Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America (review)

226 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies as societal conditions change. For example, they examine the demographic changes as Chicanos /as become a significant proportion of the U.S. population, as immigration from Latin America increases, as intermarriage becomes more common, and as the increase in educational and economic attainment influences the Chicanos/as' process of social identification. Included in all four chapters is an exercise for the reader designed to be enjoyable and applied to real-life situations. According to the audiors, "the hope is that the exercises help the reader explore the potential application of academic research to everyday life." This study is weU written and researched and is an unprecedented inrroduction to Chicanos /as' psychological issues. The authors incorporate in highlighted sections throughout each chapter poems, newspaper articles, mo-vies, and their own students' personal essays to illustrate complex concepts. Chicanalo Identity in a Changing U.S. Society is a welcome volume addition to the series The Mexican American Experience, designed to enhance undergraduate instruction in the social sciences. This volume would be useful in a Chicano/a Studies course, a Sociology course or a Psychology course. It is a wonderful tool for the analyses of Chicano/a identity in the 21st century. Nadia Avendaño College of Charleston Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America University of New Mexico Press, 2004 Edited by Lyman L. Johnson In this collection of essays edited by Lyman L. Johnson, nine Latin American historians provide suggestive readings of a selection of contested dead bodies belonging to recognized Latin American political heroes: Tupac Amaru, Cuauhtemoc, Miguel Hidalgo, José MarÃ-a Morelos, AgustÃ-n de Iturbide, Alvaro Obregón, Emiliano Zapata, Juan Manuel de Rosas, Evita and Juan Perón, Che Guevara, and Getúlio Vargas. Johnson argues in his introduction that these dead bodies, and sometimes, their dismembered parts, have had political "careers" not unlike those of living politicians, and that the symbolic meanings assigned to them have undergone several transmutations. Each chapter-essay attempts to unravel the often complex webs of signification ascribed to each body post-mortem, and to locate and explore the political tensions among the living players who have vied to give these bodies their meanings. As a whole, this is a valuable contribution that illuminates Latin American history and politics in refreshing ways, and serves as a springboard for further research on the political uses of bodies and their roles in nation-building discourses. Johnson states in his introduction, "Why Dead Bodies Talk," that many ofthe dead political figures treated in the collection bear traces of martyrdom; they "could be characterized as failures in life—were defeated politically or militarily, died at the hands of their enemies, or suffered imprisonment and exile" (10). The way they have been revered in death bears strong resemblances to the popular cults that develop around Christian saints. This idea is developed particularly well in the essays on Tupac Amaru, Cuauhtemoc, Evita Perón, and Che Guevara. Ward Stavig in "Tupac Amaru, the Body Politic, and the Embodiment of Hope: Inca Heritage and Social Justice in die Andes," traces the symbolic metamorphoses of rhe slain Incan leader, Tupac Amaru, whose bloody beheading, rather than put an end to the indigenous resistance against the Spaniards, inspired a legend of a second-coming of the Inca. Many Andean people, oppressed under Spanish rule, began to nurture the hope of a restoration of justice in the form of Inkarri-—the syncretic Christian-Andean belief that the Inca would be reborn from the last Inca leader's buried head. Stavig ably explores the links between this legend and the uprising ofthe second Tupac Amaru II in die eighteenth century, and suggests that the legend can continue to shed light on contemporary Andean politics. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 227 Pseudo-religious fervor also played an important role in the efforts to "find" the missing body of Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec fatoani, tortured and executed by Hernán Cortés. In "Digging Up Cuauhtemoc," Lyman L. Johnson explores the cultural context of nineteenth century Mexico, and the nascent nation's patriotic zeal for its lost indigenous heritage. In this environment , and inspired by...