Books in the Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States series

An important addition to extant scholarship on the border U.S Southwest, Forging Arizona recovers a forgotten case that reminds readers that the borders that divide nations, identities, and even true from false are only as stable as the narratives that define them.

Examines the ways in which recent U.S. Latina literature challenges popular definitions of nationhood and national identity. It explores a group of feminist texts that are representative of the U.S. Latina literary boom of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, when an emerging group of writers gained prominence in mainstream and academic circles.

Explores how US Mexicana and Chicana authors and artists across different historical periods and regions use domestic space to actively claim their own histories. Through "negotiation" and "self-fashioning", Marci R. McMahon demonstrates how the sites of domesticity are used to engage the many political and recurring debates about race, gender, and immigration affecting Mexicanas and Chicanas.

Reveals the tangled textual histories behind some of the most cherished works in the Chicana/o literary canon, tracing the negotiations between authors, editors, and publishers that determined how these books appeared in print. Allison Fagan demonstrates how the texts surrounding the authors' words have crucially shaped the reception of Chicana/o literature.

Central Americans are the third largest and fastest growing Latino population in the United States. Constituting Central American-Americans is an exploration of the historical and disciplinary conditions that have structured US Central American identity and of the ways in which this identity challenges how we frame current discussions of Latina/o, American ethnic, and diasporic identities.

Over the past fifty years, Puerto Rican voters have roundly rejected any calls for national independence. Yet the rhetoric and iconography of independence have been defining features of Puerto Rican literature and culture. In this provocative new book, Maria Acosta Cruz investigates the roots and effects of this profound disconnect between cultural fantasy and political reality.