ABSTRACT
In this book I have sought to dispel the idea of unchanging and homogenous LAC cultures, emphasizing instead differences and similarities within and between countries, and showing how these have been the result of wider connections across time and space. With these goals in mind, in this last chapter I center attention on some expressions of popular culture and how the internet is drastically transforming ways of being and interacting. After briefly surveying some of the meanings of globalization and popular culture, I turn to sports and why soccer and baseball are extraordinarily popular and important. I then switch to Carnaval and beauty contests and illustrate what these public, ritualized performances reveal about competing visions of national and individual identities. The world is teeming with global travelers, where they go and why have important consequences, and in the following section I consider what different forms of tourism mean for LAC peoples. The internet is revolutionizing the world as we know it-LAC is no exception-and I then turn to the digital revolution. Finally, I conclude this chapter with how digital and transnational television programming is irrevocably chipping away at cultural barriers between US, Latino, and LAC audiences.
