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Frameworks: Intersectional, Transnational, and Relational
Chicanx and Latinx studies is a dynamic field that has evolved over time. While this field is not constricted to a singular framework or paradigm, it is meant to be rooted in the relationship between activist movements for racial justice, liberation, and interdisciplinary academic inquiry. Within the field, multiple marginalized scholars have worked to center the diversity of Chicanxs and Latinxs, and more work is needed. As discussed in Chapter 2: Identities, feminist and queer scholars have advocated changing the name from Chicano studies, which implies masculinity and men’s concerns as the norm, to Chicana studies, Chicana and Chicano studies, Chican@ studies, Chicanx studies, or other similar labels. These titles signal inclusion and respect for all genders and people, along with research guided by feminist praxis and jotería studies.
Similarly, Afro-Latinxs and Indigenous Latinx peoples have advocated having an expansive conceptualization of ethnicity and race that include complicating mestiza/o/x (multi-racial) identities, Indigenous cultures, traditions, tribal affiliation, and sovereignty, and diverse experiences of colorism, African/Black identity, and heritage. With an increasing Central American and Indigenous population in the United States, more representation of these communities is needed in Chicanx and Latinx studies, exemplified by the work being done at California State University, Northridge and University of California, Los Angeles in Chicanx and Central American Studies. With the growing number of Central American students in California, it is critical to also have their family and community realities represented with social action research. You will have the opportunity to explore specific intersectional topics further in Chapter 2: Identities, Chapter 4: Indigeneities, Chapter 5: Feminisms, and Chapter 6: Jotería Studies. In this book, we present the field of Chicanx and Latinx studies in a way that is inclusive as possible of these developments. We bring them together, along with other relevant scholarship in ethnic studies, through a framework that is intersectional, transnational, and relational. These frameworks are defined in the remainder of this section and explored in further detail in Chapter 3: History and Historiography.
This idea is visualized in the artwork presented in Figure 1.3.1, “Somxs Muchxs” (“We are the Many”) by Fernando Martí. The poster demonstrates the unification of many diverse activists around a shared struggle, and it reminds us to consider the role of collective struggle.
Intersectionality means analyzing the multiple identities and social systems that influence and shape individuals' and communities' experiences, including their relationship to power structures and institutions. In 1990 the term was coined by Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw and represents the lived experiences of many women of color feminists and many generations of work that led to this intellectual term.21 It is a conceptual lens that allows for identifying the role of gender, sexuality, immigration status, Indigeneity, socio-economic background, ability status, age, religion, and other factors, in addition to race and ethnicity. This is also visualized in Figure 1.3.2, with a set of overlapping circles labeled with the numbers 1-12, which are listed as
1. Race
2. Ethnicity
3. Gender Identity
4. Class
5. Language
6. Religion
7. Ability
8. Sexuality
9. Mental Health
10. Age
11. Education
12. Body Size … and many more …
The caption reads, “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it locks and intersects. It is the acknowledgment that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and privilege - Kimberle Crenshaw.”
Recognizing these realities helps us more clearly understand how societal disparities are created and affect different groups. Importantly, they also inform more effective interventions, campaigns, and social movements that can address longstanding inequities. Historically, multiple marginalized voices have been excluded from key positions of power and decision-making spaces. Throughout the textbook, you will find contributions of diverse Latinx scholars guiding the perspectives and examples provided. Further, we utilize this inclusive approach to shed light on the creative strategies used to combat systemic inequities, racism, and settler colonialism.22
The dynamics of transnational identities, formations, cultures, and politics are vital to the lives and experiences of Chicanxs and Latinxs. Transnational refers to social dynamics that exist beyond an individual community and nation-state. This deconstructs the importance of existing nations, borders, and paradigms of citizenship, instead focusing on how culture, society, and human life communicate identity and move across lands. Unlike international, global, or multinational, transnational focuses on ideas, activist campaigns, and solidarity efforts transcending nationalistic and colonial borders. Examining transnational dynamics allows us to explore the lives and cultures of migrant people and transnational families and communities.
Finally, our use of a relational framework draws from ethnic studies and Chicanx/Latinx studies to include both specific and broad perspectives that draw from diverse experiences and voices, described in detail in Chapter 3: History and Historiography. This affirms intersectional and transnational approaches, which make space for the diversity of what it means to be Chicanx and Latinx. It also extends our analysis to include tools, examples, and scholarship from other ethnic studies fields. As discussed in the previous section, Chicanx studies emerged as part of the movement for ethnic studies. By attending to the experiences and perspectives of minoritized groups, we gain a depth of understanding of the dynamics of race, racialization, and Indigeneity, along with the strategies used to dismantle white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism.
Footnotes
21 Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989 (1989): 139–68; Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–99, https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039; Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 4 (June 2013): 785–810, https://doi.org/10.1086/669608.
22 Aída Hurtado, Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas, Bilingual edition (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2020); Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes, Patricia Y. Miranda, and Sawsan Abdulrahim, “More than Culture: Structural Racism, Intersectionality Theory, and Immigrant Health,” Social Science & Medicine 75, no. 12 (December 1, 2012): 2099–2106, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.037; Veronica Terriquez, “Intersectional Mobilization, Social Movement Spillover, and Queer Youth Leadership in the Immigrant Rights Movement,” Social Problems 62, no. 3 (August 1, 2015): 343–62, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spv010.
23 Fox, Jonathan. “Unpacking Transnational Citizenship” 8 (May 3, 2005). https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1830330. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/01%3A_Foundations_and_Contexts/1.03%3A_New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies.txt |
Chapter Organization
This textbook includes ten chapters representing cultural knowledge, lived experiences, key debates, paradigms, frameworks, theories, concepts, terms, and analytical tools from the discipline of Chicanx and Latinx studies. All are presented for the purpose of understanding the past to know the present and make a difference in the future. While we encourage you to utilize the textbook order in whatever order makes the most sense to your course and your own interests, the chapters can be divided into three parts.
Part 1: Foundations and New Directions
The first portion of the book, including this chapter by Melissa Moreno and Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick, along with Chapter 2: Identities and Chapter 3: History and Historiography by Amber Rose González provide a foundation for understanding the social, political, and historical processes of identity formation and the importance of community stories in the context of Chicanx and Latinx studies.
Identity formation has been shaped by resistance movements for self-determination against systems of oppression to empower and rehumanize marginalized Chicanx and Latinx communities. Chapter 2: Identities discusses identity as socially constructed and embedded in a system of power and resistance. It outlines important identity labels and when and why they emerged. Chapter 2 also provides an examination of the current demographics that make up Chicanx and Latinx communities. Chapter 3: History and Historiography focuses on the purpose and meaning of history, and the various approaches, methods, and frameworks that can be used to study history in Chicanx and Latinx communities. González advances how Chicanx and Latinx studies serves as an intervention to the discipline of history and highlights the contributions of feminist and queer studies scholars in the field of Chicanx and Latinx history.
