Transnational Crossroads

The twentieth century was a time of unprecedented migration and interaction for Asian, Latin American, and Pacific Islander cultures in the Americas and the American Pacific. Some of these ethnic groups already had historic ties, but technology, migration, and globalization during the twentieth century brought them into even closer contact. Transnational Crossroads explores and triangulates for the first time the interactions and contacts among these three cultural groups that were brought together by the expanding American empire from 1867 to 1950. Through a comparative framework, this volume weaves together narratives of U.S. and Spanish empire, globalization, resistance, and identity, as well as social, labour, and political movements. Contributors examine multiethnic celebrities and key figures, migratory paths, cultural productions, and social and political formations among these three groups. Engaging multiple disciplines and methodologies, these studies of Asian American, Latin American, and Pacific Islander cultural interactions explode traditional notions of ethnic studies and introduce new approaches to transnational and comparative studies of the Americas and the American Pacific. Camilla Fojas is Vincent de Paul Professor and the director of Latin American and Latino studies at DePaul University. She is the author of Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier. Rudy P. Gue arra Jr. is an assistant professor of Asian Pacific American studies at Arizona State University. He is author of Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego.