Tag Archives: ethnicity

Hey, Aubrey Plaza is Latina!

Actor Aubrey Plaza

Today, I’m veering away from Comedy Week to talk about briefly about race at the movies.

Yesterday I went with a friend to see Safety Not Guaranteed, a quirky little film about three reporters trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious man seeking a time traveling partner. I liked everything about it: the performances, storyline, soundtrack. I recommend it! You can see the trailer here.

[Quick aside: It was a miracle that I managed to enjoy the movie at all because two elderly white ladies sitting directly behind us giggled at every single thing that happened in the movie. And I mean everything. A character stacks soup cans? Giggle. A character sneezes? Giggle. A car drives past some trees? Giggle. I had already shushed their loud chatter during the previews, but I was not prepared for the constant giggling once the film was underway. Yes, the movie is a comedy, but not every single minute is meant to be laugh-out-loud. At first I chalked it up to white privilege (not giving a damn about other people's movie experience), but looking back, I suspect that they were high. In which case, go grandmas!]

The lead character of Safety, Darius, is played by Aubrey Plaza, an actor and comedian who I guess is a regular on the TV show Parks and Recreation. Before this movie, I’d only seen her in the film Funny People. She strikes me as the smart, semi-hipsterish, a little awkward, dead-pan humor type. As I watched the film, I felt a connection to her simply out of gratitude that here was a different looking actress on the screen, in a lead role, no less. Don’t get me wrong, she’s totally gorgeous, but just not in the usual mainstream way:

Plaza as Darius in Safety Not Guaranteed

Today, in preparing to write about the film, I googled her name and discovered that she’s Latina. Her father is Puerto Rican, and she has described herself as “the only diverse” kid in her hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. “Aha!” I thought, “I knew there was something extra special about her!”

Notably, in an interview with David Letterman, her ethnicity doesn’t come up as a topic of conversation at all. Meanwhile, what George Lopez describes as her “exotic makeup” is one of the main issues during her visit to his show, Lopez Tonight. Ugh! Lopez uses one of my most hated keywords, “exotic.” It’s bad enough when white people describe us as exotic, but et tu, George?

Plaza admits that many people are surprised to find out that she’s Puerto Rican. “It comes out of me when I drink,” she jokes her in deadpan way. “I get really spicy.” This part of the interview starts at 1:15 in the video:

It’s interesting to think of Plaza as being on a continuum of Latina beauty, one that’s far outside of what people imagine when they hear “Latina” generally or, in this case, Puerto Rican specifically. In the eyes of the mainstream, being Latina is most accurately represented by someone like JLo, with more tan skin:

The one and only JLo

Though–ahem–let’s not forget that JLo was not always she of the straight, golden hair:

Jennifer Lopez, still fresh off “the block”

Of course, there are also those gorgeous Puertroriqueñas like Rosie Perez, as seen here in the opening to Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing:

And let’s not forget afro-caribeñas like Zoe Saldana, who, at the other end of the Latina beauty spectrum from Plaza, is also so far outside the mainstream’s idea of what constitutes “Latina” that she can be reasonably cast as a southern African American sorority girl in Drumline:

Not that I see myself as a spokesperson for all Latinas, but I’m happy to welcome Aubrey Plaza to the umbrella term that is “Latina.” For in supporting performances like hers in Safety Not Guaranteed, we have a chance to broaden people’s assumptions about what Latinas look like, how they sound, and how they act. There’s no one way to define us. And that’s a good thing. I hope she keeps winning new fans and surprising them when they discover her mixed ethnicity.

Project Runway’s Chicana: Deported from the runway

Designer Beatrice Guapo from Season 10 of Project Runway

In recent months, I have made a dramatic change in my life: I have been watching much less television than ever before. The only time I watched less than I do now was in my senior year of college, when I moved in with my then-boyfriend, a history grad student who saw himself as far too intellectual to partake of pastimes that entertain the masses. By contrast, the all-time high came when I was married, because watching television was more or less the only thing my ex-husband and I did together; each night came with a particular schedule of shows. It was very depressing. Lately, though, I’ve been so busy that I made an inadvertent, surprising discovery: The less I TV watch, the less I miss it. I realize now that for the most part, TV provided a background chatter so I didn’t feel so alone during the day as I worked from home.

