Gringolandia Revisited

Mexico Reading the United States. Eds. Linda Egan and Mary K. Long. Vanderbilt University Press, 2009, 316 pp. ISBN 978-0-8265-1639-8. Mexico Reading the United States offers a wealth of fresh perspectives and analyses. This collection of thirteen essays, ably edited by Linda Egan and Mary K. Long, provides a veritable fiesta for Mexicanists, and continuing education for general Latin Americanists who wish to learn more about the many ways in which Mexicans experience and imagine the United States. The chapters are also valuable for scholars in border studies, immigration studies, North American studies, theater studies, linguistics, literature, film, popular culture, philosophy, and gender and sexuality studies. This is not to say that the book is a loose collection of random essays from various fields. On the contrary, the chapters ate carefully organized temporally and thematically. They blend seamlessly together and combine to construct a fascinating portrait of Mexican perceptions of the United States. Many are the books that focus on U.S. perceptions of Mexico, and too many of these dwell on negative, stereotypical, or fear-mongering images, but comparatively few are the books that invert the exchange and examine the ways in which the U.S. can be experienced and "felt" by Mexicans.