Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America

by Gina M. Pérez, Frank Guridy, Adrian Burgos

Overview

Freighted with meaning, “el barrio” is both place and metaphor for Latino populations in the United States. Though it has symbolized both marginalization and robust and empowered communities, the construct of el barrio has often reproduced static understandings of Latino life; they fail to account for recent demographic shifts in urban centers such as New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles, and in areas outside of these historic communities.

Beyond El Barrio features new scholarship that critically interrogates how Latinos are portrayed in media, public policy and popular culture, as well as the material conditions in which different Latina/o groups build meaningful communities both within and across national affiliations. Drawing from history, media studies, cultural studies, and anthropology, the contributors illustrate how despite the hypervisibility of Latinos and Latin American immigrants in recent political debates and popular culture, the daily lives of America’s new “majority minority” remain largely invisible and mischaracterized.

Taken together, these essays provide analyses that not only defy stubborn stereotypes, but also present novel narratives of Latina/o communities that do not fit within recognizable categories. In this way, this book helps us to move “beyond el barrio”: beyond stereotype and stigmatizing tropes, as well as nostalgic and uncritical portraits of complex and heterogeneous range of Latina/o lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814791288
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	10/27/2010
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Gina M. Pérez (Editor)
Gina M. Pérez is Professor in the Department of Comparative American Studies in Oberlin College. She is the author of Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC and the American Dream and co-editor with Alex Chávez of Ethnographic Refusals, Unruly Latinidades.

Frank Guridy (Editor)
Frank A. Guridy is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African-Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow.

Adrian Burgos (Editor)
Adrian Burgos, Jr., is Associate Professor of US Latino History at the University of Illinois. He is the author of Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Gina M. Pérez, Frank A. Guridy, and Adrian Burgos, Jr.
Part I
Citizenship, Belonging, and (the Limits of) Latina/o Inclusion
1 Singing the “Star-Spanglish Banner”
María Elena Cepeda
2 “¡Puuurrrooo MÉXICO!”
Dolores Inés Casillas
3 Hayandose
Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera
4 Becoming Suspect in Usual Places
Adrian Burgos, Jr., and Frank A. Guridy
Part II
Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Memory and Representation
5 Gay Latino Histories/Dying to Be Remembered
Horacio N. Roque Ramírezviii | Contents
6 All About My (Absent) Mother
Deborah Paredez
7 Making “The International City” Home
Pablo Mitchell and Haley Pollack
8 Hispanic Values, Military Values
Gina M. Pérez
Part III
Latina/o Activisms and Histories
9 Going Public? Tampa Youth, Racial Schooling, and Public History in the Cuentos de mi Familia Project
John McKiernan-González
10 The Mission in Nicaragua: San Francisco Poets Go to War
Cary Cordova
11 From the Near West Side to 18th Street: Un/Making Latino/a Barrios in Postwar Chicago
Lilia Fernández
12 Transglocal Barrio Politics
Ana Aparicio
About the Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“By complicating current representations of Latino/a lives and communities, this groundbreaking work provides a more global, transnational and fluid understanding of barrios both as physical spaces and as metaphors. A smart and engaging intervention on some of the most critical questions surrounding Latinos' citizenship, sexuality, activism and cultural politics.”
-Arlene Dávila,author of Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race

“This interdisciplinary collection contests Latinos' problematic hypervisibility by exploring their expressions of agency related to citizenship and nationalism, gender and sexuality, and community activism in multiple sites. The fascinating case studies illuminate how Latinas and Latinos of diverse origins negotiate complex local and transnational power relations.”

-Patricia Zavella,University of California, Santa Cruz

"The book would be a welcome addition to undergraduate social science class that aims to engage seriously with ethnicity, difference and cultural expression in contemporary America."-Nina Martin,Urban Studies Journal Limited

Editorial Reviews

"This interdisciplinary collection contests Latinos’ problematic hypervisibility by exploring their expressions of agency related to citizenship and nationalism, gender and sexuality, and community activism in multiple sites. The fascinating case studies illuminate how Latinas and Latinos of diverse origins negotiate complex local and transnational power relations."

Patricia Zavella

"By complicating current representations of Latino/a lives and communities, this groundbreaking work provides a more global, transnational and fluid understanding of barrios both as physical spaces and as metaphors. A smart and engaging intervention on some of the most critical questions surrounding Latinos' citizenship, sexuality, activism and cultural politics."

Arlene Davila

"An important set of academic articles by skillful scholars."

Centro Journal

"The book would be awelcome addition to undergraduate social science class that aims to engage seriously with ethnicity, difference and cultural expression in contemporary America."

Urban Studies Journal Limited - Nina Martin

"The book would be a welcome addition to undergraduate social science class that aims to engage seriously with ethnicity, difference and cultural expression in contemporary America."-Nina Martin,Urban Studies Journal Limited

"An important set of academic articles by skillful scholars."-Centro Journal

“This interdisciplinary collection contests Latinos’ problematic hypervisibility by exploring their expressions of agency related to citizenship and nationalism, gender and sexuality, and community activism in multiple sites. The fascinating case studies illuminate how Latinas and Latinos of diverse origins negotiate complex local and transnational power relations.”

-Patricia Zavella,University of California, Santa Cruz

“By complicating current representations of Latino/a lives and communities, this groundbreaking work provides a more global, transnational and fluid understanding of barrios both as physical spaces and as metaphors. A smart and engaging intervention on some of the most critical questions surrounding Latinos' citizenship, sexuality, activism and cultural politics.”

-Arlene Davila,author of Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race

From the Publisher