That being said, however, there are three shows that I commit to watching, no matter what: Mad Men, Top Chef and Project Runway.

So you can imagine my excitement that a new season of Project Runway just debuted last night. Woo-hoo! And–hold onto your seats, folks–there was a Chicana contestant vying for the ultimate prize!

She is 28-year-old Beatrice Guapo from Southern California. Pretty, personable, and seemingly down-to-earth, totally not one of the attention-hogging diva designers. In the hour-long “Road to the Runway” preview that aired before the season premier, we saw pictures, like the one below, of Beatrice with her family, and in one touching moment, she tearfully spoke of losing her father.

La familia Guapo, rockin’ classic ’80s style.

The clothes she designs are drapey jerseys and knits, comfy-but-stylish concoctions designed for the chic, modern woman-on-the-go. (An incredibly skinny white woman-on-the-go, but still, I get it.)

What more did I need to see? I was on board: Her clothes look like something I’d wear and, as a bonus, she’s Chicana. Go, Beatrice!

I began to get worried, though, as soon as Beatrice admitted to having trouble sewing and needing more time for her designs than the challenges would allow. And sure enough, the dream of a Chicana designer actually walking away with the top honors ended all too soon. Beatrice was the first contestant to whom Heidi Klum bid “auf wiedersehen” on behalf of the judges’ panel.

It turns out that the judges were not a fan of what she sent out onto the runway. First, there was a gray knit dress paired with a printed cape:

And a gray knit skirt and shiny, gauzy shirt combo:

The judges didn’t like the “sad” colors of her designs and didn’t think she effectively articulated a larger design vision, beyond an enthusiasm for knits and jerseys.

Michael Kors went as far as to describe the cape from her first look as an “Aztec bathroom rug”:

One online commentator (I can’t seem to find the link now) wonders whether there’s a racial meaning behind Kors’ description: Beatrice is Mexican, therefore an ugly pattern she picked must be “Aztec.” The viewer who left the comment thought that the pattern could be better described as “Navajo.” Though his choice of words didn’t strike me as racist when I saw the show, it’s an interesting read. I thought I’d throw it out there…discuss amongst yourselves. (Btw, I googled “Aztec bathroom rug” and actually found one here.)

To me, an even more critical, unexamined racial moment is when Beatrice gives a walk-through of her apartment and holds up a glass monkey designed by her grandfather:

Woah! Note to Beatrice: Please educate yourself ASAP on the history of minstrelsy and racist sambo imagery, mmmkay? I know that your grandpa made it and it has sentimental value for you, but this is not something to proudly display. Yes, Mexicans have their own terrible history of racism towards people with African ancestry. Check out Afro-Netizen’s post about sambo stamps printed in Mexico in 2005. Yikes!

Okay, back to the show: To her credit, Beatrice took the news of her elimination like a trooper, politely thanking the judges for the opportunity and managing not to shed a tear on camera as she bid farewell to the other contestants. In her exit interview, she calmly shrugs and expresses a wish to have simply experimented with her fabrics while she had a chance. She seems like she has a strong sense of self, and I wish her good luck in her future endeavors!

Nevertheless, even though Beatrice left the competition before getting to show us her broader range, it was just a thrill for me to finally see on television a positive representation of a real-life Chicana pursuing her passion. For one wonderful, ephemeral moment, here was on national TV a Chicana to whom I could relate. Of course, I don’t know Beatrice in real life, and despite the “real life” they claim to portray, reality television shows are highly crafted fictions who exploit certain kinds of characters for drama and entertainment. All that (plus one horrible glass sambo) aside, though, it was cool to see a Latina like me, someone who started out as a sweet but dorky, glasses-wearing kid:

to a teenager involved in extra-curriculars in school:

and finally to beautiful, successful and ambitious woman pursuing her passion:

Why can’t we see more Chicanas and Latinas like Beatrice? Someone who is not representative of the cholas and maids that we’re usually portrayed as, but instead this other kind of Chicana, one you actually might encounter in every day life. A real person, not a walking stereotype.

