Washington University Press Search Results Page

The Artist as Eyewitness

Antonio Bernal Papers, 1884-2019

By Charlene Villaseñor Black

This first survey of Antonio Bernal’s life and work, The Artist as Eyewitness features essays that assess his murals, situating them within the historical, political, and cultural frameworks of the Chicano movement. It also includes...

Latinx Photography in the United States

A Visual History

By Elizabeth Ferrer

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....

Bracero Railroaders

The Forgotten World War II Story of Mexican Workers in the U.S. West

By Erasmo Gamboa

Desperate for laborers to keep the trains moving during World War II, the U.S. and Mexican governments created a now mostly forgotten bracero railroad program that sent a hundred thousand Mexican workers across the border...

Transnational Testimonios

The Politics of Collective Knowledge Production

By Patricia DeRocher

The activist storytelling practice of testimonio, long associated with Latin American struggles for justice, forges coalitions across social differences for the purpose of social change. Beyond Central and South America, Patricia DeRocher examines testimonios from...

American Sabor

Latinos and Latinas in US Popular Music / Latinos y latinas en la musica popular estadounidense

By Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán. Translated by Angie Berríos Miranda

Evoking the pleasures of music as well as food, the word sabor signifies a rich essence that makes our mouths water or makes our bodies want to move. American Sabor traces the substantial musical contributions...

Autobiography without Apology

The Personal Essay in Chicanx and Latinx Studies

By Chon A. Noriega, Wendy Laura Belcher, Charlene Villaseñor Black

This collection of essays, drawn from Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, focuses on the personal experiences of Chicanx and Latinx scholars, writers, and artists. Each essay is a reflection on the process of self-naming—the...

Living Together, Living Apart

Mixed Status Families and US Immigration Policy

By April Schueths, Jodie Lawston, Mary Romero

Immigration reform remains one of the most contentious issues in the United States today. For mixed status families—families that include both citizens and noncitizens—this is more than a political issue: it’s a deeply personal one....

The Chicano Studies Reader

An Anthology of Aztlán, 1970–2019

By Chon A. Noriega, Eric Avila, Karen Mary Davalos, Chela Sandoval, Rafael Pérez-Torres, Charlene Villaseñor Black

The Chicano Studies Reader, the best-selling anthology of articles from Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, has been newly expanded with a group of essays that focus on Chicana/o and Latina/o youth. This section, Generations...

Writing Off the Hyphen

New Critical Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora

By Jose L. Torres-Padilla, Carmen Haydee Rivera

The sixteen essays in Writing Off the Hyphen approach the literature of the Puerto Rican diaspora from current theoretical positions, with provocative and insightful results. The authors analyze how the diasporic experience of Puerto Ricans...

La Raza

By Colin Gunckel, Luis C. Garza, Amy Scott

La Raza, launched in 1967 in the basement of an Eastside LA church, was conceived as a tool for community-based organizing during the early days of the Chicano movement. The all-volunteer staff of the newspaper—and...

Feminista Frequencies

Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley

By Monica De La Torre

Beginning in the 1970s Chicana and Chicano organizers turned to community radio broadcasting to educate, entertain, and uplift Mexican American listeners across the United States. In rural areas, radio emerged as the most effective medium...

Making Livable Worlds

Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice

By Hilda Lloréns

When Hurricanes Irma and María made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017, their destructive force further devastated an archipelago already pommeled by economic austerity, political upheaval, and environmental calamities. To navigate these ongoing multiple...

The $16 Taco

Contested Geographies of Food, Ethnicity, and Gentrification

By Pascale Joassart-Marcelli

Having “discovered” the flavors of barbacoa, bibimbap, bánh mi, sambusas, and pupusas, white middle-class eaters are increasingly venturing into historically segregated neighborhoods in search of “authentic” eateries run by—and for—immigrants and people of color. This...

Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador

By Ann Pollard Rowe

In most parts of highland Ecuador, people still identify themselves as indigenous and as belonging to a particular ethnic subgroup by the clothes and ornaments they wear. Although formerly the most distinctive costumes tended to...

The Floating Borderlands

Twenty-Five Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature

By Lauro Flores

This book celebrates the emergence of a potent force on the American literary scene: the coming of age of contemporary Hispanic writers. The Americas Review—the pioneering journal of Hispanic literary arts, which has nurtured the...

Barrio Harmonics

Essays on Chicano / Latino Music

By Steven Loza

This collection explores Chicano, Mexican, and Cuban musical forms and styles and their transformation in the United States. Employing musical, historical, and sociocultural analyses, Loza addresses issues such as marginality, identity, intercultural conflict and aesthetics,...

The Aztlan Mexican Studies Reader, 1974-2016

By Hector Calderon

This set of essays explores the ongoing cultural and political connections between Chicana/o and Mexican history. Edited and introduced by Héctor Calderón, The Aztlán Mexican Studies Reader, 1974–2016 presents thirteen previously published essays together with...

The Chicana/o Education Pipeline

History, Institutional Critique, and Resistance

By Michaela J. L. Mares-Tamayo, Daniel G. Solorzano

This anthology explores the relationships between Chicana/o students, families, and communities and the various school settings that comprise the education pipeline, from Kindergarten classrooms through postsecondary programs and postgraduate experiences. The essays, which appeared in...

Home — So Different, So Appealing

By Chon A. Noriega, Mari Carmen Ramirez, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas

Home — signaling a dwelling, residence or place of origin — embodies one of the most basic concepts for understanding an individual or group within a larger physical and social environment. Yet home has been...

Laura Aguilar

Show and Tell

By Rebecca Epstein, Sybil Venegas

Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell surveys the career of Laura Aguilar, a Chicana photographer who is most widely known for black-and-white nude self-portraits that are frank and self-assertive, yet deeply sensitive and poetic. In photographs...