Both Hollywood and corporate America are taking note of the marketing power of the growing Latino population in the United States. And as salsa takes over both the dance floor and the condiment shelf, the influence of Latin culture is gaining momentum in American society as a whole. Yet the increasing visibility of Latinos in mainstream culture has not been accompanied by a similar level of economic parity or political enfranchisement. In this important, original and entertaining book, Arlene Davila provides a critical examination of the Hispanic marketing industry and of its role in the making and marketing of US Latinos. Davila finds that Latinos' increased popularity in the marketplace is simultaneously accompanied by their growing exotification and invisibility. She scrutinizes the complex interests that are involved in the public representation of Latinos as a generic and culturally distinct people and questions the homogeneity of the different Latino subnationalities that supposedly comprise the same people and group of consumers.
In a fascinating discussion of how populations have become reconfigured as market segments, she shows that the market and marketing discourse becom
- ISBN10 0520226690
- ISBN13 9780520226692
- Publish Date 1 September 2001
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 November 2006
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Columbia University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 302
- Language English