Part 2: Chicanx and Latinx Intersectionalities
The next portion of the book extends these perspectives by focusing on the intersection of Chicanx and Latinx identities with Indigeneity, gender, and sexuality. Chapter 4: Indigeneities by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick and Melissa Moreno, Chapter 5: Feminisms by Amber Rose González, and Chapter 6: Jotería Studies by Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. are focused on critical and intersectional perspectives, demonstrating how Indigeneity, language, citizenship, and sexuality are subjectivities that impact the social status and lived experiences of members of Chicanx and Latinx communities.24
Chapter 4: Indigeneities provides an overview of terminology associated with Indigeneity, Indigenous demographics in Latin America and México, and how peoples in the past and present have expressed their Indigenous identities. Chapter 5: Feminisms offers a genealogy of the emergence of Chicana and Latina feminisms including critical issues and key areas of activism. Chapter 6 provides an introduction to the emergence of jotería studies and the importance of self-naming, highlighting some of the cultural and scholarly activist contributions that this area of study has made in Chicanx and Latinx studies. This chapter also explores self-determination in queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx communities, emphasizing the importance of safety and healing spaces.
Part 3: Activism, Praxis, and Culture
The remaining four chapters build on these perspectives by exploring the social, political, and cultural dynamics impacting Chicanx and Latinx communities in the context of activism, education, health, and culture. Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick, Chapter 8: Education and Activism by Lucha Arévalo, Chapter 9: Health by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick and Melissa Moreno, and Chapter 10: Cultural Productions by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick all reflect on Chicanx and Latinx studies in social and political action.
Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity focuses on 20th and 21st-century social and political movements. The chapter presents frameworks to assess resistance, racial and social justice, and solidarity among Chicanx and Latinx communities. Chapter 7 also identifies how Chicanx and Latinx organizations have enacted equity, self-determination, liberation, and anti-racism. It highlights intersectional Chicanx and Latinx movements that address issues related to class, gender, sexuality, national origin, immigration status, and language. Chapter 8: Education and Activism examines historical educational policies and legal cases used for social change, providing concepts to critically understand key historical education debates, issues, and initiatives that impact Chicanx and Latinx communities today.
Chapter 9: Health centers issues surrounding institutional and traditional health, healing, and well-being in Chicanx and Latinx communities. This chapter identifies health conditions, public health disparities, behaviors, and outcomes of health influenced by the intersection of race and environmental racism as they relate to class, gender, sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration status, ability, language, and age in Chicanx and Latinx communities. Chapter 10: Cultural Productions delves into concepts such as pop culture analysis, encoding, decoding, stereotypes, controlling images, tropicalism, disidentification, nationalism, image analysis, and artivism in the context of media and cultural productions. This chapter unpacks how representations and cultural meaning-making operate at the intersection of race and racism with class, gender, sexuality, immigration status, ability, and Indigeneity in Chicanx and Latinx communities.
Overall, the chapters are intended to offer readers an introduction to Chicanx/Latinx self identity, stories of community, systems of oppression, social movements, and solidarity efforts.
Footnote
24 Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 1st edition (Watertown, Mass: Persephone Press, 1981); Gloria Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color, 1st edition (San Francisco, Calif: Aunt Lute Books, 1990). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/01%3A_Foundations_and_Contexts/1.04%3A_Overview_of_the_Textbook.txt |
Summary
In this introductory chapter, you had the opportunity to learn about the foundations of Chicanx and Latinx studies, including the historical, cultural, and institutional background and contexts of the discipline. In addition, we introduced some key concepts, labels, and perspectives that will be further developed throughout this book. We hope this book provides an entry point into the significant and timely issues that affect our communities today and the opportunities available for future generations.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.1: Chapter 1 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Chicanx and Latinx studies: A discipline that has worked for over fifty years to provide a more accurate understanding of the political, cultural, historical, and social contexts that shape our current-day experiences of race, identity, community, and the disparities that plague our society.
Open Educational Resources (OER): Instructional materials that are designed to be freely used, shared, and adapted.
Chicana, Chicano, and Chicanx: Social and political identity terms chosen by people of Mexican heritage living in the United States to signify their Indigenous ancestry to the greater Southwestern and Mesoamerican (also called Anahuac) regions. This identity term emerged as a direct response to the term “Mexican American” to focus greater attention on the political, social, and cultural position of people of Mexican heritage. When the term ends in an ‘x,’ it signifies a non-binary gender, either referring to all people regardless of gender or specifically referring to people of non-binary identities.
Chicana: The feminine form of Chicana, Chicano, and Chicanx and refers to women and girls, and Chicano is the masculine form, which refers to men and boys.
Hispanic A term that became popularized and is assigned by the United States Census and other government offices to emphasize Spanish influence.
Xicana, Xicano, and Xicanx: Those whose families originate from the homeland of [Me]xicana/os and Indigenous people.
Latina, Latino, and Latinx: People with ancestry connected to anywhere in Latin America. Latinx differs from Latina/o as the “x” renders the term gender-neutral and more inclusive.
Indigenous Latinx: Indigenous migrants from Latin America living in the United States who practice their Indigenous languages, ceremonies, medicines, foodways, and ancestral lands.
Afro-Latinx: People of African and Latin American heritage, and corresponds to national or regional variations of the term, such as Afro-Mexican or Afro-Brazilian.
Rehumanization: Conscious work done to combat systemic oppression so that people can participate in a civic society towards democracy in a multicultural society.
Hxstories: The collective impact of past events, avoiding the andro-centric and colonial association with the term history.
Cultural funds of knowledge and cultural wealth: Assets, information, wisdom, and expertise that exists within communities that have been neglected and disregarded by institutional systems of knowledge production.
Organic intellectuals: Individuals who gain advanced expertise through direct experience, working with community members directly, and engaging in hands-on work.
Decolonization: The diverse struggles led by Indigenous people for sovereignty, self-determination, and a transformation of the ongoing conditions of colonial power.
Traditional knowledge: Forms of knowledge practiced by Indigenous groups provide both content expertise and communicate lifeways and intergenerational transfers of information and guided inquiry.
Settler-colonialism: Specific forms of colonialism in which outside powers attempt to eradicate and replace the living societies of Native people to establish and maintain settler societies.
Colonial education: Settler institutions that have attempted erasure and genocide of Indigenous lifeways, including the government and Church-run Boarding Schools in the United States and Canada.
