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Latina/o Midwest Reader

Latina/o Midwest Reader

Edited by Omar Valerio-Jimenez and Santiago Vaquera-Vasquez

Published by: University of Illinois Press

36 black & white photographs, 1 chart, 4 tables

Digital download
9780252099809
Published: June 2017

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

From 2000 to 2010, the Latino population increased by more than 73 percent across eight midwestern states. These interdisciplinary essays explore issues of history, education, literature, art, and politics defining today’s Latina/o Midwest. Some contributors delve into the Latina/o revitalization of rural areas, where communities have launched bold experiments in dual-language immersion education while seeing integrated neighborhoods, churches, and sports teams become the norm. Others reveal metro areas as laboratories for emerging Latino subjectivities, places where for some, the term Latina/o itself corresponds to a new type of lived identity as different Latina/o groups interact in shared neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.

Eye-opening and provocative, The Latina/o Midwest Reader rewrites the conventional wisdom on today's Latina/o community and how it faces challenges—and thrives—in the heartland.

Contributors: Aidé Acosta, Frances R. Aparicio, Jay Arduser, Jane Blocker, Carolyn Colvin, María Eugenia Cotera, Theresa Delgadillo, Lilia Fernández, Claire F. Fox, Felipe Hinojosa, Michael D. Innis-Jiménez, José E. Limón, Marta María Maldonado, Louis G. Mendoza, Amelia María de la Luz Montes, Kim Potowski, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Rebecca M. Schreiber, Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, Janet Weaver, and Elizabeth Willmore

Title

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: History, Placemaking, and Cultural Contributions - Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaqu

Part 1. The Browning of the Midwest

Conversations across “Our America”: Latinoization and the New Geography of Latinas/os - Louis Men

Al Norte toward Home: Texas, the Midwest, and Mexican American Critical Regionalism - José E. Limón

Reshaping the Rural Heartland: Immigration and Migrant Cultural Practice in Small-Town America - Aide Acosta

Part 2. Essential Laborers and Neighbors

Mexican Workers and Life in South Chicago - Michael Innis-Jiménez

Latina/o Immigration before 1965: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago - Lilia Fernández

Not Just Laborers: Latina/o Claims of Belonging in the U.S. Heartland - Marta María Maldonado

Part 3. La educación adelanta

Spanish Language and Education in the Midwest - Kim Potowski

Contesting the Myth of Uncaring: Latina/o Parents Advocating for Their Children - Carolyn Colvin, Ja

Latina/o Studies and Ethnic Studies in the Midwest - Amelia María de la Luz Montes

Part 4. Performeando the Midwest

The Black Angel: Ana Mendieta in Iowa City - Jane Blocker

History in Drag: Latina/o Queer Affective Circuits in Chicago - Ramón H. Rivera-Servera

El Museo del Norte: Passionate Praxis on the Streets of Detroit - María Eugenia Cotera

Part 5. Movimientos

Religious Migrants: The Latina/o Mennonite Quest for Community and Civil Rights - Felipe Hinojosa

The Young Lords Organization in Chicago: A Short History - Darrel Wanzer-Serrano

¡Viva La Causa! in Iowa - Janet Weaver

Work, Coalition, and Advocacy: Latinas Leading in the Midwest - Theresa Delgadillo and Janet Weaver

Reconfiguring Documentation: Immigration, Activism, and Practices of Visibility - Rebecca M. Schreib

Afterword: Intimate (Trans)Nationals - Frances R. Aparicio

Glossary

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Omar Valerio-Jiménez is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the author of River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands. Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez is an associate professor of Hispanic Southwest studies at the University of New Mexico and the author of One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen: Stories. Claire F. Fox is a professor in the departments of English and Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa and the author of Making Art Panamerican: Cultural Policy and the Cold War.

"The Reader offers something for everyone. . . . The research disrupts narratives that remove Latinos from history and from the region. . . . Current activists and allies can look to the volume for a history of resistance and a people's determination to live with dignity." --Middle West Review

"This key book expands understanding of Latina/os outside of the traditional areas of the US. . . . A major addition to the histories of Latina/os and future Latina/o studies scholarship on the Midwest. . . . Recommended."--Choice

"The Latina/o Midwest Reader certainly contributes to this nascent literature by bringing much needed attention to the struggles and contributions of Latinos in the Midwest."--Journal of Folklore Research