Central America Books

In one of the most productive books I have read on the subject of Southeast Asian immigration, Aihwa Ong weaves her way though the quotidian issues and fuses those with a larger theoretical framework to come up with this brilliant work. Balancing is a key element in this book. In Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees * Citizenship * The New America - we see Cambodian refugees in the process of developing into "citizen-subjects" by reconciling the forces of being-made by and self-making through some of the more coercive institutions and techniques of regulation. Taking into account such issues as religious salvation and juxtaposing that against neoliberal agendas, Cambodian refugees comply to the self regulating mechanisms but also challenge them and learn to negotiate with the welfare system, employment requirement, the medical establishment, issues of masculinity and femininity, as well as popular culture. The irony is that within the spectrum of color where the Cambodians are seen to occupy the lowest rungs (unjustly, of course) Cambodians have found a niche. Within this framework, Cambodians are dealing with their own struggles to cope with "American" living (battling with the ever present challenges of popular culture) while striving to maintain "Cambodian" values of family and home culture. In the end, Ong raises profound questions about current and past Asian American narratives while adding a new and very different dimension to the issue of citizenship in an era of globalization.

Ong writes: "Theoretically speaking, the model of Asian America as a community of ethnic exclusion is unable to conceptualize new transnational Asian subjects, except to identify them as "foreign-born" and therefore not Asian American. And despite rhetorical gestures to the contrary, Asian Americanism as a conceptual category has gradually picked up biopolitical criteria; in the practical world of an economy driven by forces of globalization, it operates within the framework of racial bipolarism, sorting out populations in the churning demographic diversity by separating the wheat from the chaff, whitened from the blackened. By ignoring the majority of disadvantaged immigrants, the discourse in effect participates in the racial coding of Asian Americans as elite citizen-subjects rich in wealth and intellectual accomplishments. The Asian America model thus inadvertently excludes in the same way that the model-minority concept initially excluded them. In this sense, it becomes and encoding technique of governmentality - in the interest of economic flexibility."

Initially, my sense was that Ong was looking to set some sort of "inclusion" agenda. Arguing, I thought, that the previous discourse of Asian America just did not include or have space for the neoliberal framework and refugee narrative that the new immigrants: Cambodian, Hmong, Mien, and Vietnamese fall under. After reading the passage above, my sense is that the challenge is more fundamental - arguing that the previous discourse actually set up and is complicit with the techniques of regulation and is party to the same kinds of classificatory systemic violence leveled against the refugees. Moreover, I have heard criticism of Ong not coming down hard enough on violence against spouse and children. I am on record in disagreement with such criticism and argue that Ong straddles a very delicate ridge - certainly not advocating the violence but cognizant of its cultural, institutional, and psycho-social origins. The challenge I see her presenting is to expose the limitations of the "system" in all its complexities but coming from the same postmodern/Foucauldian roots finds herself unable to prescribe.

Needless to say, the issue is not a simple one. These are new times and new conditions. Refugees' situations and the process of transnational citizenship is "big stuff." Finally, deftly including the problematizing strategy and theoretical framework made popular by Michel Foucault - for anyone note familiar with the issue this is a great piece to get a better understanding of the biopolitics. Ong writes one for the ages.

Miguel Llora

We have the book in english, our household is bilingual. My daughter loves both versions. A great addition to any library...

This book is excellent for young adults to learn about the historical and economic impact the Panama Canal had in the world. As an enthusiastic teacher, I plan on purchasing more titles from this publisher.

Buzz Buzz Buzz is a delightful picturebook story of two children whose attempts to sleep are foiled by the incessant buzzing of an intruding mosquito. Among all the animals the children go to for help, including the monkey, snake, crocodile, and the owl, only the frog can solve their mosquito problem. The vibrant, scratchboard-style illustrations perfectly fit the innocent story. As a bedtime book that actively encourages the joy of delicious sleep, Buzz Buzz Buzz is an excellent picturebook for parents to read to young children just before turning out the lights.

