1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910778129203321

Autore

Rubin Rachel <1964->

Titolo

Immigration and American popular culture [[electronic resource] ] : an introduction / / Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, c2007

ISBN

0-8147-7689-2

0-8147-6908-X

1-4356-0043-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (313 p.)

Collana

Nation of newcomers

Altri autori (Persone)

MelnickJeffrey Paul

Disciplina

304.8/73

Soggetti

Immigrants - Cultural assimilation

Popular culture - United States

United States Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-284) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Hollywood, 1930 : Jewish gangster masquerade -- Los Angeles, 1943 : zoot suit style, immigrant politics -- Broadway, 1957 : West Side Story and the Nuyorican blues -- Monterey, 1967 : the hippies meet Ravi Shankar -- South Bronx, 1977 : Jamaican migrants, born Jamericans, and global music -- Cyberspace, y2k : giant robots, Asian punks -- Afterword : Chelsea, 2006 ; wandering popular culture.

Sommario/riassunto

How does a 'national' popular culture form and grow over time in a nation comprised of immigrants? How have immigrants used popular culture in America, and how has it used them?Immigration and American Popular Culture looks at the relationship between American immigrants and the popular culture industry in the twentieth century. Through a series of case studies, Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick uncover how specific trends in popular culture-such as portrayals of European immigrants as gangsters in 1930s cinema, the zoot suits of the 1940s, the influence of Jamaican Americans on rap in the 1970s, and cyberpunk and Asian American zines in the1990s-have their roots in the complex socio-political nature of immigration in America.Supplemented by a timeline of key events and extensive suggestions for further reading, Immigration and American Popular Culture offers at



once a unique history of twentieth century U.S. immigration and an essential introduction to the major approaches to the study of popular culture. Melnick and Rubin go further to demonstrate how completely and complexly the processes of immigration and cultural production have been intertwined, and how we cannot understand one without the other.