Advanced Praise for
Making the Miami Cubanita: A Pop Cultural Genealogy
Paula Davis Hoffman’s Making the Miami Cubanita is a dazzling journey through race, ethnicity, and identity as they intersect with about 130 years of cubanidad in Miami. The author’s knack for unpacking complex questions and ideas through pop culture and the lived experiences of herself and others set a high standard for Latinx scholarship on what makes us, well, us... In this fabulous and well written book, Paula Davis Hoffman examines cubanidad through the lens of pop culture and the politics of representation. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in Miami in particular or Latinx identity in general... From Joan Didion to Desi Arnaz, many cultural workers have tried to make sense of the complexities of Cuban-American identity, especially in Miami. Paula Davis Hoffman’s highly readable Making the Miami Cubanita is a particularly deft examination of this community, its contradictions, and its meanings. With pop culture readings that include both the Elián González affair and 2 Live Crew’s “Pop That Pussy,” this fabulous book takes readers on quite a ride!
Hoffman’s study is a sprawling, challenging addition to the ever-evolving body of research on the various versions of the Cuban American experience. Making the Miami Cubanita poses significant questions about how gender, race, and ethnicity intersect in the Magic City.
Deeply researched yet highly personal, rich and complex yet thoroughly entertaining, this history of Cuban femininity—centered on the rise of the Miami chonga—marks a new milestone in the Cuban American canon. A must-read!
Paula Davis Hoffman’s readings of Miami Cuban culture bring a fresh critical perspective to our
understanding of gendered diasporic cubanidad for those who are specialists in Cuban American
studies as well as for Latinx studies scholars. I cannot stress enough the importance of these two
contributions.
Interdisciplinary, thought-provoking, and engaging. Mixing memoirs, government policy, radio,
television, and film as primary sources helps readers to understand the genealogy of the Miami Cuban in
general, and the cubanita to the chonga specifically. This book’s deep history, political foregrounding, and
textual analysis of media make it readable and informative to any audience.