Culture and Politics ean Franco's article [Septem- ber/October 1994] on how tele- vision and popular music have displaced the printed word as cul- tural guide seems a bit out of con- text. First, the notion that Celia Cruz has replaced Sim6n Bolivar or Jos6 Marti as the apostle of Latinity overlooks the fact that Celia Cruz' popularity-like that of another Cuban artist, Gloria Estefan-is a commercial phe- nomenon. It also implies a non- existent Latin American homo- geneity. The claim of Cuban immigrants that they are the repre- sentatives of Latin American views has a lot to do with their political interests and position within the United States. Second, to consider the adoption of the "American" look and rock music as a display of "inventive cultural bricolage" without locat- ing this in a political context shows the shallowness of Franco's exploration. For Latinos, looking "American" is a cathartic exer- cise-a way of leaving behind their material poverty to enter a "better" world. Beyond that, the mass media in Latin America decided to promote "new and for- eign" artists at the very point when countries were engulfed in internal social and political prob- lems, and state terror was rife. The lack of a clear sense of national identity is a major reason why we Latin Americans have not been able to control our destiny. The Latin American Left has tried to link its political cause to the rediscovery of local art and music because it understands that popular culture is a very effective tool for the dissemination of ideas. For the Right, the eradication of opposition meant wiping out these cultural attachments. This helps explain why Argentine "rock nacional" and the ban on Mer- cedes Sosa occurred at the same historical moment. Latin America remains the dumping site of Dis- neyesque culture and social analy- sis. Unlinking cultural changes from politics and history is not worthy of serious scholars. Juan Alonso Crosby SUNY - Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY Jean Franco responds: Juan Alonso confuses description and endorsement, and com- pounds it by not recognizing irony. My article was certainly not intended as a celebration, but rather as a description of the issues at stake in contemporary culture wars as a consequence of neoliber- al policies. Recent books by Nelly Richard (The Insubordination of Signs) and Beatriz Sarlo (Scenes of Postmodern Life) reflect the increasing hostility of literary and art critics to what they see as their displacement from the public sphere of discussion and the media's monopoly of this sphere. To say, however, that "Latin America remains the dumping site of Disneyesque culture and social analysis" is a dangerous simplifi- cation, because it ignores the role of Latin American media giants-- Mexico's Televisa, Brazil's TV Globo, the Glusberg empire in Argentina-in disseminating neoliberal principles, and thereby ignores the questions of agency and access that arise in conse- quence. Following French theorist Pierre Bourdieu, critics based in the social sciences have tended to emphasize consumption and use as productive activities, rejecting older manipulation theories. Tak- ing rather different approaches, Richard and Sarlo, in the books I mention above, see the social sci- ences as complicitous with the sta- tus quo and therefore look to some revitalization of the aesthetic. It was not my intention to pass judg- ment on these concerns and debates, but rather to bring them to the attention of readers of the NACLA Report. The charge that "I am unlinking cultural changes from politics and history" betrays the writer's igno- rance of the fact that in 40 years of teaching and writing, those links have been my main concern. At the same time, I do not believe that an emphasis on culture (par- ticularly in today's environment) necessarily means a retreat from politics. Rather, it means that poli- tics now has to be remapped to include these crucial cultural questions.
