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Sueños Americanos: Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities. Julio Cammarota. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008. 224 pp.
In Sueños Americanos: Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities, Julio Cammarota ethnographically investigates how institutionalized barriers in a California town compel Latina /o youth to draw on sources of knowledge both dominant and marginal. He outlines how neoliberalist philosophy has led to tax-cut policies, limited educational funds, and political suppression of Latinas/os. His research utilizes in-depth interviews and participant-observation of second-generation immigrant youth ages 17-24, carried out over a seven-year period. By focusing on six youths working at a fast food establishment and another six youths working at a city-funded community center, Cammarota is able to observe what he calls "cultural organizing" in starkly different environments frequented by young people.
Cammarota defines cultural organizing as, "the process by which people reflect on their situation and determine the most appropriate approach for daily interactions, an approach that will ameliorate the conditions of existence and maintain a certain degree of autonomy with identity formations" (p. 11)....