Hispanic Heritage Month

Mexico City became one of the centers of architectural modernism in the Americas in the first half of the twentieth century. Invigorated by insights drawn from the first published histories of Mexican colonial architecture, which suggested that Mexico possessed a distinctive architecture and culture, beginning in the 1920s a new generation of architects created profoundly visual modern buildings intended to convey Mexico's unique cultural character. By midcentury these architects and their students had rewritten the country's architectural history and transformed the capital into a metropolis where new buildings that evoked pre-conquest, colonial, and International Style architecture coexisted.Through an exploration of schools, a university campus, a government ministry, a workers' park, and houses for Diego Rivera and Luis Barragán, Kathryn O'Rourke offers a new interpretation of modern architecture in the Mexican capital, showing close links between design, evolving understandings of national architectural history, folk art, and social reform. This book demonstrates why creating a distinctively Mexican architecture captivated architects whose work was formally dissimilar, and how that concern became central to the profession.

Modern Architecture in Latin America: Art, Technology, and Utopia is an introductory text on the issues, polemics, and works that represent the complex processes of political, economic, and cultural modernization in the twentieth century. The number and types of projects varied greatly from country to country, but, as a whole, the region produced a significant body of architecture that has never before been presented in a single volume in any language. Modern Architecture in Latin America is the first comprehensive history of this important production. Designed as a survey and focused on key examples/paradigms arranged chronologically from 1903 to 2003, this volume covers a myriad of countries; historical, social, and political conditions; and projects/developments that range from small houses to urban plans to architectural movements. The book is structured so that it can be read in a variety of ways--as a historically developed narrative of modern architecture in Latin America, as a country-specific chronology, or as a treatment of traditions centered on issues of art, technology, or utopia. This structure allows readers to see the development of multiple and parallel branches/historical strands of architecture and, at times, their interconnections across countries. The authors provide a critical evaluation of the movements presented in relationship to their overall goals and architectural transformations.

This revelatory, fully illustrated anthology explores modernism's complex legacy in Latin America--featuring original research by renowned architects, historians, and curators from the region. Beyond the Supersquare: Art and Architecture in Latin America after Modernism, which developed from a symposium presented by the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2011, showcases original essays by distinguished Latin American architects, historians, and curators whose research examines architecture and urban design practices in the region during a significant period of the twentieth century. Drawing from the exuberant architectural projects of the 1940s to the 1960s, as well as from critically engaged artistic practices of the present day, the essays in this collection reveal how the heroic visions and utopian ideals popular in architectural discourse during the modernist era bore complicated legacies for Latin America--the consequences of which are evident in the vastly uneven economic conditions and socially disparate societies found throughout the region today. The innovative contributions in this volume address how the modernist movement came into being in Latin America and compellingly explore how it continues to resonate in today's cultural discourse. Beyond the Supersquare takes themes traditionally examined within the strict field of urbanism and architecture and explores them against a broader range of disciplines, including the global economy, political science, gender, visual arts, philosophy, and urban planning. Containing a breadth of scholarship, this book offers a compelling and distinctive view of contemporary life in Latin America.

This beautifully filmed documentary looks at the wall paintings of some of the most famous Mexican muralists-Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman, Jose Clemente Orozco-and at the work of Luis Barragan, the greatest Mexican architect of the 20th century. Their common medium is the wall. The muralists sought to return art to the people, by putting it on the walls of public buildings, just as it had been in the days of their Mayan forefathers. Barragan embraced a modernism imported from Europe, but developed a style that echoes with memories of ancient times. Both the muralists and Barragan used the wall to create something distinctively new and vital, but they all found their guiding force in the roots of Mexican art and culture, in traditions grounded in the pre-Columbian era.

For many entrepreneurs, the American Dream remains only partially fulfilled. Unequal outcomes between the middle and lower classes, men and women, and Latino/as, whites, and blacks highlight continuing inequalities and constraints within American society. With a focus on a diverse group of Latino entrepreneurs, this book explores how class, gender, race, and ethnicity all shape Latino entrepreneurs' capacity to succeed in business in the United States. Bringing intersectionality into conversation with theories of ethnic entrepreneurship, Zulema Valdez considers how various factors create, maintain, and transform the social and economic lives of Latino entrepreneurs.

