Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity

Grisel Y. Acosta, Grisel Y. Acosta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429686184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios de género

Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity is an exploration of Latinas on the periphery of both Latina culture and mainstream culture in the United States. Whether they are deliberately rejected or whether they choose to reject sexist, classist, or racist practices within their cultures, the subjects of these articles, essays, short fiction, poems, testimonios, and visual art demonstrate the value of their experience. Ultimately, the outsider experience influences what the larger culture adopts, demonstrating that a different perspective is key to remaking Latina identity. Outside perspectives include those of queer, indigenous, Afro-Latina, activist, and differently-abled individuals.

By challenging stereotypes and revealing the diverse range of narratives that make up the Latina experience, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity will expand and deepen notions of the Latina identity for students and researchers of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Part I

Ideology and class

1Punks and hipsters

Latina outsiders remaking Latina identity

Grisel Y. Acosta

Before I begin my exploration of outsider women and female characters, I have to explain why I am so drawn to the topic of Latina counterculture. My own background is quite complex. My mother is a white Cuban whose family denied its Black blood and rejected family members who embraced their African heritage. My father identifies as a mixed-race Colombian—I would say he is Black, but it is clear he also has South American indigenous blood—and my mother’s father did not attend their wedding because of my father’s race. My brothers were born in Colombia, and I was the first one in my family to be born in the United States, Chicago, specifically. I grew up adoring opera, classical pieces by Mozart and Beethoven, music from the Midwest such as country and folk, right alongside salsa and mambo, and was totally immersed in the punk and house music movements of the 1980s. My favorite artists were (and still are) Francis Bacon,¹ Tamara de Lempicka,² Joan Miró,³ and Basquiat.⁴ I was literally the first punk rock Latina in Logan Square⁵ in the 1980s, which meant to many strangers in my community that I was directly rejecting them in some way. Indeed, I rarely walked down the street without some sort of insult being thrown my way, usually in reference to my spiked hair. However, regardless of my appearance, I always had friends who spoke Spanish, in addition to my white suburban punk friends, and I won salsa contests on a regular basis. In other words, I wasn’t exactly rejected by any culture. The fact was, I was on the periphery from birth. I wasn’t 100 hundred percent Cuban, so Cubans sort of accepted me, but always wondered. I wasn’t 100 percent Colombian, and certainly not as conservative as los del interior.⁶ I wasn’t a white Latina⁷ who could pass like so many white Cubans who simply blended into Italian and Irish cultural groups, like my oldest brother, Luis, did—he was the most blanquito of my family. And, most importantly, I wasn’t African American, even though I was Black. When I first began to study in Kenwood Academy’s college preparatory program in Hyde Park,⁸ on the near South Side of Chicago, the African-American students welcomed me, but when it became clear that I embraced both Atlantic Starr⁹ and Ratt,¹⁰ they started to sing, “She’s Strange”, by Cameo,¹¹ every time I walked by in the hallway. I was marginalized by every group I was a part of, so it became natural to amplify that marginalization by being fully proud that by the time I was 15 I could, in the same night, both dance to house music DJ Frankie Knuckles¹² and slam-dance to The Exploited.¹³ Most of my friends didn’t understand my flexibility, but I was always convinced it was an asset.

Furthermore, when some people discuss the punk and hipster subcultures, the very last image that comes to mind is that of a Latinx person, despite major Latinx contributions to both cultures. To this day, the prominent images of Latinas in popular culture are those of flamboyant, hyper-feminine glamazons like Jennifer Lopez and Sofia Vergara. It could be argued that while many Latinas are interested in the stereotypical images that Lopez and Vergara stick to, some Latinas would prefer more complex representation. Yet, it can be difficult to clear the public’s mind of the indelible marks left by such stereotypical imagery. There are very few acknowledged Latina intellectuals—such as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—and even fewer images of Latinxs who are overtly counterculture, despite their presence throughout the United States. There are three representations of Latina outsiders who exemplify the decision-making necessary to subvert Latina stereotypes: the Lola character in Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; the April Ludgate character in Parks and Recreation; and Alice Bag/Alicia Armendariz, who wrote a memoir based on her years fronting the punk band, The Bags, in Los Angeles. These Latinas, whether fictional or real, made choices that subverted their roles as women and Latinas, but that also demonstrated complete dedication to Latinx culture. Indeed, they did not abandon their culture in order to become “more American” or “whiter”. Instead, they found ways to continually surprise themselves and others in order to challenge the concept of the stereotypical Latina and the stereotypical punk, hipster, or American, for that matter.

