Living in Spanglish
The Search for Latino Identity in America
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Chicano. Cubano. Pachuco. Nuyorican. Puerto Rican. Boricua. Quisqueya. Tejano.
To be Latino in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has meant to fierce identification with roots, with forbears, with the language, art and food your people came here with. America is a patchwork of Hispanic sensibilities-from Puerto Rican nationalists in New York to more newly arrived Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley-that has so far resisted homogenization while managing to absorb much of the mainstream culture.
Living in Spanglish delves deep into the individual's response to Latino stereotypes and suggests that their ability to hold on to their heritage, while at the same time working to create a culture that is entirely new, is a key component of America's future.
In this book, Morales pins down a hugely diverse community-of Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, Cubans, Salvadorans and Puerto Ricans--that he insists has more common interests to bring it together than traditions to divide it. He calls this sensibility Spanglish, one that is inherently multicultural, and proposes that Spanglish "describes a feeling, an attitude that is quintessentially American. It is a culture with one foot in the medieval and the other in the next century."
In Living in Spanglish , Ed Morales paints a portrait of America as it is now, both embracing and unsure how to face an onslaught of Latino influence. His book is the story of groups of Hispanic immigrants struggling to move beyond identity politics into a postmodern melting pot.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spanglish a spoken hybrid of Spanish and English, which has become increasingly prevalent in Latino communities is for Morales a metaphor for the developing multiracial America, where one's identity "is about not having to identify with either black or white, while at the same time having the capacity to be both." Morales, who has written extensively for the Village Voice, focuses on underground and mainstream Latino culture and what he sees as their changing modes of assimilation and cultural exchange. In discussing the Lower East Side's famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Morales examines the effect of gentrification, finding that the (now defunct) Jennifer Lopez "Puffy" Combs relationship mirrors the economic and cultural help that black culture has supplied in the mainstreaming and commercialization of Latino culture. Similarly, Morales describes gay culture's apparent influence on John Leguizamo as an example of how Latino artists meld together contemporary urban styles. Much of the book deftly theorizes the moves of these more visible figures, as well as street-level negotiations that are just as engaging. Morales has a deep political aim, backed by a real concern with lesser-known histories, as when he connects his 1992 Mexico City trip to the student uprisings there in 1968 or rhapsodizes about the norte o-hybrid music scene that includes bands like Caf Tacuba. If the book sometimes reads like a series of arts profiles somewhat stiffly strung together, Morales's passion for this our emerging culture still comes through.
