The Andes Imagined: Indigenismo, Society and Modernity by Jorge Coronado (review)

The Latin Americanist, December 2009 Her approach to these different forms of cultural expression and urban milieus is useful to the readers’ understanding of the various poets, playwrights , and authors of the time cited throughout the text. She effectively illustrates the uses of these materials with the several publications of the time such as Caras y Caretas, La Nación, and La Prensa. For Bergero, publications such as these served as bridges between the private and the public sectors of Argentinean society. In other words, everything consumed, worn, and/or preferred within the elite social sector was transferred to the public domains by the society columns that the general public read and strived to become a part of. But more importantly, these types of printed media incited the tango and allowed for it to become the main vehicle for the expression of personal, political, and social drama in Argentinean culture. As an archivist, I find Bergero’s use of various primary sources to be quite creative. Not only does she rely on various publications such as magazines and newspapers, but also her use of material cultural as primary sources is a great way to incorporate how they re-tell the history and social aspects of Argentinean society during the early part of the twentieth century. Fashions, songs, and dances are unique and challenging concepts with which scholars illustrate how societies creatively express themselves. Bergero incorporates this beautifully into her work. In conclusion, Intersecting Tango discusses several challenging subjects that illustrate the role people play in a cultural revolution. Moreover, the study is multidisciplinary in that it incorporates topics that one who is in the humanities and social sciences would find useful in research and/or the classroom. Though the text is too advanced for undergraduates, it would be very useful for scholars and advanced graduate students who are studying social change, literature, fashion history, popular culture, and nationalism in Latin American and Caribbean studies. The book truly represents the richness and complexities behind the “tango” in relation to gender, class, identity, and nation, and how each are implicated in each other. But more importantly, Bergero’s study reminds readers of the significance the general public plays in the development of popular culture and one’s understanding of history. Christina Violeta Jones National Archives and Records Administration College Park, Maryland THE ANDES IMAGINED: INDIGENISMO, SOCIETY AND MODERNITY. By Jorge Coronado . Pittsburgh: U Pittsburgh P, 2009, p. 224, $26.95. Andes Imagined is a scholarly examination of the paradoxical relationship of literary indigenismo to its indigenous referents during the early 72 Book Reviews twentieth century. Coronado argues that while the stated objective of indigenismo was to highlight the plight of the indigenous communities and advocate for their rights under the aegis of the modern nation state, the real “indio” of the period with his/her quotidian engagements with the modern state is conspicuously absent in the lettered texts of the indigenista writers. The presence of the contemporary indigenous community is, in contrast, registered by other forms of indigenismo like print media and photography, wherein communication with a socially variegated audience is the main objective. Coronado begins by distinguishing modernization from modernity. Modernization includes the social and political democratization, capitalism , and new technologies introduced into Latin America during the postIndependence period. Modernity is the outcome of the interaction of these modernization processes with the local cultural realities of a given region. Modernity also refers to the intellectual discourses that addressed these interactions between modernization and the local realities with the objective of projecting an ideal nation state. Coronado formulates indigenismo as a movement primarily concerned with elaborating and defining the parameters of Andean modernities. His formulation extends its scope to include poetry, photography, and, journalism, allof whichvaryinglyilluminateaspectsof Andeanmodernity. The book focuses on the years between 1920-1940, a period of vigorous debate on nation-building projects and an explosion of literary and artistic works centered on the representation of the indio. Coronado divides the book into two sections. In the first, he examines the writings of José Carlos Mariátegui, José Angel Escalante, and Carlos Oquendo de Amat, who mobilized the figure of the indio, his culture, and the Incan history to correct...