Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture

Boricua Pop is the first book solely devoted to Puerto Rican visibility, cultural impact, and identity formation in the U.S. and at home. Frances Negron-Muntaner explores everything from the beloved American musical "West Side Story" to the phenomenon of singer/actress/ fashion designer Jennifer Lopez, from the faux historical chronicle Seva to the creation of Puerto Rican Barbie, from novelist Rosario Ferre to performer Holly Woodlawn, and from painter provocateur Andy Warhol to the seemingly overnight success story of Ricky Martin. Negron-Muntaner traces some of the many possible itineraries of exchange between American and Puerto Rican cultures, including the commodification of Puerto Rican cultural practices such as voguing, graffiti, and the Latinization of pop music. Drawing from literature, film, painting, and popular culture, and including both the normative and the odd, the canonized authors and the misfits, the island and its diaspora, Boricua Pop is a fascinating blend of low life and high culture: a highly original, challenging, and lucid new work by one of our most talented cultural critics.

Review :
""Boricua Pop is a foundational text in American, Latino/a, Queer, Performance, and Cultural Studies." "A brilliant intervention in the culture and politics of Latinos in the United States. Important, timely, and innovative, Boricua Pop is a stellar addition to a body of work that grows in importance over time. Negron-Muntaner's book is eagerly anticipated."-Jose Quiroga, author of "Tropics of Desire"" "Frances Negron-Muntaner is a challenging and provocative scholar whose multi-focal positionings turn the Puerto Rican process of colonization and migration into a fascinating transcultural hologram. Boricua Pop is a foundational text in American, Latino/a, Queer, Performance, and Cultural Studies."-Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, Mount Holyoke College" "Frances Negr n-Muntaner is a challenging and provocative scholar whose multi-focal positionings turn the Puerto Rican process of colonization and migration into a fascinating transcultural hologram. Boricua Pop is a foundational text in American, Latino/a, Queer, Performance, and Cultural Studies."-Alberto Sandoval-S nchez, Mount Holyoke College "A bracing shot of 90-proof intellectual bourbon to counteract the slush and mush of America's post 9/11 War on Language and Reason." -Alexander Cockburn, columnist for The Nation and coeditor of CounterPunch "Journalists are being attacked for telling the truth, for trying to tell it how it is. American journalists especially. I urge them to read a remarkable new book published by the New York University Press and edited by John Collins and Ross Glover. It's called Collateral Language and is, in its own words, intended to expose "the tyranny of political rhetoric." Its chapter titles --"Anthrax," "Cowardice," "Evil," "Freedom," Fundamentalism," "Justice," "Terrorism," "Vital Interests" and--my favourite--"The War on..." (fill in the missing country) tell it all." -Robert Fisk, "The Independent" "The resulting book is to be warmly welcomed and slauted as a valuable contribution to a vital political debate on criminality in language in which the criminals are all too often granted impunity." -"Tribune", "This leftward assault on 'the tyranny of political rhetoric used to justify America's new war [on terrorism]' is unlikely to end up on Bush administration nightstands." -"Washington Post", "Words are weapons in our new war, and all citizens are combatants. As a dictionary of post-911 rhetoric, "Collateral Language" shows us why we need smart books, not smart bombs. Brilliantly conceived, this book defines the axis of intelligence." -Amitava Kumar, author of "Passport Photos" and "Bombay-London-New York" "A perspicacious new book and one of the most intellectually exciting works of recent years, "Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the latinization of American Culture" gives new meaning to the idea of the pleasure of the text. -"QBR", "Frances Negr--n-Muntaner is a challenging and provocative scholar whose multi-focal positionings turn the Puerto Rican process of colonization and migration into a fascinating transcultural hologram. Boricua Pop is a foundational text in American, Latino/a, Queer, Performance, and Cultural Studies."-Alberto Sandoval-S nchez, Mount Holyoke College "Mixing the down and dirty with high culture to come up with good look at the transculture effects of it all." -"San Juan Star", "Provocative and broad-ranging . . . This eclectic, always interesting work will be certain to elicit discussion among faculty and students of ethnic studies, US popular culture, and Puerto Rican and Latino studies."-"Choice", ("A brilliant intervention in the culture and politics of Latinos in the United States. Important, timely, and innovative, Boricua Pop is a stellar addition to a body of work that grows in importance over time. Negr--n-Muntaner's book is eagerly anticipated.")-(Jos Quiroga), (author of "Tropics of Desire") ("A perspicacious new book and one of the most intellectually exciting works of recent years, "Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the latinization of American Culture" gives new meaning to the idea of the pleasure of the text. )-("QBR"), () ("Frances Negr--n-Muntaner is a challenging and provocative scholar whose multi-focal positionings turn the Puerto Rican process of colonization and migration into a fascinating transcultural hologram. Boricua Pop is a foundational text in American, Latino/a, Queer, Performance, and Cultural Studies.")-(Alberto Sandoval-S nchez), (Mount Holyoke College) ("Mixing the down and dirty with high culture to come up with good look at the transculture effects of it all." )-("San Juan Star"), () ("Provocative and broad-ranging . . . This eclectic, always interesting work will be certain to elicit discussion among faculty and students of ethnic studies, US popular culture, and Puerto Rican and Latino studies.")-("Choice"), ()