Book Description
Cesar Chavez is known as one of America's greatest civil rights leaders. When he led a 340-mile peaceful protest march through California, he ignited a cause and improved the lives of thousands of migrant farmworkers. But Cesar wasn't always a leader. As a boy, he was shy and teased at school. His family slaved in the fields for barely enough money to survive.
Cesar knew things had to change, and he thought that--maybe--he could help change them. So he took charge. He spoke up. And an entire country listened.
An author's note provides historical context for the story of Cesar Chavez's life.
Customer Reviews:
A beautiful children's book with an illustrated personal story and a larger message.......2006-09-09
Harvesting Hope tells the tale of Cesar Chavez, but more than that, it reveals the power of collective bargaining and fighting for what is just in the world. As a children's book, it has appeal as a well-illustrated biography, an important history lesson, a story of family and personal triumph, and a book with a message. Chavez's crusade took place several decades ago, but the plight of migrant farm workers remains, despite the tremendous inroads Chavez made with La Causa. The story of Chavez's childhood, hard days of labor, and fight for worker's rights is timeless, and Kathleen Krull's award-nominated book deserves a place on every child's bookshelf.
The story of a lesser known American Hero.......2006-02-22
This is a great picture book for all ages. The heroic story of Cesar Chavez is left out of most U.S. history classrooms, save those in California. This book would be an enlightening addition to any classroom or children's library.
Si Se Puede.......2005-06-08
Let's begin by saying that the drawings are super and captivating. Yuyi Morales creates characters that show emotion and the result is a drawing of emotion from the young reader. As the title implies this is the story of Cesar Chavez who many adults came to know about from his work with the farmworkers in California. This story humanizes the man by beginning in his childhood. The roots of the farmworker leader are explored as a young person traveling from crop to crop , from state to state. A drought in Arizona began the family oddyssey that would result in Caser Chavez becoming familiar first hand with the troubles of the farmworkers. Life on the road became a harsh reality. The treatment he encountered in school forced him to drop out in eighth grade but the treatment in the fields wasn't much better, at times it was much worse. This is simple story about a complex problem that one man was determined to overcome. He wanted justice for farmworkers and organized. He became to Mexicans what MLK was for civil rights, for Mexicans it was an extension of civil rights. This is a beautiful book for young readers or those not so young that are learning to read in English if they have a reading foundation in another language. Although it is recommended for children ages 6-9, middle school students, ages 9-12, especially those with limited English proficiency can benefit from this story well told. For the teacher or parent this book can help instill pride and understanding as to how determination, perseverance and hard work can overcome even the greatest odds.
Beautiful, educational, brought tears to my eyes!.......2004-11-25
I recommend this book for anyone 4 and up (adults included!) Beautiful illustrations and a wonderful telling of an important part of history.
Harvesting Hope is Hopeful.......2004-08-02
This story is a wonderful way to teach children about the people who have made a difference in our world. People like Cesar Chavez. The story beautifully illustrates how Cesar did not use violence to solve problems but rather he used his mind, as his mother had taught him. The illustartions are vivid and real. The story is well written and teaches an important part of California history in a wonderful way. It reaches the heart of all ages. This is a great book for any elementary school classroom library, even High School.
Amazon.com
Readers familiar with immigration history as told in books like Roger Daniels's Coming to America will experience a sense of déjà vu with Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez. The immigrant experience is a constant in American life; although the tides ebb and flow, it seems that there always has been an immigrant presence in the United States. What's different today, of course, is where the immigrants are coming from: half are Latin American.
Gonzalez, a columnist for the New York Daily News, studies these latest arrivals in a book that combines history and journalism. He has a keen understanding of Hispanic diversity, focusing not just on "Hispanics" as a monolithic category but as a variety of people from many nations. The politics in Harvest of Empire are often tendentious: Gonzalez unfavorably compares U.S. border control efforts to building the Great Wall in China, demands an end to Puerto Rico's "colonial status," insists that Spanish become an official language actively encouraged in the public schools, and so on. His agenda will no doubt appeal to a certain kind of reader, but at the cost of alienating many others, including, probably, a majority of Hispanics living in the United States. For those looking for a left-leaning account of Hispanic immigration, however, this book succeeds as an ambitious survey. --John J. Miller
Book Description
Within the next decade, Hispanics will become the largest minority group in the United States. The new immigrants have ignited a vibrant Latin explosion in popular culture and deeply affected American society.
