[Review of] Clara E. Rodriguez, ed. Latin Looks: Images of Latinas and Latinos in the U.S. Media

The anthology Latin Looks is an important contribution to the literature on Latinos and their relationship to the mass media in the United States. It builds on the earlier work by Rosa Linda Fregoso, George Hadley-Garcia, Chon Noriega, Luis Reyes, Peter Ruble, Allen Woll, and others. The book focuses primarily on television and film; however, there is no discussion of the films produced in other countries, or the Spanish language films produced in the United States. The images that are developed in music, literature, or magazines are also not discussed, although there is an admission that these are an important sources which require analysis

Afrocentrism and the Peopling of the Americas

This essay focuses on a theory of human development that has been promoted aggressively by a group of Afrocentrists in recent years - that the Western Hemisphere was first populated by Africoids or Black people who came to the Americas by way of Asia and the Bering Straits with little or no change in their physical or racial characteristics. As discussed in this article, the theory has no support in the evidence collected by scientists in various fields. The essay focuses on the basic claims and methods used by the Afrocentrists to support their theory, including their misuse or misinterpretation of mostly outdated scholarship produced in Europe and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A brief concluding section makes reference to the potential repercussions of this theory on relations between African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos of Native American and part Native American background

[Review of] Chon Noriega and Ana M. Lopez, eds., The Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the relationship between the media arts and the Latino communities of the United States. A number of important books and essays have been published on the subject, most notably Chon Noriega, ed. Chicanos and Film: Representation and Resistance (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), George Hadley-Garcia, Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures (New York: Carol Publishing, 1993), and Gary D. Keller, Hispanics and United States Film: An Overview and Handbook (Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press, 1994). In fact, there have been so many books, edited collections, and essays published on the subject in recent years that they are beginning to bump into each other in dramatic ways. A very recent example of this is the re-publication in Clara E. Rodriguez, ed. Latin Looks: (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997) of Lillian Jimenez\u27s 1993 essay Moving from the Margin to the Center: Puerto Rican Cinema in New York, which also appears in this excellent, slightly earlier collection of essays edited by Chon Noriega and Ana M. Lopez.The Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts is in fact limited mostly to a discussion of film and video

Tensions of colonial punishment: perspectives on recent developments in the study of coercive networks in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean

The study of penal practices in colonised parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean has recently witnessed a significant shift. The first generation of research into the coercive measures of colonial states tended to focus rather narrowly on imprisonment. The second generation, which has emerged only in the last five years, has significantly widened their field of vision to incorporate much more than the prison. The most recent literature considers capital and corporal punishment, as well as the larger functioning of police and courts. It also explores in more depth the ways in which indigenous peoples experienced and interpreted their punishments. Finally, this new research is sensitive to the paradoxes and tensions of colonial punishment, which often frustrated its purposes. This article reflects upon these historiographical shifts, and argues that, in light of these developments, a new framework for the study of colonial punishment is now called for. It suggests that an approach which views colonial coercive techniques as part of imperial ‘coercive networks’ encapsulates this new thinking

Tensions of colonial punishment: perspectives on recent developments in the study of coercive networks in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean

The study of penal practices in colonised parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean has recently witnessed a significant shift. The first generation of research into the coercive measures of colonial states tended to focus rather narrowly on imprisonment. The second generation, which has emerged only in the last five years, has significantly widened their field of vision to incorporate much more than the prison. The most recent literature considers capital and corporal punishment, as well as the larger functioning of police and courts. It also explores in more depth the ways in which indigenous peoples experienced and interpreted their punishments. Finally, this new research is sensitive to the paradoxes and tensions of colonial punishment, which often frustrated its purposes. This article reflects upon these historiographical shifts, and argues that, in light of these developments, a new framework for the study of colonial punishment is now called for. It suggests that an approach which views colonial coercive techniques as part of imperial ‘coercive networks’ encapsulates this new thinking