Homegirls : language and cultural practice among Latina youth gangs
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Homegirls : language and cultural practice among Latina youth gangs
（New directions in ethnography, 2）
Blackwell, 2008
- : hard
- : pbk
Access to Electronic Resource 1 items
Available at 1 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-323) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this ground-breaking new book on the Nortena and Surena (North/South) youth gang dynamic, cultural anthropologist and linguist Norma Mendoza-Denton looks at the daily lives of young Latinas and their innovative use of speech, bodily practices, and symbolic exchanges that signal their gang affiliations and ideologies. Her engrossing ethnographic and sociolinguistic study reveals the connection of language behavior and other symbolic practices among Latina gang girls in California, and their connections to larger social processes of nationalism, racial/ethnic consciousness, and gender identity.
An engrossing account of the Norte and Sur girl gangs - the largest Latino gangs in California
Traces how elements of speech, bodily practices, and symbolic exchanges are used to signal social affiliation and come together to form youth gang styles
Explores the relationship between language and the body: one of the most striking aspects of the tattoos, make-up, and clothing of the gang members
Unlike other studies - which focus on violence, fighting and drugs - Mendoza-Denton delves into the commonly-overlooked cultural and linguistic aspects of youth gangs
Table of Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Tables x
Acknowledgments xi
Acknowledgment of Sources xiv
Introduction 1
1 La Migra 10
2 Beginning Fieldwork 42
3 Norte and Sur: Government, School, and Research Perspectives 76
4 Hemispheric Localism: Language, Racialized Nationalism, and the Politicization of Youth 101
5 "Muy Macha": Gendered Performances and the Avoidance of Social Injury 148
6 Smile Now Cry Later: Memorializing Practices Linking Language, Materiality, and Embodiment 176
7 Icons and Exemplars: Ethnographic Approaches in Variationist Sociolinguistics 207
8 Variation in a Community of Practice 230
9 "That's the Whole Thing [tin]!": Discourse Markers and Teenage Speech 265
10 Conclusion 292
References 297
Appendix 324
Index 328
by "Nielsen BookData"