Third World Liberation Front (TWLF): A multi-ethnic coalition of students that were awoken to the fact that they were being taught in ways that were dominating and irrelevant to themselves (Maeda, 2012), and included a coalition of the Black Student Union (BSU), Latin American Student Organization (LASO), Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA), Mexican American Student Confederation, Philippine (now Pilipino) American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE), La Raza, Native American Students Union, and Asian American Political Alliance
El Plan de Santa Barbara: A document that united diverse activists from around the state of California and laid out a roadmap for Chicana/Chicano studies, as well as programs to increase the retention, engagement, and success of students from minoritized backgrounds.
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (MEChA, formerly Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán): A national student organization with local chapters that advocate for equity and justice in higher education
General education graduation requirement: A type of course that all students are required to take as part of their educational requirements to earn a degree. In California, Ethnic studies has become a general education graduation requirement in all public high schools and colleges.
Critical Race Theory: A legal perspective put forward by scholars to identify the link between U.S. laws and the structure of racism, with the goal of better ending racial discrimination and disparities. This perspective has been misrepresented by conservative activists.
Intersectionality: A concept that emphasizes the importance of recognizing multiple identities when analyzing an individual or group’s relationship to societal power structures and institutions.
Transnational: Social dynamics that exist beyond an individual community and nation-state. This deconstructs the importance of existing nations, borders, and paradigms of citizenship and instead focuses on how culture, society, and human life communicates identity and moves across lands.
Relational approaches: Frameworks that utilize dynamic comparisons between groups to yield greater knowledge, encourage solidarity, and find creative solutions to systemic problems.
Glossary of Ethnic Studies Terms
The following list of terms was adapted from the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.25 Many of these terms are used throughout the book to demonstrate the methods, analysis, and content in Chicanx and Latinx Studies. This glossary is provided as a supplemental resource for learners to have more opportunities to develop confidence and understanding of the material.
Activism: Informed action or involvement as a means of achieving a political goal. Activism can manifest in the form of protests, demonstrations and direct actions, art and cultural production, lobbying, and advocacy work, fundraising, writing, educational discussions, and more.
Agency: The capacity of an individual to act freely and make independent choices in any given environment.
Accompliceship: The process of building relationships grounded in trust and accountability with marginalized people and groups. Being an accomplice involves attacking oppressive structures and ideas by using one’s privilege and giving up power and position in solidarity with those on the social, political, religious, and economic margins of society. This is in contrast to the contested notion of allyship which is often performative, superficial, and disconnected from the struggles for justice .
Cisheteropatriarchy: A system of society in which cisgender people, men and heterosexuals (especially cisgender heterosexual men) are privileged, dominant, and hold power. Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth, and is the opposite of transgender.
Citizenship: A status granted to a person that has been recognized by a particular country as being afforded all the benefits, rights, freedoms, and access as a member or citizen of the country. Citizenship is also the relationship a person maintains with the country or state they are loyal to. Thus, citizenship also includes how citizens engage their communities through both political and non-political processes for the betterment of their community, state, and nation.
Class: A category and identifier that denotes a person or group’s economic or social status.
Classism: The systematic oppression of subordinated class groups to advantage and strengthen the dominant class groups.
Colonialism: A practice of domination whereby one country seizes control over another country or territory and its people via force, exploitation, and/or political control.
Community: A social group of any size whose members either reside in a specific locality, share government, and/or have a common cultural background, struggles, views, or history.
Culture: The characteristics, creations, and knowledge of a particular group of people, place, or time. These characteristics include, but are not limited to, beliefs, customs, art, music, language, traditions, and religion.
Dehumanization: When a person or group of people are deprived of human qualities. This process is often carried out when a dominant group abuses power and denies opportunities and rights from another group.
Eurocentric/Eurocentrism: A worldview that privileges and centers the thoughts, practices, knowledge, history, systems of beliefs, and customs of the western world and people of western European descent more specifically.
Federal recognition: A status granted to Native American tribes that have gone through the process of being recognized by the U.S. federal government and have been granted sovereignty. There are over 300 federally recognized tribes across the U.S.
Gender: Western culture has come to view gender as a binary concept, with two rigidly fixed options— men and women. Instead of the static binary model produced through a solely physical understanding of gender, a far richer tapestry of biology, gender expression, and gender identity intersect resulting in a multidimensional array of possibilities. Thus, gender can also be recognized as a spectrum that is inclusive of various gender identities.
Hegemony: The dominance or influence of one group over another, often supported by legitimating norms and ideas. Hegemony describes the dominant position of a particular set of ideas and their tendency to become commonsensical and intuitive, thereby inhibiting the dissemination or even the articulation of alternative ideas.
History, Herstory, and Hxrstory: History is the study of the past, including, but not limited to: events, people, cultures, art, languages, foreign affairs, and laws. Herstory is a term used to describe history written from a feminist or women’s perspective. Herstory is also deployed when referring to counter narratives within history. The prefix “her” instead of “his” is used to disrupt the often androcentric nature of history. Hxrstory is pronounced the same as “herstory” and describes history written from a more gender inclusive perspective. The “x” is used to disrupt the often rigid gender binarist approach to telling history.
Identity: The qualities, expressions, beliefs, physical traits, cultures, and social statuses that comprise a person and/or group of people.
Ideology: A system of social, political, economic, and/or psychological beliefs, values, and ideals that characterize a particular culture, school of thought, organization, or people.
Imperialism: The extension of one nation’s dominance, power, or rule over another via policy, ideology, influence (social, economic, religious, etc.), or military.
LGBTQIA2S+: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual and/or ally, Two-Spirit. The plus signals “and other similar identities,” recognizing that sexual and gender diversity extends far beyond any simple list.
Liberating: The state of freedom. Within the context of ethnic studies, liberation is often used to describe social movements whose aim is to achieve freedom through equal rights and justice.
Migration: The movement of people, voluntarily or involuntarily, from one region to another.
Oppression: Prolonged unjust and/or cruel exercise of authority or power over another person or group. Also, a sense of being weighed down in body, mind, or spirit. The four “I”s of oppression are: ideological oppression (an idea, concept, or theory whose qualities advocate for or can be interpreted as causing harm or upholding the views of a dominant group at the expense of others), institutional oppression (the belief that one group is superior to another and that the more dominant group should determine when and how those on the margins are incorporated into institutions within a society), interpersonal oppression (how oppression is played out between individuals), and internalized oppression (the internalization of the belief that one group is superior to another)
People of color; Black, Indigenous and People of Color: People of color refers to communities who are not white. People of color as a collective identity emerged as a response to systemic racism and to assert resistance and solidarity against white supremacy. People of color are a global majority. While Indigneous people are often in solidarity with people of color against white supremacy, the term “Indigenous” and/or “Native American,” or “American Indian” are included separately from people of color. This draws attention to the unique forms of colonial domination that intersect with racial oppression. Further, Black is often placed first in the phrase “Black, Indigeinous, and People of Color,” or BIPOC, which draws attention to anti-Blackness as a unique form of racism and centers Black experiences among minoritized populations.
