Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)

Book Description

"This book effectively integrates art history, literary history, and political and social history.... It will appeal to any well-educated reader and scholar of colonial Latin American studies...who will find it a unique lens through which to view this period and culture."

—Stacey Schlau, Professor of Spanish and Women's Studies, West Chester University

Reacting to the rising numbers of mixed-blood (Spanish-Indian-Black African) people in its New Spain colony, the eighteenth-century Bourbon government of Spain attempted to categorize and control its colonial subjects through increasing social regulation of their bodies and the spaces they inhabited. The discourse of calidad (status) and raza (lineage) on which the regulations were based also found expression in the visual culture of New Spain, particularly in the unique genre of casta paintings, which purported to portray discrete categories of mixed-blood plebeians.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that also considers legal, literary, and religious documents of the period, Magali Carrera focuses on eighteenth-century portraiture and casta paintings to understand how the people and spaces of New Spain were conceptualized and visualized. She explains how these visual practices emphasized a seeming realism that constructed colonial bodies--elite and non-elite--as knowable and visible. At the same time, however, she argues that the chaotic specificity of the lives and lived conditions in eighteenth-century New Spain belied the illusion of social orderliness and totality narrated in its visual art. Ultimately, she concludes, the inherent ambiguity of the colonial body and its spaces brought chaos to all dreams of order.

Encyclopedia Of Latino Popular Culture In The United States

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Encyclopedia Of Latino Popular Culture In The United States

Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture [Two Volumes]

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Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture [Two Volumes]

Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Art | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0313322155

Book Description

U.S. culture has been profoundly impacted by contributions from Mexico and the rest of Central America, South America, and the Spanish Caribbean. These contributions and their adaptations in the United States are showcased in nearly 500 essay entries on noted people, festivities, items, terms, movements, sports, food, events, places, visual and performing arts, film, institutions, fashion, literature, organizations, the media, and much more. The wide range of entries with many areas of unique coverage will meet the high demand for multidisciplinary use. Students and other readers will appreciate the inclusiveness of cultural groups, the gender sensitivity, and the heavy contextual grounding of the topics. The Latino population is the fastest-growing segment of our society, and this encyclopedia is the first to focus on the breadth of their cultural expression. The up-to-date entries and authoritative information provided by a host of subject experts will make this the source to turn to for quick reference and research. Numerous photos complement the text.

Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood

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A great read AND a wonderful gift
The Best Of Its Kind

Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood
Clara E. RodrÃguez
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1588341119

Book Description

A book for everyone interested in Hollywood and especially the history of Latinos in American film.

Heroes, Lovers, and Others tells the fascinating history of Latinos in film, from the birth of the movies to the present, through a series of stories about Hollywood's most famous and enduring stars. The book features such Latino legends as Dolores del Rio, Rita Hayworth, Ramon Navarro, Desi Arnaz, Anthony Quinn, Raquel Welch, Selma Hayek, and Antonio Banderas. But this is much more than a just collection of celebrity stories. Clara E. Rodríguez shows how the careers of these stars were shaped by the temper of the times in which they lived and how they managed their own sense of personal and screen identities. The sparkling parade of Latino film stars presented against the backdrop of American social and cultural history changes the way we think of race and ethnicity in Hollywood and challenges us to reexamine conventional ways of viewing our past. Not least of all, Heroes, Lovers, and Others will inspire readers to watch old and new movies with a sharpened sense of the personal, artistic, and social dynamics underlying their history and, by telling the stories of several long-forgotten stars, make readers wish these stories themselves would be made into movies. 57 b/w photographs.

Customer Reviews:

A great read AND a wonderful gift.......2006-01-25

It was that gorgeous sepia cover of Rita Hayworth that first drew me to this book. I'm not a movie buff, but that classic pose captivated me, and when I saw the numerous dramatic stills of famous screen icons from across the entire history of film, I immediately purchased four copies-for my mother, my two aunts and my niece.
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, I quickly learned, and she had begun her career as a a Latin dancer and actor. Her's is only one of a flood of stories of Latinos stars throughout Hollywood's first century. The book is an easy and quick read, but I ended up learning a lot about how the history of Hollywood and America are intertwined. I felt that the historical context deepened and enriched the stories and provided them with a greater meaning.
One of my favorite stories is about an Austrian actor named Jacob Krantz, whose acting career was going nowhere until he changed his name to Ricardo Cortez and immediately became a big star. His brother Stanley followed him to Hollywood, also changed his name to Cortez, and won several awards as a cinematographer. And did you know that Anthony Quinn came to the US illegally, and picked crops, preached on street corners and boxed before becoming a major star?
The author writes with an accessible style and great insight. The pictures are wonderful. I'm neither Latino nor a big movie-goer, but I still loved "Heroes, Lovers and Others" because it is such a lively collage of wonderful stories about America and the rich variety of people who populate it.