Spanning 500 years-from the first New World colonies to our nation's nineteenth-century westward expansion, from the days of gunboat diplomacy to the turn of the millennium-Harvest of Empire features family portraits of real-life immigrants along with sketches of the political events and social conditions that compelled them to leave their homeland. In addition, it gives a fascinating look at how these Latino pioneers have transformed the cultural landscape of the United States.
Customer Reviews:
THE BOOK IS GREAT... I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT TO READ THE HISTORY WHICH IS HIDEN........2007-09-25
THE BOOK IS A GREAT TOOL FOR LATINOS WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE OF WHY THE COUNTRY'S OF THEIR FATHERS ARE IN THE STATE THEY ARE TODAY. I HAVE ENJOYED THIS BOOK A GREAT DEAL AND WILL PASS IT ALONG TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY.
It is cool.........2007-09-05
I have to read this book because of my class. However I really enjoyed to read this book. It was pretty interesting and making me to think about Latinos.
Addressing the matter of empire.......2006-11-13
It's so ironic to hear US citizens talk about an "invasion" of immigrants, while ignoring the way in which the US has been invading other countries for generations - either militarily or economically. It's great to see Juan Gonzalez analyze this elephant in the empire's living room.
With all of our technology, one would hope that people in the US would learn that there are other people in the world that are being harmed by the tax dollars they invest in militarism - a system of force that includes over 700 military installations in 132 countries, the funding and training of proxy armies, harmful behavior by CIA agents and "economic hit men" and other policies that create misery and refugees.
As Christians, or simply moral human beings, US citizens should welcome our Latino brothers and sisters, and maybe even offer an apology for the policies of this country's masters of war and corporate crime. Thankfully, countries like Venezuela and Bolivia are starting to resist the dictates of the World Bank and other institutions of neoliberalism.
For those who appreciate the views of Juan Gonzalez, you can hear him every day as the co-host of the award-winning "Democracy Now!" radio program.
I would also recommend the DVDs "When the Mountains Tremble" and Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight" for an understanding of our militarism and the way it causes suffering in Latin America.
"There is at the head of this great continent a very powerful country, very rich, very war-like, and capable of anything. . . The United States seems destined to plague and torment the continent in the name of freedom." -Simon Bolivar
Review of Harvest of Empire.......2005-05-27
Harvest of Empire, a book by Juan Gonzalez, gives a history of Latinos in the United States. The book is divided into three sections entitled "Roots," "Branches," and "Harvest." The first section contains three chapters that provide a brief history of the relationship between Latin America and the United States. The second section is composed of six chapters, each one devoted to one of the major groups of Latinos living in the United States. Each of the following groups are described in this section: Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and Columbians and Panamanians share a chapter. Within the six chapters, Gonzalez writes about individuals or families in order to reflect the general migration story of the larger groups. Thus, these individual portrayals serve as representations of the larger collection of immigrants. In the third section Gonzalez discusses several topics relating to Hispanics living in the United States. The topics include politics, immigration, language and culture, free trade, and the state of Puerto Rico.
This book has several strengths. In the first section, Juan Gonzalez provides an informative summary of the history of colonization and expansion in the Americas. The summary is well-researched and easy to read. The main strength of section one is Gonzalez's explanation for why different societies exist today in the United States and Latin America. His theory is that different societies exist as a result of the historical antecedents to our modern society. In section two, the immigrant descriptions help to personalize each of the different groups and allow the reader to identify with their stories. Also, Gonzalez stresses the important differences between each of the various Latino immigrant groups in the United States. Gonzalez combines much historical research with personal interviews he has conducted of various immigrant families. In section three, Gonzalez raises several issues concerning Hispanics living in the United States that are timely. He also asserts six changes he believes are essential to ensure Latino prosperity and assimilation in the United States. The six changes he suggests are thought provoking and stimulating.
