Border Matters

"Border Matters" locates the study of Chicano culture in a broad social context. The author examines issues of representation and expression in a diverse assortment of texts - "corridas", novels, poems, short stories, punk and hip-hop music, ethnography, paintings, performance, art and essays. Saldivar provides a sophisticated model for a new kind of US cultural studies, one that seeks to challenge the homogeneity of US nationalism and popular culture by foregrounding the contemporary experiences and historical circumstances facing Chicanos and Chicanas. This study applies borderlands and diaspora theory to Chicano cultural practices in a way that seeks to change understanding of both the Chicano experience and the meaning of cultural theory. The author argues that the culture of the borderlands is transitional, constituting a social space in which new relations, hybrid cultures, and multi-voiced aesthetics are negotioted. The author's critical readings treat culture a social force and reveal the presence of social contexts within cultural texts.