I must admit that the significance of this point is forever lost on some people though, like a blogger who describes Beatrice as a “spicy, exotic Latina.” Excuse me while I barf. What exactly is so exotic about her? She’s from friggin’ Marina del Rey, not Amazonia. She has blond highlights, for god’s sake!

Tonight I’m going to light a big ol’ Virgen de Guadalupe candel, light some copal and blow a conch shell to the four cardinal directions in the hopes that next season, Project Runway and/or any other reality competition might feature another Chicana, and maybe next time, she’ll make it past the first episode. Dare I continue to dream that one will make it all the way?

Hispanics live longer than other racial groups…as do their stereotypical representations

Will this be the Daily Chicana in fifty years?

A recent Center for Disease Control report indicates that a Hispanic born in 2006 has a life expectancy of 80 years, which is two years longer than whites and seven years longer than African Americans. Apparently this phenomenon is known as the “Hispanic Paradox,” thanks to the fact that researchers anticipated Hispanics to have a life expectancy akin to African Americans due to Hispanics’ overall lower levels of education, income and access to health care. Ultimately, Hispanics’ longevity is attributed to the ‘healthy migrant effect,” which is the idea that newcomers to the US tend to make healthier food choices, such as rice and beans instead of processed foods, and are accustomed to walking more than the average American.

Interesting. I just watched a video about these findings on ABC World News, in a report entitled, “Why do Hispanics Outlive White and Black Americans?” And I quickly became annoyed at how much the video relied on mainstream stereotypes about Hispanics. Check it out for yourself. (Warning: If you click on that link, you first will have to sit through an advertisement, and I hope for your sake the ad is not Emmy Rossum singing about cotton as “The Fabric of My Life,” because you will have that stupid jingle in your head for the rest of the day). You will observe the following stereotypical images and sounds:

  • Cumbia music kicking off the report (because no Hispanic ever listens to non-Spanish language music)
  • Brown-skinned pedestrians of an unnamed city walking past a huge sign that says “PESOS” (because that’s our preferred form of currency)
  • General urban scenes (because none of us grows up in the suburbs)
  • A Mexican plaza, which I think is Olvera St in Los Angeles (because Hispanics = Mexicans = living in East LA)
  • This plaza is full of trashy but colorful trinkets and two guitar-strumming balladeers singing (of course) in Spanish
  • A large family in a dingy kitchen (because we all live with untold numbers of extended relatives)
  • Finally, towards the end, reporter David Wright mentions “a little salsa dancing” as older folks dance to music that is most certainly not salsa (because all Spanish language music can be labeled “salsa”)

[Weary sigh.]

Thanks, ABC World News, for doing your part to ensure that stereotypical portrayals of “Hispanics” enjoy just as long a life as the people you’re talking about.

By the way, the best part of the video is when Wright is stumped when interviewee Elaine Hernandez says her 82-year-old grandmother’s apple-a-day is that “good ol’ red and white can.” He doesn’t get it. “Budweiser!” she says. Classic.

Utah Valley Magazine: Oh no, they didn’t!

Thanks to a friend’s fb post, I came across this Gawker story: “Utah Magazine Celebrates its (White) ‘Women of Color.’” Whaaaat? I had to check this out for myself!

Here’s the scoop: Page 10 of the July/August issue of Utah Valley Magazine is a chirpy editor’s letter, written by Jeanette Bennett, celebrating girl power and promising an “action-packed issue” that focuses on women. Sounds promising. The staff photo (above) that accompanies the letter was heralded by the bold declaration, “Women of color.” So what’s the problem? Even the most cursory glimpse of the image reveals not a single actual woman of color. It’s just white women who happen to be wearing colorful clothes.