Power: The ability or capacity to direct, influence, or determine behavior (social, political, economic, etc.) via authority and control.
Privilege: An unearned advantage or benefit not enjoyed by everyone. Within systems of power, privilege is often inherited and is informed by one’s identity.
Race: A social construct created by European and American pseudo-scientists which sorts people by phenotype into global, social, and political hierarchies.
Racism: The belief in the superiority of one race over another. Racism manifests when power is used to deny access, rights, and/or opportunities to a particular group or person based on their racial background.
Resilience: The ability to recover and/or adapt in the face of extreme adversity, trauma, stress, and difficulty.
Self-determination: The process by which a person establishes agency and motivation with the hope of controlling their own life.
Social justice: The equitable distribution of resources (rights, money, food, housing, education, etc.) to every individual regardless of ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, or nationality.
Solidarity: Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.
Whiteness: A social construct that has served as the foundation for racialization in the United States. Whiteness is the antithesis of Blackness and is commonly associated with those that identify as white. However, Whiteness is much more than a racial identity marker, it separates those that are privileged from those that are not. Whiteness can manifest as a social, economic, political, and cultural behavior and power. For example, the “standard” or cultural “norm” are often always based on whiteness and by extension white culture, norms, and values.
White supremacy: The belief that white people are inherently superior and represent the dominant race. It is an operationalized form of racism that manifests globally, institutionally, and through systems of power.
Xenophobia: Prejudice and hatred, drawn from irrational fear, against people from a different country.
Footnote
25 Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC). “Curriculum.” LESMCC. https://www.liberatedethnicstudies.org/curriculum.html | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/01%3A_Foundations_and_Contexts/1.05%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Outline contemporary Chicanx and Latinx demographics and the factors that impact them.
• Evaluate the historical, political, and social processes that have shaped the racialization of Chicanxs and Latinxs.
• Summarize Chicanx/Latinx studies identity concepts, theories, and frameworks.
Introduction
What does it mean to be Latina/o/x/e and who gets to decide? What do the different word-endings––Latina, Latino, Latina/o, Latin@, Latinx, and Latine––mean? What is the difference between Latinx and Hispanic? Where did these labels come from? Is Latinx a race or an ethnicity? This chapter tackles these difficult questions and more in order to provide a general overview of the historical and contemporary meanings of Latinx identities to establish a foundation for understanding the communities that are the central focus of this book.
The labels that an individual uses to name their race, ethnicity, and other social identities is a personal choice, one that relies on shared understandings, imagined and/or real, of what it means to belong to that group. These meanings are socially constructed, that is, they are contextual and change over time and place as a result of social, political, and historical processes. While a person can choose to identify a particular way internally, they may also be identified externally by other people (usually arbitrarily based on phenotype and physiognomy), and by federal, state, and private agencies and organizations that collect demographic data such as the U.S. Census, the Department of Motor Vehicles, schools, universities, employers, and hospitals. The categories and labels assigned by these various entities may be at odds with or even contradict a person’s self-identification. Put another way, “social identity is regarded as a constellation of different and often competing identifications or ‘cultural negotiations.’”1
In addition to examining race and ethnicity and how these social identities pertain to Latinxs, Chicanx and Latinx studies in general and this chapter, in particular, are concerned with the ways power structures (ideologies, discourses, institutions, systems) shape particular subject positions, experiences, access to resources, and life outcomes for Latinxs and how these vary based on the intersecting dynamics of gender, sexuality, class, language, religion, nationality, tribal affiliation, and immigration status. This mode of analysis––developed by feminists of color and popularized as intersectionality in the 1980s––is examined in detail in Chapter 5: Feminisms and illustrated in Figure 2.1 as a “Wheel of Power/Privilege.” This chapter investigates the ways privilege was cemented for a select few through the creation and maintenance of hierarchical identity categories across time and place and the ways that marginalized communities have resisted their oppressors' classifications.
Social identity categories' relationship to system of power, as shown in Figure 2.1
Social Identity
Marginalized identity, furthest from power
Identity between marginalized and power
Identity closest to power
Skin colour
Dark
Different shades
white
Formal education
Elementary education
High school education
Post-secondary
Ability
Significant disability
Some disability
Able-bodied
Sexuality
Lesbian, Bi, Pan, Asexual
Gay men
Heterosexual
Neurodiversity
Significant neurodivergence
Neuro-atypical
Neuro-typical
Mental health
Vulnerable
Mostly stable
Robust
Body size
Large
Average
Slim
Housing
Homeless
Sheltered/renting
Owns property
Wealth
Poor
Middle class
Rich
Language
Non-English monolingual
Learned English
English
Gender
Trans, intersex, non-binary
Cisgender woman
Cisgender man
Citizenship
Undocumented
Documented
Citizen
• 2.1: Defining Latinx Demographics
This section provides a demographic portrait of Latinxs in the U.S. as defined by the U.S. Census. It also illustrates some of the tensions between how Latinxs identify and the ways the Census categorizes and counts peoples of Latinx origins, historically and in the present, highlighting both the potential and the limitations of census data.
• 2.2: (Re)constucting Latinidad(es)
Section 2.2 paves the way for the remaining sections, which examine the perspectives, stories, and contexts that surround the census data. This section unpacks the questions: What is the difference between Hispanic and Latino and where did these labels come from? What does it mean to be Latinx and who gets to decide?
• 2.3: A Brief History of Latinx Racial Formation
This section explores the ways Spanish conquest and colonization and U.S. settler colonialism and imperialism have fashioned hierarchical identity categories inherited by contemporary Chicanxs and Latinxs. While settler projects of racial domination have attempted to cement social, economic, political, and national boundaries, marginalized communities have always resisted and subverted these projects, including the ethnic and racial classifications imposed on them by their oppressors.
• 2.4: Xicana Feminist Ontologies- Indigeneity, Spirituality, and Sexuality
Section 2.4 introduces readers to mestiza consciousness and Xicanisma, foundational Chicana feminist identity theories that center gender, sexuality, Indigeneity, and spirituality.
• 2.5: Conclusion
Footnote
1 Linda Martín Alcoff, “Who’s Afraid of Identity Politics?,” in Reclaiming Identity: Realist Theory and the Predicament of Postmodernism, eds. Paula M. L. Moya and Michael Hames-García (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 315, quoted in Carla Kaplan, “Identity” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (New York: New York University Press, 2007).