Latino small businesses provide social, economic, and cultural comfort within their communities. Social work practitioners hoping to address such needs, not only among Latinos but in all communities of color, have a vested interest in seeing these businesses grow. Latino small businesses are excellent facilitators of community capacity, a major component of effective social work practice. Reviewing the latest research on formal and informal economies within urban communities of color, this book lays the demographic foundations for a richer collaboration between theory and practice.

Hispanics account for more than half the population growth in the United States over the last decade. With this surge has come a dramatic spike in the number of Hispanic-owned businesses. Hispanic Entrepreneurs in the 2000's is a pioneering study of this nascent demographic. Drawing on rich quantitative data, authors Alberto Dávila and Marie T. Mora examine key economic issues facing Hispanic entrepreneurs, such as access to financial capital and the adoption and vitality of digital technology. They analyze the varying effects that these factors have on subsets of the Hispanic community, such as Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Salvadorans, while considering gender and immigrant status. This account highlights key policies to drive the success of Hispanic entrepreneurs, while drawing out strategies that entrepreneurs can use in order to cultivate their businesses. Far-reaching and nuanced, Hispanic Entrepreneurs in the 2000's is an important study of a population that is quickly becoming a vital component of American job creation.

The hidden history of the Nayarit, a neighborhood restaurant that nourished its community of Mexican immigrants with a sense of belonging as they made their own places in Los Angeles. In 1951, Doña Natalia Barraza opened the Nayarit, a Mexican restaurant in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Historian Natalia Molina traces the life's work of her grandmother, remembered by all who knew her as Doña Natalia--a generous, reserved, and extraordinarily capable woman. Doña Natalia immigrated alone from Mexico to L.A., adopted two children, and ran a successful business. She also sponsored, housed, and employed dozens of other immigrants, encouraging them to lay claim to a city long characterized by anti-Latinx racism. Together, the employees and customers of the Nayarit maintained ties to their old homes while providing one another safety and support. The Nayarit was much more than a popular eating spot: it was an urban anchor for a robust community, a gathering space where ethnic Mexican workers and customers connected with their patria chica. That meant connecting with distinctive tastes, with one another, and with the city they now called home. Through deep research and vivid storytelling, Molina follows restaurant workers from the kitchen and the front of the house across borders and through the decades.

Chef and television personality Aarón Sánchez recounts his formative years and how he fell in love with the culinary world. From a summer spent in New Orleans with Paul Prudhomme during his adolescent years, to a short-lived stint in culinary school, to ups and downs in New York City's ever-changing restaurant scene, and ultimately to the dizzying world of food television, Sánchez draws strength from hard-won lessons and embraces the challenge and responsibility of being a role model for Latinos.

When primarily immigrant, day-labouring clientele eat a meal at a traditional taco truck, the taco truck becomes a significant social space in which Mexican cultural identity is reaffirmed. But the traditional taco truck is also a politically charged symbolic space that can spark heated debates about Latino culture and the uses of street spaces in cities. This text uses the taco truck as a vehicle to tell a story about the Mexican American experience and identity and deconstructs the myriad meanings taco trucks represent to diverse community groups and how such meanings influence urban politics and the built environment.

A colorful celebration of Mexican cuisine from LA's landmark Oaxacan restaurant—with recipes for moles, salsa, cocktails, family meals and more.Oaxaca is the culinary heart of Mexico, and since opening its doors in 1994, Guelaguetza has been the center of life for the Oaxacan community in Los Angeles. Founded by the Lopez family, Guelaguetza has been offering traditional Oaxacan food for twenty-five years. In this delightful introduction to Oaxacan cuisine, each dish articulates the Lopez family story, from Oaxaca to the streets of Los Angeles and beyond. Showcasing the “soul food” of Mexico, Oaxaca offers 140 authentic, yet accessible recipes using some of the purest pre-Hispanic and indigenous ingredients available. From their signature pink horchata to the formula for the Lopez's award-winning mole negro, Oaxaca demystifies this essential cuisine.

The definitive word on tacos from native Angeleno Wes Avila of Guerrilla Tacos, who draws on his Mexican heritage as well as his time in the kitchens of some of the world's best restaurants to create taco perfection. In a town overrun with taco trucks, Wes Avila's Guerrilla Tacos has managed to win almost every accolade there is, from being crowned Best Taco Truck by LA Weekly to being called one of the best things to eat in Los Angeles by living legend Jonathan Gold. Avila's approach stands out in a crowded field because it's unique; the 50 base recipes in this book are grounded in authenticity but never tied down to tradition. Wes uses ingredients like kurobata sausage and sea urchin, but his bestselling taco is made from the humble sweet potato. From basic building blocks to how to balance flavor and texture, with comic-inspired illustrations and stories throughout, this book is the final word on tacos from the streets of L.A.

