Synopses & Reviews
In the early decades of the twentieth-century, Main Street was the heart of Los Angelesandrsquo;s Mexican immigrant community. It was also the hub for an extensive, largely forgotten film culture that thrived in L.A. during the early days of Hollywood. Drawing from rare archives, including the cityandrsquo;s Spanish-language newspapers, Colin Gunckel vividly demonstrates how this immigrant community pioneered a practice of transnational media convergence, consuming films from Hollywood and Mexico, while also producing fan publications, fiction, criticism, music, and live theatrical events.and#160;and#160;
Mexico on Main Street locates this film culture at the center of a series of key debates concerning national identity, ethnicity, class, and the role of Mexicans within Hollywood before World War II. As Gunckel shows, the immigrant communityandrsquo;s cultural elite tried to rally the working-class population toward the cause of Mexican nationalism, while Hollywood sought to position them as part of a lucrative transnational Latin American market. Yet ironically, both Hollywood studios and Mexican American cultural elites used the media to present negative depictions of working-class Mexicans, portraying their behaviors as a threat to middle-class respectability. Rather than simply depicting working-class immigrants as pawns of these power players, however, Gunckel reveals their active participation in the eraandrsquo;s film culture. and#160;
and#160;Gunckelandrsquo;s innovative approach combines media studies, urban history, and ethnic studies to reconstruct a distinctive, richly layered immigrant film culture. Mexico on Main Street demonstrates how a site-specific study of cultural and ethnic issues challenges our existing conceptions of U.S. film history, Mexican cinema, and the history of Los Angeles.and#160;
and#160;and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;A rich and impressive study of how Mexican film culture in Los Angeles responded to and shaped film industries of both the U.S. and Mexico.andquot;
Review
andquot;With clear and concise analysis, extensive archival work, and sound scholarship, Hidden Chicano Cinema makes a significant contribution to the field.andquot;
Review
andquot;Brilliantly exploring a century of narrative, documentary, and hybrid films set in the Southwest Borderlands, A. Gabriel Melandeacute;ndez reveals the Chicano presence 'hidden' at the core of the American imagination.andquot;
Review
andquot;Based on archival research, oral histories, and secondary literature, this book documents film and photographic representations of Mexican Americans in New Mexico from the late 19th century to the start of the 21st century. This book fills a significant gap in the literature on the region. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;Melandeacute;ndezandrsquo;s analytical investigation stands as a serious contribution to the scholarship of Borderlands film studies.andquot;
Review
andquot;Very interesting and insightful study. Melendez...is the first to provide a theoretical frameworkandmdash;proxemicsandmdash;that illustrates how the image-making of the Borderlands changed from the early to the late twentieth century.andquot;
Synopsis
Mexico on Main Street takes us inside a forgotten world: the film culture that thrived within Los Angelesandrsquo;s Mexican immigrant community in the early decades of the twentieth-century. Drawing from rare archives, Colin Gunckel demonstrates how these immigrants not only consumed Hollywood and Mexican films, but also produced fan publications, fiction, criticism, music, and live theatrical events. This book demonstrates how a site-specific study of cultural and ethnic issues challenges our existing conceptions of U.S. film history, Mexican cinema, and the history of Los Angeles.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
This visual representation of New Mexico and its people is a fascinating study of how the region has been depicted in film from the dawn of early filmmaking and the silent era to today. Melandeacute;ndez examines such films as Adventures in Kit Carson Land, The Rattlesnake, and Red Sky at Morning, among others, that have both educated and misinformed us about a state in our own midst that remains a andldquo;distant localeandrdquo; to most white Americans.
Synopsis
Hidden Chicano Cinema examines how New Mexico, situated within the boundaries of the United States, became a stand-in for the exotic non-western world that tourists, artists, scientists, and others sought to possess at the dawn of early filmmaking, a disposition stretching from the silent era to today as filmmakers screen their fantasies of what they wished the Southwest Borderlands to be.
The book highlights andldquo;film momentsandrdquo; in this regionandrsquo;s history including the andldquo;filmic turnandrdquo; ushered in by Chicano/a filmmakers who created new ways to represent their community and region. A. Gabriel Melandeacute;ndez narrates the drama, intrigue, and politics of these moments and accounts for the specific cinematic practices and the sociocultural detail that explains how the camera itself brought filmmakers and their subjects to unexpected encounters on and off the screen. Such films as Adventures in Kit Carson Land, The Rattlesnake, and Red Sky at Morning, among others, provide examples ofand#160; movies that have both educated and misinformed us about a place that remains a andldquo;distant localeandrdquo; in the mind of most film audiences.
About the Author
COLIN GUNCKEL is an assistant professor of screen arts and cultures, American culture, and Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He serves as associate editor of the A Ver: Revisioning Art History series.and#160;