Manteca! an Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets by Melissa Castillo Planas

Growing up Mexican American in upstate New York, hip hop was not part of my culture. As Raul expertly prepared one of the restaurant’s signature cocktails and delivered a delicious prosciutto flatbread the conversation meandered into music. Raul would walk over to The Orchard, an Italian Restaurant in the Lower East Side of New York City, to stock the bar at the smaller Apizz Restaurant, which lacked storage space. One night after work, I stopped by at the invite of the manager, Diego, a Mexican immigrant from Mexico City, for a drink and a bite. The book is also of value to cultural historians, scholars of music and the visual arts.I had been working at The Orchard Restaurant for a few months in the summer of 2010 before I would have a real conversation with Raul Hernández, then 29, the bartender from our sister restaurant two blocks away. ' A Mexican State of Mind is a book for enthusiasts of Mexican studies, Latinx studies, as well as migration studies. 'Combatting the Erasure of Mexican Immigrants in New York,' by Beth Harpaz Like the greatest works in my own field, African American History, A Mexican State of Mind rescues the agency of a marginalized and stigmatized group by allowing their voices to be heard and the institutions they create, some of them underground, to be seen and understood.'

Based on field work and personal relationships with young Mexican musicians and visual artists, buttressed by meticulous research on Mexican migration to the US, the author replaces common images of Mexican immigrants as passive, silent, and easily victimized with powerful portraits of Mexican youth in New York City as makers of their own history who transform challenging circumstances and create vibrant spaces through the arts. ' A Mexican State of Mind is the most innovative, and one of the most brilliant books on immigration I have read in the last ten years. The result is a beautiful and inspiring book about the generative power of art in the lives of Mexicans, migrants, Latinxs and all New Yorkers.' Castillo-Planas challenges the reduction of migrants to laborers and workers in the national imaginary by exploring their creative lives, dreams and aspirations and their counterculture and artistic endeavors that are not only shaping Mexican art worlds, but also those of New York City and beyond. 'This is the book we have been waiting to fully understand the textured lives of the fastest growing group at the heart of New York City’s Latinization and exactly what we need to expand notions of art, creativity and creative work. “ A Mexican State of Mind presents a refreshing look into the creative voices emerging from Mexican New York where these unique experiences are shaping our new imaginaries of young Mexican immigrants.”

Manteca! an Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets by Melissa Castillo Planas