Oh. That kind of “color.”

Gawker writer John Cook contacted the editor of the magazine to get some answers. As he humorously explains,

“Clever wordplay” aside, I think you pretty much have to be living under a rock to not realize that “women of color” refers to non-white women. It is not interchangeable with brightly dressed ladies, mmmkay? Utah must be a lot rockier than I imagine.

To her credit, Bennett openly admits that Utah Valley Magazine is not at all diverse, and she did change the headline for the letter. When you view the letter now, the headline reads, “Colorful women,” which is a much better choice and what it should have said in the first place.

Part of the problem here derives in part form the homogeneity of Utah. According to US Census data, Utah (represented in left column of numbers) is overwhelmingly white, more so than the US on average (numbers in the right column):

The less exposure you have to diversity, it becomes less likely that terms like “women of color” have any particular meaning for you. To read more on these issues, I recommend Rich Benjamin’s Searching for Whitopia: An Improbably Journey to the Heart of White America. In this book, Benjamin explores what it is like to live in the whitest communities in America, places where well-to-do whites live amongst themselves, all the while insisting that they’re not racist or purposely trying to separate themselves. They see themselves as merely seeking out a particular “way of life” . . . and it just so happens that this way of life is one devoid of contact with people of color.

So what are we to do, aside from moving to Utah en masse? Our burden of enlightening the well-meaning but completely ignorant (yeah, yeah, I’m sure Bennett is a delightful person, but come on, her goof was just plain ignorant) people continues.

Remembering my brown-skinned dolls

** Hello readers! I know it’s been a while and if I’m not careful, I will have to change the title of this blog to the “Weekly Chicana” . . . or maybe even the “Monthly Chicana”, which, come to think of it, sounds like it’s menstruation-related, so I probably won’t be choosing that name, but you get the point. I’ve been away from my computer for a bit as I was recovering from an appendectomy. So what follows is my first appendix-free post! **

Last night, I finished reading Junot Diaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. The title character is an obese Dominican “ghetto nerd” obsessed with the “more speculative genres,” such as sci-fi, fantasy and apocalyptic narratives. One element of the novel that I find I’m reflecting most on is Diaz’s suggestion that the history of rape, genocide, dictatorships and abuse of power that make up the central historical narrative of the Americas–with the island of Hispaniola, today’s Haiti and Dominican Republic, as ground zero of the creation of the New World–are just as fantastical as any speculative novel. In other words, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and the like have nothing on the true, gut-wrenching tales that emerge from Caribbean history and its resulting diaspora.

One quote in particular stood out to me: Oscar wonders aloud,

If we were orcs, wouldn’t we, at a racial level, imagine ourselves to look like elves? (178)

I love the moments like this where Oscar connects his beloved fantastical creatures to his everyday experience of race. I’m not actually into Lord of the Rings, btw; I never read Tolkien and only understand what Oscar’s talking about because my ex-husband forced me to see all three LOTR movies with him. So in case you don’t know an orc from an elf, Oscar is comparing the orcs, despised and hovering at the lower end of the hierarchy:

to the elite, golden elves, so genteel and immortal:

The question he poses is a sci-fi version of Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye. It’s about the extreme impact, over time, that racial self-hatred has on one’s self-esteem and psyche. What happens to us when we never see positive representations of ourselves?

Suddenly I found myself thinking back to the toys I had in my childhood. My primary toys were my Barbies. I had about sixty of them, mainly because I inherited all of my older sister’s Barbies once she outgrew them. Truth be told, Barbie and I got off to a rocky start. When I was two years old and my sister was at school during the day, I had the habit of taking her Barbies, completely denuding them and hanging them by their hair in the bushes outside our front door. After coming home to this disturbing scene, my sister began hiding her Barbies out of my reach.

