Prof. Aparicio will be spending the day at U-M. Her keynote talk will be followed by a lunch reception (free and open to the public). She will also have time to meet with students and faculty in smaller groups.

The title of Frances Aparicio's talk is “Passing for Mexican: Relational Identities in Latina/o Chicago.” She describes her talk as follows:

"Based on twenty interviews with Latina/o individuals who are of two or more Latin American national origins, I identify three modes of 'passing' that allow Intralatina/os a sense of belonging within the 'contextual dominance' of Mexican Chicago. In these relational power dynamics, second-generation Intralatina/os engage the slippages between the 'Mexican' and 'Latina/o' common in dominant discourses, their affective (dis)identifications with the larger Mexican community, as well as their own family histories that inform their personal and social negotiations as they struggle to belong in Latina/o Chicago. I propose new 'horizontal hierarchies' that can reveal these relational negotiations among US Latina/os."

About Frances Aparicio

Frances R. Aparicio is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the Latina and Latino Studies Program at Northwestern University. She has previously taught at Stanford University, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, and University of Illinois at Chicago.  Her research interests include:

  • Latina and Latino literary and cultural studies,
  • the cultural politics of U.S. Latina/o languages,
  • Latina/o popular music and dance,
  • literary and cultural translation,
  • cultural hybridity,
  • transnationalism,
  • Latinidad,
  • mixed Latina/o identities.

She is author of the award-winning Listening to Salsa:  Gender, Latin Popular Music and Puerto Rican Cultures (Wesleyan 1998), and co-editor of various critical anthologies, including:

  • Tropicalizations:  Transcultural Representations of Latinidad (University of New England Press, 1997),
  • Musical Migrations (Palgrave, 2003),
  • Hibridismos culturales (Revista Iberoamericana, 2006),
  • The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literatures (with Suzanne Bost, 2013).

A founding editor of the Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest Book Series at the University of Illinois Press, she has facilitated and fostered book publications and new research on Latina/os in the Midwest. She is currently writing on “Intralatina/o subjects,” individuals who are of two or more national Latin American origins.

Click here to download a copy of the poster.

Part of the 80th Anniversary Celebration of the Department of American Culture - University of Michigan and of LatinX Heritage Month.