Araceli Tinajero

Beginning in 1990 thousands of Spanish speakers emigrated to Japan. Historia cultural de los hispanohablantes en Japón [A Cultural History of the Spanish Speaking People in Japan]  (written in Spanish) focuses on the intellectuals, literature, festivals, cultural associations, music, radio, newspapers, magazines, libraries and blogs produced in Spanish, in Japan, by Spaniards and Latin Americans who have lived in that country during the last three decades. Based on intense research in archives throughout that Asian nation, as well as field work including several interviews, Japanese speaking Mexican scholar Araceli Tinajero recovers a transnational, contemporary cultural history that is not only important for today but for future generations.

By Mauricio Font (former Director, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies).

This handbook explores key themes in the current debate about Cuba's contemporary cultural and historical dynamics. Leading academics bring to light significant revisions of the artistic and literary canon and the historical archive, reconsidering often neglected subjects and dynamics in historiography as well as contemporary affairs. The book includes new studies on contentious mobilization, leftist activism, and youth organizations in the prerevolutionary republic. Current analyses include the relation between the Cuban state and intellectuals; institutional legitimation processes; the formation and reconstruction of national identity discourses; and new framings of gender, race, and sexual orientation. 

ARACELI TINAJERO AND J. BRIAN FREEMAN, EDS.

This volume offers a novel approach to Mexican studies by considering the complex relationship between technology, politics, society, and culture. While it is widely accepted by scholars that substantial changes in technology occurred in Mexico during the last century, very little has been written on these issues, perhaps because of a propensity to associate Mexico with tradition and folklore rather than progress and modernity. In this diverse collection, historians, literary scholars, social scientists, and cultural critics examine themes ranging from the introduction of new forms of travel (automobiles, buses, trains, and subways) to innovations in media (radio, film, and the Internet) to the relationships between technology, literature, art, and architecture in the twentieth century and beyond. 

Tras del colapso de la Unión Soviética, se abrió un nuevo debate sobre los procesos que transformarían la condición de Cuba. Desde entonces, ha habido una serie de discusiones e interrogantes que giran en torno a los cambios que se están llevando a cabo en los ámbitos culturales, artísticos, económicos, sociales e políticos de ese país. Intelectuales de diferentes disciplinas académicas (arte, antropología, historia, estudios literarios, sociología y musicología) desarrollan tales ideas en los ensayos que integran este libro.

The practice of reading aloud among cigar factory workers in Cuba has a long history, and the tradition still survives in Cuba as a hard-won right, deeply embedded in the workers' culture. Tinajero traces the evolution of the reader from nineteenth-century Cuba to the present and its eventual dissemination to Tampa, Key West, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Through an examination of journals, newspapers, and personal interviews, Tinajero relates how the reading was organized, how the readers and readings were selected, and how the process affected the relationship between workers and factory owners. Cigar factory workers were far more cultured and in touch with the political currents of the day than other workers because of the reader. And it was not only the reading material that influenced the workers; the act of listening provided discipline and helped with production in the artisan's job.