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Culture Across Borders: Mexican Immigration and Popular Culture

(review)

Paul Burkhardt

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Volume 2, 1998, pp. 305-306

(Article)

Published by University of Arizona

DOI: 10.1353/hcs.2011.0025

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Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 305

Culture Across Borders: Mexican Immigration andPopufar CultureUniversity of Arizona Press, 1998

Edited by David R. Maciel and Maria Herrera-SobekThe 1995 Immigration Enforcement Act, the recent doubling of

the Border Patrol force, numerous English-Only initiatives, andCalifornia's Proposition 187 all clearly attest that immigrationparticu-larly immigration from Mexicois once again a politically expedientissue in the United States. But as David R. Maciel and Maria Herrera-

Sobek note in their introductory review of the growing field of immigra-

tion studies, despite the continued impt tance of Mexican immigrationto both nations, surprisingly little has been written about the cultural orartistic representations that these immigration processes have inspired.This volume brings together scholars from the fields of art history andcriticism, cultural studies, film analysis, folklore, cultural history, literarycriticism, and political science for an interdisciplinary exploration of thecultural aspects of Mexican immigration on both sides of the border.

In the first article in the collection, '"What Goes Around Comes

Around': Political Practice and Cultural Response in the International-ization of Mexican Labor, 1890-1997," Juan Gmez-Quiones and DavidR. Maciel provide an excellent historical framework through which boththe migratory movements of Mexican immigrants and related politicaland cultural practices can be better understood. Gmez-Quiones andMaciel assert that the developing international capitalist system is the

propelling force that drives immigration, and that it is necessary to un-derstand the connections between changing economic forces and the cul-

tutal and political ideologies that arise in response to Mexican immigra-tion. The authors summarize the historical development of these eco-nomic transformations and the resulting waves of Mexican immigrationand then connect these changes to particular political, legal, and culturalresponses such as the perennial scapegoating of Mexican immigrants forU.S. economic decline despite hard empirical data to the contrary. Gmez-Quiones and Maciel's article provides a critical historical context forthe other articles in the collection.

Although the subject matter investigated in the articles that followincludes a diverse range of popular cultural productions, the authors sharea general conceptual approach to the study of culture. Drawing on ele-ments from the writings of Herbett Marcuse, Zygnunt Bauman andClifford Geertz, Maciel and Herrera-Sobek explain that any genuine cul-ture arises from the marginal or ascending classes and consists of a set of

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306 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

ideals that guides and actualizes behavior towards a liberating transfor-mation of society. In the essays, the various cultural texts and genres studied

tend to be assigned to one of three cultural groups: North American(Anglo), Mexican, or Chicano. The patterns in the forms, functions, ormeanings of the texts are then interpreted and compared within theirhistorical and cultural contexts using a variety of methodological andtheoretical approaches.

Alberto Ledesma's article compares Mexican and Chicano literarynarratives involving immigration and explores the problematic relation-ship between Chicano literature and its representations of undocumented

immigration. Next, Victor Sorrell employs the concept of cultural mestizajein a semiotic reading of more than eighty Chicana/o and Latina/o popu-lar artists stressing the myriad ways in which the experience of immigra-tion shapes these artists' work and in which this art works to reshape themeanings of immigration. David R. Macial and Maria Rosa Garcia-Acevedo discuss the treatment of Mexican immigration in film and de-scribe the distinct ideological representations of Mexican immigration inMexican cinema, the Hollywood style, and Chicano cinema. Maria

Herrera-Sobek then examines the important aesthetic, emotional, andideological functions of corridosand canciones'in Mexican immigrant films.Finally, Jos Reyna and Maria Herrera-Sobek analyze the thematic, ideo-logical and linguistic patterns in jokes and jests about immigration col-lected from Chicana/os.

Well-written, insightful and engaging, these investigations of thecultural representations of the Mexican immigrant experience will prove

both useful and enjoyable reading for all students of "border" culture.

But unfortunately, much of the textual analysis fails to fully articulate theconnections between the cultural representations and their specific so-cioeconomic and historical-political contexts. For example, a collectionof essays exploring popular cultural productions seems incomplete with-out critical attention to the differing economic constraints and opportu-nities for self-representation within the particular cultural industries in-volved in production. Furthermore, although the combination of a nor-mative definition of culture with rather general cultural groupingsNorth

American (Anglo), Mexican and Chicanois certainly justifiable giventhe real needs for equal human rights and social justice, the focus andapproach does set certain limits to the descriptive resolution of the project.

Paul Burkhardt

Intercultural Research Institute

The University of Arizona