Although the book has many strengths, it also has limitations. The most obvious limitation of the first section is its brevity. Gonzalez attempts to summarize more than 500 years of history in less than eighty pages. As a result, much of the history described is generalized and collapsed into short, summary statements. Also, Gonzalez could have better organized sources for further reading and study. He does provide an extensive bibliography, but it is not organized according to subject matter. A better organization of the bibliography would have been more helpful. For example, a list of further readings at the end of each chapter would have been beneficial.
This book is well suited for those wishing to learn more about Hispanics in the United States. It would be ideal for use in a class on Hispanic culture. Also, it would be beneficial for those wishing to learn more about Hispanic immigration to the United States.
A different perspective.......2003-03-12
I am the Americanized Puerto Rican born in Brooklyn whose parents traded cultural awareness by restricting use of the Spanish language at home for assimilation and greater opportunity educationally. The trade off worked, I earned my BS in Management from Pepperdine University. The trade off didn't work, it is difficult for me to associate in any meaningful manner with fellow Puerto Ricans or Latin Americans in general. My African-American friends consider me white, my Anglo-American friends consider me black, and I am quickly shunned at times by Puerto Ricans just because I don't speak Spanish. Juan Gonzalez with great research and detail identified my subtle undefined (at the time) schizophrenic social engagements. Therapeutically, through historical narrative of US policy towards Puerto Rico, cause and affect of PR vs NYC migratory action from the 1940's through today, viewing the current environment of Puerto Ricans in the South Bronx or East Harlem, I've come to know myself better, appreciate those of my race with greater gravity, and understand that none of these actions are by chance. Macroeconomically, the environmental and immigration impact of US policy regarding the Caribean Basin Initiative or NAFTA that are extensively noted and bibliographed, quite simply created a different perspective on my training in business and foreign investment. Mr. Gonzalez does not stop there. He tackles bilingualism, revisits and reexamines American History in a manner not expressed to me in any classroom...ever...then through citings of other works, backs it up. It is the most refreshing book I've read since the Autobiography of Malcolm X with Alex Haley, due to it's clarity and insight for the human quest for internal and external truths.
Book Description
Since late 2001 more than fifty percent of the babies born in California have been Latino. When these babies reach adulthood, they will, by sheer force of numbers, influence the course of the Golden State. This essential study, based on decades of data, paints a vivid and energetic portrait of Latino society in California by providing a wealth of details about work ethic, family strengths, business establishments, and the surprisingly robust health profile that yields an average life expectancy for Latinos five years longer than that of the general population. Spanning one hundred years, this complex, fascinating analysis suggests that the future of Latinos in California will be neither complete assimilation nor unyielding separatism. Instead, the development of a distinctive regional identity will be based on Latino definitions of what it means to be American.
Book Description
Both Hollywood and corporate America are taking note of the marketing power of the growing Latino population in the United States. And as salsa takes over both the dance floor and the condiment shelf, the influence of Latin culture is gaining momentum in American society as a whole. Yet the increasing visibility of Latinos in mainstream culture has not been accompanied by a similar level of economic parity or political enfranchisement. In this important, original, and entertaining book, Arlene Dávila provides a critical examination of the Hispanic marketing industry and of its role in the making and marketing of U.S. Latinos.
Dávila finds that Latinos' increased popularity in the marketplace is simultaneously accompanied by their growing exotification and invisibility. She scrutinizes the complex interests that are involved in the public representation of Latinos as a generic and culturally distinct people and questions the homogeneity of the different Latino subnationalities that supposedly comprise the same people and group of consumers. In a fascinating discussion of how populations have become reconfigured as market segments, she shows that the market and marketing discourse become important terrains where Latinos debate their social identities and public standing.
