Synopses & Reviews
Although the United States has always been a nation of immigrants, the recent demographic shifts resulting in burgeoning young Latino and Asian populations have literally changed the face of the nation. This wave of massive immigration has led to a nationwide struggle with the need to become bicultural, a difficult and sometimes painful process of navigating between ethnic cultures.
While some Latino adolescents become alienated and turn to antisocial behavior and substance use, others go on to excel in school, have successful careers, and build healthy families. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data ranging from surveys to extensive interviews with immigrant families, Becoming Bicultural explores the individual psychology, family dynamics, and societal messages behind bicultural development and sheds light on the factors that lead to positive or negative consequences for immigrant youth. Paul R. Smokowski and Martica Bacallao illuminate how immigrant families, and American communities in general, become bicultural and use their bicultural skills to succeed in their new surroundings The volume concludes by offering a model for intervention with immigrant teens and their families which enhances their bicultural skills.
Review
“This wide-ranging collection of essays should be of considerable interest to scholars of media, globalization and gender. It combines acute ethnographic reportage and a strong theoretical sense of the political economy of gendered images and in todays global media formations.” -Arjun Appadurai,New York University
Review
"An extraordinary collection of original approaches to familiar and unfamiliar issues about gendering and globalization. Each chapter gives us an unusual empirical study, charged with a sense of discovery. And each chapter gives us a type of theorizing that makes visible what is otherwise hidden." -Saskia Sassen,Columbia University
Review
<">This is easily the best, and certainly the most empathic and insightful, treatment of the process of becoming bicultural in the United States that I have read. There is something for everyone in this book--researchers will find scientific evidence, clinicians will find insights to deepen their work, and all readers will find a teenager in its pages whose story will inform them and touch their hearts. Writing in a style that makes reading effortless, Smokowski and Bacallao render the bicultural experience accessible to all of us.<">-Luis H. Zayas,Washington University, St. Louis
Review
<">This book masterfully captures the stories of Mexican immigrants from the well-established communities in the Southwest as well as from newer communities in the Southeast. It documents a common voice of resiliency and hope and provides an insightful review of the challenges experienced by acculturating youth and their families as they pursue the American dream. A must read for practitioners and researchers interested in understanding the contemporary immigrant experience and its mental health implications.<">-Flavio F. Marsiglia,Arizona State University
Review
"Hegde's ambitious and well-crafted introduction outlines the ways in which sexuality and gender are entangled in transnational configurations such as celebrity, immigration, activism, religion, fashion and war."-Nitin Govil,International Journal of Communication
Review
"It is a must-read for anyone interested in inter-sectional feminist analysis or globalization."-H-Net Reviews,
Synopsis
Circuits of Visibility explores transnational media environments as a way to understand the gendered constructions and contradictions that support globalization, with special emphasis on women and a global feminist perspective. Exploring the ways in which gendered subjects are produced and defined in globally networked, media saturated environments,
Circuits of Visibility presents sixteen essays that collectively promote discussion about sexual politics, mediated environments and globalization.
Covering television, the internet, newspaper studies, and movement-oriented media work, the volume explores the ways in which gender and sexuality issues are constructed and mobilized across the world. Contributors' essays cover a diverse amount of countries, from Myanmar and Morocco to the Balkans, France, U.S., and China, and feature topics ranging from violence against women and anti-violence activism to political power deriving from representations of being single or married. Circuits of Visibility initiates a necessary conversation and political critique about the mediated global terrain on which sexuality is defined, performed, regulated, made visible, and experienced.
Synopsis
This ethnography of an elite planned community near the heart of New York City's financial district examines both the struggles and shortcomings of one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. In doing so, September 12 discovers the vibrant exclusivity that makes Battery Park City an unmatched place to live for the few who can gain entry. Focusing on both the global forces that shape local landscapes and the exclusion that segregates American urban development, Smithsimon shows the tensions at work as the neighborhood's residents mobilized to influence reconstruction plans. September 12 reveals previously unseen conflicts over the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, providing a new understanding of the ongoing, reciprocal relationship between social conflicts and the spaces they both inhabit and create.
Synopsis
Circuits of Visibility explores transnational media environments as pathways to understand the gendered constructions and contradictions that underwrite globalization. Tracking the ways in which gendered subjects are produced and defined in transnationally networked, media saturated environments,
Circuits of Visibility presents sixteen essays that collectively advance a discussion about sexual politics, media, technology, and globalization.
Covering the internet, television, books, telecommunications, newspapers, and activist media work, the volume directs focused attention to the ways in which gender and sexuality issues are constructed and mobilized across the globe. Contributors essays span diverse global sites from Myanmar and Morocco to the Balkans, France, U.S., and China, and cover an extensive terrain from consumption, aesthetics and whiteness to masculinity, transnational labor, and cultural citizenship. Circuits of Visibility initiates a necessary conversation and political critique about the mediated global terrain on which sexuality is defined, performed, regulated, made visible, and experienced.
About the Author
Paul R. Smokowski is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills School of Social Work. In addition to the Latino Acculturation and Health Project, he also created the Parent-Teen Biculturalism Project with Martica Bacallao to address youth violence prevention in immigrant families.
Martica Bacallao is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in the Department of Social Work.