Real Latin American food is unpredictable, flavorful, and a celebration of fresh tropical fruits, vegetables, and meats. Cartin presents a broad menu that will take you on a tasting tour of 10 countries. All of the ingredients can be sourced at your local grocery store, so why not follow you taste buds south?

This book provides an overview of contemporary L.A.’s Latino food culture, introducing some of the most important chefs in the Latino food scene, and discussing the history and impact of Latino street food on culinary variety in Los Angeles. Along with food culture, the book also discusses alternative sources of healthy food for low-income communities: farmers markets, community and school gardens, urban farms, and new neighborhood markets that work to address the inequalities in access and affordability for Latino residents. By making the connection between Latino food culture and the Latino communities’ food related health issues, this study approaches the issue from a unique perspective.

Latino cuisine has always been a part of American food ways, but the recent growth of a diverse Latino population in the form of documented and undocumented immigrants, refugees, and exiles has given rise to a pan-Latino food phenomenon. Many Mexican American, Cuban American, Puerto Ricans, Dominican American, and Central and South American communities in the United States are considered transnational because they actively participate in the economy, politics, and culture of both the United States and their countries of origin. The pan-Latino food culture that is emerging in the United States is also a transnational phenomenon that constantly nurtures and is nurtured by national and regional cuisines. This book discusses the ongoing development of Latino food culture, giving special attention to how Latinos are adapting and transforming Latin American and international elements to create one of the most vibrant cuisines today.

Through the ages and across cultures, women have carved out a domain in which their cooking allowed them to express themselves, strengthen family relationships, and create a world of shared meanings with other women. In Voices in the Kitchen, Meredith E. Abarca features the voices of her mother and several other family members and friends, seated at their kitchen tables, to share the grassroots world view of these working-class Mexican and Mexican American women. In the kitchen, Abarca demonstrates, women assert their own sazón (seasoning), not only in their cooking but also in their lives. Through a series of oral histories, or charlas culinarias (culinary chats), the women interviewed address issues of space, sensual knowledge, artistic and narrative expression, and cultural and social change. From her mother’s breakfast chilaquiles to the most elaborate traditional dinner, these women share their lives as they share their savory, symbolic, and theoretical meanings of food. The charlas culinarias represent spoken personal narratives, testimonial autobiography, and a form of culinary memoir, one created by the cooks-as-writers who speak from their kitchen space. Abarca then looks at writers-as-cooks to add an additional dimension to the understanding of women’s power to define themselves. Voices in the Kitchen joins the extensive culinary research of the last decade in exploring the importance of the knowledge found in the practical, concrete, and temporal aspects of the ordinary practice of everyday cooking.

My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo! features 100 recipes ranging from breakfast and appetizers to tacos, tamales, and taquitos. The main dishes include mole negro, carnitas, chiles rellenos, and enchiladas. Jenny also covers kitchen basics for making tortillas and salsas from scratch--recipes that are sure to become staples in the home of anyone who enjoys the book. And let's not forget her tasty desserts like churros, paletas, and Mexican bread pudding, and a few cocktails too. Sure to delight her avid fans and Mexican food lovers everywhere, this cookbook is a must-have for home cooks looking for their next delicious meal.

A beautifully photographed cookbook that celebrates the vibrant culture and community of El Salvador through 80 recipes and stories from 25 Salvadoran women.

Gorgeously illustrated with Jacobs's photographs (many shot on the authors' travels through Cuba) "Eating Cuban" highlights Cuban food's historical roots, the classic Creole dishes that evolved from these disparate cultural influences, trends in Cuban cooking, street foods and on-the-go snacks, and quintessential Cuban beverages from café Cubano to the mojito.

Thanks in part to The South American Table, by Maria Baez Kijac, South American food promises to become much more a part of the culinary landscape for North Americans. Kijac reminds readers just how many commonplace food products originated in South America: chocolate, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, hot peppers, and pineapple, to mention only some. Political developments influenced the evolution of South American cuisine after Columbus opened the continent to Europeans and the importation of Africans brought unusual reciprocity: South America gave Africa the cassava and sweet potatoes, and slaves introduced African tastes into the cooking of Brazil. One dish appearing in several South American cuisines, tamales differ from one part of the continent to another according to the sort of dough used to hold the filling. The familiar corn masa wrapped in cornhusks appears in Mexican cooking and in some parts of northern South America. But other versions call for potatoes, rice, or yucca, each worth sampling. Meat is critical to Argentine and Brazilian fare, and Kijac supplies marinades and instructions to reproduce these in northern climes. A glossary and a dictionary of ingredient names reflecting Spanish, Portuguese, and native terminologies helps clarify words.

