In his introduction Carlos Fuentes writes: ''We descend from all the islands naming themselves twice or thrice, Indian and Spanish and African, in the waters of the Caribbees. The section ''Latino Contributions'' begins, ''Far from representing a threat to society, the Latino presence is strengthening the basic institutions of society: the family, work and education.'' And on the page opposite we see the photo of the woman sewing the American flag. ''Americanos'' is meant to educate and disarm hostile or suspicious Anglo readers while praising and reassuring Latino readers. I've been studying three books in particular: ''Americanos: Latino Life in the United States'' (Little, Brown ), ''The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women From Colonial America to the Present'' (Indiana University Press) and ''Shades of L.A.: Pictures From Ethnic Family Albums'' (the New Press). And because most of the American news media have generally defined social reality (apart from ''special interest'' stories) as WASP (in appearance at least), one is often reduced to embarrassingly childlike exclamations like, ''Gosh! Black, Japanese and Korean women serving in the Armed Forces during World War II!'' Do such images matter? How can they not, given our nation's continuing obsession with that war and the reverence for its veterans? (Is she treated like an American citizen when she gets off work, we wonder?)Ĭertain photographs are surprising because in the social (as opposed to the religious) realm we rarely believe or even think about what we do not see. Or a Mexican woman in a Texas factory, wearing a Gap T-shirt and sewing an American flag. Certain kinds of work photos signal a history of injustice and endurance that it is hoped we all understand: a middle-aged black woman standing on a bale of cotton looking down at her palm without expression as her white boss counts a coin into it. And those that glorify the intimate, even exclusionary ties that bind a group: mothers and daughters, say the Jews of the Lower East Side the Cherokee people.ĭances, weddings, funerals and childbirth always signal the universal, something we can all understand. The books that focus on the rituals that make ''us'' just like everybody else. The ''those who have made significant contributions to their people'' books. ''I have contempt for those books,'' said a friend when I tried to describe my mixed responses to photography books that try to counter passive ignorance or battle-active prejudice by celebrating social diversity and emotional complexity.
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