Our Voices Essays in Culture, Ethnicity, and Communication

by Gonzalez, Alberto; Houston, Marsha; Chen, Victoria; Taylor, Orlando L.

• ISBN13: 9780195330359
• ISBN10: 0195330358
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Our Voices, Fourth Edition, examines communication in a variety of cultural and personal settings, with each contributor writing from the perspective of his or her cultural experience within diverse theoretical frameworks. Each essay addresses the question, "What is a cultural explanation and interpretation for this communication phenomenon from the ethnic scholar's perspective?" The fourth edition features seven new essays that address such topics of current interest and concern as creating a family across race and gender borders; the struggle for identity of multiethnic and biracial individuals in America; constructing American Jewish male identity; understanding class in the context of race, ethnicity, and gender; racial tensions in a 9/11 memorial; and 9/11 and "the color line." In addition, many of the previous essays have been significantly updated, and two new sections, "Economic Class and Cultural Identity" and "Reflecting on 9/11," have been added. Continuing the successful tradition of previous editions, the fourth edition: * Maintains a consistent focus on communication and culture. Each essay addresses important issues in areas of communication--including rhetoric, mass communication, and interpersonal communication. Together, the authors examine how culture influences the creation of meaning and how various uses of symbols and language constitute what we call cultural reality. * Introduces experience into examinations of cultural communication. The experience-driven approach is presented as a complement to theory-driven approaches to intercultural communication research. * Explores the rich cultural variety of communication practices within broad cultural labels. The premise is that there is not "one" style of any particular group any more than there is "one" style of Anglo-American communication.

Table of Contents

New to this edition

Introduction

Naming Ourselves

(De)hyphenated Identity: The Double Voice in The Woman Warrior

Dis/orienting Identities: Asian Americans, History, and Intercultural Communication

How I Came to Know

Names, Narratives, and the Evolution of Ethnic Identity

Negotiating Sexuality and Gender

Jewish and/or Woman: Identity and Communicative Style

Constructing American Jewish Male Identity

Remembering Selena

When Miss America Was Always White

Illusive Reflections: African American Women on Primetime Television

Black Queer Identity, Imaginative Rationality, and the Language of Home

Representing Cultural Knowledge in Interpersonal and Mass Media Contexts

Negotiating Cyberspace/Negotiating RLMargarita Gangotena

The Rhetoric of La Familia Among Mexican Americans

When Mississippi Chinese Talk

The Reason Why We Sing: Understanding Traditional African American Worship

When Black Women Talk With White Women: Why the Dialogues Are Difficult

Latina/o Experiences With Mass-Mediated Communication

Native American Culture and Communication Through Humor

Celebrating Cultures

Capturing the Spirit of Kwanzaa

A House as Symbol, a House as Family: Mamaw and Her Oklahoma Cherokee Family

Communicating Good Luck During the Chinese New Year

Hybrid Revivals: Ethnicity and South Asian Celebration

Valuing and Contesting Languages

Identity and Struggle in Jamaican Talk

The Power of 'Wastah' in Lebanese Speech

Wa-Zha-Zhe I-E: Notions on a Dying Ancestral Language

Broadening the View of Black Language Use: Towards a Better Understanding of Words and Worlds

Confessions of a Thirty-Something Hip-Hop (Old) Head

Living in Bicultural Relationships

Sapphire and Sappho: Allies in Authenticity

'I Know It Was the Blood': Defining the Biracial Self in a Euro-American Society

Being Hapa: A Choice for Cultural Empowerment

Living In/Between

Struggling for Identity: Multiethnic and Biracial Individuals in America

Creating a Family Across Race and Gender Borders

Economic Class and Cultural Identity

Invisible Identities: Notes on Class and Race

Working Through Identity: Understanding Class in the Context of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender

Traversing Cultural Paths

How We Know What We Know About Americans: Chinese Sojourners Account for Their Experiences

The Cultural Experience of Space and Body: A Reading of Latin American and Anglo American Comportment in Public

Regionalism and Communication: Exploring Chinese Immigrant Perspectives

Traversing Disparate Cultural Realities in a Transnational World: A Bicultural/Hybrid Experience

Women Writing Borders, Borders Writing Women: Immigration, Assimilation, and the Cultural Production of Space

Reflecting on 9/11Teresa Nance and Anita Foeman

Statue or Statement? Racial Tensions in a 9/11 Memorial

September 11 and "The Color Line

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