Keywords for Latina/o Studies by
2018 Outstanding Academic Title, given by CHOICE Magazine Introduces key terms, concepts, debates, and histories for Latinx Studies Keywords for Latina/o Studies is a generative text that enhances the ongoing dialogue within a rapidly growing and changing field. The keywords included in this collection represent established and emergent terms, categories, and concepts that undergird Latina/o studies; they delineate the shifting contours of a field best thought of as an intellectual imaginary and experiential project of social and cultural identities within the US academy. Bringing together 63 essays, from humanists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, among others, each focused on a single term, the volume reveals the broad range of the field while also illuminating the tensions and contestations surrounding issues of language, politics, and histories of colonization, specific to this area of study. From "borderlands" to "migration," from "citizenship" to "mestizaje," this accessible volume will be informative for those who are new to Latina/o studies, providing them with a mapping of the current debates and a trajectory of the development of the field, as well as being a valuable resource for scholars to expand their knowledge and critical engagement with the dynamic transformations in the field.
Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940-1990 by
This political history of Mexican Americans analyzes and interprets the last fifty years in the movimiento. Written by a leading Chicano historian who spent many years as an activist, this study evolved from Juan Gómez-Quiñones's participation and reflection. Examined are the leaders and organizations that waged struggles for political rights as well as the evolution of their goals and strategies. Beginning in the 1940s, Mexican Americans viewed the advocacy process in party politics, coupled with the selected use of the courts, as effective means to redress problems. But by the mid-1930s, the persistence of discrimination, inequality, and poverty led many to question the so-called gains make through piecemeal reform. A new style of politics, based on wide mobilization and an insistence upon democratic rights, coalesced into an ethnic populism known as the Chicano movement. Today, the Mexican American community in the United States remains committed to securing a more socially just life, But its political expression is often confused because, in the jumble of competing voices and self-serving conservatism, the true majority of the Mexican American community--the workers--are often overlooked and unheeded.
The Decolonial Imaginary: Wiriting Chicanas into History by
"The Decolonial Imaginary is a smart, challenging book that disrupts a great deal of what we think we know . . . it will certainly be read seriously in Chicano/a studies." ?Women's Review of Books Emma Pérez discusses the historical methodology which has created Chicano history and argues that the historical narrative has often omitted gender. She poses a theory which rejects the colonizer's methodological assumptions and examines new tools for uncovering the hidden voices of Chicanas who have been relegated to silence.
Chicana Feminist Thought by
Chicana Feminist Thought brings together the voices of Chicana poets, writers, and activists who reflect upon the Chicana Feminist Movement that began in the late 1960s. With energy and passion, this anthology of writings documents the personal and collective political struggles of Chicana feminists.
The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader by
Born in the Río Grande Valley of south Texas, independent scholar and creative writer Gloria Anzaldúa was an internationally acclaimed cultural theorist. As the author of Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa played a major role in shaping contemporary Chicano/a and lesbian/queer theories and identities. As an editor of three anthologies, including the groundbreaking This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, she played an equally vital role in developing an inclusionary, multicultural feminist movement. A versatile author, Anzaldúa published poetry, theoretical essays, short stories, autobiographical narratives, interviews, and children's books. Her work, which has been included in more than 100 anthologies to date, has helped to transform academic fields including American, Chicano/a, composition, ethnic, literary, and women's studies. This reader--which provides a representative sample of the poetry, prose, fiction, and experimental autobiographical writing that Anzaldúa produced during her thirty-year career--demonstrates the breadth and philosophical depth of her work. While the reader contains much of Anzaldúa's published writing (including several pieces now out of print), more than half the material has never before been published. This newly available work offers fresh insights into crucial aspects of Anzaldúa's life and career, including her upbringing, education, teaching experiences, writing practice and aesthetics, lifelong health struggles, and interest in visual art, as well as her theories of disability, multiculturalism, pedagogy, and spiritual activism. The pieces are arranged chronologically; each one is preceded by a brief introduction. The collection includes a glossary of Anzaldúa's key terms and concepts, a timeline of her life, primary and secondary bibliographies, and a detailed index.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by
Fortieth anniversary edition of the foundational text of women of color feminism. Originally released in 1981, This Bridge Called My Back is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, "the complex confluence of identities-race, class, gender, and sexuality-systemic to women of color oppression and liberation." Reissued here, forty years after its inception, this anniversary edition contains a new preface by Moraga reflecting on Bridge's "living legacy" and the broader community of women of color activists, writers, and artists whose enduring contributions dovetail with its radical vision. Further features help set the volume's historical context, including an extended introduction by Moraga from the 2015 edition, a statement written by Gloria Anzaldúa in 1983, and visual art produced during the same period by Betye Saar, Ana Mendieta, Yolanda López, and others, curated by their contemporary, artist Celia Herrera Rodríguez. Bridge continues to reflect an evolving definition of feminism, one that can effectively adapt to and help inform an understanding of the changing economic and social conditions of women of color in the United States and throughout the world.
