Monthly Archives: May 2012

Latina pay inequities

Time got away from me today, so I’m going to take a little bit of a shortcut and post some quick but fascinating facts & figures about Latina pay inequities.

We often hear general statistics that indicate that women typically earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. That’s only part of the story, though. Once you take race into account, things start to look even worse:

It turns out that African American women earn only 60 cents for every white man’s dollar, and Latinas even less than that: barely 53 cents. (A more updated and  thorough report by the American Association of University Women calculates this number to be 60 cents for 2012. I highly recommend taking the time to read for further explanation of the gender pay gap.)

Another interesting, related fact comes from the Center for American Progress’ 10 Facts about Latino Women and Pay Inequity:

It’s something I rarely do, but…I’m going to let these numbers speak for themselves. We’ve got a lot of work to do, folks, in working towards greater progress and equality.

In which blogging makes me even more bitter about academic publishing

One of the reasons why I started the Daily Chicana was because I am trying to develop a daily writing practice, which is the only way I’ll be able to produce the required number of journal articles for tenure. I have been in a protracted writer’s block for several months now (and yes, I know there are many people out there who argue that writer’s block does not exist). As I have explained previously, my usual mode of producing anything is through frantic episodes of binge writing, with long stretches in-between, one of the most stressful ways of producing anything. And so, grasping at straws, I thought, “A daily blog! If I can write something every day, then I’ll prove to myself that I am in fact capable of producing fair amounts of writing!” Thus the Daily Chicana was born.

I’m starting to panic because I had the entire 2011-2012 academic year off from teaching in order to focus on my research. I set off on this journey with high expectations: I would wrap up two articles that were each more than halfway written, and then complete two new articles that I’ve been planning for quite some time. I outlined my plan in detail to my department chair, the dean of the college, etc. and now I know that when I get back to campus, inquiring minds will want to know: So what did you accomplish? Which articles have you submitted and when will they be in print?

Right now, the answer is zero. So what happened?

Well last summer I decided to leave my husband and initiate a long-overdue divorce. And though I knew it was the right thing for me to do and it felt wonderful to finally follow my heart, it was still a divorce; despite our best intentions to make it as quick and amicable as possible, there was drama. I don’t want to get into all the gory details at this moment, but I can assure you that I felt like I was actually living in a telenovela. I decided to get a fresh start in a new city, so of course the cross-country move and settling into my own place took a lot of time and energy. I dawdled in making professional contacts with local colleagues in my field because I was too busy joining meetups, making new friends and getting reacquainted with myself after spending a decade with my ex-husband.

In hindsight, perhaps my research and writing could have served as an anchor amidst all the upheaval I’d been experiencing. Maybe I could have dedicated an hour or two every day to my projects, and then spent the rest of my time cuddling my dog and doing everything else fun to explore my new surroundings and identity. Maybe even if I hadn’t figured out anything else about my life, I would have arrived at a place where if someone asked me who I am, my first answer would be, “I am a writer.”

Alas, that’s not what happened. I felt too overwhelmed by my journey to do anything about my research. It was always on my mind, for sure, but I am not the most disciplined writer even in the best of circumstance, when there’s nothing unusual or stressful going on in my life. What’s done is done, and I’ve always felt that, as the saying goes, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. All I can do is pull a Scarlett O’Hara and say, “Tomorrow is another day.” Like her, I’m sure I’ll somehow muster the chutzpah to get my publications submitted on time for my tenure review (minus, of course, Scarlett’s notorious racism, classism, self-centered nature and closet full of velvet gowns).

So anyway, let me try to get back to the title of this post. Starting the Daily Chicana has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in this crazy year. I am so truly excited about and thankful for every single reader who visits this site and spends any amount of time sorting through these posts. For those of you who don’t know, when you have a blog here on WordPress, you get daily stats about how many people have visited the site and what countries they come from. (You also get to see what search terms lead people to your site; for example, today someone came here by googling “Chicana baby clothes”; yesterday it was “Rosario Dawson’s ass.”) Moreover, I am especially grateful that Latoya Peterson, owner/editor of Racialicious, came across what I had to say about Latin@s in academia and reposted my writings on that site. I had at most ten views per day until last week; thanks in part to Racialicious, now the numbers are in the hundreds each day. (Other blogs may have many thousands of times that number, but like I said, I’m just getting started here and so any number higher than zero is a major thrill for me!) I’ve really loved reading the many different thoughtful and humorous responses people leave on my posts, both here at Daily Chicana and on the two that were reposted on Racialicious.

