Chapter 14: Culture and Society
An essential starting point for understanding the complexity and diversity of Latin American culture is the five-volume compendium Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (New York: Charles Schribners’s Sons, 1996), edited by Barbara A. Tenenbaum. Other valuable research references are Leslie Bethell, ed., A Cultural History of Latin America: Literature, Music and the Visual Arts in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998); John King, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Mario J. Valdés and Djelal Kadir, eds., Literary Cultures of Latin America: A Comparative History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Sara Castro-Klarén ed., A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture (Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2008).
Two outstanding collections of articles on culture and society are Ana Del Sarto, Alicia Ríos, and Abril Trigo, eds., The Latin American Culture Studies Reader (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004) and Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. Legrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, eds., Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998).
The creation of national identities through literature is traced in Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Jean Franco presents the political context of post–War War II literature in The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002). The interaction between art and popular culture is considered in Lídia Santos, Tropical Kitsch: Mass Media in Latin American Art and Literature (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2006).
An excellent starting point for understanding the Chicano experience is Manuel G. Gonzales, Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). Useful also is David Montejano, ed., Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999). The complicated question of Latino identity is skillfully treated in Suzanne Oboler, Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
Innovative analyses of the relationships among race, literature, and culture appear in Monika Kaup and Debra J. Rosenthal, Mixing Race, Mixing Culture: Inter-American Literary Dialogues (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001); Suzanne Bost, Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850–2000 (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2003); Lesley Feracho, Linking the Americas: Race, Hybrid Discourses, and the Reformulation of Feminine Identity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005); and Patricia D. Fox, Being and Blackness in Latin America: Uprootedness and Improvisation (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006).
Introductions to the music and dance of Latin America can be found in Malena Kuss, ed., Latin-American Music: An Encyclopedic History of Music from South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean (New York: Schirmer Books, 1999) and John Mendell Schechter, Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions (New York: Schirmer Books, 1999). Overviews are provided by Ed Morales, The Latin Beat: The Rhythms and Roots of Latin Music from Bossa Nova to Salsa and Beyond (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003) and Sue Steward, Musica!: The Rhythm of Latin America—Salsa, Rumba, Merengue, and More (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999). On Brazil see Hermano Vianna, trans. John Charles Chasteen, The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Ruy Castro, Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World, Lysa Salsbury, trans. (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2000); Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Darien J. Davis White Fae, Black Mask: Africaneity and the Early SocialHistory of Popular Music in Brazil (East Lansing:Michigan State University Press, 2009); and Marc A. Hertzman, Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013). Two important cultural studies of the Vargas era are Daryle Williams, Culture Wars in Brazil, The First Vargas Regime, 1930–1945 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001) and Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
The cultural importance of dance is revealed in John Charles Chasteen, National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004) and Celeste Fraser Delgado and José Esteban Muñoz, Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997). See also Paul Austerlitz, Meringue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997) and Isabelle Leymarie, Cuban Fire: The Saga of Salsa and Latin Jazz (London and New York: Continuum, 2002).
Argentina’s most famous tango singer is empathically portrayed in Simon Collier, The Life, Music, and Times of Carlos Gardel (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986), while the social history of tango is thoughtfully analyzed in Marta Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995).
Soccer and baseball, two imported sports from outside the region, have become passionate pastimes for players and spectators alike. They have also shaped national identities throughout Latin America. On these and other recreational activities, see J. A. Mangan and Lamartine Pereira da Costa, Sport in Latin American Society: Past and Present (London: Frank Cass, 2001) and Joseph Arbena and David G. LaFrance, Sport in Latin America and the Caribbean (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002). An innovative study about soccer and its relationship to politics is Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011).
Several surveys with superb reproductions offer sweeping overviews of art in modern Latin America. See especially Edward J. Sullivan, Latin American Art in the Twentieth Century (London: Phaidon, 2000); Jacqueline Barnitz, Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001); and Edward Lucie-Smith, Latin American Art of the 20th Century, 2nd ed. (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004). Two innovative volumes offer unique interpretations: David Craven, Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910–1990 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002) and Rudi Bleys, Images of Ambiente: Homotextuality and Latin American Art, 1810–Today (London and New York: Continuum, 2000). The modernist architectural movement is analyzed in Valerie Fraser, Building the New World: Studies in the Modern Architecture of Latin America, 1930–1960 (London and New York: Verso, 2000).
Film is an essential vehicle for understanding Latin America. For capable overviews see John Kin, Ana M. López, and Manuel Alvarado, Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas (London: Brazilian Film Institute, 1993); John King, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (London and New York: Verso, 2000); Alberto Elena and Marina Díaz López, The Cinema of Latin America (London and New York: Wallflower, 2003); R. Hernandez-Rodriguez Splendors of Latin Cinema (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010); and Laura Podalsky, The Politics of Affect and Emotion in Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Noteworthy works on Brazil are Randal Johnson and Robert Stam, eds., Brazilian Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Robert Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997); Lúcia Nagib, ed., The New Brazilian Cinema (London: I. B. Taurus, 2003); and Tatiana Signorelli Heise, Remaking Brazil: Contested National Identities in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012). The revolutionary impulse among Latin American filmmakers has been documented by Julianne Burton in Cinema and Social Change in Latin America: Conversations with Filmmakers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986). A useful guide to thinking about films as historical representation is Donald F. Stevens, ed., Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1997).