Listening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955. By Mary Ann Villarreal

Abstract

Listening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955. Race and Culture in the American West Series. By Mary Ann Villarreal. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. xxxvi + 177 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.) L istening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955 examines a Texas Mexican entrepreneurial class in what author Mary Ann Villareal calls the Texas Triangle, that geography circumscribed by Corpus Christi, Houston and San Antonio. The businesses featured here, rural or urban, addressed the need for Spanish-Language spaces of debate or leisure between the Great Depression and the aftermath of World War II. This volume is thus a cartographic rendering and recovery of enterprises like Tivoli’s Pecan Lounge, business and social spaces typically overlooked due to their … lorena.alvarado{at}rice.edu