Results by title

184 books match the query 'Hispanic Americans' and 5 start with r

cover of Race and Politics: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb

Race and Politics

Asian Americans, Latinos, and Whites in a Los Angeles Suburb

Leland T. Saito. Foreword by Roger Daniels

University of Illinois Press, 1998

Located a mere fifteen minutes from Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley is an incubator for California's new ethnic politics. Here, Latinos and Asian Americans are the dominant groups. Politics are Latino-dominated, while a large infusion of Chinese immigrants and capital has made the San Gabriel Valley the center of the nation's largest Chinese ethnic economy. The white population, meanwhile, has dropped from an overwhelming majority in 1970 to a minority in 1990. 

Leland T. Saito presents an insider's view of the political, economic, and cultural implications of this ethnic mix. He examines how diverse residents of the region have worked to overcome their initial antagonisms and develop new, more effective political alliances. 

Tracing grassroots political organization along racial and ethnic lines, Race and Politics focuses on the construction of new identities in general and the panethnic affiliation "Asian American" in particular.

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cover of Racial Transformations: Latinos and Asians Remaking the United States

Racial Transformations

Latinos and Asians Remaking the United States

Nicholas De Genova, ed.

Duke University Press, 2006

Moving beyond the black-white binary that has long framed racial discourse in the United States, the contributors to this collection examine how the experiences of Latinos and Asians intersect in the formation of the U.S. nation-state. They analyze the political and social processes that have racialized Latinos and Asians while highlighting the productive ways that these communities challenge and transform the identities imposed on them. Each essay addresses the sociopolitical predicaments of both Latinos and Asians, bringing their experiences to light in relation to one another.

Several contributors illuminate ways that Latinos and Asians were historically racialized: by U.S. occupiers of Puerto Rico and the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century, by public health discourses and practices in early-twentieth-century Los Angeles, by anthropologists collecting physical data—height, weight, head measurements—from Chinese Americans to show how the American environment affected “foreign” body types in the 1930s, and by Los Angeles public officials seeking to explain the alleged criminal propensities of Mexican American youth during the 1940s. Other contributors focus on the coalitions and tensions between Latinos and Asians in the context of the fight to integrate public schools and debates over political redistricting. One addresses masculinity, race, and U.S. imperialism in the literary works of Junot Díaz and Chang-rae Lee. Another looks at the passions, identifications, and charges of betrayal aroused by the sensationalized cases of Elián González, the young Cuban boy rescued off the shore of Florida, and Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos physicist accused of spying on the United States. Throughout this volume contributors interrogate many of the assumptions that underlie American and ethnic studies even as they signal the need for a research agenda that expands the purview of both fields.

Contributors. Nicholas De Genova, Victor Jew, Andrea Levine, Natalia Molina, Gary Y. Okihiro, Crystal Parikh, Greg Robinson, Toni Robinson, Leland T. Saito

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cover of Radical Health: Unwellness, Care, and Latinx Expressive Culture

Radical Health

Unwellness, Care, and Latinx Expressive Culture

Julie Avril Minich

Duke University Press, 2023

In Radical Health Julie Avril Minich examines the potential of Latinx expressive culture to intervene in contemporary health politics, elaborating how Latinx artists have critiqued ideologies of health that frame wellbeing in terms of personal behavior. Within this framework, poor health—obesity, asthma, diabetes, STIs, addiction, and high-risk pregnancies—is attributed to irresponsible lifestyle choices among the racialized poor. Countering this, Latinx writers and visual artists envision health not as individual duty but as communal responsibility. Bringing a disability justice approach to questions of health access and equity, Minich locates a concept of radical health within the work of Latinx artists, including the poetry of Rafael Campo, the music of Hurray for the Riff Raff, the fiction of Angie Cruz, and the performance art of Virginia Grise. Radical health operates as a modality that both challenges the stigma of unhealth and protests the social conditions that give rise to racial health disparities. Elaborating on this modality, Minich claims a critical role for Latinx artists in addressing the structural racism in public health. 
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cover of Rascuache Lawyer: Toward a Theory of Ordinary Litigation

Rascuache Lawyer

Toward a Theory of Ordinary Litigation

Alfredo Mirandé

University of Arizona Press, 2011

Alfredo Mirandé, a sociology professor, Stanford Law graduate, and part-time pro bono attorney, represents clients who are rascuache—a Spanish word for “poor” or even “wretched”—and on the margins of society. For Mirandé, however, rascuache means to be “down but not out,” an underdog who is still holding its ground. Rascuache Lawyer offers a unique perspective on providing legal services to poor, usually minority, folks who are often just one short step from jail. Not only a passionate argument for rascuache lawyering, it is also a thoughtful, practical attempt to apply and test critical race theory—particularly Latino critical race theory—in day-to-day legal practice.

Every chapter presents an actual case from Mirandé’s experience (only the names and places have been changed). His clients have been charged with everything from carrying a concealed weapon, indecent exposure, and trespassing to attempted murder, domestic violence, and child abuse. Among them are recent Mexican immigrants, drug addicts, gang members, and the homeless. All of them are destitute, and many are victims of racial profiling. Some “pay” Mirandé with bartered services such as painting, home repairs, or mechanical work on his car. And Mirandé doesn’t always win their cases. But, as he recounts, he certainly works tirelessly to pursue all legal remedies.

Each case is presented as a letter to a fascinating (fictional) “Super Chicana” named Fermina Gabriel, who we are told is an accomplished lawyer, author, and singer. This narrative device allows the author to present his cases as if he were recounting them to a friend, drawing in the reader as a friend as well.

Bookending the individual cases, Mirandé’s introductions and conclusions offer a compelling vision of progressive legal practice grounded in rascuache lawyering.
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cover of Razabilly: Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene

Razabilly

Transforming Sights, Sounds, and History in the Los Angeles Latina/o Rockabilly Scene

By Nicholas F. Centino

University of Texas Press, 2021

Vocals tinged with pain and desperation. The deep thuds of an upright bass. Women with short bangs and men in cuffed jeans. These elements and others are the unmistakable signatures of rockabilly, a musical genre normally associated with white male musicians of the 1950s. But in Los Angeles today, rockabilly's primary producers and consumers are Latinos and Latinas. Why are these "Razabillies" partaking in a visibly "un-Latino" subculture that's thought of as a white person's fixation everywhere else?

As a Los Angeles Rockabilly insider, Nicholas F. Centino is the right person to answer this question. Pairing a decade of participant observation with interviews and historical research, Centino explores the reasons behind a Rockabilly renaissance in 1990s Los Angeles and demonstrates how, as a form of working-class leisure, this scene provides Razabillies with spaces of respite and conviviality within the alienating landscape of the urban metropolis. A nuanced account revealing how and why Los Angeles Latinas/os have turned to and transformed the music and aesthetic style of 1950s rockabilly, Razabilly offers rare insight into this musical subculture, its place in rock and roll history, and its passionate practitioners.

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