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In 1921 Sam Rodia, an Italian laborer and tile setter, started work on an elaborate assemblage in the backyard of his home in Watts, California. The result was an iconic structure now known as the Watts Towers. Rodia created a work that was original, even though the resources available to support his project were virtually nonexistent. Each of his limitations—whether of materials, real estate, finances, or his own education—passed through his creative imagination to become a positive element in his work. In The Modern Moves West, accomplished cultural historian Richard Cándida Smith contends that the Watts Towers provided a model to succeeding California artists that was no longer defin...
In 1912, Guillermo Calles (1893-1958) became the first Mexican actor to appear in films made in California. Despite limited resources, he began directing and producing his own movies, and in 1929 pioneered production of Spanish-language sound films. His major works, among them the long-unavailable El indio yaqui and Raza de bronce (both 1927), represented Calles' tireless crusade to restore the image of Mexicans and Indians in an era dominated by Hollywood stereotypes. This biography traces Calles' career from his earliest Hollywood days through the 1950s. Included are the only surviving images of the filmmaker's silent productions, a closing commentary on his intimate circle of relatives, and an appendix featuring two fascinating letters written by Calles during a filming trip.
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Border Killers delves into how recent Mexican creators have reported, analyzed, distended, and refracted the increasingly violent world of neoliberal Mexico, especially its versions of masculinity. By looking to the insights of artists, writers, and filmmakers, Elizabeth Villalobos offers a path for making sense and critiquing very real border violence in contemporary Mexico. Villalobos focuses on representations of "border killers" in literature, film, and theater. The author develops a metaphor of "maquilization" to describe the mass-production of masculine violence as a result of neoliberalism. The author demonstrates that the killer is an interchangeable cog in a societal factory of viol...
This book takes a new approach to travel writing about Latin America by examining ‘domestic’ journey narratives that have been produced by travellers from the continent itself and largely in Spanish. Historically, travel writing about Latin America has been written primarily from the perspective of the foreign, often European, traveller. As such, and following the large influx of military, scientific, and leisure travellers in the region since its colonisation, much of this foreign travel writing has depicted the continent in predominantly exoticist and/or imperialist terms. Lindsay explores how Latin American travellers have conceived and constructed narratives about travel at home and ...
Gathers essays, poems, song lyrics, and short stories about the U.S.-Mexico borderland, with contributions by many famous literary figures.
Joining the U.S.’ war effort in 1942, Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho ordered the dislocation of Japanese Mexican communities and approved the creation of internment camps and zones of confinement. Under this relocation program, a new pro-American nationalism developed in Mexico that scripted Japanese Mexicans as an internal racial enemy. In spite of the broad resistance presented by the communities wherein they were valued members, Japanese Mexicans lost their freedom, property, and lives. In Uprooting Community, Selfa A. Chew examines the lived experience of Japanese Mexicans in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during World War II. Studying the collaboration of Latin American nation-s...