BiblioVault - Books about Hispanic Americans

Empowered!

Latinos Transforming Arizona Politics

Lisa Magaña

University of Arizona Press, 2021

Empowered!examines Arizona’s recent political history and how it has been shaped and propelled by Latinos. It also provides a distilled reflection of U.S. politics more broadly, where the politics of exclusion and the desire for inclusion are forces of change.

Lisa Magaña and César S. Silva argue that the state of Arizona is more inclusive and progressive then it has ever been. Following in the footsteps of grassroots organizers in California and the southeastern states, Latinos in Arizona have struggled and succeeded to alter the anti-immigrant and racist policies that have been affecting Latinos in the state for many years. Draconian immigration policies have plagued Arizona’s political history. Empowered! shows innovative ways that Latinos have fought these policies.

Empowered! focuses on the legacy of Latino activism within politics. It raises important arguments about those who stand to profit financially and politically by stoking fear of immigrants and how resilient politicians and grassroots organizers have worked to counteract that fear mongering. Recognizing the long history of disenfranchisement and injustice surrounding minority communities in the United States, this book outlines the struggle to make Arizona a more just and equal place for Latinos to live.

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Enduring Legacies

Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado

Arturo J. Aldama

University Press of Colorado, 2011

Traditional accounts of Colorado's history often reflect an Anglocentric perspective that begins with the 1859 Pikes Peak Gold Rush and Colorado's establishment as a state in 1876. Enduring Legacies expands the study of Colorado's past and present by adopting a borderlands perspective that emphasizes the multiplicity of peoples who have inhabited this region.

Addressing the dearth of scholarship on the varied communities within Colorado-a zone in which collisions structured by forces of race, nation, class, gender, and sexuality inevitably lead to the transformation of cultures and the emergence of new identities-this volume is the first to bring together comparative scholarship on historical and contemporary issues that span groups from Chicanas and Chicanos to African Americans to Asian Americans.

This book will be relevant to students, academics, and general readers interested in Colorado history and ethnic studies.

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Ethnic Cues

The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation

Matt A. Barreto

University of Michigan Press, 2012

"New theoretical propositions, original data, and rigorous empirical tests are what one looks for in cutting-edge social science. Fortunately, all three are apparent in Ethnic Cues. The author has pushed his thinking to develop new ways of understanding and explaining patterns of Latino voting behavior."
---Luis Ricardo Fraga, University of Washington, Seattle

"Matt Barreto investigates some of the ramifications of two new related developments in American political life: the stunning growth of the Latino immigrant population in recent decades and the accompanying exponential explosion in the number of Latino candidates running for political office at the local, state, and national levels."
---Reuel R. Rogers, Northwestern University

Until recently, much of the research on political participation has resisted the idea that Latino voters rely on ethnic cues. The discussion has become increasingly salient as political strategists have learned to define individual voting blocs and mobilize them in support of a candidate. Nourished by the debate over immigration, the search for the Latino voter has now blossomed into a national political obsession.

Against this background, Matt A. Barreto assays the influence of ethnic identification on Latinos' voting behavior. Barreto asks whether the presence of co-ethnic candidates actually does mobilize Latino voters in support of these candidates. His analysis of in-depth candidate interviews, public opinion surveys, official election results, and statistics finds that it does. He goes on to describe the dynamic of voting in the Latino community and sharpens our appreciation of how ethnic considerations influence the electoral choices of Americans more generally. In a time of intensely focused campaign appeals, Barreto's work has much to tell us about the mechanics of public opinion and the role of race and ethnicity in voting behavior.

Matt A. Barreto is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington and Director of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality (WISER).

