ABSTRACT

In this chapter, I review some aspects of early 20th-century latinidad that inform an understanding of contemporary cultural phenomena and Spanish language inquiry in the current era of renewed nationalist sentiment and fervent debate around (im)migration. I first seek to establish the importance of the ‘cultural imaginary’ for studies of Spanish language in the US, and then address three principal phenomena in chronological fashion: (1) the emergence of the concept of ‘Spanish (as) heritage’ in the context of pre-statehood New Mexico during the early 1900s; (2) the construction and (re)production of latinidad in the cultural industries of the 1910s and 1920s—specifically, Hollywood film, New York music and dance, and urban architecture in the Southwest and Florida; and finally, (3) the repercussions of the Great Depression, especially with regards to cultural intervention and (im)migration during the 1930s and 1940s. The purpose of this chapter is not to synthesize or review previously published work on latinidad, but rather to highlight for readers some of the societal trends that brought the cultural construct of latinidad—and Spanish language as an essential feature of it—into the US cultural imaginary during the early 20th century. 1