Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

José Martí: The World's Most Popular Poetry, And A Vision For The Americas, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

This chapter begins with a capsule biographical sketch that situates José Martí as an agent of decolonization. It discusses Martí's place in literature, especially Spanish American letters, his transcultural importance, his work in translation, his role in the history of Cuban–US relations, and his vision for US relations with Latin America. It demonstrates the extraordinary international reach of his most popular writing by giving close attention to how two works, a book of poetry, Simple Verses (Versos Sencillos) and an essay, “Our America” (“Nuestra América”) have come to represent him to an increasingly broad audience.

Infancia (In)Visible: La Subjetividad De La Niñez Como Transgresión A La Marginalidad En Las Películas Conducta Y Pelo Malo, Tania Carrasquillo Hernández

Faculty Publications

Tania Carrasquillo Hernández's research on race, gender, and sexuality has led her to develop a more specific interest in the study of childhood and sexuality in literature and cinema. This article, based on a presentation given at the Hispanic Literatures Across Cultures Conference (October 6–8, 2016 at Fresno Pacific University), analyzes the representation of boyhood and masculinity in contemporary Cuban and Venezuelan cinema via the films Conducta (2014, directed by Ernesto Daranas) and Pelo Malo (2013, directed by Mariana Rondón).

In the case of Chala (Armando Valdes Freire, Conducta), Carrasquillo Hernández explores how his masculinity is related to the …

Writing About Aj Pop B'Atz': Bruce Grindal And The Transformation Of Ethnographic Writing, Sarah Ashley Kistler

Faculty Publications

The works of Bruce Grindal teach us many things about anthropology’s humanistic tradition. With examples such as Redneck Girl and “Postmodernism as Seen by the Boys at Downhome Auto Repair,” Bruce Grindal demonstrated how we can creatively engage our ethnographic writing to reflect lived experiences. In this article, I examine Bruce’s influence on my ethnographic writing and collaborative research in the Maya community of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. Since 2006, I have worked collectively with a group of Chamelqueños to investigate the story of their local hero, Aj Pop B’atz’. In the sixteenth century, Aj Pop B’atz’ welcomed Spanish invaders …

A New Destination For “The Flying Bus”? The Implications Of Orlando-Rican Migration For Luis Rafael Sánchez’S “La Guagua Aérea”, Gabriel Ignacio Barreneche, Jane Lombardi, Héctor Ramos-Flores

Faculty Publications

Puerto Rican author Luis Rafael Sánchez’s “La guagua aérea” explores the duality, hybridity, and fluidity of US-Puerto Rican identity through the frequent travel of migrants between New York City (the traditional destination city for Puerto Rican migrants) and the island. In recent years, however, the “flying bus” has adopted a new number one destination: Central Florida. The Orlando metropolitan area has surpassed New York as the primary locus of Puerto Rican migration on the US mainland. Given that migrants on the “flying bus” have a new primary destination and now tend to remain settled in Central Florida versus returning to …

Will The World End In 2012? A Survival Guide To Maya Prophecies, Felix H. Cortez

Faculty Publications

During the decade of the 1960s a Maya Monument was found in El Tortuguero, Tabasco, Mexico, in which reference was made to the end of the thirteenth calendric cycle on 4 Ahaw 3 Unii, or December 21, 2012. The reference is important because it points to the end of an impressively long Maya calendric cycle of 5,126 years, which is also the winter solstice. This reference and the well-known Maya interest in astronomical phenomena and prophecies has spurred wide speculations and claims that the Maya prophesied the end of the world as we know it towards the end of 2012. …

La Charca (1894) Y La Consagración Del Subalterno Puertorriqueño: Una Mirada Desde El Siglo Xxi Al Naturalismo De Manuel Zeno Gandía, Tania Carrasquillo Hernández

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the representation of coffee plantation societies in the novel La Charca (1894) by Manuel Zeno Gandía (1855-1930). This literary text is a Puerto Rican classic and is one of the four novels included in Las Crónicas de un Mundo Enfermo (Chronicles of a Sick World). The author examines the political and economic structures developed in Puerto Rico during the nineteenth century, as portrayed in the novel. Carrasquillo Hernández pays close attention to the relations between social classes, the coffee oligarchy’s struggle, and the subjugation of workers by the hacendados (landowners) in order to promote and …

In Search Of America, Ellen Bigler

Faculty Publications

Taken collectively, Latinos are now the largest minority group in the USA. This chapter, with a focus on U.S. Latinos, explores the changing face of the USA in recent decades and the significance of this demographic change for the ongoing construction and negotiation of an American identity. The culture wars (e.g., debates over the canon, curriculum, and language) of the late 1980s and 1990s, and the contested role of schools in the arena of critical multiculturalism, are examined for insights into the bases of resistance to change. The author draws from her experiences in public schools as both a teacher …

Dangerous Discourses, Ellen Bigler

Faculty Publications

Contemporary historians of U.S. immigration and ethnicity, and those who chart the experiences of Puerto Ricans on the mainland, may recognize the flaws inherent in usingthe "immigrant analogy" to evaluate and anticipate the Puerto Rican experience on themainland. However, my ethnographic research in an upstate New York city with a growingPuerto Rican population suggests that such perspectives have yet to make their way intothe mainstream. In analysis of community and school discourse over a three-year period, Ifound ethnic success stories being used by community "old-timers" to "discipline" thosewho are judged to have failed through a dearth of hard work. Within …