Loving in the War Years: Lo Que Nunca Pasó Por Sus Labios by
'Moraga demonstrates her virtuosity as a poet; and, as a poet, she brings to her nonfiction essays images so hard, honest, and disturbing that her political analysis is breathtakingly personal and immediate.' San Francisco ChronicleThis new edition of Moragaâ__s seminal work on identity, sexuality, history, and the politics of Chicana feminism includes a new Introduction, three new chapters, and new poetry from Moraga. Weaving together poetry and prose, Spanish and English, family history and political theory, Loving in the War Years has been a classic in the feminist and Chicano canon since its 1983 release.
The Chicano Studies Reader: An anthology of Aztlán, 1970-2019 by
The Chicano Studies Reader, the best-selling anthology of articles from Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, has been newly expanded with a group of essays that focus on Chicana/o and Latina/o youth. This section, Generations against Exclusion, joins Decolonizing the Territory, Performing Politics, (Re)Configuring Identities, Remapping the World, and Continuing to Push Boundaries. Introductions to each section offer analysis and contextualization. This fourth edition of the Reader documents the foundation of Chicano studies, testifies to its broad disciplinary range, and explores its continuing development.
Borderlands / La Frontera by 
Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature by
In this bold contribution to contemporary feminist theory, Sonia Sald#65533;var-Hull argues for a feminism that transcends national borders and ethnic identities. Grounding her work in an analysis of the novels and short stories of three Chicana writers--Gloria Anzald#65533;a, Sandra Cisneros, and Helena Mar#65533;a Viramontes--Sald#65533;var-Hull examines a range of Chicana feminist writing from several disciplines, which she collects under the term "feminism on the border." By comparing and defining literary and national borders, she presents the voices of these and other Chicana writers in order to show their connection to feminist literature and to women of color in the United States. This book provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of Chicana feminist writing available. Sald#65533;var-Hull draws on contemporary literary and post-colonial theory, as well as her own autobiography, or testimonio, to help her define "feminism on the border." Successfully uniting theory with lived social experience, she delineates many of the internal processes that must be acknowledged in order to access larger transnational and geopolitical literary movements. This book thus joins a body of scholarship within feminist theory, working at the intersection of identity politics and political praxis. Sald#65533;var-Hull's close readings of Chicana literary texts are informed by a comparative and cross-cultural perspective that enables her to forge links to a geopolitical feminist literary movement that unites ethnic identity to global solidarity.
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by
View our feature on Allen Steele's Coyote Horizon. The colonial world of Coyote has become the last, best hope of humankind. But Hawk Thompson has learned something about the aliens who also call Coyote home-and his knowledge will change human history.
No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by
Founded by Mexican American men in 1929, the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC) has usually been judged according to Chicano nationalist standards of the late 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival research, including the personal papers of Alonso S. Perales and Adela Sloss-Vento, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed presents the history of LULAC in a new light, restoring its early twentieth-century context. Cynthia Orozco also provides evidence that perceptions of LULAC as a petite bourgeoisie, assimilationist, conservative, anti-Mexican, anti-working class organization belie the realities of the group's early activism. Supplemented by oral history, this sweeping study probes LULAC's predecessors, such as the Order Sons of America, blending historiography and cultural studies. Against a backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, World War I, gender discrimination, and racial segregation, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed recasts LULAC at the forefront of civil rights movements in America.
