Synopses & Reviews
A Companion to Latina/o Studies is a collection of 40 original essays written by leading scholars in the field, dedicated to exploring the question of what 'Latino/a' is.
- Brings together in one volume a diverse range of original essays by established and emerging scholars in the field of Latina/o Studies
- Offers a timely reference to the issues, topics, and approaches to the study of US Latinos - now the largest minority population in the United States
- Explores the depth of creative scholarship in this field, including theories of latinisimo, immigration, political and economic perspectives, education, race/class/gender and sexuality, language, and religion
- Considers areas of broader concern, including history, identity, public representations, cultural expression and racialization (including African and Native American heritage).
About the Author
Juan Flores is currently Professor of Latino Studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. For many years he has taught Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) and in the Sociology Program at CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of
Divided Borders, La venganza de Cortijo, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, and
Poetry in East Germany, and co-editor of
On Edge: The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture. Among his other publications are the translations of
Memoirs of Bernardo Vega and
Cortijo’s Wake/El entierro de Cortijo by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá.
A Chicano scholar, Renato Rosaldo is Lucy Stern Professor Emeritus at Stanford where he taught for many years, and he now teaches at NYU where he was founding Director of the Latino Studies Program. His books include Ilongot Headhunting, 1883–1974 and Culture and Truth. A collection of his essays, Renato Rosaldo: Ensayos en antropología crítica, was recently published in Mexico. He has edited a collection, Cultural Citizenship in Island Southeast Asia, and also co-edited collections, The Incas and the Aztecs, 1400–1800, Creativity/Anthropology, and The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Written in English and Spanish, his first collection of poetry, Prayer to Spider Woman/Rezo a la mujer araña, won an American Book Award, 2004. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors ixEditors’ Foreword xxi
Acknowledgments xxvii
Part I Latinidades
1 Marks of the Chicana Corpus: An Intervention in the Universality Debate 3
Helena María Viramontes
2 The New Latin Nation: Immigration and the Hispanic Population of the United States 15
Alejandro Portes
3 “Dime con quién hablas, y te diré quién eres”: Linguistic (In)security and Latina/o Unity 25
Ana Celia Zentella
4 (Re)constructing Latinidad: The Challenge of Latina/o Studies 39
Frances R. Aparicio
5 The Name Game: Locating Latinas/os, Latins, and Latin Americans in the US Popular Music Landscape 49
Deborah Pacini Hernández
6 Cuando Dios y Usted Quiere: Latina/o Studies Between Religious Powers and Social Thought 60
David Carrasco
7 Latina/o Cultural Expressions: A View of US Society Through the Eyes of the Subaltern 77
Edna Acosta-Belén
Part II Actos: Critical Practices
8 José Limón, the Devil and the Dance 93
José E. Limón
9 The Everyday Civil War: Migrant Labor, Capital, and Latina/o Studies 105
Nicholas De Genova
10 The Powers of Women’s Words: Oral Tradition and Performance Art 116
Yolanda Broyles-González
11 Language and Other Lethal Weapons: Cultural Politics and the Rites of Children as Translators of Culture 126
Antonia I. Castañeda
12 Looking for Papi: Longing and Desire Among Chicano Gay Men 138
Tomás Almaguer
13 On Becoming 151
Nelly Rosario
Part III Vidas: Herstories/Histories
14 Of Heretics and Interlopers 159
Arturo Madrid
15 Coloring Class: Racial Constructions in Twentieth-Century Chicana/o Historiography 169
Vicki L. Ruiz
16 “El Louie” by José Montoya: An Appreciation 180
Raúl Villa
17 Preservation Matters: Research, Community, and the Archive 185
Chon A. Noriega
18 The Star in My Compass 194
Virginia Sánchez Korrol
19 “Y Que Pasara Con Jovenes Como Miguel Fernández?” Education, Immigration, and the Future of Latinas/os in the United States 202
Pedro A. Noguera
Part IV En la lucha: Sites of Struggle
20 Latinas/os and the Elusive Quest for Equal Education 217
Sonia Nieto
21 The Moral Monster: Hispanics Recasting Honor and Respectability Behind Bars 229
Patricia Fernández-Kelly
22 A Rebellious Philosophy Born in East LA 240
Gerald P. López
23 Latinas/os at the Threshold of the Information