Usable Pasts: Traditions and Group Expressions in North America (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780874212266)

In Usable Pasts, fourteen authors examine the manipulation of traditional expressions among a variety of groups from the United States and Canada: the development of a pictorial style by Navajo weavers in response to traders, Mexican American responses to the appropriation of traditional foods by Anglos, the expressive forms of communication that engender and sustain a sense of community in an African American women's social club and among elderly Yiddish folksingers in Miami Beach, the incorporation of mass media images into the "C&Ts" (customs and traditions) of a Boy Scout troop, the changing meaning of their defining Exodus-like migration to Mormons, Newfoundlanders' appropriation through the rum-drinking ritual called the Schreech-In of outsiders' stereotypes, outsiders' imposition of the once-despised lobster as the emblem of Maine, the contest over Texas's heroic Alamo legend and its departures from historical fact, and how yellow ribbons were transformed from an image in a pop song to a national symbol of "resolve."

Author: Tad Tuleja
ISBN-10: 087421226X
ISBN-13: 9780874212266
Publisher: Utah State University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/01/1997
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 8.45h x 5.51w x 0.81d