A couple of years later, though, I developed a finer appreciate for Barbies, and with me they lived an extremely privileged life: I had the Barbie townhouse (three stories, with an elevator), the Barbie van, Barbie horses, a Barbie convertible, you name it. All of them were the standard Barbie: blonde, blue-eyed…oh you know:

Loving You Barbie (1983)

I never questioned Barbie’s attributes, of course, because I’d never known anything but white dolls during my entire young life. The only non-white toy I had was my Care Bear (I had Lucky, who was green).

Things changed, though, when I finally got a Mexican Barbie. Yes! A dark-haired, brown-eyed, tan-skinned Barbie…who, now that I look back on it, still had that impossible Barbie physique that didn’t look like that of any woman in my family, but still–she was brown! Like me! I was totally thrilled! Of course, back then, I couldn’t really have articulated why my Mexican Barbie was so important to me. I just knew that she was special.

I hadn’t thought about this Barbie in years. A google search didn’t bring back her back exactly, but I found this more recent version:

Mine had the same face and hair (actually, it was unbraided), but her outfit was different: my Mexican barbie had a white, shirred off-the-shoulder peasant top, a flouncy red skirt, black velvet belt with gold trim and black t-strap shoes, kinda flamenco style. (I hope you’re not too disappointed, but my modern self won’t even get into the politics of her stereotypical get-up.) Whereas I became careless with my other run-of-the-mill Barbies over time, Mexican Barbie was always kept neat and clean. She twirled around the townhouse, rode the horses and drove the van in her ethnic outfit like it was nobody’s business.

I remember the exact moment I discovered my treasured brown-skinned doll. While my mom and I were shopping at Montgomery Ward, I wandered around the corner from the appliances and discovered a wall covered floor to ceiling with Barbies of the world. There were dolls representing all different nations, each dressed in a representative ethnic costume. I thought I’d just about died and gone to heaven. I wanted all of them, but my mom said I could only pick one. Of course, I had to keep it real and pick Mexico.

I also had a Latina Cabbage Patch Kid. During the height of the Cabbage Patch craze–and lest you forget, it truly was a craze: just watch this video, especially at the one minute mark–

I watched as my dad valiantly entered a mob of moms grabbing at the dolls and emerged with one for me. Amazingly, in the midst of the frenzy, the one he managed to pick for me had brown hair, brown eyes and tan skin! Her “adoption papers” said her name was Alicia. I was ecstatic: not only was owning a real Cabbage Patch going to make me the envy of all the girls in my third-grade class, but, just like my favorite Barbie, homegirl was Latina!

Again, I couldn’t track down an image of her the web, but I did find this image of Cabbages of Color (a phrase that is quite amusing to write):

Now I know that there will be some folks out there who read this post and roll their eyes, thinking I’m making too much of race and toys. “Toys are just toys!” they will say. “Get over it.” However, toys are never “just” toys. They matter because they are the primary way of socializing children. To say the least, Barbies teach young girls the mainstream ideals of femininity and beauty. Likewise, having baby dolls starts inculcating girls from a young age that they will one day be mothers and be the ones who are primarily responsible for child care. I’m not saying anything controversial in pointing this out: just google for yourself “socialization and toys” or “importance of ethnic toys” and read a few of the articles written for academic and popular audiences alike.

Looking back, I can now see that I was very fortunate to have (a) parents who were in a financial position to provide me with so many toys; and (b) just two dolls (out of the 100+) that were brown-skinned and that looked like me even a little bit. Many other little girls don’t have any at all.

My jalapeño blood (part two)

In yesterday’s post, I briefly discussed my reluctance to answer questions about my ethnicity and race that come from white people whom I don’t know. Again, the post was inspired by a lady at the grocery store who observed that I can eat hot peppers because I have “jalapeño blood.” I used this interaction as an example of how tricky it can be sometimes to discern someone’s intentions behind those kinds of comments.