And here’s what struck me: In the one month that I’ve kept this blog, I’ve found more readers and received more feedback than I ever will from all my other publications–current and future–combined.

Enter the bitterness, then. I am passionate about my research; yes, I do care about the topics I write about, even if I’m having trouble doing the actual writing. But what–or who–is it all for? I have to publish my work in specialized, peer-reviewed scholarly journals in order for them to “count” for tenure. Usually, these journals are read only by a handful of other academics in my particular area. Of the essays I’ve published, I have never once received any kind of response to them, either positive or negative. Years ago, by googling my name, I discovered that one of my publications was assigned as a reading in an undergraduate Latin@ Studies class, and I was heartened that at least one person out there thought my work was useful enough to get some kind of discussion going. But such feedback or interest is usually hard to find.

The academic publishing process is long and arduous, characterized by anxious waiting. Once you have completed an essay, it takes, at best, three or four months for the journal editors to decide whether they will move forward with it. If it’s accepted, then the essay goes through a long revision process, which could take six months to a year (or more!). And then to finally see it in print? It could be another year after those final revisions. And that’s assuming that everything goes smoothly. Often your work it just rejected outright and so you have to start all over at another journal. One of my favorite books, Donald Hall’s Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual, explains that because the publication process is so torturous in this way, we academics must find pleasure and satisfaction solely in the act of daily writing, precisely because we can’t count on our words ever seeing the light of day and reaching other eyes.

Each day, I try my best to embrace that notion. I just don’t know if it’s enough to sustain me, though. I want more. I write because want to start a conversation with my readers. I am genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts on what I have to say, whether it’s positive or negative, because I learn from your unique perspective. That’s the basis for why I love teaching so much more than I love my (academic) writing: I get to talk to my students, get immediate reactions from them, push my own thinking further because of the insights they share.

I can’t wait to return to my classroom this fall. Yes, it’s been a luxurious, wonderful privilege to have this research sabbatical and lord knows I sure needed the break after everything I’d been through. Yet I can’t wait to work with my students again (even though I know there will be days they drive me nuts with their texting and nights when I’m faced with stacks of freshman papers that all begin, “Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘history’ as . . .” Ugh!). The daily interaction with them sustains my spirit in a way that nothing else can.

And in the meantime, please know that even just by clicking on the Daily Chicana and reading this post, you also are helping me to stay in the game and keep up this daily writing habit. I sincerely appreciate it!

One family, two different Chicanas

An issue that is very important to me–and one that I hope to address directly, where relevant, here in my blog–is how wary I am of pointing to “the” Chicana experience, written in the singular. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again (and again and again): There is no one or correct way to be Chican@ (or Latin@ or any other ethnicity, as far as I’m concerned).

I constantly aim to disabuse my students of this idea, as they often come to my classes feeling that there is in fact some sort of “checklist” for what it means to be Chican@. Usually, the checklist includes things such as:

  • Speaking Spanish as your first language
  • Having one or both parents who immigrated from Mexico
  • Listening to Mexican music, either norteñas and such or rock en español
  • Growing up in a neighborhood that is predominantly Mexican or Latino
  • Being able to unleash a fierce mariachi grito when necessary

These checklist items are necessarily born out of their primary experiences, as most of my students do relate to these sorts of things.

Most students…but not all. I am always interested to hear from those who come to my office hours and gingerly “confess” that they are biracial, don’t speak Spanish well and/or are not at all familiar with Mexican pop culture. They are always relieved to hear me admit the same things and that I don’t think they should let anyone else dictate how “Mexican” they are by such measures.

Morever, even those of us who grow up in the same family can end up identifying very differently from each other. I’ll share my own family as an example. I’ve written in the past about the fact that my parents were both born in the US to Mexican parents. However, my mom is much more bi-cultural than my dad, is fully bilingual and at every opportunity instilled in my older sister and me a pride in our cultural heritage. Nevertheless, even growing up with the same parents, we turned out quite differently.

