Examines factors which contribute to the bilingualism found in the Mexican American community of the Southwest.

This academic discourse on Chicanos formulates a framework to explain the relationship between verbal interaction and societal factors.

Although Mexican Americans comprise the United States' second largest minority group, most studies have provided only a historical perspective on Chicano issues. In contrast, Toward a Chicano Social Science presents an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Mexican Americans, incoporating race relations theory to analyze the sociohistorical conditions of Chicanos in contemporary society. A special feature of the book is its focus on Chicanos and gender roles within Chicano life, a topic often neglected in other texts. Written at the undergraduate level, Blea's text provides a thorough analysis of both theoretical and applied issues, which will aid students and professors of Chicano ethnic, and women's studies, sociology, and social work.

Europe and the United States now confront many of the same unresolved issues of nationalist, religious, racial, and ethnic intolerance. The book addresses the question: How can the humanistic disciplines and social sciences play a role in a political transformation or address cultural difference? This “difference,” the other, may be a racial, ethnic, gendered, religious, or colonial Other. Contributors to this book focus on the serious political questions posed by the problems of strangeness, “the other,” in the present climate of accelerating social change and global shifts in political power.

Presents a collection of critical essays analyzing modern Hispanic American writers including Junot Diaz, Pat Mora, and Rudolfo Anaya.

Tracing the configuration of the slapstick, destitute Peladita/Peladito and the Pachuca/Pachuco (depicted in flashy zoot suits) from 1928 to 2004, Wild Tongues is an ambitious, extensive examination of social order in Mexican and Chicana/o cultural productions in literature, theater, film, music, and performance art. From the use of the Peladita and the Peladito as stock characters who criticized various aspects of the Mexican government in the 1920s and 1930s to contemporary performance art by María Elena Gaitán and Dan Guerrero, which yields a feminist and queer-studies interpretation, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz emphasizes the transnational capitalism at play in these comic voices. Her study encompasses both sides of the border, including the use of the Pachuca and the Pachuco as anti-establishment, marginal figures in the United States. The result is a historically grounded, interdisciplinary approach that reimagines the limitations of nation-centered thinking and reading. Beginning with Daniel Venegas’s 1928 novel, Las aventuras de don Chipote o Cuando los pericos mamen, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz’s Wild Tongues demonstrates early uses of the Peladito to call attention to the brutal physical demands placed on the undocumented Mexican laborer. It explores Teatro de Carpa (tent theater) in-depth as well, bringing to light the experience of Mexican Peladita Amelia Wilhelmy, whose “La Willy” was famous for portraying a cross-dressing male soldier who criticizes the failed Revolution. In numerous other explorations such as these, the political, economic, and social power of creativity continually takes center stage.

This book is formed by various chapters studying the manner in which conflicts, changes and ideologies appear in contemporary Hispanic discourses. The contributions analyze a wide variety of topics related to the manner in which ideological and epistemological changes of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries are reflected in, and shape, Spanish language, literature, and other cultural expressions in both Spain and Latin America. The 19th century was conducive to various movements of independence, while, in Europe, radical changes of different types and in all contexts of life and knowledge occurred. Language was certainly affected by these changes resulting in new terminology and discourse strategies. Likewise, new schools of thought such as idealism, dialectic materialism, nihilism, and nationalism, among others, were established, in addition to new literary movements such as romanticism, evocative of (r)evolution, individualism and realism, inspired by the social effects of capitalism. Scientific and technological advances continued throughout the 20th century, when the women’s liberation movement consolidated. The notion of globalization also appears, simultaneously to various crises, despotism, wars, genocide, social exclusion and unemployment. Together, these trends give rise to a vindicating discourse that reaches large audiences via television. The classic rhetoric undergoes some changes given the explicit suasion and the absence of delusion provided by other means of communication. The 21st century is defined by the flood of information and the overpowering presence of mass communication; so much so, that the technological impact is clear in all realms of life. From the linguistic viewpoint, the appearance of anglicisms and technicalities mirrors the impact of post-modernity. There is now a need to give coherence to a national discourse that both grasps the past and adapts itself to the new available resources with the purpose of conveying an effective and attractive message to a very large audience. Discourse is swift, since society does not seem to have time to think, but instead seeks to maintain interest in a world filled with stimuli that, in turn, change constantly. Emphasis has been switched to a search for historical images and moments that presumably explain present and future events. It is also significant that all this restlessness is discussed and explained via new means such as the world-wide-web. The change in communication habits (e-mail, chats, forums, SMS) and tools (computers, mobile phones) that was initiated in the 20th century has had a net effect on the directness and swiftness of language.

Dialectical Imaginaries brings together essays that analyze the effects of class conflict and capitalist ideology on contemporary works of U.S. Latino/a literature. The editors argue that recent global events have compelled contemporary scholars to reexamine traditional interpretive models that center on identity politics and an ethics of multiculturalism. The volume seeks to demonstrate that materialist methodologies have a greater critical reach than other methods, and that Latino/a literary criticism should be more attuned to interpretive approaches that draw on Marxism and other globalizing social theories. The contributors analyze a wide range of literary works in fiction, poetry, drama, and memoir by writers including Rudolfo Anaya, Gloria Anzaldúa, Daniel Borzutzky, Angie Cruz, Sergio de la Pava, Mónica de la Torre, Sergio Elizondo, Juan Felipe Herrera, Rolando Hinojosa, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Óscar Martínez, Cherríe Moraga, Urayoán Noel, Emma Pérez, Pedro Pietri, Miguel Piñero, Ernesto Quiñónez, Ronald Ruiz, Hector Tobar, Rodrigo Toscano, Alfredo Véa, Helena María Viramontes, and others.