Rewriting the Chicano Movement: New histories of Mexican American Activism in the Civil Rights Era by
The Chicano Movement, el movimiento, is known as the largest and most expansive civil rights and empowerment movement by Mexican Americans up to that time. It made Chicanos into major American political actors and laid the foundation for today's Latino political power. Rewriting the Chicano Movement is a collection of powerful new essays on the Chicano Movement that expand and revise our understanding of the movement. These essays capture the commitment, courage, and perseverance of movement activists, both men and women, and their struggles to achieve the promises of American democracy. The essays in this volume broaden traditional views of the Chicano Movement that are too narrow and monolithic. Instead, the contributors to this book highlight the role of women in the movement, the regional and ideological diversification of the movement, and the various cultural fronts in which the movement was active. Rewriting the Chicano Movement stresses that there was no single Chicano Movement but instead a composite of movements committed to the same goal of Chicano self-determination. Scholars, students, and community activists interested in the history of the Chicano Movement can best start by reading this book. Contributors: Holly Barnet-Sanchez, Tim Drescher, Jesús Jesse Esparza, Patrick Fontes, Mario T. García, Tiffany Jasmín González, Ellen McCracken, Juan Pablo Mercado, Andrea Muñoz, Michael Anthony Turcios, Omar Valerio-Jiménez
Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by
This is the companion volume to the critically acclaimed, four-part documentary series of the same title, which is now available on video from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Mi Raza Primero, My People First: Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 by
¡Mi Raza Primero! is the first book to examine the Chicano movement's development in one locale--in this case Los Angeles, home of the largest population of people of Mexican descent outside of Mexico City. Ernesto Chávez focuses on four organizations that constituted the heart of the movement: The Brown Berets, the Chicano Moratorium Committee, La Raza Unida Party, and the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo, commonly known as CASA. Chávez examines and chronicles the ideas and tactics of the insurgency's leaders and their followers who, while differing in their goals and tactics, nonetheless came together as Chicanos and reformers. Deftly combining personal recollection and interviews of movement participants with an array of archival, newspaper, and secondary sources, Chávez provides an absorbing account of the events that constituted the Los Angeles-based Chicano movement. At the same time he offers insights into the emergence and the fate of the movement elsewhere. He presents a critical analysis of the concept of Chicano nationalism, an idea shared by all leaders of the insurgency, and places it within a larger global and comparative framework. Examining such variables as gender, class, age, and power relationships, this book offers a sophisticated consideration of how ethnic nationalism and identity functioned in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.
Chicano Movement for Beginners by
As the heyday of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s to early 70s fades further into history and as more and more of its important figures pass on, so too does knowledge of its significance. Thus, Chicano Movement For Beginners is an important attempt to stave off historical amnesia. It seeks to shed light on the multifaceted civil rights struggle known as "El Movimiento" that galvanized the Mexican American community, from laborers to student activists, giving them not only a political voice to combat prejudice and inequality, but also a new sense of cultural awareness and ethnic pride. Beyond commemorating the past, Chicano Movement For Beginners seeks to reaffirm the goals and spirit of the Chicano Movement for the simple reason that many of the critical issues Mexican American activists first brought to the nation's attention then--educational disadvantage, endemic poverty, political exclusion, and social bias--remain as pervasive as ever almost half a century later.
La Gente: Struggles for Empowerment and Community Self-Determination in Sacramento by
La Gente traces the rise of the Chicana/o Movement in Sacramento and the role of everyday people in galvanizing a collective to seek lasting and transformative change during the 1960s and 1970s. In their efforts to be self-determined, la gente contested multiple forms of oppression at school, at work sites, and in their communities. Though diverse in their cultural and generational backgrounds, la gente were constantly negotiating acts of resistance, especially when their lives, the lives of their children, their livelihoods, or their households were at risk. Historian Lorena V. Márquez documents early community interventions to challenge the prevailing notions of desegregation by barrio residents, providing a look at one of the first cases of outright resistance to desegregation efforts by ethnic Mexicans. She also shares the story of workers in the Sacramento area who initiated and won the first legal victory against canneries for discriminating against brown and black workers and women, and demonstrates how the community crossed ethnic barriers when it established the first accredited Chicana/o and Native American community college in the nation. Márquez shows that the Chicana/o Movement was not solely limited to a handful of organizations or charismatic leaders. Rather, it encouraged those that were the most marginalized--the working poor, immigrants and/or the undocumented, and the undereducated--to fight for their rights on the premise that they too were contributing and deserving members of society.