02: Identities
The Influence and Impact of the U.S. Census
This section provides a demographic portrait of Latinxs in the U.S. as defined by the U.S. Census. It also illustrates some of the tensions between how Latinxs identify and the ways the Census categorizes and counts peoples of Latinx origins, both historically and in the present. According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S. Hispanic population totaled 62.5 million in 2021, making up nearly one-in-five people in the U.S., up from 50.5 million in 2010.2 People of Mexican origin accounted for nearly 60% (about 37.2 million people) of the total Hispanic population, however, their numbers increased by only 13% from 2010 to 2021, the smallest rate of increase among the largest Hispanic groups. Puerto Ricans, the second largest group, make up 9.3% of the Hispanic population with 5.8 million people on the mainland and another 3.1 million on the island. Salvadorans, Cubans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and Hondurans are the next largest groups, each comprised of one million or more people. Those with origins in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Guatemala experienced the fastest population growth from 2010 to 2021.3 These numbers are reflected in Table 2.1.1.
Hispanic origin groups in the U.S., 2021
Origin Group Population % among all Hispanics % change 2010-2011
U.S. total 62,530,000 100% 23%
Mexican 37,235,000 59.5 13
Puerto Rican 5,800,000 9.3 24
Salvadoran 2,475,000 4.0 35
Cuban 2,400,000 3.8 28
Dominican 2,395,000 3.8 59
Guatemalan 1,770,000 2.8 53
Colombian 1,400,000 2.2 46
Honduran 1,150,000 1.8 57
Spaniard 995,000 1.6 43
Ecuadorian 815,000 1.3 25
Peruvian 720,000 1.2 20
Venezuelan 660,000 1.1 172
Nicaraguan 455,000 0.7 19
Argentinean 295,000 0.5 26
Panamanian 240,000 0.4 37
Costa Rican 190,000 0.3 44
Chilean 190,000 0.3 35
Bolivian 130,000 0.2 15
Uruguayan 65,000 0.1 9
Paraguayan 30,000 0.0 42
Other South American 40,0000 0.1 62
Other Central American 30,0000 0.0 1
All other Latinos 3,050,000 4.9 96
Table 2.1.1:Hispanic origin groups in the U.S., 2021,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C. (September 22, 2022). Permissions: Pew Research Center Terms of Use.
California is the state with the largest Hispanic population in the United States.4 Hispanics became the largest racial or ethnic group in the state in 2014, surpassing the non-Hispanic white population, whose numbers have been on the decline, reflecting a broader national trend.5 In 2021 there were about 15.8 million Hispanics in California, accounting for 40% of the total population, which was up from 14.0 million in 2010. Figure 2.1.1 displays the numbers of Latinos in each of the 50 states, with Texas at more than 10 million, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, New York, and others reporting 1 to 10 million, Oregon, Nevada, Michigan, and others reporting 500,000 to 1 million, Utah, Idaho, and many states in the South and Midwest reporting 100,000 to 149,000, and North and South Dakota, Maine, Vermont, and others reporting less than 100,000.
The demographic information that follows is largely based on data gathered by The United States Census Bureau (USCB) through their decennial census. To determine the racial and ethnic composition of the nation in 2020, the census included two separate questions––one for Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin and one for race. According to USCB, Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin is defined as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.6 In other words, USCB does not consider Hispanic or Latino to be a race, asserting that the categories “generally reflected social definitions in the U.S. and were not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. We recognize that the race categories include racial and national origins and sociocultural groups.”7 In 2020 the census options for race included White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Some Other Race.8 All census respondents, including those who check Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, are given the option to select one or more races to define themselves.
Pause and Reflect: How do You Identify?
Figure 2.1.2 features two census questions used to ask about race and ethnicity. Number 6 asks “Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” The options for responses are:
Question 7 asks “What is your race?” with options to mark one or more boxes to identify your race and to fill in origin information within each category. The options for responses are:
Take a few moments to review and respond to questions 6 and 7. When you are finished, think about why you made the selections you did. Do the options provided reflect how you self-identify? Would you change anything about the categorizations or the labels? How does this form compare to others that have asked for your race and ethnicity, such as school documents, employment applications, and medical forms?
The results of the 2020 census indicated that 15.1% of the total population (about 49.9 million people) selected the Some Other Race box alone or in combination, making it the second-largest race group. Interestingly,
[a]pproximately 45.3 million people of Hispanic or Latino origin were classified as Some Other Race either alone or in combination, compared with only 4.6 million people who were not of Hispanic or Latino origin. Nearly all of those who were classified as Some Other Race alone were of Hispanic or Latino origin (26.2 million out of 27.9 million, or 93.9%).9
According to USCB, “many Hispanic or Latino respondents answered the separate question on race by reporting their race as ‘Mexican,’ ‘Hispanic,’ ‘Latin American,’ ‘Puerto Rican,’ etc.,” similar to the 2010 Census.10 Moreover, “[t]he number of Latinos who say they are multiracial has increased dramatically. Almost 28 million Latinos identified with more than one race in 2020, up from just 3 million in 2010.”11 A January 2020 Pew Research Center survey revealed that “only about half of Americans said the census reflects how they see their own race and origin ‘very well.’” When comparing Hispanic, Black, and white respondents, Hispanics were more likely to say the questions described them “not too well” or “not well at all,” suggesting they found the categories as not providing relevant options.12 In fact, a 2015 Pew Research Center survey found “…for two-thirds of Hispanics, their Hispanic background is a part of their racial background––not something separate. This suggests that Hispanics have a unique view of race that doesn’t necessarily fit within the official U.S. definitions.”13
Many people are confused by or dissatisfied with the census race and ethnicity questions, which have been solicited since the first census in 1790. This can be attributed to, at least in part, the questions, categories, and labels changing from one decade to the next, reflecting current politics, scholarship, public attitudes, cultural norms, and community advocacy, demonstrating the malleability of race in the U.S. Figure 2.1.3 displays the different race, ethnicity, and origin categories used in the census from 1790 to 2020 and the subsequent list points to the changing ways Hispanics have been identified over the years. It should be noted that “[t]hrough 1950, census-takers commonly determined the race of the people they counted. From 1960 on, Americans could choose their own race.”14
The text in Figure 2.1.3 reads, “This graphic displays the different race, ethnicity, and origin categories used in the U.S. decennial census, from the first one in 1790 to the latest count in 2020. The category names often changed from one decade to the next, in a reflection of the current politics, science, and public attitudes. For example, “colored” became “black,” with “Negro” and “African American” added later and Starting in 2000, Americans could include themselves in more than one racial category. Before that, many multiracial people were counted in only one racial category.”
The timeline from 1790 to 2020 shows the ten-year cycle of Census dates and includes seven layers corresponding to six racial categories (White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Pacific Islander, and some other race), and one ethnic category (Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin). The categories in each group are listed here by the year they were first collected, with a note if they replaced a previously used category or were newly added.
The events summarized in the section on Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish origin ethnicity are detailed in the following section.
The image also includes a rendering of a historical Census count from South Carolina with each group tabulated by state in hand-printed script. This is accompanied by the following explanatory note: “The nation’s first census was a count of the U.S. population as of Aug. 2, 1790. U.S. marshals and their assistants were supposed to visit each U.S. household and record the name of the head of the household and the number of people in each household in the following categories: Free white males ages 16 and older, free white males younger than 16, free white females, other free persons, and slaves. This is the first page of the publication containing the results.
