In the early decades of the twentieth-century, Main Street was the heart of Los Angeles’s Mexican immigrant community. It was also the hub for an extensive, largely forgotten film culture that thrived in L.A. during the early days of Hollywood. Drawing from rare archives, including the city’s Spanish-language newspapers, Colin Gunckel vividly demonstrates how this immigrant community pioneered a practice of transnational media convergence, consuming films from Hollywood and Mexico, while also producing fan publications, fiction, criticism, music, and live theatrical events. Mexico on Main Street locates this film culture at the center of a series of key debates concerning national identity, ethnicity, class, and the role of Mexicans within Hollywood before World War II. As Gunckel shows, the immigrant community’s cultural elite tried to rally the working-class population toward the cause of Mexican nationalism, while Hollywood sought to position them as part of a lucrative transnational Latin American market. Yet ironically, both Hollywood studios and Mexican American cultural elites used the media to present negative depictions of working-class Mexicans, portraying their behaviors as a threat to middle-class respectability. Rather than simply depicting working-class immigrants as pawns of these power players, however, Gunckel reveals their active participation in the era’s film culture. Gunckel’s innovative approach combines media studies, urban history, and ethnic studies to reconstruct a distinctive, richly layered immigrant film culture. Mexico on Main Street demonstrates how a site-specific study of cultural and ethnic issues challenges our existing conceptions of U.S. film history, Mexican cinema, and the history of Los Angeles.

Mexico on Main Street takes us inside a forgotten world: the film culture that thrived within Los Angeles's Mexican immigrant community in the early decades of the twentieth-century. Drawing from rare archives, Colin Gunckel demonstrates how these immigrants not only consumed Hollywood and Mexican films, but also produced fan publications, fiction, criticism, music, and live theatrical events. This book demonstrates how a site-specific study of cultural and ethnic issues challenges our existing conceptions of U.S. film history, Mexican cinema, and the history of Los Angeles.

Eat Mexico is a love letter to the intricate cuisine of Mexico City, written by a young journalist who lived and ate there for four years. It showcases food from the city's streets: the football-shaped, bean-stuffed corn tlacoyo, topped with cactus and salsa; the tortas bulging with turkey confit and a peppery herb called papalo; the beer-braised rabbit, slow-cooked until tender. The book ends on a personal note, with a chapter highlighting the creative, Mexican-inspired dishes - such as roasted poblano oatmeal - that Lesley cooks at home in New York with ingredients she discovered in Mexico. Ambitious cooks and armchair travellers alike will enjoy Lesley's Eat Mexico.

Mexican Melodrama offers a timely look at critically acclaimed films that serve as key referents in discussions of Mexican cinema. Elena Lahr-Vivaz artfully portrays the dominant conventions of historical and contemporary Mexican cinema, showing how new-wave directors draw from a previous generation to produce meaning in the present.

An award-winning chef presents street food recipes that represent the best of traditional Mexican cooking, including octopus cocktail, deep-fried fish tacos, and empanadas stuffed with shrimp.

Written with the time sensitivities of modern life in mind, "Mexican Everyday" is a collection of 90 full-flavored recipes, most of which take less than 30 minutes to make. All dishes have the fresh, clean taste of simple, authentic preparations and all are nutritionally balanced. Color throughout.

This exciting volume brings to life the food culture of Mexico, detailing the development of the cuisine and providing practical information about ingredients and cooking techniques so that readers can replicate some of Mexico's most important traditional dishes. Mexican food has become one of the most popular cuisines in the United States, with noted dishes ranging from tacos and enchiladas to tamales and guacamole. What are the origins of Mexican food culture as we know it today? Written with an educated—not specialized—audience in mind, the book includes descriptions of traditional and high cuisine, regional and national foods, everyday dishes and those prepared and served on holidays and special occasions. It also discusses ancestral eating habits and the way the food has been transformed under the pressures of globalization. Specific chapters examine food history, important ingredients, typical appetizers, main meals, desserts, street foods and snacks, dining out, and food issues and dietary concerns. Recipes accompany every chapter. Rounding out the work are a chronology of food history, a glossary, sidebars, and a bibliography. This volume is ideal for any students learning about Mexican food and culture, as well as general readers who would like to learn more about international cuisines.