This anthology examines how immigrants and their US-born children use media to negotiate their American identity and how audiences engage with mediated narratives about the immigrant experience (cultural adjustments, language use, and the like). Where this work diverges from other collections and monographs is the area is its intentional focus on how both first- and second-generation Americans' complex identities and hybrid cultures interact with mediated narratives in general, alongside the extent to which these narratives reflect their experience. In a three-part structure, the collection examines representations, "e;zooms in"e; to explore the reception of these narratives through autoethnographic essays, and concludes in a section of analysis and critique of specific media.
This anthology examines how immigrants and their US-born children use media to negotiate their American identity and how audiences engage with mediated narratives about the immigrant experience (cultural adjustments, language use, and the like). Where this work diverges from other collections and monographs is the area is its intentional focus on how both first- and second-generation Americans’ complex identities and hybrid cultures interact with mediated narratives in general, alongside the extent to which these narratives reflect their experience. In a three-part structure, the collection examines representations, “zooms in” to explore the reception of these narratives through autoethnographic essays, and concludes in a section of analysis and critique of specific media.
1. Becoming Black: An introduction to Immigrant Generations, Media Representation, and Audiences
Part I: Representation: Foreign Realities Onscreen
2. Stages of Being Foreign as Portrayed in The Citizen and Moscow on the Hudson
3. First-generation Korean American Women’s Mobility: Intersections of Ethnicity/Race, Class, and Gender
4. “Then We Show Ourselves:” Resisting Immigration in Party of Five Reboot
5. Contested Citizenship: The Representation of Latinx Immigration Narratives in One Day at a Time
6. Immigrants Make America Great: An Analysis of Bob Hearts Abishola
Part II: Content Creation: Industry Concerns and Constraints
7. Ambivalence & Contradiction in Digital Distribution: How Corporate Branding and Marketing Dilute the Lived Experiences in Ramy
8. Un Puente a la Mesa: The Role of Cultural Translators in the Production of Disney/Pixar’s Coco
Part III: Audience Reflections and Responses
9. Yvonne Orji's Docuseries, First Gen: First-Generational Narratives and the Impact on Audiences' Community Cultural Wealth
10. Am I an All-American Girl? An autocritography of ethnicity, gender, and acculturation via Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl (1994-1995)
11. Between a Banana and a Coconut: Reflections on Being Second-Generation American on the Periphery
12. Language, telenovelas, and citizenship: A Mexican immigrant’s exploration of first generation American narratives in Jane The Virgin
13. Mixing and re-making: the identity of second-generation Bangladeshis in the United States.
14. “Strega Nona: The Spell On Identities”
15. Rebuilding the American Dream.