The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement by
In The Chicano Generation, veteran Chicano civil rights scholar Mario T. García provides a rare look inside the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s as they unfolded in Los Angeles. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with three key activists, this book illuminates the lives of Raul Ruiz, Gloria Arellanes, and Rosalio Muñoz--their family histories and widely divergent backgrounds; the events surrounding their growing consciousness as Chicanos; the sexism encountered by Arellanes; and the aftermath of their political histories. In his substantial introduction, García situates the Chicano movement in Los Angeles and contextualizes activism within the largest civil rights and empowerment struggle by Mexican Americans in US history--a struggle that featured César Chávez and the farm workers, the student movement highlighted by the 1968 LA school blowouts, the Chicano antiwar movement, the organization of La Raza Unida Party, the Chicana feminist movement, the organizing of undocumented workers, and the Chicano Renaissance. Weaving this revolution against a backdrop of historic Mexican American activism from the 1930s to the 1960s and the contemporary black power and black civil rights movements, García gives readers the best representations of the Chicano generation in Los Angeles.
Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems: History and Influence in Mexican-American Social Poetry by
Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems combines literary theory with the personal engagement of a prominent Chicano scholar. Recalling his experiences as a student in Texas, José Limón examines the politically motivated Chicano poetry of the 60s and 70s. He bases his analyses on Harold Bloom's theories of literary influence but takes Bloom into the socio-political realm. Limón shows how Chicano poetry is nourished by the oral tradition of the Mexican corrido, or master ballad, which was a vital part of artistic and political life along the Mexican-U.S. border from 1890 to 1930. Limón's use of Bloom, as well as of Marxist critics Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson, brings Chicano literature into the arena of contemporary literary theory. By focusing on an important but little-studied poetic tradition, his book challenges our ideas of the American canon and extends the reach of Hispanists and folklorists as well.
Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature by
Ends of Assimilation examines how Chicano literature imagines the conditions and costs of cultural change, arguing that its thematic preoccupation with assimilation illuminates the function of literature. John Alba Cutler shows how mid-century sociologists advanced a model of assimilation that ignored the interlinking of race, gender, and sexuality and characterized American culture as homogeneous, stable, and exceptional. He demonstrates how Chicano literary works from the postwar period to the present understand culture as dynamic and self-consciously promote literature as a medium for influencing the direction of cultural change. With original analyses of works by canonical and noncanonical writers - from Américo Paredes, Sandra Cisneros, and Jimmy Santiago Baca to Estela Portillo Trambley, Alfredo Véa, and Patricia Santana - Ends of Assimilation demands that we reevaluate assimilation, literature, and the very language we use to talk about culture.
Contemporary Chicana Poetry by
In this first book-length study of the works of Chicano women writers, Marta Ester Sanchez introduces the reader to a group of Chicanas who in the 1970s began to reexamine and reevaluate their gender and cultural identity through poetic language. The term 'Chicana' refers here to women of Mexican heritage who live and write in the United States. The works of four contemporary Chicana poets---Alma Villanueva, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Lucha Corpi, and Bernice Zamora---are the focus of this volume.
El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement by
Born in 1965 as an organizing tool within César Chávez's United Farm Workers union, El Teatro Campesino became the premier Chicana/o performance ensemble to emerge out of the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This study demythologizes and reinterprets the company's history from its origins in California's farm labor struggles to its successes in Europe and on Broadway until the disbanding of the original collective ensemble in 1980 with the subsequent adoption of mainstream production techniques. Yolanda Broyles-González corrects many misconceptions concerning the Teatro's creation and evolution. She draws from a rich storehouse of previously untapped material, such as interviews with numerous ensemble members, production notes, and unpublished diaries, to highlight the reality of the collective creation that characterized the Teatro's work. Writing within contemporary cultural studies theory, Broyles-González sheds light on class, gender, race, and cultural issues. Her work situates the Teatro within working-class Mexican performance history, the Chicano movement, gender relations, and recent attempts to mainstream.
...Y No Se lo Trago la Tierra by
Tomas Rivera's original Spanish-language novel plus a new translation into English by Evangelina Vigil-Pinon. ...y no se lo trago la tierra won the first national award for Chicano literature in 1970 and has become the standard literary text for Hispanic literature classes throughout the country. It is now an award-winning, motion picture entitled And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him.
Bless Me, Ultima by
This coming-of-age classic from "one of the nation's foremost Chicano literary artists" follows a young boy as he questions his faith and beliefs after a curandera woman introduces herbs and magic into his life (Denver Post) . .Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past--a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world... and will nurture the birth of his soul.
Modern Chicano Writers: by
Heirs to a cultural literacy rich in Mexican and American influences, modern Chicano writers combine an urgent sense of social protest with a vibrant literary style. Containing contributions from both recognized scholars such as Américo Paredes, Luis Leal, and Felipe Ortego and younger critics, including Yvonne Yabro-Bejarano, Ralph Grajeda and Marta Sánchez, Modern Chicano writers affirms the dynamic blending of continuity and change that characterizes the modern Chicano writer. Beginning with a series of five "framing" articles, the editors establish the literary history, folk culture, critical theory and sociolinguistics surrounding the Chicano people. Other critiques examine the narrative techniques of Tomás Rivera and his opposing themes of resignation and rebellion, the poet Alurista and his use of traditional mythology to convey contemporary social concerns, and the relationof popular art to the Chicano struggle for cultural identity in El Teatro Campesino. This volume presents a unique collection of critical commentaries that explore the development and future direction of modern Chicano literature.
Chicano Folklore: A Guide to the Folktales, Traditions, Rituals and Religious Practices of Mexican Americans by
Did you know that barrio is a term for a Chicano neighborhood, and that some of the oldest barrios can be found in major U.S. cities, like Los Angeles, Chicago, El Paso, and San Antonio? Or that menudo is actually a soup-type dish made with tripe, the stomach lining of a cow, and typically eaten early in the morning after big holiday celebrations to cure a hangover? Chicano Folklore is replete with such interesting and often surprising facts about Mexican American culture. Even before the United States-Mexican War in 1848, when 80,000 Spanish-Mexican-Indian people suddenly became inhabitants of the United States, people of Spanish and Mexican descent had a rich and unique culture in what is now the American southwest. Understanding Chicano folklore, or the customs, rituals, and traditional cultural forms that Mexican Americans share, is extremely significant to comprehending the Chicano experience. Chicano Folklore is the first reference book to focus wholly on this subject. From burrito (literally little burro or little donkey) to zoot suit (a style of suit worn by Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Filipino Americans during the 1930s and 1940s), the dictionary's more than 225 in-depth passages thoroughly explain the meaning and background of each cultural term. We learn about the music, religious practices, food, and key historical and mythical figures that make Chicano folklore so vibrant. The detailed, immensely informative passages of Chicano Folklore will entertain and educate anyone interested in understanding Chicano culture and the colorful impact it has had on America as a whole.
Chicana and Chicano Art: ProtestArte by
This is the first book solely dedicated to the history, development, and present-day flowering of Chicana and Chicano visual arts. It offers readers an opportunity to understand and appreciate Chicana/o art from its beginnings in the 1960s, its relationship to the Chicana/o Movement and its leading artists, themes, current directions, and cultural impacts. Although the word "Chicano" once held negative connotations, students--along with civil rights activists and artists--adopted it in the late 1960s in order to reimagine and redefine what it meant to be Mexican American in the United States. Chicanismo is the ideology and spirit behind the Chicano Movement and Chicanismo unites the artists whose work is revealed and celebrated in this book. Jackson's scope is wide. He includes paintings, prints, murals, altars, sculptures, and photographs--and, of course, the artists who created them. Beginning with key influences, he describes the importance of poster and mural art, focusing on the work of the Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada and the significance of Mexican and Cuban talleres (print workshops). He examines the importance of art collectives in the United States, as well as Chicano talleres and community art centers, for the growth of the Chicano art movement. In conclusion, he considers how Chicano art has been presented to the general American public. As Jackson shows, the visual arts have both reflected and created Chicano culture in the United States. For college students--and for all readers who want to learn more about this fascinating subject--his book is an ideal introduction to an art movement with a social conscience.