My sister is someone who would never deny being Mexican American. That being said, though, her ethnicity is just not a part of her day-to-day self-conception. She learned Spanish in middle school and high school, but has forgotten all of it today. She has never once watched a tv show on Univision or Telemundo. She’s generally uninterested in anything that has to do with Mexico. We took family trips to Mexico when we were young, but for her these mainly evoke painful memories of her skin breaking out–which she claims happened as soon as she crossed the border–and nearly peeing in her pants because our relatives didn’t understand her English-language pleas for a bathroom break during one especially long road-trip.

I always say that I would pay good money to be able to go back in time to 1979 and see the look on her face when my mom explained that we would have to use the previous day’s underwear as a washcloth throughout our stay with our Mexican relatives. My mom did her best to sell my sister on the idea–”Just think: this way, you and your panties turn out clean!”–but my sister was absolutely disgusted. And for those of you who know my beauty-queen sister, who is a professional make-up artist and skin care expert and who wears false eyelashes just to run to the grocery store, you can imagine why I find this story so hilarious.

In short: for my sister, the only meaningful part of being Mexican is the delicious food. The other day, I posted something on facebook about trying a “Mexican vanilla” ice cream and she cheerfully commented, “Mexican vanilla? Kind of like me” (meaning, of course, a “whitewashed” Mexican).

By contrast, I am often thinking about what it means to be Mexican American. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I started this blog–to explore these issues and talk out my ideas on the subject. My teaching and research focus on the history and culture of Mexican American people. I teach students who are predominantly Mexican American. Race and ethnicity is one of the primary lenses through which I view the world.

I don’t know why exactly things turned out so differently for us. I think part of the answer may lie in the fact that my sister didn’t attend college, while I did. For me, those were very critical years when I became active in the Latin@ student group on campus and, through my coursework, I began learning to think more critically about race and ethnicity and acquiring a specific vocabulary to talk about these issues.

At the same time, maybe the college experience isn’t everything…because there are plenty of Latin@s who go to college and who also, like my sister, don’t really make ethnicity a centerpiece of their lives. So perhaps another explanation is that it boils down to the careers we’ve chosen: ethnicity and race are topics I have to think and talk about on a daily basis, whereas my sister is involved in beauty culture, and her success to some extent is predicated on down-playing ethnicity and racial differences (i.e. being able to sell beauty products to women across race).

When I tell my sister about race-related things that happen to me–those pesky microagressions, for example–she often will say, “God, that’s so weird–stuff like that never happens to me!” And I always think, “I’m sure it does, you’re just not aware of it.”

I guess when it comes down to it, our different experiences serve to demonstrate that the more you think about ethnicity (and/or race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.), the more likely you are to identify it everywhere, analyze how it is expressed and regulated in our society and understand how it impacts our interactions with others. It takes a lot of work, though, and of course it’s not always pleasant. But it’s work that has to be done and I’m proud to be in a position to play this particular role within my family. Because it’s my choice.

How Mexican pop music of the 80s saved my life

It’s Friday! And it’s Memorial Day weekend, which means a three-day weekend (for my boyfriend at least; I’m on a permanent three-day weekend until my research sabbatical ends)! So I’m feeling especially festive and in a mood to listen to some music from my middle school days, when I discovered pop music from Mexico.

One of my favorite party tunes comes from Yuri, who was known as “the Madonna of Mexico” in the 80s. Here’s the official video for “Que te pasa?” which is gloriously cheesy with her bleached-out, teased hair, her acid-wash denim, a pink bodysuit topped with a black tutu, and tons of neon:

Songs like this were a revelation to me when I was a brown-skinned tween, seemingly the only Mexican girl around, and going through a mighty awkward stage. My hair, which had once been so straight it couldn’t hold a curl, started getting a little wavy, and so I plastered it down with hair products so to tamper it down…to the point where you could grab a section of my hair and it would stick straight out because it was so stiff. Also, I couldn’t do the classic waterfall bangs no matter how hard I tried. To top it off, I had huge, red Sally Jesse Raphael glasses and braces. I had a crush on a white boy named Jason and at a sleepover, my friends called him up to see if he’d go out with me (I’m not even sure what that would have meant back then…where do you “go out” when you’re 12?). I was quietly listening on the other line as he scoffed and said no. UB40′s “Red, Red Wine” was playing in the background, and to this day when I hear that song, I shed a little tear for my miserable seventh grade self.