A Daily Chicana reader named Candace shared a long and thoughtful response to “My Jalapeño Blood.” She argues,

[W]e should give people a hard time for being pushy when asking about your race. What point would they have to be pushy about it other than being snarky? 9 times out of 10 thats exactly what is happening…at least in my experience. And see what I love about some of these people is that they don’t expect that you’re a smart or intelligent person at all. In fact they don’t even consider it, they don’t expect you to have a remark or to quip back at them. Or even for you to realize that they were offending you. . . .

Im definitely not criticizing you for your response. I have encountered this same sort of thing so many times—and Im usually initially so shocked that someone would actually say something that ridiculous out loud and in public—–that Im speechless. And by the time my emotions catch up with me, the person has walked away and the moment is lost.

I’m so glad that Candace shared her perspective, because she raises a number of interesting points and makes me realize that I have more to say about these types of experiences, which I wrote about briefly in a previous post about “microagressions,” a term for offhand comments that bring your race and ethnicity to the forefront of a social interaction.

I want to say first that I totally agree with Candace: most of the time–really, like 99.9% of the time–nothing good results from a random person’s inquiry into my ethnicity. They ask the question, I tell them that I’m Mexican, and then their response falls within a range from the benign-but-stupid to the downright offensive. Here are some examples drawn from my real-world experience:

Benign-but-stupid replies:

  • “Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico!” [What does my being Chicana have to do with your travel wishes?]
  • “I should learn Spanish.” [What is the connection between my ethnicity and your fluency in Spanish?]
  • “You’re Mexican? You probably saw that movie The Motorcyle Diaries. Well, can you explain to me why Che Guevara became a communist?” [I never knew Che and I don't research his life, so your guess is as good as mine.]

Moderately insulting:

  • “Yeah, I can hear it in your voice now.”
  • “You speak English so well!”
  • “How long have you been in the US?”

Downright offensive:

  • “My dad likes to hire Mexicans because they’re as loyal as dogs.”
  • “You’ll probably like this joke I heard: ‘Mexicans are proof that the Indians f*cked buffalo.’ Isn’t that hilarious?”

Yes folks, I’ve heard all these responses and more, which is why a sense of dread comes over me as soon as I hear what Chicana writer Michele Serros calls “The Question.”

And this leads me to a second point that Candace raises: Even though I always aim to have a snappy and/or educational comeback (or in case of the most offensive comments, a razor hidden in my hair like a serious chola), most of the time I’m so taken aback by the stupid responses in the first place that I can’t think of any memorable rejoinders. Most of these interactions leave me feeling stunned, wondering, “Did that really just happen?” and “Did I hear that right?”

That’s the insidious nature and greatest danger of microagressions: Over time, they wear you down and make you question your sanity. There you are, just a person of color living your life like anyone else. You’re at the grocery store, the bookstore, sitting in your cubicle at work. Your ethnicity and race are not even on your mind. Then WHAM! There’s a random person reminding you that for them, you are first and foremost just a skin color and a walking stereotype. Thanks.

Reader Candace went on to share some advice she once heard from the CEO of a company she worked for. This woman said,

[I]t doesn’t matter where you are in this world—at work, buying groceries, at the park–what ever. When someone disrespects you to your face, possibly insults you—it doesn’t matter if they’re joking or communicating it in a joking manor—you owe it to yourself and those who might come after you if you don’t speak up——to say something. Call’em out!! say, ‘you know what so-and-so…that really hurt my feelings. Why would you say that? What do you mean? Are you trying to offend me?’

These words are an excellent reminder: We do have the right to call someone out and, probably even more effective than the wittiest of retorts, straightforwardly ask them, “Why did you say that?” Turn the tables and force them to explain themselves (which they probably won’t able to do very thoughtfully). Taking this approach has the potential to turn an instance of microagression into what’s called in academic circles a “teachable moment,” where you  have the opportunity to drop some knowledge on the folks who need it the most.

I like this idea but what holds me back a lot of the time is suspecting that I’d be wasting my time. I only have so much energy to expend in my day. Do I want to spend more time with these ignorant people, trying to reason with them or get them to understand my point of view? It just seems like the burden is forever on us to do the teaching and explaining, and it’s tiresome. Sometimes I feel quite cynical about how much impact my explanations will ever have on them. I guess, like anything else in this world, it all depends on who you’re dealing with and the particular instance/context. But all around, it sucks and again, it gets this Chicana’s jalapeño blood boiling!