Hidden Chicano Cinema: Film Dramas in the Borderlands by
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 "film moments" in this region's history including the "filmic turn" ushered in by Chicano/a filmmakers who created new ways to represent their community and region. A. Gabriel Meléndez 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 of movies that have both educated and misinformed us about a place that remains a "distant locale" in the mind of most film audiences.
Flying under the Radar with the Royal Chicano Air Force: Mapping a Chicano/a Art History by
Winner, National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Book Award, 2019 The Royal Chicano Air Force produced major works of visual art, poetry, prose, music, and performance during the second half of the twentieth century and first decades of the twenty-first. Materializing in Sacramento, California, in 1969 and established between 1970 and 1972, the RCAF helped redefine the meaning of artistic production and artwork to include community engagement projects such as breakfast programs, community art classes, and political and labor activism. The collective's work has contributed significantly both to Chicano/a civil rights activism and to Chicano/a art history, literature, and culture. Blending RCAF members' biographies and accounts of their artistic production with art historical, cultural, and literary scholarship, Flying under the Radar with the Royal Chicano Air Force is the first in-depth study of this vanguard Chicano/a arts collective and activist group. Ella Maria Diaz investigates how the RCAF questioned and countered conventions of Western art, from the canon taught in US institutions to Mexican national art history, while advancing a Chicano/a historical consciousness in the cultural borderlands. In particular, she demonstrates how women significantly contributed to the collective's output, navigating and challenging the overarching patriarchal cultural norms of the Chicano Movement and their manifestations in the RCAF. Diaz also shows how the RCAF's verbal and visual architecture--a literal and figurative construction of Chicano/a signs, symbols, and texts--established the groundwork for numerous theoretical interventions made by key scholars in the 1990s and the twenty-first century.
Aztlán: Essays on the Chicano Homeland by
During the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the idea of Aztlán, homeland of the ancient Aztecs, served as a unifying force in an emerging cultural renaissance. Does the term remain useful? This expanded new edition of the classic 1989 collection of essays about Aztlán weighs its value. To encompass new developments in the discourse the editors have added six new essays.
Chicanx Utopias: Pop Culture and the Politics of the Possible by
2023 Honorable Mention Best History Book, International Latino Book Awards Broad and encompassing examination of Chicanx popular culture since World War II and the utopian visions it articulated Amid the rise of neoliberalism, globalization, and movements for civil rights and global justice in the post-World War II era, Chicanxs in film, music, television, and art weaponized culture to combat often oppressive economic and political conditions. They envisioned utopias that, even if never fully realized, reimagined the world and linked seemingly disparate people and places. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Chicanx popular culture forged a politics of the possible and gave rise to utopian dreams that sprang from everyday experiences. In Chicanx Utopias, Luis Alvarez offers a broad study of these utopian visions from the 1950s to the 2000s. Probing the film Salt of the Earth, brown-eyed soul music, sitcoms, poster art, and borderlands reggae music, he examines how Chicanx pop culture, capable of both liberation and exploitation, fostered interracial and transnational identities, engaged social movements, and produced varied utopian visions with divergent possibilities and limits. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Walter Benjamin, Stuart Hall, and the Zapatista movement, this book reveals how Chicanxs articulated pop cultural utopias to make sense of, challenge, and improve the worlds they inhabited.
Self Help Graphics at Fifty: A Cornerstone of Latinx Art and Collaborative Artmaking by
The definitive history of a cherished East Los Angeles institution over five decades of art making and community building. Self Help Graphics at Fifty celebrates the ongoing legacy of an institution that has had profound aesthetic, economic, and political impact on the formation of Chicanx and Latinx art in the United States. Officially launched in 1973 during the Chicano Movement, Self Help Graphics & Art continues to serve on the cultural front. The institution's commitment to art, dignity for all, and empowerment of Chicanx and Latinx artists appears in every aspect of programming, including the Día de los Muertos festival; the Barrio Mobile Art Studio, which brings art education to underserved schools; and the printmaking program, which offers an accessible medium infused with activist aims. Looking at the multiple genealogies of art that intersect in East Los Angeles, Self Help Graphics at Fifty bears witness to the organization's influential role in US and global art histories.
¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphocs, 1965 to Now by
A groundbreaking look at how Chicano graphic artists and their collaborators have used their work to imagine and sustain identities and political viewpoints during the past half century The 1960s witnessed the rise of the Chicano civil rights movement, or El Movimiento, and marked a new way of being a person of Mexican descent in the United States. To call oneself Chicano--a formerly derogatory term--became a political and cultural statement, and Chicano graphic artists asserted this identity through their printmaking and activism. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the remarkable legacy of Chicano graphic arts relative to major social movements, the way these artists and their cross-cultural collaborators advanced printmaking methods, and the medium's unique role in shaping critical debates about U.S. identity and history. From satire and portraiture to politicized pop, this volume examines how artists created visually captivating graphics that catalyzed audiences. Posters and prints announced labor strikes and cultural events, highlighted the plight of political prisoners, schooled viewers in Third World liberation movements, and, most significantly, challenged the invisibility of Mexican Americans in U.S. society. While screen printing was the dominant mode of printmaking during the civil rights era, this book considers how artists have embraced a wide range of techniques and strategies, from installation art to shareable digital graphics. This book shows how artists have used and continue to use graphic arts as a means to engage the public, address social justice concerns, and wrestle with shifting notions of the term Chicano. Lavishly illustrated and featuring three double gatefolds, ¡Printing the Revolution! presents a vibrant look at the past, present, and future of an essential aspect of Chicano art. Exhibition Schedule Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC May 14-August 8, 2021 Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
L. A. Xicano by
L.A. Xicano accompanies four interrelated exhibitions that explore the diverse artistic contributions of Mexican American and Chicano artists to American art and to Los Angeles's artistic development since 1945. The volume's six illustrated essays examine the life and works of dozens of artists and photographers. The authors consider the context of their turbulent history, particularly the development of the Chicano Movement. The L.A. Xicano project was organized by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center in collaboration with the Autry National Center, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art L.A. Xicano accompanies four interrelated exhibitions that explore the diverse artistic contributions of Mexican American and Chicano artists to American art and to Los Angeles's artistic development since 1945. The volume's six illustrated essays examine the life and works of dozens of artists and photographers. The authors consider the context of their turbulent history, particularly the development of the Chicano Movement. The L.A. Xicano project was organized by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center in collaboration with the Autry National Center, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Best Arts Book - English from the 2012 International Latino Book Awards
Just Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts in California by
Just Another Poster? investigates the critical role posters and other graphic materials played in the Chicano struggle for self-determination in California, from the borderland of San Diego to the urban metropolis of San Francisco. This volume of essays by an interdisciplinary group of scholars and curators represents the first comprehensive study of the ways the poster, as a medium of expression largely relegated to the margins of art world display, distribution, and critical reception, has been a primary form of cultural expression within Chicano communities in California and across America.
Chicano Popular Culture, Second Edition by
Chicano Popular Culture, Second Edition provides a fascinating, timely, and accessible introduction to Chicano cultural expression and representation. New sections discuss music, with an emphasis on hip-hop and rap; cinema and filmmakers; media, including the contributions of Jorge Ramos and María Hinojosa; and celebrations and other popular traditions, including quinceañeras, cincuentañeras, and César Chávez Day. This edition features: Chicanas in the Chicano Movement and Chicanos since the Chicano Movement New material on popular authors such as Denise Chávez, Alfredo Vea, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Juan Felipe Herrera Suggested Readings to supplement each chapter Theoretical approaches to popular culture, including the perspectives of Norma Cantú, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Pancho McFarland, Michelle Habell-Pallán, and Víctor Sorell With clear examples, an engaging writing style, and helpful discussion questions, Chicano Popular Culture, Second Edition invites readers to discover and enjoy Mexican American popular culture.