Description
Book SynopsisA look at how blackness is represented in entertainment programming in Puerto Rico.
Trade Review“
Tuning Out Blackness offers an astute and very well informed analysis of Puerto Rico’s unique ‘racial’ programming, which in turn provides a valuable look at the deep ambivalence at the heart of the country’s sense of national identity in the shadow of U. S. ideological and cultural power.”—Juan Flores, author of
From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity“This book not only provides a cultural history of ‘blackness’ in Puerto Rican television, it also locates Puerto Rico as a critical blind spot in both Latin American and U. S. television studies, one that can offer new insights into the televisual representation of race, family, and nation.”—Chon Noriega, author of
Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema“[M]eticulously researched. . . . Rivero offers a well-written chronology of the ever-changing function of ‘blackness’ and its relationship to the
‘la gran familia puertoriqueña discourse’ (nationalist discourse) that is perpetually being rearticulated on Puerto Rico. . . . I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in issues related to popular culture and race and ethnicity.” -- Amanda V. Branker * Journal of American Ethnic History *
“This book contributes a powerful analysis of the dialectics that forge discourses on race and nation in local Puerto Rican televisual productions. . . . Rivero’s book is a well-documented cultural reading of television as an important force in the shaping of localized forms of collective social imagination. This study represents a milestone in media research in Puerto Rico mainly because Rivero’s analysis is articulated from the inside, not the outside.” -- Mirerza González-Vélez * Journal of Communication Inquiry *
“Yeidy Rivero’s
Tuning Out Blackness provides a well documented cultural history of “blackness” in Puerto Rican television. . . . [S]he makes excellent use of participant observation, interviews, archival research, and textual analysis to critically analyze representations of race in local Puerto Rican television.” -- Dwight E. Brooks * Journalism History *
"Ground-breaking and complex. . . . Provocative. . . . A rich, engaging, vital contribution to television history and popular culture studies, Puerto Rican and Latino studies, and racial and ethnic studies. Highly recommended." -- S.A. Vega Garcia * Choice *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Translating Televisual “Blackness” 1
1. Caribbean Negritos: Ramon Rivero, Blackface, and Black Voice in Puerto Rico 22
2. Bringing the Soul: Afros, Black Empowerment, and the Resurgent Popularity of Blackface 67
3. The CubaRican Space Revisited 115
4.
Mi familia: A Black Puerto Rican Televisual Family 147
5. Translating and Representing Blackness 185
Notes 199
Bibliography 235
Index 255