Around that same time, my mom took me on a trip to Chihuahua, Mexico, to visit some family friends who’d moved there. Their daughter, who was a year younger than I, was one of my first best friends and I was excited to reconnect with her. She introduced me to all the popular Mexican pop music of the era: Timbiriche, Flans, Fandango, Pandora. I couldn’t believe it! Here, united for the first time (for me, anyway), were two things I loved: Pop music and the Spanish language/Mexican culture. Mexican people like me, but who were cool!

I brought home several records–yes, this was still the time of records–and was thrilled to discover that I could see many of these groups perform on a weekly variety show called Siempre en Domingo (aka Siempre es lo mismo). I would pop a VHS tape in the VCR and when a group I liked came on, I was ready to record and savor every precious second, because before YouTube, this was how we’d do things. Also, I learned that the Mexican neighborhoods of the big city nearby had record stores where I could buy these same songs (my mom, not knowing that I would like any Spanish-language music, had never taken me previously).

These all provided a cultural lifeline for me at a critical time. Suddenly didn’t feel so alone and different–and the pain of Jason’s rejection soon eased–thanks in part to the power of cheesy Mexican pop from the 80s!

American Apparel’s “Cowboy” problem

An image from American Apparel’s “New & Now: Men” site.

Just like yesterday, I have on my mind today another post inspired by something I read on Colorlines (what can I say? Even on the days I don’t read Colorlines for myself, I see a number of friends’ facebook posts pointing me to their great articles). On May 21, Jorge Rivas contributed a brief but pointed critique of American Apparel’s use of a ‘California Farmer’ as a fashion accessory. This particular ad campaign, from June 2011, features Robin, a USC student, posed alongside Raul, a Mexican immigrant. Here’s one of the images used as an example in the article:

As Rivas explains:

There is something that feels off in the ad that stars Raul and Robin. Both subjects look uncomfortable with each other and as a result both subjects look like props. . . . [S]omething feels off with the ad. Maybe it would have been better if they had taken both subjects in to the studio and shot them behind a plain backdrop like American Apparel does with most ads and included a caption about agricultural workers and how they’re paid so little that chances are they can’t even afford a plain $18 American Apparel t-shirt.

I share in Rivas’ discomfort with the image and am glad to see him point out that as a California “farmer,” Raul very likely doesn’t have the money to spend on the overpriced clothing he’s been called on to model. In fact, it’s ironic because in the first paragraph of the text that accompanies the images of Raul and Robin, American Apparel pats itself on the back for “celebrating” California’s diversity and for not resorting to sweatshop practices:

I want to add to Rivas’ critique by also pointing out how thinly “diversity” is represented in the images, as we can see if we continue on to read the second paragraph. What stands out to me first is the disparate descriptions of Robin and Raul. In addition to her student status, we get a snapshot of “Cali girl” Robin’s hobbies and personal tastes, which include “bon fires and hot dogs.” So not only is this girl athletic (pole vaulting!), but she’s also got quite a bit of free time on her hands to pursue such fun activities like singing and hanging out on the beach. By contrast, what do we learn of “Cowboy” Raul? As mentioned, he’s an immigrant from Mexico who rose from picking strawberries in the fields to a job preparing seeds and . . .that’s all. What are his “bon fires and hot dogs”? We’ll never know, because apparently he has no hobbies to pursue or favorite foods to eat in his leisure time. American Apparel defines him only through his labor status and menial jobs.

The company gratuitously describes Raul and Robin as an “unlikely pair.” Why do I say their choice of words is gratuitous? First, because they don’t need to say that the two are  unlikely compared to their other male/female model pairings, which usually look like this:

Interestingly, these two models stand near to but apart from each other, equals in modeling the clothes. In the previous image, however, Robin has her hands wrapped around Raul’s biceps, as if to say, “Hey, this is my Mexican!”