The Best Of Its Kind.......2004-11-30

Rodriguez gets us thinking about the place of Latinos in US feature film from the very beginning to the present and in a sense, it's a book with a happy ending, because after decades of near-invisibility, Latinos and Latinas are becoming highly visible and indeed stars with huge followings. I mean, like it or not, Jennifer Lopez has millions of fans, as does Christina Aguillera. Intriguing are her portraits of Hollywood's Latin stars of days gone by, from the dashing Gilbert Roland to the gay superstar Ramon Novarro, and the answers to trivia questions like Olga San Juan. But she has some facts wrong, and it makes me wonder if even I, a non-Latino, can pick up some mistakes she has made, who knows maybe there are even more I don't know about! In her article on raquel Welch, first of all she deplores the fact that Jo Raquel Tejada was forced to change her name to Welch. She says that "Welch was another name in her family." Every fan of Raquel's in fact knows that "Welch" is the name of Raquel's first husband, and she didn't "steal" it or anything from some other member of her own family. Rodriguez also claims that Raquel made her screen debut in the call-girl melodrama A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, when most historians credit her in appearing in the Elvis programmer ROUSTABOUT way before AHINAH. But, all in all you can't go wrong with Rodriguez (except when she goes wrong), and I love her description of Anthony Quinn as having the greatest gift of a screen actor, the ability to make audiences think they have known the character he is playing in any particular picture, that they have known him for a long time. It's a quirky observation, but a valid one, and a valuable one to boot.

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Latino/a Popular Culture
Michelle Habell-Pallan , and Mary Romero
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0814736254
Release Date: 2002-06-01

Book Description

Cover artwork by Diane Gamboa. Credit- Click here

"With stunning, eloquent, and insightful essays Latino/a Popular Culture offers the best guide to the cultural production of the largest group of people of color in the United States. The essays broaden both our knowledge of Latino/a cultural production and challenge the traditional paradigms of cultural and ethnic studies doing so through accessible, historically informed approaches."
—Mary Pat Brady, Cornell University

"Latino/a Popular Culture greatly contributes to the genres of both cultural studies and Latino studies. The editors exhort undergraduate and graduate students to continue looking at Latino/a popular coluture as "as site of invention, critique and pleasure" (p.16) since much work still needs to be done in this area."
—Harvard Educational Review

"The book provides an insight into the current struggles that Latinos who live in the norhern hemisphere face."
—MELUS

Latinos have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. While the presence of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture in the United States buttresses the much-heralded Latin Explosion, the images themselves are often contradictory.

In Latino/a Popular Culture, Habell-Pallán and Romero have brought together scholars from the humanities and social sciences to analyze representations of Latinidad in a diversity of genres - media, culture, music, film, theatre, art, and sports - that are emerging across the nation in relation to Chicanas, Chicanos, mestizos, Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, Central Americans and South Americans, and Latinos in Canada.

Contributors include Adrian Burgos, Jr., Luz Calvo, Arlene Dávila, Melissa A. Fitch, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Tanya Katerí Hernández, Josh Kun, Frances Negron-Muntaner, William A. Nericcio, Raquel Z. Rivera, Ana Patricia Rodríguez, Gregory Rodriguez, Mary Romero, Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez, Christopher A. Shinn, Deborah R. Vargas, and Juan Velasco.

25 Latino Craft Projects (Celebrating Culture in Your Library Series)

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Target That Special Audience

25 Latino Craft Projects (Celebrating Culture in Your Library Series)
Ana-Elba Pavon , and Diana Borrego
Manufacturer: American Library Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Decorative Arts | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0838908330

Customer Reviews:

Target That Special Audience.......2005-05-14

Many of the easy-to-organize projects in this book are centered around holidays or special events, such as Day of the Child/Day of the Book, Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, and Hispanic Heritage Month, but many of the projects involve "everyday crafts." There are step-by-step instructions for making masks, corn husk dolls, beads, paper flowers, piñatas, etc., and recipes for such delectables as sweet tamales and gorditas. The activities do not require hard-to-find or expensive materials, and they are designed for all ages, from preschoolers, to after-schoolers (over six years old), and families. (summary by South Texas Library System)
This should increase the comfort level of librarians unfamiliar with this special audience. As communities across the country increase their Hispanic populations, the need to be welcoming to this diverse group puzzles some libraries.