What are your thoughts? How have you chosen to respond to unexpected and ignorant comments? What other ways are there to deal with microagressions? I’d love to hear what you have to say, so please leave a reply!

My jalapeño blood

A few weeks ago, I was at the grocery store buying some jalapeños to make a batch of guacamole. An older white woman watched as I picked several peppers and placed them in a produce bag. “You better be careful with those!” she cheerfully warned.

“Oh, it’s okay,” I smiled, tossing the jalapeños into my cart. “I can handle them. They’re not too hot for me.”

“Well that’s because you’ve got jalapeño blood!” she replied before ambling away.

I stood there for a minute, taken aback at the notion of jalapeño blood. I was unsure of what to make of this comment. Was she a kindly old lady trying to make a silly joke? Or was she making some sort of reference to my skin color and/or ethnicity? I found myself asking, “Is ‘having jalapeño blood’ another way of saying ‘Mexican’?”

It may sound silly to write the question out this way (lord knows it feels ridiculous just typing it), but these are the sort of innocuous interactions that are hard to interpret when you’re a person of color (and Mexican American, in this particular case). If I were to tell my sister this story, I know she’d roll her eyes and tell me that I’m too sensitive, I read too  much into these things. She often thinks I’m too concerned about race…but as I explained in a previous post, I can’t help but be that way, because it’s part of my job.

In my experience, it’s not only what is said that matters, but also who says it. A few weeks ago, I was explaining to my boyfriend–who as an Indian immigrant sometimes has a very different understanding of these issues than I do–when someone asks about my ethnic background, I can’t help but take the inquirer’s own race/ethnicity into account. (And I’m talking about strangers or mere acquaintances here; with friends, it’s a different story because I know more about them.) For example, if another person of color asks, “What are you?” I usually don’t hesitate to say that I’m Mexican or Latina. However, when a white person asks, my spidey sense kicks in and I get suspicious. “Why are they asking me this question? And what might they say in response?” I have had too many encounters that end on a sour note because something rather ignorant emerges from their lips after I reveal my ethnicity.

My reticence especially comes through then their curiosity is phrased as, “Where are you from?” to which I immediately reply with the name of my Midwestern town. Usually they continue to repeat the question: “No, I mean, where are you from?” because they can’t seem to understand that (a) yes, I’m from the US; and (b) there is a difference between nationality/where you are born and ethnicity or race. (I’m far from the first to write about this frustrating phenomenon: Check out Michele Serros’ How to Be a Chicana Role Model or this post I discovered at Latin@ Pop.) My sister, of all people, had the best response I’ve ever heard to this line of questioning: after several thwarted attempts to get her to reveal her ethnicity, a white dude asked in desperation, “What do you have in you?” She told him, “A super-absorbent tampon.” And that sure shut him up!

When I first shared all this with my boyfriend, he played devil’s advocate and asked whether, in my own treating people differently based on their race, wasn’t I being racist myself? I don’t think I am, though. First, I don’t think that acknowledging the existence of different races is in itself a racist act. And second, as a woman of color, I don’t really have enough power over anyone else to impact their lives or limit their opportunities on the basis of race. What I mean is, is the inquirer’s white privilege damaged in any way just because I give them a hard time in finding out my ethnicity? No. They will go on to enjoy the perks of whiteness whether they know I’m Mexican or not.

So back to the grocery store lady. She could be right: maybe I do have jalapeño blood because I do tend to get awfully feisty around these issues. But it’s only because I’ve had 30+ years of dealing with people like her. On some days, it’s enough to make a Chicana want to become a real-life Mexican Spitfire. In fact, I’m signing off to begin practicing my Lupe Velez impersonation…. (Check out my favorite scene at 1:40.)

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.

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…

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 →