Overview
As Santa Fe has become more and more of a tourist town, its Hispanic citizens have increasingly struggled to define and preserve their own cultural identity. This book is one of the few efforts by a native Hispanic resident to examine the city's traditions and cultures. Andrew Leo Lovato's focus is to understand how outside influences have affected Hispanic cultural identity and how this identity is being altered and maintained. Lovato also analyses the development of home-grown Hispanic cultural identity in Santa Fe. Looking at the impact of tourism, he asks questions that resonate in any city relying on tourism for its livelihood: When a culture is defined, interpreted, or co-modified by outsiders, are natives of that culture influenced by the outsiders' interpretation? Do outsiders' definitions become part of their self-identity? Lovato begins by reviewing Santa Fe's history, from the Anasazi to the present-day tourist boom. In attempting to define the city's cultural identity, he includes excerpts from interviews with some of New Mexico's intelligentsia. Other interviews help examine the Santa Fe Fiesta and the city's identity as an art market. The concluding chapter, which considers tourism's general impact, features discussions of authenticity, the impact of tourism on native cultures, the relationship of tourism to development, and the political dimension of tourism.
Full Product Details
Author: A.L. Lovato
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Imprint: University of New Mexico Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.00cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 23.80cm
Weight: 0.392kg
ISBN: 9780826332257
ISBN 10: 0826332250
Pages: 140
Publication Date: 30 September 2006
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print
Availability: Out of stock
Reviews
Santa Fe Hispanic Culture should easily win the City Different's chamber of commerce endorsement.
This is a book all Westerners should read and consider, since the cultural identity of Santa Fe is a part of Western history that we cannot afford to lose. Readers with an interest in Santa Fe's past and present will likely find Lovato's study a thought-provoking and sobering counterpoint to the city's tourist mystique. With its use of academic research, interviews and Lovato's own analysis of the situation Santa Fe Hispanic Culture offers a good intoduction to the subject and will be especially valuable to newcomers who want some insight into what makes Sants Fe tick. Santa Fe Hispanic Culture should easily win the City Different's chamber of commerce endorsement.
Author Information
Andrew Leo Lovato lives in Tesuque, New Mexico and is an assistant professor at the College of Santa Fe.
