Chicano Cinema

Hidden Chicano Cinema examines how New Mexico, situated within the boundaries of the United States, became a stand-in for the exotic non-western world that tourists, artists, scientists, and others sought to possess at the dawn of early filmmaking, a disposition stretching from the silent era to today as filmmakers screen their fantasies of what they wished the Southwest Borderlands to be. The book highlights “film moments” in this region’s history including the “filmic turn” ushered in by Chicano/a filmmakers who created new ways to represent their community and region. A. Gabriel Meléndez narrates the drama, intrigue, and politics of these moments and accounts for the specific cinematic practices and the sociocultural detail that explains how the camera itself brought filmmakers and their subjects to unexpected encounters on and off the screen. Such films as Adventures in Kit Carson Land, The Rattlesnake, and Red Sky at Morning, among others, provide examples of movies that have both educated and misinformed us about a place that remains a “distant locale” in the mind of most film audiences.

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project is a national project to locate, identify, preserve and make accessible the literary contributions of U.S. Hispanics from colonial times through 1960 in what today comprises the fifty states of the United States.

In The End of Cinema As We Know It, contributors well known in the 'movie' field talk about the movie industry and look at the variety of new ways we are viewing films. They query whether or not we are getting different, better movies?

Mapping the historical and cultural contexts of film practices in Latin America, this two-volume collection of programmatic statements, esays and interviews is devoted to the study of a theorized, dynamic and unfinished cinematic movement. Forged by Latin America's post-colonial environment of underdevelopment and dependency, the New Latin American Cinema movement has sought to inscribe itself in Latin America's struggles for cultural and economic autonomy. This volume comprises essays on the development of the New Latin American Cinema as a comparative national project. Essays are grouped by nation into two regions - Middle and Central America and Caribbean and South America - for comparitive study, particularly between capitalist and post-revolutionary socialist formations. The selected essays examine the relationship between cinema and nationhood and the ambiguous categories of culture, identity and nation within the socio-historical specificities of the movement's development, especially in Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina. This collection will serve as an essential reference and research tool for the study of world cinema. The collection, while celebrating the diversity and innovation of the New Latin American Cinema, explicates the historical importance of filmmaking as a cultural form and political practice in Latin America.

In Migration in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema, Thomas Deveny takes the unique approach of looking at film and immigration with a global perspective, examining emigration and immigration films from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Central America, and the Hispanic Caribbean. Deveny approaches each movie with a close textual analysis, keeping in mind the sociological theories regarding migration, as well as incorporating criticism on the film. Films such as Flowers from Another World, Return to Hansala, El Camino, 14 Kilometers, María Full of Grace, and others are studied throughout.

This text covers over 2,000 years, tracing the roots of the contemporary Mexican-American. It utilizes the fields of history, political science, cultural anthropology, folklore, literature, sociolinguistics, Latin American studies and ethnic studies. Thus, it is unique for its multidisciplinary approach which probes into the past of the underclass--the exploited Native-American, Campesino and Mexican-American. It presents, therefore, an insider's view of the history, culture and politics of the Mestizo/Mestiza as an underclass. Most important, it presents a new perspective that invalidates the current Spanish/European and Western interpretation of Native-American reality.

The author's main reason for writing this book, however, is simply to provide an introduction to the Mexican commercial cinema for American and other English-speaking readers. Although the United States has been, and continues to be, a major foreign market for Mexican movies, the overwhelming majority of Americans are unaware of them. Mexican films are restricted to the Hispanic theater circuits and shown without English subtitles; therefore anyone wishing to see a Mexican movie would have to be fairly fluent in Spanish. Such a requisite effectively eliminates almost the entire general audience in the United States from exposure to Mexican cinema.

This anthology provides an overview of the history and theory of Chicano/a art from the 1960s to the present, emphasizing the debates and vocabularies that have played key roles in its conceptualization. In Chicano and Chicana Art—which includes many of Chicano/a art's landmark and foundational texts and manifestos—artists, curators, and cultural critics trace the development of Chicano/a art from its early role in the Chicano civil rights movement to its mainstream acceptance in American art institutions. Throughout this teaching-oriented volume they address a number of themes, including the politics of border life, public art practices such as posters and murals, and feminist and queer artists' figurations of Chicano/a bodies. They also chart the multiple cultural and artistic influences—from American graffiti and Mexican pre-Columbian spirituality to pop art and modernism—that have informed Chicano/a art's practice. Contributors. Carlos Almaraz, David Avalos, Judith F. Baca, Raye Bemis, Jo-Anne Berelowitz, Elizabeth Blair, Chaz Bojóroquez, Philip Brookman, Mel Casas, C. Ondine Chavoya, Karen Mary Davalos, Rupert García, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Shifra Goldman, Jennifer A. González, Rita Gonzalez, Robb Hernández, Juan Felipe Herrera, Louis Hock, Nancy L. Kelker, Philip Kennicott, Josh Kun, Asta Kuusinen, Gilberto “Magu” Luján, Amelia Malagamba-Ansotegui, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Dylan Miner, Malaquias Montoya, Judithe Hernández de Neikrug, Chon Noriega, Joseph Palis, Laura Elisa Pérez, Peter Plagens, Catherine Ramírez, Matthew Reilly, James Rojas, Terezita Romo, Ralph Rugoff, Lezlie Salkowitz-Montoya, Marcos Sanchez-Tranquilino, Cylena Simonds, Elizabeth Sisco, John Tagg, Roberto Tejada, Rubén Trejo, Gabriela Valdivia, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Victor Zamudio-Taylor