Los Angeles &The Future Of Urban Cultures

by Villa, Raul Homero; Sanchez, George J.

• ISBN13: 9780801882081
• ISBN10: 0801882087
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-20
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

This special issue of American Quarterly focuses on Los Angeles as an emblematic site through which the scholarship of American studies can be examined. As a city shaped by eighteenth-century European colonization, nineteenth-century U.S. territorial expansion, and twentieth-century migration, Los Angeles has come to embody both the hopes and fears of Americans looking to the future. It is a city in which the local is deployed in complex practices of identity and community formation within the broader networks of globalization that continue to define and redefine what constitutes America. The articles in this volume address the complexities of the city's social geography across time, particularly since World War II. The collection reflects an exciting variety of cultural studies perspectives and reveals the synergistic possibilities of current Los Angeles studies and American studies in general. American Quarterly includes interdisciplinary scholarship that engages key issues in American studies. Publishing essays that examine American societies and cultures in global and local contexts, the journal contributes to the understanding of the United States, its diversity, and its impact on world politics and culture.

Author Biography

Ra+¦l Homero Villa is a professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Occidental College. George J. S+ínchez is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, as well as a former president of the American Studies Association.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Marita Sturken
Introduction: Los Angeles Studies and the Future of Urban Cultures	1	(8)
Raúl Homero Villa and George J. Sánchez
Best MTA Bus Line: The Number 18, yes, let's take a trip down Whittier Boulevard	9	(4)
Marisela Norte
Learning from Los Angeles: Another One Rides the Bus	13	(20)
George Lipsitz
Los Angeles and American Studies in a Pacific World of Migrations	33	(14)
Henry Yu
Border City: Race and Social Distance in Los Angeles	47	(14)
Greg Hise
The Figure of the Neighbor: Los Angeles Past and Future	61	(24)
Dana Cuff
Straight into Compton: American Dreams, Urban Nightmares, and the Metamorphosis of a Black Suburb	85	(24)
Josh Sides
L.A. Race Woman: Charlotta Bass and the Complexities of Black Political Development in Los Angeles	109	(26)
Regina Freer
"What's Good for Boyle Heights Is Good for the Jews": Creating Multiracialism on the Eastside during the 1950's	135	(30)
George J. Sánchez
The Art of the City: Modernism, Censorship, and the Emergence of Los Angeles's Postwar Art Scene	165	(30)
Sarah Schrank
Bringing Music to the People: Race, Urban Culture, and Municipal Politics in Postwar Los Angeles	195	(26)
Anthony Macias
The Battle of Los Angeles: The Cultural Politics of Chicana/o Music in the Greater Eastside	221	(22)
Victor Hugo Viesca
What Is an MC If He Can't Rap to Banda? Making Music in Nuevo L.A.	243	(18)
Josh Kun
Fools Banished from the Kingdom: Remapping Geographies of Gang Violence between the Americas (Los Angeles and San Salvador)	261	(22)
Elana Zilberg
Borders and Social Distinction in the Global Suburb	283	(26)
Kristen Hill Maher
Nuestra Los Angeles	309
Michael Nevin Willard