Lacan and Ethnic Tourism: Fantasies of Exotic Excess in Little Havana

Cultural or ethnic tourism has increased in recent decades as tourists travel in pursuit of immersive and pleasurable experiences outside of their own cultures. The Travel Industry Association of America reports that roughly eighty percent of the over fifteen million adults who travel more than fifty miles from their homes can be considered “cultural tourists” (Goss). This tourism has been facilitated by the emergence and commodification of ethnic enclaves, which offer controlled and domestic experiences of foreign cultures, within the United States. According to Jan Lin, the Department Chair of Sociology at Occidental College, a circuit of ethnic tourism has emerged in the United States, composed of the many Chinatowns, Little Italies, and other ethnic tourist sites scattered throughout the country (Lin). Many of these enclaves have been transformed into sites of tourist attraction offering enjoyable experiences of foreign ethnicities to tourist visitors. Jerome Krase, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Murray Koppelman School of Business, has referred to these ethnic tourist sites as “ethnic theme parks” due to their function as sites of amusement for ethnic tourists (Krase). <a href="https://medium.com/@nicholasadiaz7/lacan-and-ethnic-tourism-fantasies-of-exotic-excess-in-little-havana-3e18477ea40c">Read More</a>