 | | RAMN A. GUTIRREZ |
| This book had its origins in an international symposium on "Festivals and Celebrations in North American Ethnic Communities," convened by Professors Genevive Fabre and Rachel Ertel, through the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches Nord-Amricaines (CIRNA) of the University of Paris 7. Held December 14-16, 1989, at the Institut D'Anglais Charles V in Paris, France, the conference brought together over sixty American, European, and Latin American scholars from the disciplines of art, anthropology, history, politics, and sociology, as well as from the emerging and hybrid fields of cultural studies, ethnic studies, women's studies, and performance studies. Precipitated largely by the celebration and pageantry associated with the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, the symposium organizers asked participants to consider festivals and celebrations as "total social facts," which encoded the histories and memories of ethnic groups, as well as their resistance to cultural assimilation and the civic projects of nation-states. |
| The result was a stimulating interdisciplinary symposium with papers and cultural presentations that examined the celebrations and rituals of African Americans, Haitians, Cubans, West Indians, Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Cambodians, Laotians, Asian Americans, and Anglo Americans living primarily in the United States. From family reunions to pilgrimages, from religious feasts to life-cycle rites, the participating scholars intensely informed, contested, and synthesized the dimensions of the known and the as yet unknown about festivals and celebrations. |
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