Customer Reviews:
The best new work in media studies is from an anthropologist.......2001-12-09
Why are Latinos at the center of a pop-culture phenomenon in the United States? Arlene Davila argues it is not do to their rapid population growth, but the growth of their media image thanks to aggressive marketing and commercial advertising. Her second book to explore the commodification of Hispanic cultures, Latinos Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People, is a detailed analysis of the abundant images targeting Latino populations in the U.S., the worldviews of the executives who manufacture those images, and the clients who buy them. Davila seeks to explore the mechanics by which a population, situated in the midst of economic globalization, becomes a market.
Davila conducts her fieldwork in several New York City ad agencies managed by Latinos and whose principal interest is to target Latinos. Her technique includes interviews with executives and creatives, and participant observation at national marketing conventions. There is also some use of focus groups to examine the folk perceptions of these propagated images among individuals of different Hispanic nationalities.
The author questions in whose interest these commercials are being made, for ultimately they serve the ad client and not Latinidad. She concludes "the commercial representation of U.S. Latinos has sustained particular hierarchies of representation that are indicative of wider dynamics affecting contemporary Latino cultural politics" (p.20). Her work is sweeping in its scope, hence my review is limited to the construction of "Latino" and "Hispanic" as representative identities and linking it to the critiques she aims at the executives and creatives of the ad agencies. This not a book where audience response plays a large role, rather it is one that gives extensive coverage to the ad agencies themselves, and the knowledges they use to construct mass produced images.
The categories of "Hispanic" and "Latino" are invented and by definition presuppose some intrinsic difference, relative to Anglos. This intrinsic difference is what makes ethnic-specific marketing plausible and it is how ad agencies pitch their services to clients. Thus, the notion of a pan-Latino identity-that individuals from all Spanish speaking countries have a shared culture-originated in the United States from the Cuban intellectuals who so dominate the Latino advertising industry. Further complicating the matter, the category of "Latino" is constantly in flux, as is illustrated by a current trend towards ads that opt for whiter versions of Latinidad, reconfiguring Latino traditions within the borders of the American middle-class.
Davila shows there is a propensity for ads and TV programming to use unaccented, "good" Spanish, and never that increasingly common mixture of English vocabulary and Spanish language-Spanglish. Such observations form the cornerstone of Davila's critique: ad agency executives or creatives who claim to have made some sort of liberating political accomplishment are immediately compromised due to the manufactured nature of the category which supposedly indexes the population they are trying to represent.
While on the one hand, the book does speak to scholars of the broad genre of interdisciplinary studies, it is definitely aimed at Latino advertising executives and marketing insiders as well. In this text several biting critiques leveled at the preconceptions of the advertisers and their clients are present, and here I will address three of the most prominent. The first is that the growing influence of Hispanic music and food on American popular culture represents a "coming of age" (p.3) for Latino populations. Davila indicates that this equates economic empowerment with political enfranchisement without the transference of any actual power, only the illusion of the potential for that power.
Second is the belief that through marketing and advertising it is possible to right old wrongs by correcting the stereotypes of the past (e.g. the Frito Bandito). In fact, Davila argues, the stereotypes are either repackaged in a slightly permutated form or simply replaced with new kinds of stereotypes, rather than removed all together. They may be no longer dirty, lazy thieves, but are instead emotional, religious, and familial. This sort of lose-lose scenario is especially grim considering the effects it has on U.S. born Latinos, who are typically much more likely to absorb and internalize commercialized identities than are recent immigrants, thereby making themselves more responsive to future exposure to the same forms.
Third, she notes the overall failure of the advertising world relative to the truly great potential it has as a political tool, especially considering the many agency executives and creatives she met sympathetic to her agenda. For all their self-affirmations, they have not actually effected any positive changes and meanwhile, real minority access to media outlets is falling precipitously.
