Aztlán 23, no. 2 fall
1998
Letters to the Editor
Editor's Commentary
The Aztlán Film Institute's
Top 100 List
Essays
Chicana/o Studies and Anthropology:
The Dialogue That Never Was
KarenMary Davalos
Toward a Critique of Sentimentalisms in Cultural Studies
Scott Michaelsen
Struggle over Memory: The Roots of the Mexican Americans in Utah, 1776
through the 1850s
Armando Solórzano
The Influence of Pre-College Factors on the University Experiences of
Mexican American Women
Lisa Garza
Awash under a Brown Tide: Immigration Metaphors in California Public and
Print Media Discourse
Otto Santa Ana, with Juan Morán and Cynthia Sánchez
Dossier: Los Angeles
Turning Sunshine into Noir
and Fantasy into Reality: Los Angeles in the Classroom
Alvina E. Quintana
Choosing Chicano in the 1990s: The Underground Music Scene of Los(t) Angeles
Yvette C. Doss
Bodies and Subjects in the Technologized
Self-Portrait: The Work of Laura Aguilar
Amelia Jones
Artist's Communiqué
Bishop's Pawn, 1693
Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Reviews
House of Houses. By Pat Mora.
Hector A. Torres
When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away. By Ramón A. Gutiérrez.
Patricia Zavella
Contributors
Editor's Introduction
Los Angeles. In this issue,
our dossier section explores the archetypal postmodern metropolis from
some unusual, yet ameliorating perspectives. Yvette C. Doss, editor of
Frontera Magazine (visit their website at www.fronteramag.com), surveys
the Chicano alternative music scene. Art historian Amelia Jones examines
the ways in which Laura Aguilar's photography and video art "perform"
a body/self vis-a-vis the city's exclusionary and segregated norms. Finally,
Alvina E. Quintana demonstrates how a Chicana professor can teach East
Coast students about Los Angeles, adding a new twist to the idea of distance
learning. For the artist's communiqué, we have asked Alicia Gaspar
de Alba to present a selection from her forthcoming novel on Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz. But her selection offers a prologue to much more
than the novel itself. . .
In the last issue we took the first steps
toward following through on our pledge of engaging in critical dialogues
across the boundaries of the field of Chicano studies itself. Eric R.
Avila and Manuel Luis Martinez each challenged American studies, examining
touchstone topics in which the Chicano experience has all too often been
excluded from the official histories: the folklore of the freeway and
the hagiography of the Beats, respectively. Meanwhile, Ana M. López
offered a
cautionary note about the headlong rush to a "borderless" future,
pointing to some of the troubling assumptions within cultural studies
about the nation-state and globalization. In the current issue we go one
step further, including Scott Michaelsen's pointed critique of sentimentalism
in cultural studies. While Michaelsen does not address Chicano studies
per se, his essay certainly includes our field within the broad parameters
of his critique. In many respects, this essay is a limit case, occasioning
a productive debate within the journal over the extent to which we will
meet other fields at some ineffable "half-way" point. We hope
that the essay stimulates debate and that we can reflect back some of
that debate in future issues. We are fortunate at the moment, however,
to have an insightful counterpart in KarenMary Davalos's contribution,
which takes up many of the same issues, albeit from a more disciplinary
set of questions about the relationship between Chicano studies and anthropology.
Consider these two essays a dialogue that must take place and that must
continue in order for the field to advance.
This issue concludes our second volume
under my editorship and the extraordinary and all-purpose ministrations
of Wendy Belcher, Managing Editor. Samar Rababi joins us as assistant
and will handle sales and distribution. In the next year we will be expanding
our publication activities as well as making some additional improvements
to the journal itself.
Look for changes. . . . |
