The State of Latino Theater in the United States

Hibridity, Transculturation, and Identity

Ed. Luis A. Ramos-García
This collection investigates the politics of cultural pluralism and identity construction within the increasingly outspoken Latino theater community in the United States. The essays reveal the nurturing relationships between people, theater, and culture that have allowed Chicano, Nuyorican/Puerto Rican, Cuban, Cuban-American, and other Latino artists to gain critical and professional respect in recent years. Works by influential writers, such as Rodrigo Duante, Cherrie Moraga, Javier Cardona, John Leguizamo, and José Rivera are analyzed in historical context, along with the trajectories of pioneering theater groups, including Pregones, The Puerto Rican Travelling Group, Teatro Campesino, Intar Theater, La Tea, and Repertorio Español.

Introduction
U.S.-Latino Theater: Confronting the Issues
Luis A. Ramos-García

  1. Latino Theater in the United States: “The Importance of Being the Other”
    Beatriz J. Rizk
  2. Still Treading Water: Recent Currents in Chicano Theater
    Marcos Martínez
  3. Re-visiting Chicana Cultural Icons: From Sor Juana to Frida
    Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez and Nancy Saporta Sternbach
  4. From El Teatro Campesino to the Gay 1990s: Transformations and Fragments in the Evolution in Chicano/a Latina/o Theater and Performance Art
    M. Teresa Marrero
  5. The Encounter of Two Cultures in the Play Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen (Or, the Representation of Cultural Hybridity)
    Eduardo Cabrera
  6. Nostalgia in Cuban Theater across the Shores
    Patricia González
  7. Transculturation and Its Discontents: Manuel Martín’s Union City Thanksgiving
    Elsa M. Gilmore
  8. Cuban Theater, American Stage: Before Exile
    Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez
  9. When the Subaltern Is Politically Incorrect: A Cultural Analysis of the Performance Art of John Leguizamo
    Gastón Adolfo Alzate
  10. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”: Performing Racial and Gender Identities in Javier Cardona’s “You Don’t Look Like”
    Jossianna Arroyo
  11. Theory, Text, and Interpretation: Approaching José Rivera’s Marisol
    Rosalina
  12. Opening the Shaman’s Bag: Latino Theater, Mixed Audiences, and Tourist Logic
    Tamara Underiner

Afterword
The Geopolitics of “Latino” Theater in the United States
(Schemata of Possible Criteria for a Theatrical Anthropology)
Hernán Vidal