Latinos Inc. succeeds in broadening the discourse on race in the U.S. as well as interjecting anthropological methodology into a realm dominated by interdisciplinary scholars. This work illustrates the great promise and possibilities of media studies, a genre by no means lacking in interesting and prolific output, but one which is sorely in need of a coherent methodology that goes beyond simply reading the "texts" of popular culture. I am thinking here of figures such as Neil Postman, Michael Parenti, and John Fiske, all of whom are fascinating in their own right and with important things to say, yet their works do not have the rigor of Davila's
Latinos Inc. review.......2001-12-06
Americans buy more salsa than ketchup. This factoid illustrates well the fact that Latino culture and its products are becoming increasingly popular in today's American consumer sphere. In her book, Latinos Inc., The Making and Marketing of a People, Arlene Davila examines the processes and dynamics behind the marketing of Latino products and culture, and how the marketing practices associated with Latino culture are affecting the Latino population of America.
Davila frames the academic context into which this book fits. While there is a glut of marketing and advertising studies in general, ones pertaining specifically to Hispanics are noticeably lacking. She pompously generalizes the ones that do exist as "uncritical," stating that one after another they either assert Latino's "coming of age" or commodification in American society. It is in this framework that she fixes her more critical eye on the Latino marketing industry.
Davila does an excellent job of articulating the plight of Latino and other minority consumers. She details how advertising has marginalized Latinos and other minorities by relegating them to the status of "the other." This builds and reinforces racial hierarchies that serve to keep Latinos lock in an inferior status. While contemplating these divisions, Davila wonders aloud "whether the United States will ever truly be one nation." She emphasizes the oxymoron of a segmented and divided United States with her mantra of Latinos as a "nation within a nation."
Davila highlights the contradiction between the interests of advertisers and consumers in advertising. For advertisers, advertisements are a vehicle to make money. For consumers, they are a vehicle to represent themselves and have their voice heard by a larger audience. These interests often come into conflict with one another as prudent advertising sometimes calls for the misrepresentation or overgeneralization of Latino communities while prudent representation requires accuracy and destruction, not the building and reinforcement, of racial and ethnic stereotypes. Almost without fail, the interests of the advertising agencies win out, as they are the creators of the advertisements themselves.
Davila indeed has a sharply honed eye for criticism. In Latinos Inc. she is very adept at pointing out the wrongs of situations. By the end of the book, Davila has built a long list of these wrongs. However, she offers precious little in the way of solutions. For instance, in her lamentations about our divided nation, she points out what hasn't worked as a force uniting Latinos with the rest of the population (citizenship or consumership), but doesn't speculate about what could work to unit the entire population. Another example is her adamant denunciation of both advertiser's generalization and segmentation of the Latino population. She derides both of these advertising techniques and destructive and counter-productive for Latinos, yet offers nothing as an alternative to these approaches. She leaves the reader wondering if there is a happy median between generalization and segmentation on the representation spectrum, or of if the entire is invalid and an entirely different advertising paradigm is necessary. She sees bad advertising, but what is good advertising?
Davila's examination of the Latino marketing industry is Latino-specific, to be sure, but at times it could just as easily pertain to the advertising industry in general. As such, at these instances the book struggles to distinguish itself from the rest of the glut of advertising studies. For instance, she tries to that the Hispanic marketing industry is "uniquely revealing" because Hispanic advertising's need to "empathize, charm, appeal, or shock a potential consumer in thirty or sixty seconds entail a great deal of simplification and typification...bring to the surface the tropes, images, and discourses that have become widespread and generalized representations of Hispanidad." It seems that this observation can apply to any of the hundreds of generalized groups represented in advertising.
While Davila convincingly argues that the New York's Latino high diversity makes the city an appropriate focus of her study, readers may be left wondering if her study would not have been better served with a wider geographical focus. It is possible that Davila arrived at some erroneous conclusions based on this limited focus. She speaks of the political disenfranchisement of the Latino community, but in fact there are some unacknowledged segments of the Latino population outside of New York that wield considerable political influence. For instance, in 1998 in Texas, 20% of its U.S. House representatives and 19% of the representatives to its state house and are Latino (Marin, 1999 and State of Texas, 2001). George Bush enlisted the help of the Latino advertising agency Sosa, Bromley, Aguilar, & Associates to propel him to a landslide 1998 Texas gubernatorial and subsequent 2000 U.S. presidential victories (the agency helped Bush garner 49% of the Latino vote in Florida) (ABC News.com, 2001 and Hart, 2000). For comparison, Bush won 18% if the Latino vote in New York (ABC News.com, 2001). The Latino political climate of New York is not indicative of that elsewhere in the entire U.S. Nonetheless, Davilia relies heavily on examples from New York Lation political scene to back up her arguments. At the least, the counter evidence calls these arguments into question.