Considering the long-lasting and complicated history of U.S. race and ethnic relations, the multiple array of issues currently confronting both ethnic and racial communities, and the shifting trends in the ethnic/racial landscape, this book seeks to provide a comprehensive account of the simultaneous interaction of pressing historical and contemporary forces shaping the Latino experience as well as police-minority relations to better understand the current state of policing and gain further insight into the future role of Latino police in American law enforcement across the country. Major topics include the need for Latino police officers; employment of Latino officers by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies; Chicano police officers working in the Latino community; Latino officers, policy, practice, and ethnic realities; Mexican American law enforcement; bridging the gaps, future research, and change in American institutions; policy recommendations toward a new police force; and the future of Latino officers in the American police.

As a fast-growing, major segment of the U.S. population, the next generation of Latinos and Latinas could be key to future American advances in science and technology. With the appropriate encouragement for Latinos/as to enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, they can become the creative innovators who will produce technological advances we all need and can enjoy—from faster tech devices to more energy efficient transportation to cures for diseases and medical conditions. This book presents a compelling case that the nation's Hispanic population must be better represented in STEM careers and that the future of America's technological advances may well depend on the Latino/a population. It focuses on the importance of STEM education for Latinos/as and provides a comprehensive array of the most current information students and families need to make informed decisions about entering and succeeding in a STEM career. Students, families, and educators will fully understand why STEM is so important for Latinos/as, how to plan for a career in STEM, how to pay for and succeed in college, and how to choose a career in STEM. The book also includes compelling testimonials of Latino/a students who have completed a STEM major that offer proof that Latinos/as can overcome life challenges to succeed in STEM fields.

Why are there so few Latina engineers and what is the potential for change given demographic shifts of the Latino population? This interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach offers a new paradigm for examining the crisis of Latinas in engineering (a field that remains 82% male), illuminating the nuanced and multiple exclusionary forces that shape the culture of engineering and its borderlands.

LatinX Voices is the first undergraduate textbook that includes an overview of Hispanic/LatinX Media in the U.S. and gives readers an understanding of how media in the United States has transformed around this audience. Based on the authors'professional and research experience, and teaching broadcast media courses in the classroom, this text covers the evolving industry and offers perspective on topics related to Latin-American areas of interest. With professional testimonials from those who have left their mark in print, radio, television, film and new media, this collection of chapters brings together expert voices in Hispanic/LatinX media from across the U.S., and explains the impact of this population on the media industry today.

This chapter examines battles over Spanish-language broadcasting via the NHMC’s long engagement with the ownership structure of Spanish-language television network Univision. Over the course of thirty years the NHMC worked to compel Univision to be responsive to the interests of its Latino audience. In this, the NHMC’s advocacy work would adapt to a changing regulatory environment, one that increasingly embraced a neo-liberal understanding of markets and diversity, except in the realm—as the work of social conservatives had assured—of broadcasting’s relationship to children. The NHMC’s tactics capably responded to its own history of success and failure in its media advocacy, as well as to its increased sophistication in how to navigate the contemporary regulatory landscape to assure that broadcasters met the interests of the Latino community.

In the media, migrants are often portrayed as criminals; they are frequently dehumanized, marginalized, and unable to share their experiences. Telling Migrant Stories explores how contemporary documentary film gives voice to Latin American immigrants whose stories would not otherwise be heard. The essays in the first part of the volume consider the documentary as a medium for Latin American immigrants to share their thoughts and experiences on migration, border crossings, displacement, and identity. Contributors analyze films including Harvest of Empire, Sin país, The Vigil, De nadie, Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Abuelos, La Churona, and Which Way Home, as well as internet documentaries distributed via platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube. They examine the ways these films highlight the individual agency of immigrants as well as the global systemic conditions that lead to mass migrations from Latin American countries to the United States and Europe. The second part of the volume features transcribed interviews with documentary filmmakers, including Luis Argueta, Jenny Alexander, Tin Dirdamal, Heidi Hassan, and María Cristina Carrillo Espinosa. They discuss the issues surrounding migration, challenges they faced in the filmmaking process, the impact their films have had, and their opinions on documentary film as a force of social change. They emphasize that because the genre is grounded in fact rather than fiction, it has the ability to profoundly impact audiences in a way narrative films cannot. Documentaries prompt viewers to recognize the many worlds migrants depart from, to become immersed in the struggles portrayed, and to consider the stories of immigrants with compassion and solidarity.

