In this eclectic volume, editor Myra Mendible has selected essays that examine Latinas and bodies across international lines. Mendible, like many of the contributors, expresses frustration with the continual stereotyping of the “Latina body” as a single type, one that leads Latina actresses and singers to be cast as “spicy,” sexual, emotional beings. These stereotypes go back generations in U.S. – Latin American relations, perhaps most famously with Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda taking on an iconic “Good Neighbor” role in Hollywood and, similarly, her image morphing into Chiquita Banana, the feminized banana cartoon icon of the United Fruit Company. Mendible explains that “‘the Latina body’ refers generally to an amalgam, of exoticized, racialized tropes about Latinas that inform U.S. popular culture” (p. 3). While most of the contributing scholars touch upon the lives of real-life Latinas, the focus here is on iconic figures of varying notoriety, for example, Lorena Bobbitt,...

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