To Davila's credit, she successfully accomplishes her stated goal of examining the nuanced dynamics behind the Latino marketing industry. While informative and painstakingly researched, the book is neither entertaining nor exceptionally useful. Aside from the chapter on consumer focus group discussions, she doesn't do a good job of relating the very consumer-oriented subject, the dynamics and processes behind advertising practices, to the consumers themselves. This failed link leaves the book with very little relevance to anyone outside of the advertising industry.
Book Description
The first intellectual history of the Caribbean written by a top Caribbean studies scholar, this book examines both writings penned by natives of the region as well as a body of texts interpretive of the region produced by Western authors. Stressing the experiential and cultural particularity of the Caribbean, the study considers four major questions: What art, literature or thought can come from the minds of people who have undergone a catastrophic history? What makes the conceptual paradigms fashioned by the Western intellectual industry capable of illuminating the distinct experience of Antilleans, but not vice versa? Do Antilleans lack the intellectual history required for the interpretation of culture, whether in their region or elsewhere in the world? Why is the specificity of Caribbean humanity such that it cannot be used as a paradigm for humanity as a whole?
Book Description
In communities throughout precontact Mesoamerica, calendar priests and diviners relied on pictographic almanacs to predict the fate of newborns, to guide people in choosing marriage partners and auspicious wedding dates, to know when to plant and harvest crops, and to be successful in many of life's activities. As the Spanish colonized Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century, they made a determined effort to destroy these books, in which the Aztec and neighboring peoples recorded their understanding of the invisible world of the sacred calendar and the cosmic forces and supernaturals that adhered to time. Today, only a few of these divinatory codices survive. Visually complex, esoteric, and strikingly beautiful, painted books such as the famous Codex Borgia and Codex Borbonicus still serve as portals into the ancient Mexican calendrical systems and the cycles of time and meaning they encode.
In this comprehensive study, Elizabeth Hill Boone analyzes the entire extant corpus of Mexican divinatory codices and offers a masterful explanation of the genre as a whole. She introduces the sacred, divinatory calendar and the calendar priests and diviners who owned and used the books. Boone then explains the graphic vocabulary of the calendar and its prophetic forces and describes the organizing principles that structure the codices. She shows how they form almanacs that either offer general purpose guidance or focus topically on specific aspects of life, such as birth, marriage, agriculture and rain, travel, and the forces of the planet Venus. Boone also tackles two major areas of controversy—the great narrative passage in the Codex Borgia, which she freshly interprets as a cosmic narrative of creation, and the disputed origins of the codices, which, she argues, grew out of a single religious and divinatory system.
Book Description
Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States and will comprise a quarter of the country's population by mid-century. The process of Latinization, the result of globalization and the biggest migration flow in the history of the Americas, is indeed reshaping the character of the U.S. This landmark book brings together some of the leading scholars now studying the social, cultural, racial, economic, and political changes wrought by the experiences, travails, and fortunes of the Latino population. It is the most definitive and comprehensive snapshot available of Latinos in the United States today.
How are Latinos and Latinas changing the face of the Americas? What is new and different about this current wave of migration? In this pathbreaking book social scientists, humanities scholars, and policy experts examine what every citizen and every student needs to know about Latinos in the U.S., covering issues from historical continuities and changes to immigration, race, labor, health, language, education, and politics. Recognizing the diversity and challenges facing Latinos in the U.S., this book addresses what it means to define the community as such and how to move forward on a variety of political and cultural fronts. All of the contributions to Latinos are original pieces written especially for this volume.
