Marketing Latinos as Development Policy: San Antonio and the Reproduction of Underprivilege
Miguel de Oliver1
1University of Texas, San Antonio, TX
Abstract
The marketing of cultural identity has been increasingly forwarded as a strategy to improve the social and material circumstances of minority groups who have traditionally been excluded from full political and economic participation in society. But what this article will illuminate in San Antonio, Texas - the largest city in the United States with a municipal economy resting on this strategy - is the emergence of an urban multicultural landscape that is culturally inclusive but materially exclusive - thus producing a celebration of cultural diversity that maintains the existing disparities in material wealth. This process is but a mere fraction of the greater commodification of culture occurring globally. The contention that minority development can be achieved through the marketing of cultural identity is disproved.