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Encyclopedia Of Latino Popular Culture In The United States

Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Art | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

Pop Culture | Encyclopedias | Reference | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0313332118

Guide actuel du Paris mondial: Paris afro-antillais, Paris arabe, Paris asiatique, Paris de l'Est, Paris juif, Paris latino

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Guide actuel du Paris mondial: Paris afro-antillais, Paris arabe, Paris asiatique, Paris de l'Est, Paris juif, Paris latino

Manufacturer: Seuil
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 2020129906

Latinos/as in Children's Film: Images of an In/Visible Minority

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Latinos/as in Children's Film: Images of an In/Visible Minority
Manuel Martin-Rodriguez
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1403966168

Leopoldo Mendez: Revolutionary Art and the Mexican Print (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture) (Joe R. and ... Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)

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Leopoldo Mendez: Revolutionary Art and the Mexican Print (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture) (Joe R. and ... Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)
Deborah Caplow
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Diego Rivera, The Complete Murals

ASIN: 0292712502

Book Description

Leopoldo Méndez (1902-1969) was one of the most distinguished printmakers of the twentieth century, as well as one of Mexico's most accomplished artists. A politically motivated artist who strongly opposed injustice, fascism, and war, Méndez helped form and actively participated in significant political and artistic groups, including the Estridentistas in the 1920s and the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) and the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) in the 1930s. To champion Mexican art and artists, Méndez also founded and directed the Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana, a highly respected art book publishing company.

Leopoldo Méndez is the first book-length work in English on this major Mexican artist. Profusely illustrated with over one hundred and fifty images, it examines the whole sweep of Méndez's artistic career. Deborah Caplow situates Méndez within both Mexican and international art of the twentieth century, tracing the lines of connection and influence between Méndez and such contemporaries as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. Caplow focuses on the period in the 1930s when Méndez and his fellow artists in LEAR and TGP played a key role in the development of a Mexican political art movement and a modern Mexican cultural identity. She also describes how Méndez created a body of powerful anti-Fascist images before and during World War II and subsequently collaborated with artists from Mexico and around the world on political printmaking, in addition to publishing books and creating prints for films by the eminent Mexican cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa.

Book Description

SpirosBlaak, the latest in Green Ronin's critically acclaimed Mythic Vista line, presents a complete archduchy that can be used as a stand-alone campaign setting or integrated into an existing world. With the gods fallen, it is up to the Player Characters to bring light and hope back into an archduchy overrun with lycanthropes. In addition to detailing this grim and gritty setting, SpirosBlaak includes black powder rules, new core and prestige classes, and a plethora of new gods. When the moon is full, will you lock your door and hide or draw your sword and fight?

Book Description

Do you want thicker, fuller, more lustrous hair? A smaller waistline and a bigger bustline? How about sharper cutlery, six-pack abs, and thighs that can crack a walnut? If you ve answered yes to these questions, you need As Seen on TV a photographic history of 50 amazing products that are not available in any store. Here are the incredible true stories of Ginsu Knives, Chia Pets, the Veg-o-Matic, K-Tel Records, the ThighMaster, and dozens of other favorites. But that s not all! You ll also receive expert analysis of the products, interviews with celebrity pitchpeople, and more than 100 color photographs. Order now, and we ll even throw in a chapter on the George Foreman Grill absolutely free! As Seen on TV is an inspiration to entrepreneurs of all ages, and a wacky trip down memory lane for couch potatoes everywhere. Call now operators are standing by!

Customer Reviews:

TACKY AND HILARIOUS!.......2006-01-11

"As Seen On TV" is a fond look back at those Kitschy products and their even tackier commercials for products as diverse as the Chia Pet to K-Tel records. These products would make household names out of people like Ron Poeil, Billy Mays, and Susan Powter as they pushed products to enhance yourself, your cooking, or your home. These 50 products, most of which are still on the market today and still being seen on TV were the forerunners of the dreaded infomercial which made their way into our homes back in the 1984 when the FCC loosened regulations on TV advertising. You'll chuckle as you read about these products, many of which you probably haven't thought about in years.

The book is arranged by product type including Kitchen Marvels, Fashion and Beauty Wonders, Fabulous Fitness, Entertainment Breakthroughs, Home Improvement Miracles, and Get Rich Quick. A history of each products is provided along with details about its use, inventor, and other interesting facts as well as photos. Ron Popeil is certainly the godfather of these products who got the ball rolling with the Veg-O-Matic, actually invented by his father. Popeil's list of products is long and often notorious and includes things such as GLH Formula #9 spray for balding men, as well as the Pocket Fisherman. The book includes a lengthy interview with Popeil as well.

Other items in the Kitchen gadget category include the legendary Ginsu knives...and who doesn't fondly remember those commercials where they sawed through knives and aluminum cans? Then there is a modern classic as former boxer turned pitchman, George foreman introduced the grill bearing his name.

