In the early 1990s, a major exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985 toured major museums around the United States. As a first attempt to define and represent Chicano/a art for a national audience, the exhibit attracted both praise and controversy, while raising fundamental questions about the nature of multiculturalism in the U.S. This book presents the first interdisciplinary cultural study of the CARA exhibit. Alicia Gaspar de Alba looks at the exhibit as a cultural text in which the Chicano/a community affirmed itself not as a "subculture" within the U.S. but as an "alter-Native" culture in opposition to the exclusionary and homogenizing practices of mainstream institutions. She also shows how the exhibit reflected the cultural and sexual politics of the Chicano Movement and how it serves as a model of Chicano/a popular culture more generally. Drawing insights from cultural studies, feminist theory, anthropology, and semiotics, this book constitutes a wide-ranging analysis of Chicano/a art, popular culture, and mainstream cultural politics. It will appeal to a diverse audience in all of these fields.

Feminism, Nation and Myth explores the scholarship of La Malinche, the indigenous woman who is said to have led Cortés and his troops to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. The figure of La Malinche has generated intense debate among literature and cultural studies scholars. Drawing from the humanities and the social sciences, feminist studies, queer studies, Chicana/o studies, and Latina/o studies, critics and theorists in this volume analyze the interaction and interdependence of race, class, and gender. Studies of La Malinche demand that scholars disassemble and reconstruct concepts of nation, community, agency, subjectivity, and social activism. This volume originated in the 1999 "U.S. Latina/Latino Perspectives on la Malinche" conference that brought together scholars from across the nation. Filmmaker Dan Banda interviewed many of the presenters for his documentary, Indigenous Always: The Legend of La Malinche and the Conquest of Mexico. Contributors include Alfred Arteaga, Antonia Castañeda, Debra Castillo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Deena González, María Herrera Sobek, Guisela Latorre, Luis Leal, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Amanda Nolacea Harris, Rolando J. Romero, and Tere Romo. These academic essays are complemented by the creative work of Alicia Gaspar de Alba and José Emilio Pacheco, both of whom evoke the figure of La Malinche in their work.

"Finding Home in Schools is primarily written to those readers who are BITOC as they negotiate and navigate the teaching profession, from pathway programs, to teacher education, and into the teaching profession. Along with academic concepts that assist those readers in making sense of their own experiences, it provides loving advice to those BITOC readers in the hopes that this will sustain them into and through the teaching profession"--

This is the first book solely dedicated to the history, development, and present-day flowering of Chicana and Chicano visual arts. It offers readers an opportunity to understand and appreciate Chicana/o art from its beginnings in the 1960s, its relationship to the Chicana/o Movement and its leading artists, themes, current directions, and cultural impacts. Although the word “Chicano” once held negative connotations, students—along with civil rights activists and artists—adopted it in the late 1960s in order to reimagine and redefine what it meant to be Mexican American in the United States. Chicanismo is the ideology and spirit behind the Chicano Movement and Chicanismo unites the artists whose work is revealed and celebrated in this book. Jackson’s scope is wide. He includes paintings, prints, murals, altars, sculptures, and photographs—and, of course, the artists who created them. Beginning with key influences, he describes the importance of poster and mural art, focusing on the work of the Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada and the significance of Mexican and Cuban talleres (print workshops). He examines the importance of art collectives in the United States, as well as Chicano talleres and community art centers, for the growth of the Chicano art movement. In conclusion, he considers how Chicano art has been presented to the general American public. As Jackson shows, the visual arts have both reflected and created Chicano culture in the United States. For college students—and for all readers who want to learn more about this fascinating subject—his book is an ideal introduction to an art movement with a social conscience.