Another reason why the description of Robin and Raul as “unlikely” is gratuitous: American Apparel clearly intends for the models’ skin color to function as a short-hand for their different lifestyles and socioeconomic status. The company’s formulation is simplistic and lazy: White skin means education and leisure, an assumption of US birth, and a someone with unique tastes. By contrast, brown skin signifies a lack of education and low labor status, recent immigration to the US, and no distinguishing traits.

It’s such stupid logic. There’s no reason why Robin isn’t the working class immigrant, maybe even one of the 40% of visa overstayers who are Canadian, English or Australian in origin (FYI I do have a citation for this statistic…I will find it and link asap). And there’s no reason why Raul can’t be an immigrant, former farmworker and a USC student. However, the ad is predicated on our inability to see such statements as true.

In my view, Raul is there as an accessory, as shock value. In the online catalogue for the clothes he models, we can see that he was a one-time fluke, as American Apparel prefers instead its regular, skinny-boy models:

These guys must all be USC students, too. They probably also enjoy bonfires. By contrast, the Mexicans selected for the ads sit, muscular and unamused, in the back of a pickup, which looks to be parked in a field (see the image at the top of the post). Again, contrast that image with the “matching” models above, standing in front of a domestic, landscaped backdrop.

Finally, Robin and Raul are a supposedly an unlikely match because we are supposed to be unable to imagine the context that would ever bring them into each other’s spheres. I mean, just look: they’re photographed against a plain, white cinderblock wall, devoid of context. I imagine there is supposed to be the shock value of Raul’s brown skin; we are meant to ask ourselves, “How would someone who looks like Robin would ever want to be–and lay her hands on–someone who looks like Raul?” Maybe we are supposed to infer a backstory in which Robin, seeking revenge on her overbearing, rich father, giggles, “Just wait ’til Dad sees me making out with Raul! He’ll be so pissed!” (much like burnout Judd Nelson proposes to prom queen Molly Ringwald at the end of The Breakfast Club.)

The lame moves American Apparel has to make in order represent interracial/inter-ethnic relationships calls to my mind the movie Spanglish. In this film, in order to make audiences believe that Adam Sandler’s character would be attracted to a Mexican housekeeper–named Flor Moreno, or “Brown Flower”…come on, folks, really?!–they had to cast someone like Spanish actor Paz Vega:

And I’m sorry, but for all her beauty, Vega does not exactly represent the majority of hard-working Latinas who keep those Cali girls’ homes so immaculate and clean, the very women Ramiro Gomez celebrates in his artwork:

Ramiro Gomez, “Nancy and Carmelita’s Luxurious Lifestyle” (11 April 2012)

What do you think, folks? What other aspects of mainstreams view of race, socioeconomics and education can you identify in the Robin/Raul images? What do you make of American Apparel identifying Raul as a “cowboy”? I’m interested to hear your thoughts…

Uh-oh…a Dia de los Muertos movie in the works

Today this post at Colorlines caught my eye: Pixar is Jumping on Boat to Capture Latino Audience with New Día de los Muertos Movie.

CC/Eneas De Troya

As I briefly noted in my post about Rosario Dawson playing Dolores Huerta, I’m always skeptical of any of Hollywood’s “Latino” movies. And part of my skepticism here stems from the assumption that a movie centered on Día de los Muertos will somehow speak to all Latin@s (btw a little part of my professorly self is dying right now because I just linked to a Wikipedia article. Am I turning into my students?).

Is this tradition widely celebrated in other Latin American countries? I don’t know. In fact, I didn’t know much about Día de los Muertos at all until I got to college and learned about it in a Spanish class. Although my mom taught us everything she could about Mexican culture and always instilled a sense of pride in our ethnicity, Día de los Muertos was something neither she nor my grandmother ever celebrated or even mentioned…until one day when I was visiting home from grad school and saw a huge altar where our dining room table used to be. My mom went all out: colorful tablecloth, papel picado strung about, pictures of our deceased ancestors and mementos that represented them, burning candles, marigolds sprinkled all over the place. I looked around, amazed. The place looked like a Hollywood set. Oddly, my mom acted as though this were something we had done every year.

