Rethinking Chicana/o and Latina/o Popular Culture (Future of Minority Studies)

In this book, Daniel Enrique Pérez examines the various ways queer identities are represented in Chicana/o and Latina/o cultural texts. Through a gender, ethnicity, and sexuality lens, he demonstrates that queer Chicana/o and Latina/o identities are much more prevalent in cultural production than most people think. He argues that the representation of queer identities goes well beyond gay Chicana/o and Latina/o stereotypes: maricones, jotos, and marimachas. Macho men, the Latin lover, Pocho, Real Women Have Curves, Selena, and several other characters and textsare also queer. By claiming such a variety of characters and texts as queer, he erases that infamous forward slash that tends to be drawn between the terms straight and gay while expanding the breadth of queer representation in cultural production.