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Category: Latin American/Caribbean Hist.

May 4, 2015

Christina D. Abreu: Cuban Women Singers and the Mid-Twentieth Century Latin Music Scene, or, Celia and Graciela

Often overlooked in studies of Cuban musicians during the golden age of Latin popular music in the United States are the contributions of Afro-Cuban women singers. Two of the most prominent performers during the1940s and1950s were Graciela Pérez Grillo, lead singer for Machito y sus Afro-Cubans, and Celia Cruz, lead singer for La Sonora Matancera. Continue Reading Christina D. Abreu: Cuban Women Singers and the Mid-Twentieth Century Latin Music Scene, or, Celia and Graciela

Categories Cuba/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Music/Video
April 23, 2015

Call for Manuscripts: Studies in Latin America open-access short works series

The Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Press invite manuscript submissions for a new joint initiative in open-access scholarly publishing. Continue Reading Call for Manuscripts: Studies in Latin America open-access short works series

Categories Latin American/Caribbean Hist./UNC Press News
February 23, 2015

Richard Schweid: Will Warming U.S.-Cuba Relations Reveal More Classic Car Treasures on the Island?

One thing a détente between the U.S. and Cuba will do is reveal the truth or falsehood of an urban myth in Havana, which holds that numerous pristine 1950s Detroit models are stored in secret garages across the city. Continue Reading Richard Schweid: Will Warming U.S.-Cuba Relations Reveal More Classic Car Treasures on the Island?

Categories Author blog entry/Cuba/Guest Bloggers/Latin American/Caribbean Hist.
January 26, 2015

Video: Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr. on what history tells us about our present

Tomás F. Summers Sandoval Jr., author of Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco, explains how history might not be synonymous with the past. Continue Reading Video: Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr. on what history tells us about our present

Categories History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Video
January 14, 2015

Christina D. Abreu: In Honor of Professor Juan Flores

Criticism and embrace of identity terms like “Hispanic” and “Latino/a” have been longstanding in the field of Latino/a Studies. Puerto Ricans, Flores argued, share more in common with African Americans than with other Latino/a groups. He contended that Puerto Ricans and African Americans experience similar forms of racial and ethnic subordination in the United States because of parallels in their location in urban areas, their socioeconomic status, and their position as colonized subjects of the same nation-state. Continue Reading Christina D. Abreu: In Honor of Professor Juan Flores

Categories Author blog entry/Cuba/Cultural Studies/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies/Music
December 19, 2014

Essential Background Reading on Cuba from UNC Press

In light of the sea change in U.S.-Cuban relations, I am delighted to recommend two books to anyone who wants to get up to speed: On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture, by Louis A. Pérez Jr., and Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, by William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh. Continue Reading Essential Background Reading on Cuba from UNC Press

Categories Cuba/Current Events/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Politics
October 16, 2014

Raúl Necochea López: When Historians’ Sources Get Demanding

The way in which bullfighters put themselves repeatedly on the path of a half-ton of rage, shifting at the last moment, is shocking. I am especially awed by the tribute of the bits of their own flesh left on those horns. It makes me wonder what we historians are increasingly giving up by finding our sources in air-conditioned rooms with lockers and vending machines, where the only tribute we pay is a cordial email to a helpful archivist, who then gets a credit in the standard acknowledgements page. Remotely accessible digitized collections are already making some of our work possible from the convenience of coffee shops with Wi-Fi. Continue Reading Raúl Necochea López: When Historians’ Sources Get Demanding

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Women's Studies
July 21, 2014

Raúl Necochea López: Therapeutic Abortion Finally Regulated in Peru after Being Legal (Kinda) for 90 Years

Article 163 of the Penal Code defined therapeutic abortions as those demanded by women and performed by clinicians, in consultation with a committee of their peers, “if there is no other way to save a mother’s life or avoid a permanent and severe lesion in her.” However, Peruvian authorities at the time did not answer crucial questions to make the law applicable, such as which lesions counted as permanent and severe, or what interventions should be used to cause an abortion, or how far into a pregnancy an abortion could be provoked. Continue Reading Raúl Necochea López: Therapeutic Abortion Finally Regulated in Peru after Being Legal (Kinda) for 90 Years

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Women's Studies
June 16, 2014

New Open-Access Short Works from UNC Press and the Institute for the Study of the Americas

The University of North Carolina Press and the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announce a new joint initiative in open-access scholarly publishing. Studies in Latin America is a new series of short works to be published by ISA and distributed by UNC Press in digital open-access as well as in print and e-book formats. Continue Reading New Open-Access Short Works from UNC Press and the Institute for the Study of the Americas

Categories Latin American/Caribbean Hist./UNC Press News
June 13, 2014

Jason McGraw on Colombia’s Rural Revolts

On Sunday, June 15, Colombians will head to the polls for a runoff in the presidential election. Jason McGraw, author of The Work of Recognition: Caribbean Colombia and the Postemancipation Struggle for Citizenship (forthcoming August 2014), recently wrote about what’s at stake for rural and indigenous communities with this election. Continue Reading Jason McGraw on Colombia’s Rural Revolts

Categories History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist.
May 13, 2014

