• ISBN-13: 978-0814736258
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #549,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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