New Books In Latino Studies

During a Presidential campaign when the ethnic background of many major national figures and immigration in general has weighed heavily on the debate, Wendy Roth‘s new book, Race Migration: Latinos and the Cultural Transformation of Race (Stanford University Press, 2012), offers many insights. Roth, a sociologist by training and on the faculty at the University of British Columbia, delves into the complex conceptions of race, ethnicity, and nationality both in the US and also in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. She compares the ways people living in each of those countries with migrants to New York City according to how they conceptualize race. She finds that a process of structural assimilation into US institutions, particularly education in US colleges and universities, explains how certain migrants take on the more binary and American views of race. There are numerous implications from this book for the study of race and politics. It can help political scientists better understand the politica

I saw “The Decline of Western Civilization,” Penelope Spheeris’s film documenting the late seventies punk scene in Los Angeles, when it was first released in 1981/82. Performances by the “popular” bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, X, and Fear were instantly memorable. I’ve seen the movie many times since, I’ve even shown it in some of the classes I teach. For me one of its more salient moments is the performance of “Gluttony,” by the Bags (called “The Alice Bag Band” in the movie), an homage to food over-indulgence. In Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story (Feral House, 2011), the singer of the Bags, Alice Bag, recounts her involvement in the very beginnings of punk rock in Los Angeles. Alicia (“Alice Douche Bag” is her punk name) tells of her upbringing in East L.A., growing up Chicana with an abusive father, and her obsessions with Elton John, Cosmo, and the academic study of philosophy. Mos

In Rock the Nation: Latin/o Identites and the Latin Rock Diaspora (Continuum, 2010), Roberto Avant-Mier challenges the traditional historical notion of rock and roll and rock being the result of the converging of white and African-American musics only. Instead, he argues, the history of rock is replete with Latin/o culture. Avant-Mier traces the Latin influence in rock back as far as any history of the rock will. Included in his story are the Mexico-based border radio stations listened to by many early blues, country and rock and roll artists, the zoot-suited pachuco culture popular among Latino/as in the 1940s and 1950s, the Latin/o influence on the classic garage rock of the 1960s, the birth of Mexican rock and its relation to Onda literature in the 1970s and eighties, the dearth of Latino/as in the global punk rock movement of the nineties and, finally, a discussion of Latin/o rock in the twenty-first century. Infused within Avant-Mier’s argument is the notion that Latin/o rock is much more than the

The 107th World Series is underway, with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers vying for the championship of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals’ star, Albert Pujols, has already entered the record books, joining Hall-of-Famers Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson as the only players ever to hit three home runs in one World Series game. This historic slugging performance follows that of Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, who broke a record earlier in the postseason by hitting six home runs in one playoff series. Pujols and Cruz share not only an ability to crush home runs. They are also both originally from the Dominican Republic. Of the 50 total players on the Cardinals’ and Rangers’ rosters, 14 are of Latino background, with seven of those coming from the Dominican Republic. Many of the biggest stars in American baseball today are originally from Latin America, players like Pujols and Cruz, top hitters Miguel Cabrera, and JoseBautista,and two of the game’s premier pitchers, Felix Herna

There was a time when “history” was the history of powerful people. Shakespeare captures this notion of history in the prologue to Henry V: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then and for centuries afterward, princes were deemed the proper focus of the historical investigations. The history of history from about 1950 to the present has largely been one of “democratizing” that view of the past. Princes are still given their due, but now a host of previously invisible people are as well. In the hands of social historians, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, male and female, European and non-European have all been given a written history. Our guest today, Vicki Ruiz, is one of the pioneers in this effort. Her path-breaking From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford UP, 1998; Tenth Anniversary Edition, 2008) shed light on the lives of o