Cover art credit: © iStockphoto.com/P_Wei

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Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives

Identity and the Politics of (Re) Presentation in the United States

Suzanne Oboler

University of Minnesota Press, 1995

"Subtle and provocative. Readers interested in exploring the complex processes involved in ethnic formation and reformation and the increasingly volatile politics of citizenship in the United States will learn a great deal from Oboler's insightful study." Journal of American Ethnic History "An excellent historico-political analysis. Oboler's book provides a good point of departure for broader cross-cultural analysis." MultiCultural Review "The book is also an elegant synthesis of the fundamental theoretical questions and emerging set of concepts in the literature on ethnic identity. An excellent monograph on an important and timely subject, it should be read by anyone interested in the study of present-day intergroup relations in the United States." International Migration Review "Professor Oboler draws on her own heritage as a Peruvian American scholar of Latino/a studies and American literatures and cultures to offer a lucid and well-documented account of the historical emergence and multiple effects of the ethnic label `Hispanic,' as mobilized by the U.S. government in response to Latino/a claims for social justice during the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Her combination of thoroughly researched social history and qualitative analysis results in an important, carefully reasoned, and timely contribution to contemporary debates on affirmative action. On the whole, Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives is a significant and accessible resource that will serve a wide variety of socially-conscious readers including students and scholars of policy, sociology, gender, women's studies, literature, culture, history, and diversity studies." Canadian Review of American Studies Hispanic or Latino? Mexican American or Chicano? Social labels often take on a life of their own beyond the control of those who coin them or to whom they are applied. In Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives, Suzanne Oboler explores the history and current use of the label "Hispanic" as she illustrates the complex meanings that ethnicity has acquired in shaping our lives and identities. Exploding the myth of cultural and national homogeneity among people of Latin American descent, Oboler interviews members of diverse groups who have traditionally been labeled "Hispanic" and records the many different meanings and social values they attribute to this label. For example, a person of Mexican descent has a different historical relationship with the United States and a different cultural background than an individual of Puerto Rican or Brazilian descent. The different meanings and social values those interviewed attribute to the label "Hispanic" also correspond to their gender and social class position, including racial prejudices and values stemming from their countries of origin. Though we have witnessed in recent years the fading of the idealized image of U.S. society as a melting pot, we have also realized that the possibility of recasting it in multicultural terms is problematic. Oboler discusses the historical process of labeling groups of individuals, illustrating how labels affect the meaning of citizenship and the struggle for full social participation in the United States. Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives aims to understand the role ethnic labels play in our society and brings us closer toward actualizing a society that values cultural diversity. Suzanne Oboler, a Peruvian American, is currently assistant professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown University.

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Expressing New Mexico

Nuevomexicano Creativity, Ritual, and Memory

Edited by Phillip B. Gonzales

University of Arizona Press, 2007

The culture of the Nuevomexicanos, forged by Spanish-speaking residents of New Mexico over the course of many centuries, is known for its richness and diversity. Expressing New Mexico contributes to a present-day renaissance of research on Nuevomexicano culture by assembling eleven original and noteworthy essays. They are grouped under two broad headings: “expressing culture” and “expressing place.” Expressing culture derives from the notion of “expressive culture,” referring to “fine art” productions, such as music, painting, sculpture, drawing, dance, drama, and film, but it is expanded here to include folklore, religious ritual, community commemoration, ethnopolitical identity, and the pragmatics of ritualized response to the difficult problems of everyday life.

Intertwined with the concept of expressive culture is that of “place” in relation to New Mexico itself. Place is addressed directly by four of the authors in this anthology and is present in some way and in varying degrees among the rest. Place figures prominently in Nuevomexicano “character,” contributors argue. They assert that Nuevomexicanos and Nuevomexicanas construct and develop a sense of self that is shaped by the geography and culture of the state as well as by their heritage.

Many of the articles deal with recent events or with recent reverberations of important historical events, which imbues the collection with a sense of immediacy. Rituals, traditions, community commemorations, self-concepts, and historical revisionism all play key roles. Contributors include both prominent and emerging scholars united by their interest in, and fascination with, the distinctiveness of Nuevomexicano culture.

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