Ends of Assimilation examines how Chicano literature imagines the conditions and costs of cultural change, arguing that its thematic preoccupation with assimilation illuminates the function of literature. John Alba Cutler shows how mid-century sociologists advanced a model of assimilation that ignored the interlinking of race, gender, and sexuality and characterized American culture as homogeneous, stable, and exceptional. He demonstrates how Chicano literary works from the postwar period to the present understand culture as dynamic and self-consciously promote literature as a medium for influencing the direction of cultural change. With original analyses of works by canonical and noncanonical writers--from Am?rico Paredes, Sandra Cisneros, and Jimmy Santiago Baca to Estela Portillo Trambley, Alfredo V?a, and Patricia Santana--Ends of Assimilation demands that we reevaluate assimilation, literature, and the very language we use to talk about culture.

Auteur

John Alba Cutler is Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University.

Contenu

Acknowledgments Introduction: Representing Race, Producing Culture: Chicano/a Literature and the Sociology of Assimilation Chapter 1: Becoming Mexican-American Literature Chapter 2: Quinto Sol, Chicano/a Literature, and the Long March Through Institutions Chapter 3: Cultural Capital and the Singularity of Literature in Hunger of Memory and The Rain God Chapter 4: Cultures of Poverty, Lyric Subjects, and Sandra Cisneros's Wicked Wicked Ways Chapter 5: Segmented Assimilation and Jimmy Santiago Baca's Prison Counterpublics Chapter 6: Disappeared Men: Chicano/a Authenticity and the American War in Viet Nam Conclusion Works Cited Index