Chicanx Utopias: Pop Culture and the Politics of the Possible

Chicanx popular culture since World War II has used utopian visions to combat oppressive economic and political conditions. In Chicanx Utopias, Luis Alvarez examines how it fostered interracial and transnational identities, engaged social movements, and produced varied utopian visions with divergent possibilities and limits.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 29 March 2022
Publisher: University of Texas Press

Since World War II, Chicanx popular culture has been a powerful force, expressing utopian ideals and challenging oppressive conditions. In the post-war era, Chicanxs in film, music, television, and art used culture as a tool to combat neoliberalism, globalization, and movements for civil rights and global justice. They envisioned utopias that reimagined the world and brought together people from different backgrounds.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, Chicanx popular culture forged a politics of the possible, giving rise to utopian dreams that sprang from everyday experiences. In his book, Chicanx Utopias, Luis Alvarez explores these utopian visions from the 1950s to the 2000s. Alvarez examines various forms of Chicanx pop culture, including film, brown-eyed soul music, sitcoms, poster art, and borderlands reggae music. He explores how Chicanx pop culture, capable of both liberation and exploitation, fostered interracial and transnational identities, engaged social movements, and produced varied utopian visions with divergent possibilities and limits.

Alvarez's book is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Walter Benjamin, Stuart Hall, and the Zapatista movement. He reveals how Chicanxs articulated pop cultural utopias to make sense of the world, challenge oppressive conditions, and improve the lives of those they inhabited. Through his comprehensive analysis, Alvarez demonstrates the enduring power of Chicanx popular culture to inspire and transform.

Dimension: 229 x 152 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781477324479