Angels' Town

In Angelstown, a mid-sized, Midwestern city, Cintron pursues his ethnographic work through the language of everyday life in the Mexican-American community. He explores how Don Angel, an older Mexican immigrant, expresses his traditionalism in his storytelling, elaborate gestural style, and folk beliefs about healing. A youth, Valerio, reveals the "inbetweenness" of his life through his difficulty writing English in school and through the images he puts on his bedroom wall. For other teenagers, the language of vengeance and violence, trust and respect provides a rationale for joining gangs. As…