Note: The U.S. Census Bureau does not consider Hispanic/Latino ethnicity to be a race. Hispanics also are asked to select one or more races to define themselves.” The categorization of Hispanics and Latinos is described in the following detailed timeline:
• 1930 - Mexicans were counted as a separate race (not an ethnicity or nationality) for the first and only time. Prior to this, they were categorized racially as white, dating back to the first time they were included in the census in 1850.
• 1940 - The Mexican racial category was removed and “persons of Mexican birth or ancestry who were not defined as Indian or some other nonwhite race” were once again deemed white, and marked as a Spanish-speaking population.15
• 1950 and 1960 - Mexicans were counted as “white persons of Spanish surname.”
• 1970 - A question on “Origin or Descent” was added with an option to choose one of the following: Mexican; Puerto Rican; Cuban; Central or South American; Other Spanish. Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origins were separately identified due to these groups being the largest estimated Hispanic populations in the U.S. at the time.
• 1980 - “Hispanic” and “not Hispanic” were deemed distinct and separated from race. According to the Census, individuals who are Hispanic may be of any race. The Mexican category was expanded to include “Mexican, Mexican-Amer[ican], Chicano.”
• 1990 - For the Hispanic origin question, a list of examples and a write-in line were introduced that read, “Print one group, for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.”
• 2000 - People could report more than one race for the first time. “Other Spanish/Hispanic” was changed to “Another Hispanic, Latino, Spanish origin,” which introduced the Latino label.
• 2010 - “Another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin” category now provided examples of six Hispanic origin groups “(Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on)” and instructed respondents to “print origin.”
• 2020 - The example Hispanic groups were revised to represent the largest Hispanic population groups and the geographic diversity of the Hispanic or Latino category.16
Despite the Census questions, categories, and labels changing over time, many Latinxs have clear opinions about their identities. According to studies from the Pew Research Center:
As you learned in this section, race, ethnicity, and different subgroups have been reclassified and redefined in the census. In “Gateway to Whiteness: The Census and Hispanic/Latino Identity,” Gustavo Chacon Mendoza argues that the census is significant because it shapes national, group, and individual identity through its official classification system. He argues, “by narrowly defining ethnicity and restricting its availability as a census answer, the census will force people to identify themselves in groupings that do not match their social perception and standing.”22 However, the number of Hispanics/Latinos that selected “Some Other Race” swelled in the 2020 census––a selection that can be read as a protest to the current racial categorizations. The census, however, interprets this occurrence as confusion or failure to understand the race question, denying respondents agency. Caribbean scholar Jorge Duany notes, “The existence of a large and growing segment of the U.S. population that perceived itself ethnically as Hispanic or Latino, while avoiding the major accepted racial designations, is a politically explosive phenomenon.”23 In sum, there are major limitations with a government entity attempting to categorize a diverse group of people and impose meanings “from above.” While census data can provide a glimpse into understanding Latinx communities, it is important to also examine the perspectives, stories, and contexts that surround the numbers, which is the goal of the following sections.
Footnotes
2 Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel, and Luis Noe-Bustamante, “Key Facts About U.S. Latinos For National Hispanic Heritage Month,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., September 23, 2022. The term Hispanic is used to describe this population because this is the terminology used by the Census. An explanation of the differences between Hispanic and Latina/o/x/e will be explored in the following section.
3 Krogstad et al., “Key Facts.”
4 Krogstad et al., “Key Facts.”
5 Javier Panzar, “It’s official: Latinos now outnumber whites in California,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 2015.
6 U.S. Census, “Additional Instructions for Respondents.”
7 U.S. Census, “Additional Instructions for Respondents.”
8 For a detailed explanation of each category review “Additional Instructions.”
9 Nicholas Jones, Rachel Marks, Roberto Ramirez, and Merarys Ríos-Vargas, “2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country,” U.S. Census, August 12, 2021.
10 Jones et al., “2020 Census Illuminates.”
11 Krogstad et al., “Key Facts.”
12 D’vera Cohn, Anna Brown And Mark Hugo Lopez, “Black and Hispanic Americans See Their Origins as Central to Who They Are, Less So for White Adults,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., May 14, 2021.
13 Ana Gonzalez-Barrera and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Is being Hispanic a matter of race, ethnicity or both?,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., June 15, 2015.
14What the Census Calls Us,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., February 6, 2020.
15 Tomás Almaguer, “Race, Racialization, and the Latino Populations in the United States,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 213.
16 This list was compiled from “What the Census Calls Us” and “U.S. Decennial Census Measurement of Race and Ethnicity Across the Decades: 1790–2020.” Additional details regarding historical racial formations will be explored in subsequent sections.
17 Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad And Jeffrey S. Passel, “Who is Hispanic?,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., September 15, 2022.
18 Paul Taylor, Mark Hugo Lopez, Jessica Martínez, and Gabriel Velasco, “When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity,”Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., April 4, 2012.
19 Lopez et al., “Who is Hispanic?”
20 Lopez et al., “Who is Hispanic?”
21 Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “About 6 million U.S. adults identify as Afro-Latino,” Pew Research Center, Washington D.C., May 2, 2022.
22 Gustavo Chacon Mendoza, “Gateway to Whiteness: The Census and Hispanic/Latino Identity,” in The Latin@ Condition, 2nd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 48-49.
23 Jorge Duany, “Neither Black nor White,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 158. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/02%3A_Identities/2.01%3A_Defining_Latinx_Demographics.txt |
Hispanic or Latino: What’s the Difference?
This section unpacks the questions: What is the difference between Hispanic and Latino and where did these labels come from? What does it mean to be Latinx and who gets to decide? These are key inquiries to better understand Latinx identities, the focus of this chapter.
The term Hispanic has been in English usage since the eighteenth century. In the 1940s it was mostly used by scholars to “describe the descendants of the original Spanish colonial territories that became part of the United States in the nineteenth century (Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California), while ‘Latino’ was more aptly used to describe immigrants from Latin America, of course, with some geographic and temporal exceptions.”24 Interestingly, the idea of Latin America was a mid-nineteenth-century invention, constructed by intellectuals from Spain’s former colonies who sought to describe the new political order that arose in the aftermath of revolutions and independence movements across the Western hemisphere.
