Vanessa Díaz

Bad Bunny, Reggaeton, and Resistance

National Public Radio (NPR) Codeswitch  radio

2023-01-18

Díaz's course "Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico" is the centerpiece for this podcast. She is featured throughout.

Vanessa Díaz exposes violence Latino paparazzi face in 'Manufacturing Celebrity'

NBC News  online

2020-09-01

Feature article about Díaz's book, Manufacturing Celebrity. Article and interview by Gwen Aviles, NBC News/NBC Latino

‘Manufacturing Celebrity’ Spotlights Exploitation in Hollywood-Obsessed Media

LibroMobile  online

2020-09-04

In depth review about Manufacturing Celebrity and interview with Díaz. Interview and article by Gabriel San Roman.

Hate Crimes and Donald Trump: Why It’s So Hard to Prosecute Racist, Hateful Acts

International Business Times  online

2016-12-01

Interviewed by Jason Le Miere.

How ‘Brangelina’ Gave a Couple Its Mystique

The Atlantic  online

2016-09-22

Interviewed by Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic.

Why the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt marriage mattered so much in modern Hollywood

Los Angeles Times  print

2016-09-20

Interviewed by Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times.

Cuban hip-hop culture comes to Michigan

National Public Radio (NPR) of Michigan  radio

2011-10-05

Appearance on National Public Radio (NPR) of Michigan.

Uprising Radio

KPFK Radio Pacifica, 90.7 FM  radio

2006-10-13

Interviewed by Sonali Kolhatkar for “Uprising Radio,” KPFK Radio Pacifica, 90.7 FM. Feature story on documentary Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio.

Introduction to Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies

Introduction to Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies

Race, Media, and Representation

Race and Media

Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico

Benito Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, is breaking musical records, breaking gender stereotypes, and centering his homeland of Puerto Rico in everything he does. What does it mean for an all-Spanish-language act from Puerto Rico to be biggest musical artist in the world? Bad Bunny has been the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify for two consecutive years, has the longest-running Spanish-language album at the top of the Billboard chart, and in 2022 became the only artist in history to stage two separate $100 million-grossing tours in less than 12 months. As we examine his impact on global popular music and culture, we will consider what Bad Bunny can teach us in Latinx Studies. Through film, popular media, and interdisciplinary academic texts, we will explore his role in the mass 2019 protests in Puerto Rico, what these protests and ongoing struggles in Puerto Rico teach us about U.S. colonialism and Puerto Rican politics, and what Bad Bunny’s increasingly anti-colonial stance says about the current state of resistance in Puerto Rico (particularly among Puerto Rican youth). We will also pay particular attention to the politics of race, gender, and queerness in Bad Bunny’s performance, and how these politics disrupt dominant Latinx media representations. Overall, this course will explore these topics by closely situating Bad Bunny’s work in relation to key texts in Latinx Studies regarding colonialism, race, resistance, gender, and sexuality.

Manufacturing Celebrity: How Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters Build the Hollywood Industrial Complex

Duke University Press

August 2020

The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua, 2019

Latin American Perspectives

Co-author

May 2020. Photo essay

Raciontologies: Rethinking Anthropological Accounts of Institutional Racism and Enactments of White Supremacy in the U.S.

American Anthropologist

Co-author.

December 2019. “Raciontologies: Rethinking Anthropological Accounts of Institutional Racism and Enactments of White Supremacy.” American Anthropologist. Co-author. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13353

Hollywood Diversity Report. Fourth Annual. UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies sponsored, self-published sociological study.

Self-published sociological study

2017. Hollywood Diversity Report. Fourth Annual. UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies sponsored, self-published sociological study. Co-author.

HateCrimeMap.com

HateCrimeMap.com

2016-present. HateCrimeMap.com. Co-founder, co-PI, co-designer of this user-generated digital mapping site to track hate crimes and harassment since the 2016 U.S. presidential election; responsible for collaborating on research, input, design, volunteer recruitment and coordination. Housed at the UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

At the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Criminalizing the Latina/o Paparazzi of Los Angeles

Anthropology News

2015. At the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Criminalizing the Latina/o Paparazzi of Los Angeles. Anthropology News, 56 (11-12), 31-32.

Brad & Angelina: And Now…Brangelina!

Bloomsbury Academic Press

2015. “Brad & Angelina: And Now…Brangelina!”: A Sociocultural Analysis of Blended Celebrity Couple Names. Chapter in the anthology First Comes Love: Power Couples, Celebrity Kinship, and Cultural Politics. Neil Ewin and Shelley Cobb, eds. Bloomsbury Academic Press.

Latinos at the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Informal Image Sales and the Politics of Paparazzi

NYU Press

2014. Latinos at the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Informal Image Sales and the Politics of Paparazzi. Chapter in the anthology Contemporary Latina/o Media: Production, Circulation, Politics. Arlene Dávila and Yeidy Rivero, eds. NYU Press.

“De Puerto Rico a Nueva York, De Puerto Rico a California”: A Micro-History of Puerto Rican Activism and Pan-Ethnic Alliance in Southern California

Latino(a) Research Review

2012. “De Puerto Rico a Nueva York, De Puerto Rico a California”: A Micro-History of Puerto Rican Activism and Pan-Ethnic Alliance in Southern California. Published in the Latino(a) Research Review (Fall 2012 special issue: The Legacies of Puerto Rican Social, Cultural, and Political Activism in the United States).

Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio (From the Beginning)

Independent

2006. Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio (From the Beginning). Feature length documentary film. Independent. Director, writer, producer.

Cuban HipHop: A Contemporary Example of Transculturation.

Independent

2002. Cuban HipHop: A Contemporary Example of Transculturation. Short documentary film. Independent. Director, writer, producer.