Customer Reviews:
a much-needed book on Latinos in America.......2007-08-01
*Latinos: Remaking America* is heady stuff that is the perfect textbook for a Sociology class with an emphasis on Latinos. It's perfect because there are so many issues that this book addresses that readers can relate or connect to today's current events on Latinos. Such issues are education, language, religion, health, women, employment and many more. This book should serve as the bible of Latinos in America.
The reason I said it was heady stuff because there are a lot of statistics in the book. While I believe that statistics are important, I do have to say that some of the graphs are not "friendly".
However, I did wish that there were essays or articles by grassroot Latinos to give readers a "breather" from heavy reading. I took me over a month to read this detailed book. With Latinos constantly growing in America, I will not be surprised if this book has to be revised in the near future.
Book Description
None of the Above is a state-of-the-art volume about current debates regarding Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, both in the United States and on the Island. The title simultaneously refers to the results of a non-binding 1998 plebiscite held in San Juan to determine the Island's political status, the ambiguities that have historically characterized Puerto Rican political agency, and the complexities of Puerto Rican ethnic, national, and cultural identifications.
Book Description
In the United States, Ishmael Reed, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ralph Ellison, N. Scott Momaday, Toni Morrison, Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Jessica Hagedorn are among the notable writers of color who have emerged since World War II. Although definitely individual and widely diverse, they are all-American in their collective mixture of African American, Native American, Asian American, and Hispanic strains. The work of each, although distinct, has not remained in cultural isolation but has enriched the inclusive literary treasury of the United States.
This comprehensive, timely study by a British scholar closely examines their fiction and autobiographical writings in cultural perspective. It analyzes the ways politics and popular tradition have influenced their work and the ways these ethnic authors address and question such matters as whiteness, autobiography, geography, and the forms of prose.
Other books have explored the variety of ethnic traditions in American literature, but this is the first to consider them in comparative terms in a single volume. In focusing on these writers and their place in the context of American history and contemporary popular culture, Multicultural American Literature underlines the reality that it is multicultural writing that has revolutionized recent American literary history.
For those wishing clear and accurate perspective on the national literature of the present day, this informative book surveys the spectrum and provides an exact and faithful view of its multicultural character.
Customer Reviews:
Readable, Crosscutting Literary History.......2006-12-20
What A. Robert Lee has accomplished in Multicultural American Literature is a rare feat in the world of books, a thoroughly readable text that makes its scholarly subject accessable to a wide readership. Lee's style is as important as his comprehensive treatment of the recent history of U.S. literatures of race and ethnicity. It is not surprising that his effort garnered the American Book Award, although one certainly does not have to be American to appreciate Lee's deft touch.
While Multicultural American Literature focuses on the writing that has emerged from American racial and ethnic communities in the post-Civil Rights era, Lee provides a broader context for understanding this work. Moreover, his text is carefully nuanced. It is not enough to say that he examines developments in African-American, Asian-American, Latino/a, and American Indian literatures. He looks at the complex interaction of voices within each of these broad categories. Tribal writers assert cultural differences as well as similarities. Chicano writers share a language with their contemporaries from Puerto Rico and the Hispanic West Indies, but here, too, there are important cultural differences.
Lee, further, tackles head on one of the most important questions concerning American ethnic literatures today: their relationship to the mainstream postmodernism that emerged during the very same time frame. His concluding chapter stands as a reminder of the most important lesson to come from the scholarly examination of multicultural writing, that there is an American writing of whiteness and that raciality of all colors is an ideological artifact.
Multicultural American Literature is a tribute to the complexity of the racial subject in the United States.
Very poor.......2006-05-20
Lee follows a stream of conciousness/dilettante approach to literary criticism that fails, time and time again, to get to the key issues.
Not impressed.......2005-10-22
I had to order this book for a college course I was taking. The book made no sense and subsequently I dropped the course. I've read better material.