During the 1960s, in the context of anticolonial revolutions abroad and the Black power and American Indian movements at home, the Chicano and Puerto Rican (or Boricua) ethnic nationalist movements also emerged in the U.S. These movements identified with the Indigenous peoples of their respective homelands and oppressed peoples across the Third World, now referred to as the Global South. They used the concept of internal colonialism to analyze their historical, political, and economic circumstances in the U.S. as that of colonized minorities, rather than immigrants. It was in this context that the U.S. government began to use the term Hispanic. To some, especially in the Southwest, it was a term that tried to depoliticize their identity and erase the Indigenous and African origins of many Latin Americans. Hispanic was used in the Southwest by Spanish-origin elites to distinguish themselves from Mexicans of Indigenous and African heritage and many Chicanos found the term offensive. Puerto Ricans on the East Coast more readily accepted the term more readily because they linked it to their country’s resistance to Anglicization by maintaining the Spanish language as an important part of their identity and ethnic pride.
Latinidad
Historically Hispanic and Latino have been used to describe groups of people and not used for the purposes of self-identification or collective action. That is, until a group of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans came together in Chicago, Illinois as Latinos, forging a collective pan-ethnic identity to demand their civil rights in the 1970s. This was one of the earliest moments that Latinidad was used strategically for political mobilization.
Key Term: Latinidad
“...A political project that cultivates a broad cultural sense of belonging to a grander community that is created through ancestral links to Latin America.”25 In other words, Latinidad suggests a shared subjectivity among disparate ethnic and national groups with shared attributes, experiences, and realities among its members. It should be noted, however, that similarities do not equal sameness. There is diversity within and among the grander community.
More Latin Americans from different parts of the continent began entering the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s and people of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin were becoming more geographically dispersed. This resulted in the term Latino becoming common in the 1980s as an alternative to Hispanic, growing out of the same political consciousness as Chicano and Boricua. The term Latino expanded to all Latin Americans, acknowledging a shared complex historical experience of colonization and oppression. By 2000, the term Latino had lost much of its radical edge as the mainstream media began to adopt it and the census offered “Hispanic or Latino” as a category that same year. Eventually, corporations, government organizations, and dominant culture industries would come to understand Latinidad as an opportunity to advance their own agendas, often resulting in the homogenization and commodification of the rich diversity of Latinx communities.
Latinidades
At the same time, new ethnic enclaves were developing where Latinxs of diverse heritages resided side-by-side. “This social mosaic leads to new forms of interaction, affinities, and power dynamics between and among Latinas/os from various national groups,” including “different forms of affiliations, solidarity, identifications, desire, and intermarriage among Latinas/os.”26 As reported in section 2.1, many Latinxs prefer to identify with their national identities, however, this statistic obscures the fact that this is not the only frame of reference for self-identification. Latina/o studies Professor Emerita Frances R. Aparicio argues that in fact, “national identities are restructured and reorganized as a result of these increasingly hybrid spaces. New interlatino subjectivities are emerging and we need to examine them at various levels.”27 For example, Latinxs are creating new cultural productions including music, food, clothing, and language practices that coalesce from the multiple cultures within their families and neighborhoods. Hybrid identifications are also emerging that fuse two or more ethnic, racial, national, or tribal labels such as Ticano (Costa Rican and Chicano), MexiRican (Mexicana and Puertorriqueña), BlaXican (Black and Xicanx), and Apachicana (Apache and Chicana) to name a few. These hybrid labels indicate a desire for terms that capture the complexities of individual identities that are not expressed with existing national identities or with the terms Chicana/o/x or Latina/o/x.
It is imperative to recognize the nuances, complexities, and heterogeneity of Latinidad if it is to be used for self and community empowerment. Aparicio urges Latinx studies scholars and students to consider the plural Latinidades, which refers to “the shared experiences of subordination, resistance, and agency of the various national groups of Latin America in the United States.”28 She describes Latinidades “as a conceptual framework” that can be used “to document, analyze, and theorize the processes by which diverse Latinas/os interact with, dominate, and transculturate each other.”29 This framework is aligned with the relational, transnational, and intersectional approaches found across this book because it calls for the examination of “power differences, conflicts, tensions, and affinities between and among Latinas/os of diverse national identities.”30
Scholars and activists have taken up the call to consider the plural Latinidades through the development of three complementary frameworks: Critical Latinx Indigeneities, AfroLatinidad, and Queer Latinidad. These concepts reflect the realities, experiences, and histories that are not fully captured by the term Latinidad alone. Drawing on hemispheric and comparative Indigenous studies, Critical Latinx Indigeneities “emerges out of a need to examine how Indigenous migrants from Latin America are transforming notions of Latinidad and Indigeneity in the U.S.”31 The term Indígena has come into use as a pan-ethnic term of empowerment as have the variations Indigenous Latina/o/x and Indigenous Xicana/o/x (Xicana/o/x Indígena in Spanish), though most individuals prefer to self-identify with their specific tribal nation, pueblo, or community in their own language (for example, Yoeme, Wixárika, P’urhépecha, Kumeyaay, etc.). “This specificity generally affords respect for the vast differences among Indigenous peoples of the Americas, standing in marked contrast to references to the Indian, the Native American….”32 For more on Latinx Indigeneities visit Chapter 4: Indigeneities. Another framework that expands notions of Latinidad is AfroLatinidad, which centers Blackness as an analytic, acknowledging the particularities of Latin American peoples of African descent, from their racialized experiences in their countries of origin to the shifting racial meanings in the U.S., as well as their experiences with colorism within the larger Latinx community. Critical Latinx Indigeneities and AfroLatinidad are important frameworks that complicate Latinx racial identity and provide nuance to understand the Latinx population boom.
Additionally, Queer Latinidad considers queer identity in relation to Latina/o/x subjectivity, engaging in modes of inquiry that center racialized genders and sexualities, while simultaneously challenging the construction and validity of normative identity categories. Just as countless neologisms merge two or more ethnic, racial, national, or tribal labels, others unite ethnic, gender, and/or sexual identity such as joto/a/x, Chicanx, Latine, and translatina/o/x, which combines trans/transgender and Latina/o/x, while also encapsulating Latin American and latinoamericana/o identities. Gay Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes notes that because the “prefix trans- is used to indicate individuals who might have migrated (or whose family histories might include migration) and who might have transnational connections, it acquires a double valance, referring to geography and physical displacement as much as to gender identity and expression.”33 In Brown Trans Figurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies, transfronterizo scholar Francisco J. Galarte presents “brown trans figurations” as a theoretical frame to examine the nuances of racialized trans subjectivity, embodiment, politics, affect, and agency. Galarte looks to the possibilities of the coexistence of brownness and transness asserting, “both frames center modes of relationality” and have a “shared expansiveness and unboundness.”34 For more on Queer Latinidad and how this analytic has developed into a prominent subfield in Chicanx/Latinx studies, visit Chapter 6: Jotería Studies.
