Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth GangsISBN: 978-0-631-23489-0
Hardcover
354 pages
January 2008, Wiley-Blackwell
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Other Available Formats: Paperback
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In this ground-breaking new book on the Norteña and
Sureña (North/South) youth gang dynamic, cultural
anthropologist and linguist Norma Mendoza-Denton looks at the daily
lives of young Latinas and their innovative use of speech, bodily
practices, and symbolic exchanges that signal their gang
affiliations and ideologies. Her engrossing ethnographic and
sociolinguistic study reveals the connection of language behavior
and other symbolic practices among Latina gang girls in California,
and their connections to larger social processes of nationalism,
racial/ethnic consciousness, and gender identity.
- An engrossing account of the Norte and Sur girl gangs - the
largest Latino gangs in California
- Traces how elements of speech, bodily practices, and symbolic
exchanges are used to signal social affiliation and come together
to form youth gang styles
- Explores the relationship between language and the body: one of
the most striking aspects of the tattoos, make-up, and clothing of
the gang members
- Unlike other studies – which focus on violence, fighting and drugs – Mendoza-Denton delves into the commonly-overlooked cultural and linguistic aspects of youth gangs