It may seem counterproductive to constantly question oneself and choose the bizarre choice that will ultimately push away groups that have been a haven of acceptance (Latinx family and friends, one’s subcultural group, social groups in the United States). In the end, however, this type of behavior is absolutely necessary for Latinas in order to be seen as something more multifaceted than the stereotypical, racist idea of what a Latina is. Lola, April, and Alice, in order to succeed in the United States and not be assumed to be dumb, sleazy, or one-step-away-from-pregnant, make decisions that allow them to distance themselves from that racist Latina stereotype, while at the same time keep the parts of Latinx culture that they value and that work for them as modern women. That is, the women question what has been presented to them as Latinx culture, especially when much of it is propaganda (via mass media) that has nothing to do with actual Latinx culture. They invest in a subculture that gives them the space to break from US cultural norms/propaganda about Latinxes. Nonetheless, this space also allows them to decide what parts of every culture works for them. That is, they don’t necessarily remain in a countercultural stance. They reject and embrace their culture of origin, reject and embrace their counterculture, and then do it all over again. Once they become comfortable moving in and out of each culture as they see fit, they can ultimately create a space where no cultural norms are binding. However, the initial break into a subculture has to happen first, so that they may feel comfortable questioning norms at all.

My exploration is grounded in the work of many others. I immediately have to acknowledge the work of José Esteban Muñoz, specifically Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999). Muñoz states, “Disidentification is a mode of performance whereby a toxic identity is remade and infiltrated by subjects who have been hailed by such identity categories but have not been able to own such a label” (185). Disidentification allows a person to remake one’s identity without fully belonging to any identity category. He further states, “Disidentification is therefore about the management of an identity that has been ‘spoiled’ in the majoritarian public sphere” (185). I take “spoiled” to mean “hurt” and “management” to mean “rescue”. Muñoz recognizes that queer folk of color have had to identify with cultural groups—within their own ethnicity and LGBTQ communities—that would reject them in some way, be it for racist or homophobic reasons, and disidentification is a way of negotiating one’s identity despite the dangers in the very groups one belongs to (11). However, Muñoz points out that disidentification is a passive negotiation that allows one to remain part of a cultural group, and sometimes more direct forms of resistance are necessary (5). While I do believe that Lola, April, and Alice use disidentification, there are clearly some breaks they make with cultural norms—breaks that are much more overt.

Michael A. Peters, in his article “Dissident Thought: Systems of Repression, Networks of Hope”, states,

Dissent is a fundamental element of discourse[,]‌” and “in a democracy [it] rests on and is dependent on freedom of thought framed by freedom of speech that enshrines the possibility of dissent as a useful working political methodology that enables the expression of dissenting ideas especially from minorities against a majority consensus. (22, 23–24)

Peters explains that in everyday communication, disagreement is simply a part of what makes up conversation, and in a democracy, it is a necessary tool for minority populations. Lola, April, and Alice use, in addition to disidentitification, overt dissent in order to shape their identities, especially when encountering sexism and racism. The overt dissent can be in discourse, but it can also be in the form of bold action. Indeed, Peters explains that nihilism (stemming from the root nihil, which means “no”) can take the form of “epistemological (only skepticism), moral (no morality), existential (no intrinsic value) or political (no authority)” (25), all of which are important parts of the punk subculture (which Lola de Leon and Alice Bag belong to) and some of which are part of the hipster counterculture (which April Ludgate belongs to).

