Negotiating Latinidad: Intralatina/O Lives in Chicago, Hardcover

Longstanding Mexican and Puerto Rican populations have helped make people of mixed nationalities--MexiGuatamalans, CubanRicans, and others--an important part of Chicago's Latina/o scene. Intermarriage between Guatemalans, Colombians, and Cubans have further diversified this community-within-a-community. Yet we seldom consider the lives and works of these Intralatino/as when we discuss Latino/as in the United States.In Negotiating Latinidad, a cross-section of Chicago's second-generation Intralatino/as offer their experiences of negotiating between and among the national communities embedded in their families. Frances R. Aparicio's rich interviews reveal Intralatino/as proud of their multiplicity and particularly skilled at understanding difference and boundaries. Their narratives explore both the ongoing complexities of family life and the challenges of fitting into our larger society, in particular the struggle to claim a space--and a sense of belonging--in a Latina/o America that remains highly segmented in scholarship. The result is an emotionally powerful, theoretically rigorous exploration of culture, hybridity, and transnationalism that points the way forward for future scholarship on Intralatino/a identity.

Frances R. Aparicio is a professor emerita at Northwestern University. She is the author of Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures.