Ilan Stavans’s Anthologization of the Latino Community in the United States

Abstract

Ilan Stavans’s anthologies, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010) and Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories (1993), contribute to our contemporary discourses on latinidad. While this may not necessarily be the principal intention of these works, they participate in this polemical discourse by offering particular visions of Latino/a identity, capturing the controversies surrounding the community and its place in the United States, and propose an expansive definition of this community. Growing Up Latino, an anthology of short narrative pieces from established and up-and-coming Latino and Latina authors writing predominantly in English, is mostly a collection of coming-of-age stories in the United States. While this anthology represents a personal glimpse into the contemporary Latino/a experience, The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature has a more historical aim as it contains a diverse array of texts from the colonial period until the present day. Highlighted in the latter is a clear acknowledgement of the interconnectedness of Latino/a and Latin American identities. Meanwhile, Stavans’s participation and commentary on anthologies such as Se habla español: voces latinas en USA (2000) reveal an understanding of recent exclusions, namely contemporary Latin American authors publishing in Spanish, and the impact on Latino/a studies.