ckground play Latina/o characters. The sound of Meryl Streep repeatedly mispronouncing her husband's name, Esteban, may rasp in my ears forever. Television doesn't even bother to whiten; it just makes us invisible. As for the print media, they may publish reviews of art, theater, dance, films, and books with Latino themes - but how many Spanish surnames can you find among the reviewers? And of these, how many are even vaguely progressive?
             In the world of literature, Latin American writers (for example, Isabel Allende and Carlos Fuentes) have been the ones to slip over the border most easily. In general, Chicano or other homegrown Latino writers have been quietly labeled a bunch of lightweights.
             Mainstream recognition did not begin at all until the discovery that the Chicano world could be colorful, amusing, exotic, quaint, magical. Rarely was that world projected as full of anger at racism, struggles for justice, or revolutions of the body and spirit. It's better to be cute than political, individual than collective-minded, and you should pray to be compared with Like Water for Chocolate.
             Now come the new books by Julia Alvarez and Demetria Martinez, both with radical themes that include criticism of U.S. policy and Anglo values. They have had flattering reviews, but profound political or social questions raised in each book go ignored: most critics seem happier with the romancing.
             Julia Alvarez's book is a fictionalized biography that moves its characters f
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