Mario T. Garcia: The America of the Future

Combating racism and other forms of discrimination, Latinos have a long history of civil rights struggles with the aim of integration. Despite being considered foreign, strangers, aliens (including “illegal aliens”), Latinos have fought in all of this country’s wars and as American soldiers in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. In World War II, as part of the Greatest Generation, perhaps as many as half a million Latinos fought in the military—and not for the Mexican army but for the U.S. Army. Latinos have shed their blood as Americans. The Latino Generation that I write about is the inheritor of this legacy. Continue Reading Mario T. Garcia: The America of the Future

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Latino Studies
December 17, 2013

Rebekah E. Pite: A Televised Cooking Segment as Historical Source: Dona Petrona’s Pan Dulce de Navidad

No one was more successful in encouraging women’s domestic dedication and home cooking than Doña Petrona C. de Gandulfo, Argentina’s leading culinary celebrity during most of the twentieth century. And, indeed, Pan Dulce de Navidad was her most famous recipe. As the holiday season drew close, she would show her fans how to make this sweet bread step by step on television, as we can see in these two videos from the mid 1960s (watch Part 1 and Part 2 on YouTube). Such footage may not at first glance appear to be a valuable historical source, but it provides us rare insight into how changing gender expectations, economic dynamics, and food-related practices were shaping Argentines’ daily lives. Continue Reading Rebekah E. Pite: A Televised Cooking Segment as Historical Source: Dona Petrona’s Pan Dulce de Navidad

Categories Author blog entry/Cooking / Food/Guest Bloggers/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Recipes/Women's Studies
November 11, 2013

Tiffany A. Sippial: Cuba’s New Economic Policies: Event Horizon or Business as Usual?

In my opinion, the most interesting topic for discussion is not that Cubans are finally embracing private enterprise, but rather that the new legislation will surely change the existing face of private enterprise on the island. Talk to Cubans about the new business, property, and internet reform measures and you are less likely to hear them marveling at the wonders of capitalism than to hear them debate the variety of state-imposed taxes that often leave them with only a few CUC (Cuban Convertible Pesos that carry a 1:1 exchange rate with the U.S. dollar) at the end of each month. Continue Reading Tiffany A. Sippial: Cuba’s New Economic Policies: Event Horizon or Business as Usual?

Categories Author blog entry/Cuba/Economics/Guest Bloggers/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist.
July 26, 2013

Tiffany A. Sippial: The 26th of July Movement: Remembering Failure, Celebrating Victory

Not only were the rebels young (“just like us” my students find themselves saying), but they actually failed. Government snipers shot many of the young rebels on sight, and those who survived were charged with treason and imprisoned on the Isle of Pines. In a surprising plot twist, however, the audacious Cuban rebels recast their military failure as a propaganda victory by claiming the date of the attack as the name of their movement—the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7). Continue Reading Tiffany A. Sippial: The 26th of July Movement: Remembering Failure, Celebrating Victory

Categories Author blog entry/Cuba/Guest Bloggers/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Politics
June 3, 2013

Excerpt: Creating a Common Table in Twentieth-Century Argentina, by Rebekah E. Pite

Therefore, even as Petrona included some explicitly nationalistic recipes, such as a cake with an Argentine national flag, along with some typical criollo cuisine, like empanadas, she presented French, Spanish, and Italian dishes as equally important for Argentine amas de casa to master. Continue Reading Excerpt: Creating a Common Table in Twentieth-Century Argentina, by Rebekah E. Pite

Categories Cooking / Food/Excerpts/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Women's Studies
May 8, 2013

Excerpt: Native and National in Brazil, by Tracy Devine Guzman

Rethinking how the representation of indigenous needs and interests works in local, national, and international politics, and reconfiguring the problematic relationship between indigeneity and dominant sovereignty, means more than Native peoples’ being inserted, or even inserting themselves, into existing political structures and institutions—however crucial and challenging that feat continues to be. At the very least, it must also mean rethinking sovereignty in collaboration with indigenous peoples and not for them. Continue Reading Excerpt: Native and National in Brazil, by Tracy Devine Guzman

Categories History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
February 22, 2013

Award-winning books from UNC Press (updated)

We are honored and delighted to share the news of some of our most recent award-winning books. Hope you’ll join us in congratulating these fine authors. And you may want to consider using some of these books in your classroom or kitchen. Click the cover images or book titles to go to the book page on the UNC Press website,… Continue Reading Award-winning books from UNC Press (updated)

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American History/African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Awards/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Cooking / Food/Cuba/Cultural Studies/Documentary Studies/Environmental Studies/Global Studies/Health / Medicine/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/UNC Press News
February 6, 2013

Nicole Fabricant: Santa Cruz Civic Leaders and New Strategic Alliances with Indigenous Protestors in Bolivia

I was back in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the lowland agro-industrial capital of Bolivia for the months of July and August 2012 in order to understand a new political conflict that had exploded between the government of Evo Morales and lowland Indigenous groups in 2011. Continue Reading Nicole Fabricant: Santa Cruz Civic Leaders and New Strategic Alliances with Indigenous Protestors in Bolivia

Categories Anthropology/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
January 30, 2013

Lara Putnam: Families and the Cost of Borders

Some of the deepest costs of our prohibitionist immigration system have to do with family. And they’re not just emotional costs—they’re economic costs as well. Continue Reading Lara Putnam: Families and the Cost of Borders

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Law / Legal History/Public Policy