Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US City

by Mike Davis, Roman De La Campa (Foreword by)

Overview

Winner of the 2001 Carey McWilliams Award

Is the capital of Latin America a small island at the mouth of the Hudson River? Will California soon hold the balance of power in Mexican national politics? Will Latinos reinvigorate the US labor movement?

These are some of the provocative questions that Mike Davis explores in this fascinating account of the Latinization of the US urban landscape. As he forefully shows, this is a demographic and cultural revolution with extraordinary implications. With Spanish surnames increasing five times faster than the general population, salsa is becoming the predominant ethnic rhythm (and flavor) of contemporary city life. In Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, and (shortly) Dallas, Latinos outnumber non-Hispanic whites; in New York, San Diego and Phoenix they outnumber Blacks. According to the Bureau of the Census, Latinos will supply fully two-thirds of the nation’s population growth between now and the middle of the 21st century when nearly 100 millions Americans will boast Latin American ancestry.

Davis focuses on the great drama of how Latinos are attempting to translate their urban demographic ascendancy into effective social power. Pundits are now unanimous that Spanish-surname voters are the sleeping giant of US politics. Yet electoral mobilization alone is unlikely to redress the increasing income and opportunity gaps between urban Latinos and suburban non-Hispanic whites. Thus in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the militant struggles of Latino workers and students are reinventing the American left. Fully updated throughout, and with new chapters on the urban Southwest and the explodiing counter-migration of Anglos to Mexico, Magical Urbanism is essential reading for anyone who wants to grasp the future of urban America

This paperback edition of Mike Davis’s investigation into the Latinization of America incorporates the extraordinary findings of the 2000 Census as well as new chapters on the militarization of the border and violence against immigrants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781804294734
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	06/25/2024
Series:	Haymarket
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	775,993
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.79(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Mike Davis is the author of several books including Planet of Slums, City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa’aloa, Hawaii.

Michael Sprinker was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His Imaginary Relations: Aesthetics and Ideology in the History of Historical Materialism and History and Ideology in Proust are also published by Verso. Together with Mike Davis, he founded Verso’s Haymarket Series and guided it until his death in 1999.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD Latinos and the Crossover Aesthetic by Román de la Campa


1 Spicing the City
2 Buscando América
3 Siamese Twins
4 ¿Cuántos Mas?
5 The Latino Metropolis
6 Tropicalizing Cold Urban Space
7 The Third Border
8 The Devil's Rancho
9 Fabricating the "Brown Peril"
10 Transnational Suburbs
11 Falling Down
12 The Puerto Rican Tragedy
13 Education Ground Zero
14 Disabling Spanish
15 Who Will Feed the Dragon?
16 Broken Rainbows
17 Uprising of the Million


Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Another contemporary classic of urban studies from Davis. A wake-up call for anyone who cares about the future of American cities."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Fans of Mike Davis’s slash-an-burn prose and take-no-prisoners credo will not be disappointed ... His new book about citified Latinos serves up more helpings of the elegant muckraking that thrilled the readers of City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear."
—Andrew Ross, Bookforum

"Ricky Martin, Sammy Sosa, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera - something is happening to American popular culture. Mike Davis pulls together the startling facts, identifies the underlying trends and...brings his characteristic energy, eye for detail and exhaustive research to bear on an important phenomenon that remains mostly unexplored."
—Jon Wiener, In These Times

"A non-romantic, optimistic view of the role Latinos will play in revitalizing dead urban areas and a dying American Left."
—San Francisco Bay Guardian

"This well-researched, well-written book is driven by powerful feelings of indignation at the hardships Latinos are suffering in the United States today."
—Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher

A truly intelligent, interesting, and timely book. —Bookselling This Week

Angela Garbes

[A]n important book about an ignored topic. —Willamette Week

Helen Silvis

Davis brings his characteristic analytical energy, eye for detail and exhaustive research to bear on an important phenomenon.

In These Times

This well-researched, well-written book is driven by powerful feelings of indignation at the hardships Latinos are suffering.

Washington Post Book World

Workers of the world, eat your carne asada, then smash the state!

Santa Fe New Mexican

[A] lively, trenchant inquiry into a demographic phenomenon of great importance.

Times Literary Supplement

Fans of Mike Davis's slash-and-burn prose and take-no-prisoners credo will not be disappointed by Magical Urbanism. —Bookforum

Andrew Ross

A rare combination of an author, Rachael Carson and Upton Sinclair all in one.

Susan Faludi

Around 1996, Latinos surpassed African Americans as the largest nonwhite group in the United States. What impact does the rise in the Latino population have on American society? Davis (Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, Vintage, 1999) here presents a powerful, left-wing examination of this question. In 15 chapters, the author explores the social, economic, educational, racial, linguistic, legal, and demographic nature of Latino emergence in urban America. These elements point to the existence in the United States an international Latino community that contains aspects of American and Latin American culture. While Latino political and economic power has grown--especially in California, Florida, Texas, and New York--crime, poor educational and economic opportunities, and racism (as seen in white flight and the "English first" movement) continue to impede development. Davis's political manifesto stands as a powerful statement on modern America and is recommended for all libraries.--Stephen L. Hupp, Urbana Univ., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Davis, an independent author and social activist, provides an account of the Latinization of the American city. He explores how Latinos are attempting to shape their dramatic demographic growth into effective social power, coordinating worker and student movements that Davis argues are reinventing the American left. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Another contemporary classic of urban studies from Davis (Ecology of Fear, not reviewed), herald of the good and bad—but mostly bad—times ahead. Davis argues that Latinos are poised to be the largest, most important, and most overlooked minority in US cities. Citing numerous studies, Davis shows that immigrant Latinos and Hispanic-Americans are well on their way to surpassing African-Americans as the largest minority in the US, creating massive, $30-billion regional markets and revitalizing the cities they now call home. In Los Angeles Latinos tend to create parks in their neighborhoods (as opposed to the less centralized strip malls favored by old-guard developers). In New York they settle in the Bronx, following in the footsteps of the Irish and Italian immigrants who came there a century before. Davis is at his best when he describes the overlooked consequences of this migration. He argues that many Latinos experience "syncretic" existences, meaning they live simultaneously in the US and in their homelands. Here we discover a kind of magical urbanism: Indian tribes discussing important village business on conference call—one set of elders in Brooklyn, one in Mexico. But, despite these changes, Davis argues that the future of the Latinos (and therefore of the US) is filled with conflict. Like other minorities, Latinos have suffered as the manufacturing base of large US cities has disappeared overseas. Unlike other minorities, however, Latinos have not regained the ground they lost in the past few decades. In 1959, US-born Mexicans in Southern California earned 19 percent less than non-Hispanic whites; in 1990, that gap had widened to 31 percent.Disinvestmentin big city school systems, and a lack of bilingual education have reduced Latinos' chances at breaking the cycle of dependence. Davis, a good Marxist, ends his apocalyptic message on a hopeful note, however: he points to new, Latino-led union efforts as the best agents for change. A wake-up call for anyone who cares about the future of American cities.

Kirkus Reviews

A non-romantic, optimistic view of the role Latinos will play in revitalizing dead urban areas and a dying American Left.

San Francisco Bay Guardian

Ricky Martin, Sammy Sosa, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera—something is happening to American popular culture. Mike Davis pulls together the startling facts, identifies the underlying trends and ... brings his characteristic energy, eye for detail and exhaustive research to bear on an important phenomenon that remains mostly unexplored.

Jon Wiener - In These Times

Fans of Mike Davis's slash-and-burn prose and take-no-prisoners credo will not be disappointed ... His new book about citified Latinos serves up more helpings of the elegant muckraking that thrilled the readers of City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear.

Andrew Ross - Bookforum

Fans of Mike Davis's slash-an-burn prose and take-no-prisoners credo will not be disappointed ... His new book about citified Latinos serves up more helpings of the elegant muckraking that thrilled the readers of City of Quartz and Ecology of Fear.

— Andrew Ross

Bookforum