Yet we hadn’t. I grew up in an extremely beige suburban house, with average, contemporary 1980s furnishings and decor. The only things that marked our home as “Mexican” in any way were the doilies crocheted by my grandma that covered every tabletop; a few artfully-placed knickknacks from our travels to visit family in Mexico, and a huge jar of bacon fat that sat on the kitchen counter in case anyone felt like whipping some refried beans. Oh and the mariachi records that my mom would blast on Sunday mornings, when we were compelled to get up and help her clean the house. My mom really prided herself on keeping an orderly, stylish home, because she disdained what to her were my grandma’s garish decorating choices. To this day, my mom will passionately describe her hatred for a red velvet couch–covered with protective plastic, of course–that Grandma purchased (“Our living room looked like a BORDELLO!”) or the time Grandma redid the kitchen floor with black & pink tiles, then substituted lime green tiles when the pink ones ran out.

And here’s what leads me back to the soon-to-be Día de los Muertos movie. Hollywood, please stop assuming that Dia de los Muertos is going to automatically bring us Latin@s running to the theater in droves. Because based on the “Latin@” movies you’ve produced thus far, you can only envision us looking and acting in stereotypical ways and living in only one style of home. How many times have I seen the colorful Mexican kitchen in your films? How many East LA gang and boxing stories can you seriously make? How many of your soundtracks feature only salsa and strumming guitar (as Lalo Alcaraz points out on this, one of my favorite posters)?

If you think I’m exaggerating, just check out the Mexican home scenes in the trailer for the film From Prada to Nada. And keep in mind, this is just the trailer…if there’s this many stereotypes in two and a half minutes, then imagine sitting through the whole film! I rest my case.

What–or who–is a Chicano?

Isabel Martinez, “V.G. Got Her Green Card” (2001).

In a reply to my post “Latina/os in academia: A look at the numbers,” one of my esteemed fellow bloggers, Gingerestelle of Chiconkey.com, writes:

I do not identify as a Mexican-American, I identify as what I am – both. I can’t really say that my mom’s side of the family is Mexican, although technically true because so far as we can tell her family has been here in Colorado since it was actually Mexico. No records of anyone coming from Spain, only stories and the intentional distancing from all the negative connotations of being Mexican. Anyway, my maiden name was McKim and a I have a white married name of unknown origin. I always check the Hispanic box. Always. Sometimes I will also check the Anglo box and the Other box. I check the box that represents the minority, and the people who look like me. So my question is, how do you feel about someone like me adding to the Chicana ranks when you might not really consider me to be Chicana? (emphasis added)

I really appreciated Ginger’s willingness to share her family background and the forthright question she poses, which is one that I get a lot in my line of work. It’s a challenging question: Who exactly counts as “Chicana/o”?

In this post, I’ll share my own understanding of the term. However, let me state an important caveat up-front: I don’t take it upon myself to police anyone else’s identity. I’m not the Chicano Border Patrol! Not only do I see the borders of “Chicano” identity as incredibly porous, but more importantly I never would presume to tell someone how they should identify. It’s a personal choice for all of us and not something for anyone to judge. So please know that my thoughts here come from my own understandings of Mexican American history and culture, and I welcome you to disagree (or agree!), add your two cents, etc. to the explanation that follows… Continue reading →

Microagressions: a follow-up to “A Latina in Academia”

Last week, I shared some facts and figures on Latin@ educational attainment, and then followed with a post about my academic journey, which concluded with some soul-searching questions that wondered what I have overcome on the route to becoming a professor. As a refresher: I don’t always relate to the typical narrative of first-generation Latin@ students because I had an overall positive and privileged academic upbringing.

Yet just because I don’t relate to that experience does not mean I haven’t had to deal with any difficulties along the way. One of the challenges I deal with on a regular basis comes in the form of microagressions: offhand, innocuous comments that remind you of your minority racial status. And while the instances may be minute, the sheer volume of them over time has a real impact on one’s self-confidence and mental health.

The term originally referred primarily to racial comments, its general use has expanded to include ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation. Psychologist Derald Wing Sue coined the term in 2007, outlining three types:

Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such as using racial epithets, displaying swastikas or deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.

Microinsults: Verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a colleague of color how she got her job, implying she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system.

Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color. For instance, white people often ask Asian-Americans where they were born, conveying the message that they are perpetual foreigners in their own land.

