Whose Latin American Cinema?

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Betancourt

What do we talk about when we talk about Latin American cinema within the borders of the United States? Discussions of cinema from the region remain limited to the means of production: which films are produced and financed; how local filmmakers secure the money and access to make the films that then get tied to any given country's national cinema; the aesthetic and cultural movements that these films engender and replicate. But what of the distribution templates that circumscribe the kind of films and filmmakers that can make it to the United States, and under which circumstances? Looking at examples of film programming and distribution that are actively circumventing the established arthouse-release model that has become the de facto way of releasing Latin American cinema in the U.S., this article points to new efforts at defining cinemas of the region outside the bounds of an increasingly obsolete system.

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Sergio de la Mora

Sergio de la Mora reviews Roma's reception in Mexico and reflects upon the film's intimate relationship with the nation's political history. Situating Roma with the broader trend in Latin American cinema for films that explore servant-employer relations, he examines how Roma visualizes the ways in which Indigenous domestic and intimate labor has been historically racialized and gendered in Mexico. He discusses the controversy surrounding Cleo's voice and agency in the film along with the aesthetic debates prompted by Cuarón's decision to film in black and white.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Harford Vargas

This introduction lays out the book’s key terms and methodologies. First it asserts that there is a subgenre of Latina/o fiction that depicts the aftermath of Latin American authoritarian regimes alongside authoritarian structures and discourses of power that minorities and migrants face in the United States and that these novels dramatize these linkages at the levels of both content and form. It then outlines how these novels broaden the thematic concerns, character types, and stylistic features of this subgenre through their development of a Latina/o counter-dictatorial imaginary and deployment of narrative form to critically represent forms of dictatorial power. Furthermore, it positions these novels as postdictatorship and postmemory novels to mark their geographic, historical, generational, thematic, and conceptual distance and difference from Latin American political regimes and novels. It ends by laying out the conceptual utility of its pan-ethnic and transnational Latina/o literary analyses. It thus demonstrates how genre provides a means to understanding shared formal strategies and political concerns across Latina/o groups, at the same time demonstrating how to unpack hemispheric relations through the aesthetic forms and transnational subjectivities that constitute the imaginative horizon of the Latina/o dictatorship novel.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Délano Alonso

This chapter demonstrates how Latin American governments with large populations of migrants with precarious legal status in the United States are working together to promote policies focusing on their well-being and integration. It identifies the context in which these processes of policy diffusion and collaboration have taken place as well as their limitations. Notwithstanding the differences in capacities and motivations based on the domestic political and economic contexts, there is a convergence of practices and policies of diaspora engagement among Latin American countries driven by the common challenges faced by their migrant populations in the United States and by the Latino population more generally. These policies, framed as an issue of rights protection and the promotion of migrants’ well-being, are presented as a form of regional solidarity and unity, and are also mobilized by the Mexican government as a political instrument serving its foreign policy goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanchi Malhotra ◽  
Imran Masood ◽  
Noberto Giglio ◽  
Jay D. Pruetz ◽  
Pia S. Pannaraj

Abstract Background Chagas disease is a pathogenic parasitic infection with approximately 8 million cases worldwide and greater than 300,000 cases in the United States (U.S.). Chagas disease can lead to chronic cardiomyopathy and cardiac complications, with variable cardiac presentations in pediatrics making it difficult to recognize. The purpose of our study is to better understand current knowledge and experience with Chagas related heart disease among pediatric cardiologists in the U.S. Methods We prospectively disseminated a 19-question survey to pediatric cardiologists via 3 pediatric cardiology listservs. The survey included questions about demographics, Chagas disease presentation and experience. Results Of 139 responses, 119 cardiologists treat pediatric patients in the U.S. and were included. Most providers (87%) had not seen a case of Chagas disease in their practice; however, 72% also had never tested for it. The majority of knowledge-based questions about Chagas disease cardiac presentations were answered incorrectly, and 85% of providers expressed discomfort with recognizing cardiac presentations in children. Most respondents selected that they would not include Chagas disease on their differential diagnosis for presentations such as conduction anomalies, myocarditis and/or apical aneurysms, but would be more likely to include it if found in a Latin American immigrant. Of respondents, 87% agreed that they would be likely to attend a Chagas disease-related lecture. Conclusions Pediatric cardiologists in the U.S. have seen very few cases of Chagas disease, albeit most have not sent testing or included it in their differential diagnosis. Most individuals agreed that education on Chagas disease would be worth-while.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003464462199600
Author(s):  
Diego Ayala-McCormick

It has become common to compare racial inequality in the United States with a “Latin American” pattern of racial inequality in which egalitarian racial ideologies mask stark socioeconomic inequalities along racial lines. However, relatively few comparative studies exist attempting to analyze variations in degrees of racial inequality in the Americas. To stimulate further research in this area, the following study analyzes census data on racial inequality in unemployment rates, educational attainment, homeownership rates, and income in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the United States. The results suggest that while Brazil is similar to the United States in displaying large levels of racial inequality in the areas measured, Cuba and Puerto Rico display significantly lower levels of racial inequality and Colombia falls in between, undermining conceptions of a monolithic Latin American racial system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Isabel Seguí

Beatriz Palacios’s instrumental role in the Ukamau group has been largely ignored by film historiography and criticism. The authorial persona of her comrade and husband, Jorge Sanjinés, has eclipsed Palacios’s work and ideas. Her erasure is due to the perspectives chosen to analyze Ukamau (male-centered auteurist and formalist approaches) and to the almost exclusive use of the voice of Sanjinés (interviews, essays, and films interpreted in an authorial key) to construct the group’s history. Ignoring the contribution and importance of Palacios’s work and not accounting for her share in the authorship of the films made during the years they lived and worked together impedes a correct understanding of the complexity of the production context and the amplitude of the contribution of Ukamau to Latin American cinema. While her work as a producer is increasingly recognized, delving into her roles as a disseminator of political cinema in alternative circuits, evaluator of the impact of the movies on the popular classes, and documentary director completes the portrait of her all-encompassing life and career. En gran medida, el papel instrumental de Beatriz Palacios en el grupo Ukamau ha sido ignorado por la historiografía y la crítica cinematográficas. La persona autoral de su camarada y esposo, Jorge Sanjinés, ha eclipsado la obra e ideas de Palacios. Dicha eliminación se debe a las perspectivas elegidas para analizar Ukamau (enfoques y formalistas) y al uso casi exclusivo de la voz de Sanjinés (entrevistas, ensayos y películas interpretadas en clave autoral) para construir la historia del grupo. Ignorar la contribución e importancia del trabajo de Palacios, así como su participación en la autoría de las películas realizadas durante los años que vivieron y trabajaron juntos, impide una correcta contribución de Ukamau al cine latinoamericano. Mientras que su trabajo como productora es cada vez más reconocido, ahondar en su labor como divulgadora de cine político en circuitos alternativos, evaluadora del impacto de las películas en las clases populares y directora de documentales, completa debidamente retrato de su vida y carrera.


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