Professor Arturo Aldama has just published not one, but two new books!

In the first, Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands, edited by Arturo J. Aldama, Chela Sandoval, and Peter Garcia (Indiana University Press, 2012), contributors analyze the expression of Latina/o cultural identity through performance. With music theater, dance, visual arts, body art, spoken word, performance activism, fashion, and street theater as points of entry, contributors discuss cultural practices and the fashoning of identity in Latino/a communities throughout the US. Examining the areas of crossover between Latin and American cultures gives new meaning to the notion of “borderlands.” This volume features senior scholars and up-and-coming academics from cultural, visual, and performance studies, folklore, and ethnomusicology.

The second, Comparative Indigeneities of the Americas, edited by M. Bianet Castellanos, Lourdes Gutiérrez Najera, and Arturo J. Aldama (University of Arizona Press, 2012), highlights intersecting themes such as indigenísmo, mestizaje, migration, displacement, autonomy, sovereignty, borders, spirituality, and healing that have historically shaped the experiences of Native peoples across the Américas. In doing so, it promotes a broader understanding of the relationships between Native communities in the United States and Canada and those in Latin America and the Caribbean and invites a hemispheric understanding of the relationships between Native and mestiza/o peoples.