Customer Reviews:
Latin American Modernism from Washington DC.......2007-10-08
This is a fine catalogue in general, but the description of the art of Carlos Alfonso creates a strange impression of this great artist's work. After reading the description you'd think that his paintings give off a sense angst and even powerful agitation. After seeing the great Carlos Alfonso show at the Freedom Tower in Miami during the Art Basel Miami Beach 2006, I can say that the effect is one of sublime beauty and fantastic imagination. That he
uses images like daggers and other imaginary-occult symbols certainly does not mean anything about violence and it seems silly to suggest it does. Alfonso was simply a great artist, who happened to be Cuban, thus the images from Santeria and the like. I suspect what lies behind the misreading of his art as hugely angst-ridden
is a crypto-political point about his status as an Cuban exile. All great artists are alike in taking the accidents of life and making them something more. Crypto-politics almost never have produced great art. Alfonso had a health problem and had suffered from political viscisssitudes of our time, but the angst this might have created are not the source of his art. The Freedom Tower show, as well as the Hirshhorn show in Washignton DC a few years ago make this very clear.
Smithsonian teaser.......2003-06-18
How do you highlight 200 years of Latino art in the United States and Puerto Rico in a book from a world renowned collection? Well you don't do it in a 108 page book from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Having visited the said museum it is a pity that this small book is an offering they produced to represent the vast collection. The book uses the term "highlights" but it is just not enough. It is like a variety of crackers offered in a fine restaurant; it'll hold you over but not satisfy your hunger. The collected pictures are beautifully presented accompanied by very short analysis of the piece and usually a paragraph about the artist. If you like looking at a few nice pieces than this book will do.This book is like fast food for the art aficionado. Since the represented art is in various media it results in a disjointed but varied whole. Most of the featured artists in the book are contemporary but there is the occasional misplaced unknown colonial artist or noted 19th century santero Felipe de la Espada that just doesn't fit or do justice to the subject. There is a lack of continuity and thematic cohesion with the book. When the book is thread together it is when the art of New Mexico artists are featured , most notably the works of santeros and wood carvers, George Lopez, Gloria Lopez Cordova, Luis Tapia, Horacio Valdez, Jose Benito Ortega, Ramon lopez, George Lopez, Felix Lopez(yes, it a long family line of Lopez santeros) and Patrocino Barela. Again the problem here is that they are placed between other media like oils, acrylics, fiberglass, woven cotten rug, colored pencil, granite and silver prints for a resulting weird representaion. The book has no chapters and unfortunately it could have used them. This book just scratches the surface and falls short. This book is for someone just beginning on their quest for knowledge about Latino art. Possbly from this point you can depart to finding out more about some of these artists but this book is only a starting point. If you are looking for a Latino art appetizer than this book is for you, otherwise look elsewhere to satisfy your appetite.
Contemporary Latinos Productions.......2001-11-30
This is a great source book of contemporary art productions which includes contemporary Latino artists. The selection of art represented is varied and the text gives readers sufficient background for understanding the works. Very colorful and clear photographs of the works are each full-page sized with a full page of text next to each to help capture the image and short biographies and artistic interpretations of the artists at the turn of each page.
Books:
- Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez
- His Brother's Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
- How to Succeed in the Game of Life: 34 Interviews with the World's Greatest Coaches
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary
- Bird Songs
- The ITCH : A Novel
- The Gardens and Parks at Hampton Court Palace
- The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith
- Approximation Algorithms
- A Course in Modern Mathematical Physics: Groups, Hilbert Space and Differential Geometry
- Space Radiation Biology and Related Topics
- Stanley Marcus from A to Z: Viewpoints
- Elsevier's Dictionary of Export Financing and Credit Insurance
General
| Biographies
| People & Places
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
First Day in Grapes (Pura Belpre Honor Book. Illustrator (Awards))
My Diary from Here to There/Mi diario de aqui hasta alla (Pura Belpre Honor Book Narrative (Awards))
Cesar Chavez: A Hero for Everyone (Milestone Books)
Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet In Spanish And English
Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