For a glimpse into how such instances play out in real life, I encourage you to check out the Microagressions blog, where people submit examples of the microagressions they experience. As the organizers of the blog explain on their “about” page:

This project is a response to “it’s not a big deal” – “it” is a big deal. ”It” is in the everyday. ”It” is shoved in your face when you are least expecting it. ”It” happens when you expect it the most. ”It” is a reminder of your difference. ”It” enforces difference. ”It” can be painful. ”It” can be laughed off. ”It” can slide unnoticed by either the speaker, listener or both. ”It” can silence people. ”It” reminds us of the ways in which we and people like us continue to be excluded and oppressed. ”It” matters because these relate to a bigger “it”: a society where social difference has systematic consequences for the “others.”

I have too many instances of microagressions in my own life to count. But here some that relate to my educational journey:

1. On the first day of honors English class in my junior year of high school, my teacher administered a grammar test to assess our skills. The next day, she returned the graded tests. “Only one person got a perfect score,” she announced, before calling out my name. When I raised my hand to claim my test, she had to do a double-take, amazed that it’s the Mexican girl who fared so well. “This is yours?”

2. Walking out of my Portuguese class in college, a grad student in the class asked me, “Is your family Brazilian?” I told him that my grandparents are from Mexico. He replied, “Oh yeah, I can totally hear it in your voice. You don’t say ‘Mexico.’ You pronounce it, ‘Mexxx-eeko’” [doing an exaggerated Speedy Gonzalez accent].

3. Shortly after my college graduation, I explained to a friend’s older, male coworker that I wanted to apply to Ph.D. programs and become a professor. His response? “Well, lots of Ph.D.s are having trouble finding jobs nowadays. Have you ever considered becoming an exotic dancer? I bet you could make a lot of money doing that!”

4. In one of my graduate school years, I won a prestigious dissertation fellowship at a fancy research center on campus. When I shared my news with a friend, she said, “Of course. The out-going administrator hates the director so much, she picked a bunch of Chicanos to be fellows because she knew it would annoy him.”

5. In my teaching post-doc, I get assigned to work with a white professor in the English department. His first words to me are not “hello,” but instead, “Spanish is your first language?” (which it isn’t). Then, despite the fact that I specialize in American literature, he assumes that I’ll be thrilled to teach the 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote, and offers to include some Pablo Neruda, the mid-20th century Chilean poet, on my behalf.

6. As I shared in detail in one of my first posts, when I just began my current position, a colleague expressed amazement that someone who looks like me would listen to Depeche Mode. She also had trouble believing that I was born in the US, not in Mexico.

Again, this is just a small sampling of the kinds of comments I get on a regular basis. And those are just the race-related ones; except for #3 above, I didn’t even get into microagressions I’ve dealt with based on my gender.

No matter what their basis, these comments are always incredibly jarring because in each instance, I was just an individual woman going about her life, not anticipating such interactions. My point here is to demonstrate that that no matter what my class status is or what I achieve professionally, there will always be those helpful folks who remind me that my skin color is the primary–and sometimes only–way in which they view me.

In which I learn–via facebook–that I didn’t get that job

I’m back, folks! And I’m a little irritated. Here’s the deal:

Last September, I was embarking on a year off from teaching, as I’d received a special fellowship to focus on my research. I also was newly separated and trying to envision a new life for myself. I had a problem, though. I love my current job, campus and colleagues; it’s not the world’s most perfect workplace, but it’s perfect for me. However, I truly couldn’t bear the thought of having to return after my year off to a city that I had only experienced with my ex-husband. In fact, he’d been born and raised in the city where I work, and I dreaded the possibility of always running into him at what had previously been our favorite restaurants, cafes and things to do with our leisure time.