Robards and Bennet, in their examination of Internet subcultures, explain that today the idea of “[s]‌ubculture may also be used as a discursive tool through which young people understand themselves as crossing over a series of lifestyle practices and sensibilities” (307). That is, people in what Muñoz called the “majoritarian” culture, now with the ease of cyberspace, may also feel comfortable moving in and out of different cultural spaces, but I argue that what the majority is doing is very different from what Lola, Alice, and April do. These women may find their movement in and out of different cultures aesthetically pleasing, but the movement is not entirely a whim of taste. The movement they engage in has to do with survival and subverting stereotype. Subculture, counterculture, disidentification, and overt dissent are all tools that these Latina outsiders use in order to create dynamic identities that are incredibly successful.

The flexibility that I touch on in my own life at the beginning of this chapter took nearly thirty years to be depicted in a clear fashion in the public sphere. The first inkling of it was when I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Lola barrels into the narrative, ready to shave off her pelo bueno¹⁴ in an attempt to reject Latina gender roles. Then, in 2010, shortly after I finished my dissertation, I began to watch Parks and Recreation in order to decompress from my nearly fatal doctoral experience (I became so sick, my lungs were working at 20–30 percent). I was shocked to see myself on-screen via the April Ludgate character, who boasted a love of nearly the same range of musical styles as I did. Finally, when I began to write my memoir of growing up as an Afro-Latina punk, I researched any similar tomes that might have already covered ground I was working on. The incredibly well-written autobiography of Alice Bag, Violence Girl, came up, and I lamented not knowing the story behind The Bags, which I saw perform in the film, The Decline of Western Civilization,¹⁵ when I was a kid. I witnessed three radical Latinas within a very short time; it was an exciting change. With this chapter, I am calling upon the energy of Latinas who fearlessly choose self-imposed marginalization, so that it may allow me a way to understand how I might retain my best identity in light of recent political fascism and continuous and ever-present bigotry within academia.

Lola

If there is one word that I associate with Lola in Oscar Wao, it is escape. In the section of the novel where she describes becoming a punk rocker, she touches on her interests, which include watching Big Blue Marble¹⁶ and taking “atlases home from school” (Díaz 55). When her Japanese pen pal, Tomoko, stops writing Lola is upset because she “had already planned that Tomoko and her family would adopt [her]” (56). Books and films Lola refers to include The Sound of Music and Watership Down, and her favorite song is Bon Jovi’s Runaway (57). Lola focuses on escape during the time when she obeys Belicia, her mother, but her wishes of escape have to do with her disidentification with Latinidad as displayed by Belicia, who raises her daughter to cook, clean, and expect to be married—Lola does not embrace this lifestyle at all, losing herself in literature, film, and music. However, the passive disidentification changes to overt action when Lola overtly expresses dissent against the idea of Latina beauty. Essentially, Lola decides to shave off her “straight-straight” hair (56, 59), which her mother loved. That is an escape from the abusive behavior of her mother, but also from a path she does not want for herself. While Belicia thinks a woman’s beauty (based on Western norms) is the way to a stable life, Lola resents her mother’s constant comments, often insults, about her daughter’s physical attributes. Belicia’s love of Lola’s straight hair, when both of them are very dark-skinned Black Latinas who might have had curly or kinky hair, implies a rejection of the family’s blackness, a blackness that Belicia thinks should be remedied by marrying a man who will take care of everything. Lola disagrees. Her rejection of this stereotypical and racist view of Latina success is what Lola communicates by shaving her head, prompting a friend to ask, “So now you’re punk?” (59) and prompting countless community members to relentlessly tease her for being “goth”. Lola prefers the rejection. Her overt dissent provides a new space for the parts of her identity that her Latinx cultural space wasn’t acknowledging. Through this act, Lola embraces an intellectualism that runs in her family, as seen in later chapters that cover the life of her grandparents, who were intellectual Dominicanos. Lola instinctively cuts her hair off because she would prefer to be judged by something other than physical appearance. She, somehow, understands t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Ideology and class
• Part II Gender/Sexuality
• Part III Race/Ethnicity
• Part IV Disability
• Part V Loneliness, solitude, and the unspeakable
• Conclusion
• Index