Seeing in Spanish brings together 22 chapters which share a focus on aspects of visual cultures from the Spanish speaking world. Together these chapters address film, photography, cover art, body art, posters, television, architecture, ekphrasis, biography, murals, graffiti, and digital photo-montage. Between Don Quixote and Daddy Yankee, the essays move from the seventeenth century to the present and traverse Europe, the Americas, and cyberspace.

Robert Rodriguez stands alone as the most successful U.S. Latino filmmaker today, whose work has single-handedly brought U.S. Latino filmmaking into the mainstream of twenty-first-century global cinema. Rodriguez is a prolific (eighteen films in twenty-one years) and all-encompassing filmmaker who has scripted, directed, shot, edited, and scored nearly all his films since his first breakout success, El Mariachi, in 1992. With new films constantly coming out and the launch of his El Rey Network television channel, he receives unceasing coverage in the entertainment media, but systematic scholarly study of Rodriguez’s films is only just beginning. This entertaining and much-needed scholarly overview of Rodriguez’s work shines new light on several key topics, including the filmmaker’s creative, low-cost, efficient approach to filmmaking; the acceptance of Latino films and filmmakers in mainstream cinema; and the consumption and reception of film in the twenty-first century.

This is the first academic book dedicated to the filmmaking of the three best known Mexican born directors, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón. Deborah Shaw examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films with a focus on both the texts and the production contexts in which they were made.

Whether at UFW picket lines in California's Central Valley or capturing summertime street life in East Harlem Latinx photographers have documented fights for dignity and justice as well as the daily lives of ordinary people. Their powerful, innovative photographic art touches on family, identity, protest, borders, and other themes, including the experiences of immigration and marginalization common to many of their communities. Yet the work of these artists has largely been excluded from the documented history of photography in the United States. Through individual profiles of more than eighty photographers from the early history of the photographic medium to the present, Elizabeth Ferrer introduces readers to Latinx portraitists, photojournalists, and documentarians and their legacies. She traces the rise of a Latinx consciousness in photography in the 1960s and '70s and the growth of identity-based approaches in the 1980s and '90s. Ferrer argues that in many cases a shared sense of struggle has motivated photographers to work purposefully, driven by a deep sense of resistance, social and political commitments, and cultural affirmation, and she highlights the significance of family photos to their approaches and outlooks.

This beautifully animated documentary serves as a tribute to the life and revered work of influential film title designer Pablo Ferro.

In mid-twentieth century America, where the used car was relatively cheap, readily available and often economically necessary, it was both the gateway to the mainstream and a marker of distinction for many excluded from privilege. This vehicular opportunity extended not only to the white working-class youth, but also to minorities. We find a parallel, but distinct, car culture in Latino communities in the suburbanized and small town worlds of California and the Southwest built around the lowrider and several generations of Latino youth and their elders. From the late 1940s, youth of Mexican heritage began cruising down the main streets of southern Californian towns. In the 1960s and 70s, the lowrider tradition grew in East Los Angeles and the East Bay area of northern California as well as in parts of New Mexico and Texas. These customized full-size cars, with their low profiles and slow cruising speed stood in sharp contrast to the high and fast hot rods of the “greasers.” These stylized vehicles inevitably were the target of white officials in the 1980s even as they symbolized Latino expressiveness and rebellion.

Lowriders are cars customized within a particular tradition of popular aesthetics identified with Mexican Americans. The characteristic modifications of a lowrider include replacing the suspension with shortened springs and hydraulic cylinders powered by additional batteries in order to raise and lower the car at the driverʹs will. Hydraulics, along with particular custom wheels, are the most basic markers of lowrider style, but lowrider cars are also typically decorated with elaborate custom paint jobs and accessorized interiors. Such adornments constitute a distinctive lowrider aesthetic, the boundaries of which are subjects of debate among participants in lowriding.

This book explores how lowrider car culture allows Mexican Americans to alter the urban landscape and make a place for themselves in an often segregated society.