There's the Blue Blocker glasses, Hairagami, Thigh Master, Matthew lesko's books on free Government money, Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, The Clapper, and Life Call Alert in which Edith Fore uttered those words that would become grafted into American lexicon, "I've Fallen...AND I CAN'T GET UP!!!" But perhaps my all-time favorite for pure cheesiness would be Mr. Microphone. Who can forget the goof in the convertible telling the girl walking on the street, "Hey Good Lookin', We'll be back to pick you up later!" It was the epitome of tackiness back then and would probably get him arrested today.

Oh...and the book is informative as well. I never knew that the K-Tel in K-Tel records stood for Kevis Television named after its founder Phillip Kevis. A true pop culture treasure trove!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Hi, my name is __ and I am an Infomercial addict...........2005-08-24

What a fun book! I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has ever gotten caught up watching infomercials or home shopping channels. It's fascinating to read about products that became hugely popular, even though in some cases, you look at them now and say "what were they thinking?".

It was especially fun for me because... as I turned each page, I had to wonder if the next product was one I've bought. LOL
Yes, I have succumbed to the "power of the pitch" and bought into the hype. And yes, I have purchased a few of the items in this book (George Foreman Grill, Steamer, etc... and I LIKE the Dr. Ho's Muscle Massage System!) but I'll never admit to how many.

Anyone who has heard "and that's not all" will enjoy the fact that a section with that title is included AFTER the index.

I only gave this book 4 stars because I wanted more products to be in it! It was so fun to read, I wanted more of it.

Did we really buy one of these?.......2003-01-06

Did folks buy this stuff? They sure did, by the millions according to Harry and Stall. Some of these products would really be hard to parody, the Chai Ceramic Pet that grows vegetation, the Turbi Twist, a hair towel with an elastic loop (with the predictable AS SEEN ON TV on the box) the Copper Tongue Scraper, PROVEN EFFECTIVE was the bold statement on its packaging but it really does look just like a piece of bent metal! Each product has a spread with photos, copy and several colored panels (more on these later) containing background material and other trivia. I liked the Product panels best with their Description, Availability, Claimed Innovation, Upside and the Downside, just read the Downside to each product and really get the truth.

The six basic chapters are Kitchen Marvels, Fashion and Beauty, Fabulous Fitness, Entertainment Breakthroughs, Home Improvement Miracles, and finally Get Rich Quick, between these chapters are some interesting features, pages 122 and 123 cover the rise of the home shopping channels where you will be amazed to find that QVC have studio tours (yours for only [x ammount of dollars]). Ron Popiel, the founder of Ronco, has four pages explaining the background to the infomercial techniques he uses to shift the goods. Incidentally the Ronco story is covered in 'But, Wait! There's More!' by Timothy Samuelson, lots of product photos, vintage ads and packaging and a fairly accurate history of the Popiel family. Ever wonder what happened to yesterday's celebrities, check out pages 74 to 79 to see the Top 100 infomercial-land stars from Allen (Debbie) to Zappa (Dweezel) you'll be surprised who's listed, well, perhaps not. 'As Seen On TV' is a fascinating and fun book covering a subject that most of us would hardly think twice about.

But, wait! There is more! DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL! Buy this book and get absolutely FREE hundreds of words that only come out in daylight! The book's designer (unfortunately) decided to use pink panels, on many of the product pages, with text in light blue. Big mistake, because it is very hard to read in a normal domestic lighting environment and the type used for the headlines on these panels is hard to read even in daylight!

Hey good lookin', we'll be back to pick ya up later!.......2002-12-24

If you recognize this catch phrase from the Mr. Microphone ad, you'll love this book. Indeed any child of the '70s or '80s can appreciate the nostalgia and humor of the infomercial era, which is vividly and humorously captured in "As Seen on TV". It's all here, from Abtronic to Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute. If you have any doubt about whether your money would be well spent on this gem, then to paraphrase Ron Popeil: "Just forget it and GET IT!"

If you read this review in the next ten minutes..........2002-12-11

This book read itself!

I bought this trip to entertain myself for a long drive home from Wisconsin to Florda. (Don't worry- I was the passanger, not the driver. Gusee I should've used the word 'ride' but I'm too lazy to backspace!)

I think the ultimate compliment to a book is when your constantly interupting other people around you to read the next wonderful thing you've read. I lost my voice from this book.

There's not too much to tell in this review. You've simply got to read it for yourself. It is so much more than just a list of goofy things sold via infomercials and TV ads. We get interviews, product history, trivia and much, much more.

We also get the lowdown on what was legit and what wasn't.

So the next time your using the flow-bee and screw up so badly your running to the store for some GLH (if you don't know what that sentence just meant, buy the book)... think of this book. It'll help ya.

And if you're just looking for some easy entertaing reading... this is it folks!

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