Description
Book SynopsisLooks at the relationship between American immigrants and the popular culture industry in the 20th century. Using case studies, this book shows how specific trends in popular culture have their roots in the complex socio-political nature of immigration in America. It offers an introduction to the major approaches to the study of popular culture.
Trade ReviewIn this eminently readable and insightful overview of U.S. cultural history in the last century, Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey provide a view into the roiling production of American culture. * Journal of American Ethnic History *
Eloquently written. * Popular Music *
A thought-provoking examination of immigration history. * Choice *
This books account of the interaction of immigration, popular culture, and mainstream America is loaded with brief chronicles of different levels of historieshistories of American immigration, popular culture forms, immigration laws, American cultural imperialism, and mainstream representations of immigration. * African American Review *
Immigration and Popular Culture: An Introduction is an excellent and very necessary contribution to American Studies and to the complex and important relationship between the two topics in its title. -- Norma Coates * American Studies Journal *
A sprawling and uniquely synthetic account of the role immigrants have played as performers, entrepreneurs, and as the subjects of the mass culture industry. Brings a stunning, transnational array of immigrant cultural forms, immigration policies, and cohorts together in new and important ways. -- Rachel Ida Buff,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Rachel Rubin and Jeff Melnick show us the skinny on pop's melting pot. The cauldron does not burn off immigrant character, creating American sameness, but intensifies its many tastes. Ladle after ladle of ethnic infusions go into the potScarface to Gypsy Punks, pachuco zoot suiters to Ravi Shankar, Jimmy Cliff to West Side Story. They compound the terms of race and place until they reform the mainstream. And, suddenly, that old wasp canon has become just another ethnic style. -- W. T. Lhamon, Jr.,author, most recently, of Jump Jim Crow: Lost Plays, Lyrics, and Street Prose of the First Atlantic Popular Culture
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Aliens, Inc.1. Hollywood, 1930: Jewish Gangster Masquerade 2. Los Angeles, 1943: Zoot Suit Style, Immigrant Politics 3. Broadway, 1957: West Side Story and the Nuyorican Blues 4. Monterey, 1967: The Hippies Meet Ravi Shankar 5. South Bronx, 1977: Jamaican Migrants, Born Jamericans, and Global Music6. Cyberspace, Y2K: Giant Robots, Asian Punks Afterword: Chelsea, 2006: Wandering Popular CultureAppendix: TimelineWorks CitedIndexAbout the Authors