So I slyly began casting about for a new job. But the academic job process is particularly unusual and tortuous. Here’s typically what happens (in the Humanities, at least):

  1. Universities begin announcing what kind of professors they’re looking to hire starting in September. You have to wade through all the listings in your discipline to identify the ones that (a) actually apply to your area of specialization, and (b) are in locations that you would want to live in. The result of the search could be zero…and so you’re out of luck until next year. If you’re lucky, there are two or three jobs you’re excited about.
  2. You amass all the materials required to apply. It could be as simple as your cover letter, CV (academic resume), a writing sample, and three letters of rec. However, the university may also want teaching evaluations, a statement of your teaching and/or research philosophy, etc. The application deadlines are usually in late November to early December.
  3. You compete against hundreds of people. Really, like 400 people might apply for 1 position. The search committee whittles down the pile to the most attractive candidates–maybe 10 people–and can ask for follow-up materials (more writing sample or sample syllabi). They may also conduct brief in-person interviews at your field’s premier annual conference.
  4. If you make it past these cuts, then you are one of three or four candidates invited for a campus visit. This usually takes place sometime from January through mid-March. You spend at least one full day, maybe two, on campus in nonstop meetings (with the department chair, faculty, the deans, other administrators) and have to give a major research presentation and/or teaching demonstration.
  5. Then you wait for a decision. If you’re lucky, you hear something during the month of April.

But lots of times, you don’t hear anything at all. Or the job opening gets cancelled due to budget cuts. Or there was an inside candidate they wanted all along. In some cases, the faculty couldn’t agree on whom to hire, so they decide to post the job again the following year. You just never know how it’s going to go, and you have to learn to not take it personally (although it feels incredibly personal). A friend once likened it to being a contestant on The Bachelor: you’re just anxious, trying to be memorable and look pretty, and just waiting to go up and accept your measly rose.

So…I had the fortune of finding a great job opportunity in my field. I made it through the campus visit phase and from what I could tell, it went well. The school was way ahead of schedule: they’d already wrapped up the interviews in early December and told me they wanted to have a decision before Christmas. “Great!” I thought. “They’re really on top of things.”

Well, the holidays came and went, as did January. In mid-February, I contacted the folks in charge of the search to inquire where they were in the process. “Hang in there!” they cheerfully noted. “We hope to have a decision very soon.” But March passed, then April…and here were are at the end of May.

By now, I kinda figured by now that I didn’t get the job…and I was okay with that outcome. (A big caveat: having a tenure-track job in the first place sure made all this an easier pill to swallow.) I do believe that everything works out as it’s meant to. In my case, I am madly in love with someone who can move back home with me because the area is a magnet for people in his line of work. I was holding out for a possible job offer, though, mainly because I wanted to be in a position to negotiate a better salary at my home institution, since there is a high cost of living there.

Well yesterday I was scrolling on facebook and saw a picture of some colleagues–one of whom I knew had also applied for the same job as I had. And lo and behold, what did I see? The department chair at this other school had commented something to the effect of, “Awesome!! My future colleague!!!”

So there it was. Thanks to facebook, I finally got the confirmation I needed: I didn’t get the job. That’s fine. The reason why I’m irritated is because I had to find out through facebook rather than a professional email or phone call from the department. Very classy on their part, eh?

This happens all the time. Search committees are sometimes permanently incommunicado. It’s just not right; in fact, it’s beyond rude. It’s a part of academic culture that we can do away with. Yes, the faculty on the search committee have multiple demands on their time, as we all do. But how much effort does it take to send a friggin email? Argh.

“Hispanics” in the mainstream…and “Chimichangas and Zoloft”

No time to write much today. Instead, I’ll share a link I read a today on a study demonstrating that instead of the “socially conservative” group described in the media, Hispanics share mainstream views on most social issues.

Here’s a brief glimpse of columnist Esther Cepeda’s piece in NBCLatino:

According to the Pew Hispanic Center’s March 2011 National Survey of Latinos, when asked whether homosexuality should be accepted or discouraged by society, 59 percent of Hispanics said it should be accepted, compared to 58 percent of the general population.

Now move on to the socially conservative values voters, with whom Hispanics are routinely lumped in because of their strong connections to religious institutions. It’s true that Hispanics are almost three times likelier to be Catholic and are more likely overall to affiliate themselves with an organized religion compared to the general public, but that doesn’t translate into a political stance.

Again according to Pew, Hispanics as a whole are about as conservative (32 percent) as the overall population (34 percent), but they’re less moderate and a bit more liberal than the general population — 30 percent of Hispanics identify as liberal compared to 21 percent of the general population.

Check out the rest of the article, and click on the NBCLatino main page so that you can see the poster for this play that I know I will love, just based on the title alone: