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"A new ethnic identity is being constructed in the United States: the Hispanic nation. Overcoming age-old racial, regional, and political differences, Americans of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Spanish-language origins are beginning to imagine themselves as a single ethnic community - which by the turn of the century may become the United States' largest and most influential minority." "Only in recent years have great numbers of Hispanics begun to consider themselves as related within a single culture. Hispanics are redefining their own images and agendas, shaping a population, and paving wider pathways to power. In the process, they are changing both themselves and the culture, government, and urban habits of the communities around them. In this ground-breaking book, Geoffrey Fox shows how and why Hispanics are changing the United States." "Based on interviews, observations, and extensive research, Hispanic Nation examines why such diverse people are imagining themselves as one; the politics of turning a statistical fiction into a social reality; the impact of the Spanish-language media on Hispanics' self-images; ethnic consciousness and political movements (Cesar Chavez and the farm workers movement, the Young Lords and La Raza Unida, Puerto Rican and Mexican encounters in the Midwest); controversies surrounding "high" and popular Hispanic/Latino art, music, and literature; and the institutionalization of the movement everywhere - from local school boards to the U.S. Congress."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Publishers Weekly Review

Among Hispanics in the United States, notes Fox, a new sense of group identity is emerging that allows Americans of Puerto Rican, Mexican, Honduran, Chilean and other Latino origins to feel they belong to a homogeneous, unified community. In the most revealing book on Hispanic culture since Earl Shorris's Latinos, Fox examines how Spanish-language television, radio, newspapers, books and magazines create a common set of images that reinforce certain values such as family loyalty. Focusing on the divergent experiences of Puerto Ricans, Chicanos and Cuban Americans, Fox argues that Hispanics, hewing to an old American tradition, are creating a solidarity group as a way to confront perceived injustice, to get ahead and to negotiate better terms of assimilation. His incisive report surveys the web of political, community and voluntary associations through which Hispanics are gaining clout, and also scans memoirs, novels, paintings and music that are helping to forge a sense of shared identity. Fox, a journalist on Hispanic issues, has been a community organizer and has written two children's books. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Fox has done field work in Latin America, worked as a community organizer, teacher, and researcher in Puerto Rico, Chicago, and New York City, and written studies of Venezuela and Argentina for young readers and a short-story collection (Welcome to My Contri, 1992 reprint) about relations between Anglo and Hispanic Americans (the latter include his partner and sons). Hispanic Nation explores many factors, from media and culture to local and national politics, drawing Americans with roots in Central or South America or the Caribbean to recognize themselves as "Hispanics" and involve themselves in shaping the meaning, agenda, and place of Hispanics at the political table of those who share this identity. Despite the ethnic, racial, religious, and political differences that divide them, the statistical fiction that lumps "persons of Spanish-Hispanic origin or descent" into a single category is the basis for a key identity shift: a shift with important consequences for all Americans because, in merging their separate national backgrounds into a new identity, Hispanic Americans are inevitably challenging rigid black-and-white definitions of what it means to be an American. --Mary Carroll