ESTE PINCHI LIBRO ESTA A TODA MADRE.VIVA EL NORTE

This description of the Caddo verb delves into some very interesting linguistic topics, including polysynthesis, agentive person marking (split intransitivity), absolutive person marking, the specification of an indefinite "defocusing" person, noun incorporation, and realis vs. irrealis modality.

Melnar ably demonstrates the wonderful richness of the Caddo verb (e.g. she describes 23 morphological position classes and 26 pronominal forms divided into realis and irrealis sets). However, despite this morphological complexity, Melnar manages to achieve remarkable technical clarity. For example, she identifies 123 Caddo markers of tense, aspect, and mood. Not only are all of the relevant concepts of these markers defined (e.g. andative, cislocative, durative, hortative, prioritive, etc.), at least one example of each marker's use is provided!

While this book is primarily geared toward linguists (and would make a great reference book for grammatical description - the index is very complete and there is ample cross-referencing), it also provides an invaluable insight to the logical expression of a conceptional system that is little documented and largely disappearing (and thus is of considerable interest to anthropologists, psychologists, and anyone interested in what it means to be human). If you adhere to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that there is a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it), you will appreciate Melnar's contribution to our understanding of Native American world-views - and humanity in general.

This is an exceptional book written by a scholar who lives in Cahokia and has devoted her life to the village as a resident, librarian, and mayor. Cahokia, Illinois, is rich in history and continues to be a thriving community. Cahokia was settled in 1699, making it one of America's oldest. History buffs and trivia buffs as well as anyone looking for something new and different will find this illustraton-packed book fascinating!

I enjoyed reading about the founding of the CA Missions. It is easy to read & understand. Great for all ages.

This book is part of the distinguished series of Cambridge Companions to Literature. It consist of 17 essays. Rather than following the anticipated chronological evolution of works, the book is presented in topics: history, heterogeneity, gender and sexuality themes. A more author specific presentation follows on the work of others such as Donoso, Fuentes, Gallegos, Cortazar, to mention a few.


A core sectiion consists of a discussion of sixs novels. The so called authors creating the "boom of the Latin American Novel. This section is perhaps of the greatest interest to the general reader. It includes the work of Machado de Assis and Clarise Lispector(Brazil, Juan Rulfo, (Mexico), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia), Isabel Allende (Chile) and Mario Vargas LLosa (Peru). And can serve as touchstone for a grand view of the new style in prose and story telling thematic innovation. Grammatically pure, these artist write crystaline prose: pleasing, docile, musical, poetic, personal. Just as direct is the fury of the violent, carnal and inevitable political ramifications of the Latin American Novel.

Spanish is in itself a docile, sweet language. Just being able to read these novelists in the original justifies learning this language.

Walters' lucid prose manages neither to talk down to the reader nor get too academic. This is intended as a college-level text but I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in poetry in Spanish.

Some background with Spanish poetry and the language is helpful, although it is not necessary. Every quote (they are frequent and generous!) is followed by an English paraphrase in clear prose. Walters surveys generally at first then breaks everything down by genre: Epic, Ballad, Songs and Sonnets, Love poetry, Religious and Satire/Burlesqe.

His theoretical framework is informed by Harold Bloom's idea of 'the anxiety of influence' but thankfully not overwhelmed by it. I learned an enormous amount about poetry, not just Spanish poetry, by reading this book. Walters impressed me as a sensitive reader and critic.

Authors quoted in this book include: El Cid author, Manrique, Luis de Gongora, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Jose de Espronceda, Jose Hernandez, Becquer, Miguel de Unamuno, Dario, Antonio and Manuel Machado, Vicente Huidobro, Pedro Salinas, Gerardo Diego, Lorca, Borges, Rafael ALberti, Luis Cernuda, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Blas de Otero, Ana Rosetti, Gioconda Belli and more.