The Gendered Face of Latinidad (original) (raw)
Related papers
Latina/Os and the Media: A National Category with Transnational Implications
Polifonia, 2014
This essay focuses on the category of Latina/os, which was created in the United States to refer to the portion of the population with recent and/or historical roots in Latin America, and the love/hate or fear and desire relation of the US and Latina/os -desire of spectacular bodies and fear of working bodies -that is borne out by representations of Latina/os in mainstream media. The transnational circulation of these representations through popular culture expands their presence and meaning across the globe in ways that are unintended and deserve further study.
New Media and U.S. Latinx identity (Ch. 3)
Mobilizing the U.S. Latinx Vote: Media, Identity, and Politics, 2020
This chapter considers how Latinxs in the United States navigate online spaces that intersect with established media and political institutions. Within these networks Latinx identity is contested, reframed, updated, and commodified. It is not the case that identity homogenization is a simple, unidirectional process where elite actors and institutions shape Latinxs into perfect consumers of U.S. politics and ideology. Instead, Latinx subjects simultaneously receive essentialized narratives about themselves and selectively perform aspects in advantageous moments. Online, hybrid media networks enable the use of culture capital for Latinxs in ways not previously possible. These moments of performance vary by class and institutional circumstances, such as middle-class Latinas preforming quince culture online or Latinas in Congress giving intersectional context to policy issues. In summary, these works point to a post-modern system of racial performance. In this system we preform our identity as Latinxs through media consumption and personalized new media. Culture then becomes a form of immaterial capital, or as I have said before – a commodity.
Realidades Culturales y Identidades Dimensionadas : Th e Complexities of Latinas' Diversities
Long-standing questions for Latinas are those addressing ¿Quié n somos? (Who are we?), ¿Có mo estamos ? (How are we?), and ¿Qué somos? (What are we?). From whose voice, from what perception or assumption, or from what role and context are Latinas defi ned? All too frequently, Latinas are aggregated as a single group, with similar values, beliefs, and behaviors, without consideration of the dimensionalized identities and multiplicity of roles, infl uencing contexts and circumstances, and complex nuances that create the lived experiences of different Latinas in the United States. In elucidating the intertwining of Latinas' identities and processes, it is necessary to address considerations of context, diff erence, moderating processes, and cultural considerations in the theory and research of exploring and understanding ¿Quié n son Latinas? (Who are Latinas?).
2013
This paper argues that idealized portrayals of immigrants prevalent in political discourse must be scrutinized for their support of gender and racial nationalism and the effects they have on our understanding of (Latina/o) immigrant inclusion and democracy. Through the examination of three contemporary films with Latina leads—Real Women Have Curves, Spanglish, and Quinceañera, the paper argues that these discourses rely on an asymmetric recognition of Latina/os. This form of recognition involves the denial by dominant groups of their inter-dependency with other groups and the imposition on Latina/os an identity that does not threaten their privileged standing. The films offer views of Latina/o culture as overtly traditional; a “culture” that must either be abandoned or appropriated by anti-feminist (postfeminist) agendas in order to assuage anxieties regarding the transformations of the heteronormative middle-class family. The paper concludes by drawing parallels between the positive portrayals of Latinas in these films and prominent arguments in the immigration debate that rely on constructions of deserving immigrants to push for extensions of membership.
Book Review On Latinidad: US Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity
2008
The most obvious but also the most important question for a field or a journal called Latino Studies is: how best to use the term Latino? Asking this question means considering the ways in which thinking in terms of such a category is both problematic and productive, as well as reflecting on exactly what the use of this label achieves. Marta Caminero-Santangelo’s book On Latinidad speaks to this issue in two fascinating, interlinked ways: first, she examines the identity ‘‘Latino/a’’ and the larger community that term is meant to describe, arguing as her point of departure that it exists only as an imaginary idea, and yet exerts enormous pressure on how people think about themselves and are thought of by others; and second, she considers the role that literature plays in constructing the content and boundaries of that identity. Books such as Suzanne Oboler’s Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives or Juan Flores’ From Bomba to Hip Hop have previously explored how categories like Latino/a are so...