"La Prensa" Periodicals Archive, Early Mexican American Mass Culture from San Antonio, Including the original "Maldades de Dos Pilluelos" Comics, 1923 to 1925

La Prensa Early Mexican American Mass Culture

Periodical

Archive of six Mexican American newspaper issues and their included comics from La Prensa of San Antonio, 1923 to 1925, documenting the development of a Spanish language public culture among Mexican immigrants and exiles in the United States. Ignacio E. Lozano founded La Prensa in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution to connect Mexicans living north of the border with political and cultural life in Mexico. The archive documents the translation of American mass culture for the Mexican immigrant and exile community that the newspaper understood as el México de afuera, “Mexico Abroad.” These issues show the cultural negotiation behind that project, as Spanish language readers encountered American syndicated comics, sports, advertising, fashion, automobiles, and entertainment within a newspaper committed to preserving Mexican cultural identity.

La Prensa. Ignacio E. Lozano, editor. San Antonio, Texas, 1923 to 1925. Group of newspaper issues, sections, and color Sunday supplements. The strongest material is the full color Spanish language comics, including “Maldades de Dos Pilluelos,” the Spanish version of The Katzenjammer Kids, one of the foundational American newspaper comic strips. The photographed pages carry International Feature Service copyrights from the 1920s, placing Hearst syndicated comic material directly within the Spanish language press of San Antonio. Other recurring comics include “Manolo el Inquieto” and “El Terrible Guillermo,” characters that La Prensa itself advertised as attractions of its Sunday edition as early as 1922. The group also includes color covers devoted to immigration, fashion, romance, dancing, and motoring; sports pages covering boxing, baseball, and football; and San Antonio consumer advertising. Henry Clive’s “¡No Pudo Ser!” shows an immigrant denied entry looking toward the Statue of Liberty and “la tierra prometida que se le negó.” An anniversary cover marking 1913 to 1923 and the illustrated feature “Cómo funciona ‘La Prensa’” document the newspaper’s printing presses, linotype, photographic work, and expansion as a publishing enterprise.

La Prensa advocated continued identification with Mexico and resistance to assimilation while simultaneously translating the products of the American mass circulation press for readers living in the United States. The Katzenjammer Kids comics, created within the immigrant culture of the American newspaper industry, reached these readers as “Maldades de Dos Pilluelos,” while sports, advertising, fashion, and entertainment underwent the same movement into Spanish. The pages record Mexican American culture being produced through translation. American popular forms were absorbed into a Spanish language newspaper that still addressed its readership as culturally connected to Mexico. Folded as issued with moderate to heavy wear; some scattered staining; edge tears, fold separations, chips, and losses to few sheets. Overall fair to good condition. Institutional holdings of La Prensa are recorded primarily as newspaper runs, microfilm, and digital surrogates; the survival of individual original 1923–1925 issues with their color Sunday comic supplements is substantially more difficult to determine from OCLC holdings records though surviving examples in original format appear to be quite scarce.

Item #23872

Price: $950.00