Sidebar: An Identity Label Timeline
This timeline35 provides readers with a quick reference of the significant identity labels that Chicanxs and Latinxs use to refer to themselves as discussed in this chapter. Emphasis is placed on the mid-twentieth century to the present and the shifting spellings of terms and their associated meanings. Even though this is a timeline, it is not a linear chronology. Some terms circulated in specialized circles prior to their popularization, and the emergence of one label did not necessarily replace its antecedent. Typically, a segment of the population took up a new term that was not utilized, or even known or regarded, by everyone in the community. All of the labels included in this timeline are still in use today, albeit in different ways, despite their emergence and popularity in a given timeframe. Moreover, this is not an exhaustive list. Other national, regional, and personal racial and ethnic identity labels are not included. Finally, it is important to note that there are in-group critiques of and resistance to all of these labels, which are not covered here. A potential research project could expand on this timeline.
Latine - 2020s
• Latine has come into usage in Spanish-speaking countries through the work of feminist, nonbinary, and genderqueer activists and academics. Its proponents argue the pronunciation is natural and already exists for nouns in Spanish (e.g. estudiante).
The drastic growth of a diverse Latinx population––impacted by structural factors such as the end of segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that ended racially discriminatory national quotas, and U.S. political, economic, and military interventions in Latin America––have contributed to a shift in the ways race and ethnicity are understood in the United States. Shifting racial meanings are ongoing and have a long history on this continent, which will be explored in the following sections.
Footnotes
24 “Introduction,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 2.
25 “Introduction,” The New Latino Studies Reader, 1.
26 Frances R. Aparicio, “(Re)constructing Latinidad: The Challenge of Latina/o Studies,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 59.
27 Aparicio, “(Re)constructing Latinidad,” 59.
28 Frances R. Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 115.
29 Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” 115.
30 Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” 115.
31 Maylei Blackwell, Floridalma Boj Lopez, Luis Urrieta Jr. Special issue: Critical Latinx indigeneities, Macmillan Publishers (2017): 126.
32 Robert Warrior, “Indian,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (New York: New York University Press, 2020), 131.
33 Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, “Translatinas/Os,” TSQ 1 (May 2014): 237–241.
34 Francisco J. Galarte, Brown Trans Figurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021), 12-13.
35 Much of the content in this Sidebar is drawn from Amber Rose González, “Where is Indigeneity in Chican@ Studies?” in Another City is Possible: Mujeres de Maiz, Radical Indigenous Mestizaje and Activist Scholarship (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015), 51-73.
36 Sheila Marie Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 34.
37 “Introduction,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 1.
38 Hernández, Roberto. “Running for Peace and Dignity: From Traditionally Radical Chicanos/as to Radically Traditional Xicanas/os,” in Latin@s in the World System: Decolonization Struggles in the 21st Century U.S. Empire (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 123-137. Hernández elaborates on the ways in which a critical Indigenous Xican@ subjectivity, or those with an “indigenista perspective,” has led to strategic coalitions with Native American activists since (and prior to) the 1960s. Raul Salinas and Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl are prime examples of Chicano movement activists with an “indigenista” consciousness.
39 Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” 35.
40 Sandra K. Soto, Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 2.
41 Soto, 2-3.
42 Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” 35. For more on the “-x” see Alan Pelaez Lopez, “The X in Latinx is a Wound, Not a Trend,” Color Bloq, September 2018; and Terry Blas, “You Say Latinx,” Vox, October 23, 2019. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/02%3A_Identities/2.02%3A_%28Re%29constucting_Latinidad%28es%29.txt |
Hispanic or Latino: What’s the Difference?
This section unpacks the questions: What is the difference between Hispanic and Latino and where did these labels come from? What does it mean to be Latinx and who gets to decide? These are key inquiries to better understand Latinx identities, the focus of this chapter.
The term Hispanic has been in English usage since the eighteenth century. In the 1940s it was mostly used by scholars to “describe the descendants of the original Spanish colonial territories that became part of the United States in the nineteenth century (Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California), while ‘Latino’ was more aptly used to describe immigrants from Latin America, of course, with some geographic and temporal exceptions.”24 Interestingly, the idea of Latin America was a mid-nineteenth-century invention, constructed by intellectuals from Spain’s former colonies who sought to describe the new political order that arose in the aftermath of revolutions and independence movements across the Western hemisphere.
During the 1960s, in the context of anticolonial revolutions abroad and the Black power and American Indian movements at home, the Chicano and Puerto Rican (or Boricua) ethnic nationalist movements also emerged in the U.S. These movements identified with the Indigenous peoples of their respective homelands and oppressed peoples across the Third World, now referred to as the Global South. They used the concept of internal colonialism to analyze their historical, political, and economic circumstances in the U.S. as that of colonized minorities, rather than immigrants. It was in this context that the U.S. government began to use the term Hispanic. To some, especially in the Southwest, it was a term that tried to depoliticize their identity and erase the Indigenous and African origins of many Latin Americans. Hispanic was used in the Southwest by Spanish-origin elites to distinguish themselves from Mexicans of Indigenous and African heritage and many Chicanos found the term offensive. Puerto Ricans on the East Coast more readily accepted the term more readily because they linked it to their country’s resistance to Anglicization by maintaining the Spanish language as an important part of their identity and ethnic pride.
Latinidad
Historically Hispanic and Latino have been used to describe groups of people and not used for the purposes of self-identification or collective action. That is, until a group of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans came together in Chicago, Illinois as Latinos, forging a collective pan-ethnic identity to demand their civil rights in the 1970s. This was one of the earliest moments that Latinidad was used strategically for political mobilization.
Key Term: Latinidad
“...A political project that cultivates a broad cultural sense of belonging to a grander community that is created through ancestral links to Latin America.”25 In other words, Latinidad suggests a shared subjectivity among disparate ethnic and national groups with shared attributes, experiences, and realities among its members. It should be noted, however, that similarities do not equal sameness. There is diversity within and among the grander community.
More Latin Americans from different parts of the continent began entering the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s and people of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin were becoming more geographically dispersed. This resulted in the term Latino becoming common in the 1980s as an alternative to Hispanic, growing out of the same political consciousness as Chicano and Boricua. The term Latino expanded to all Latin Americans, acknowledging a shared complex historical experience of colonization and oppression. By 2000, the term Latino had lost much of its radical edge as the mainstream media began to adopt it and the census offered “Hispanic or Latino” as a category that same year. Eventually, corporations, government organizations, and dominant culture industries would come to understand Latinidad as an opportunity to advance their own agendas, often resulting in the homogenization and commodification of the rich diversity of Latinx communities.
Latinidades
At the same time, new ethnic enclaves were developing where Latinxs of diverse heritages resided side-by-side. “This social mosaic leads to new forms of interaction, affinities, and power dynamics between and among Latinas/os from various national groups,” including “different forms of affiliations, solidarity, identifications, desire, and intermarriage among Latinas/os.”26 As reported in section 2.1, many Latinxs prefer to identify with their national identities, however, this statistic obscures the fact that this is not the only frame of reference for self-identification. Latina/o studies Professor Emerita Frances R. Aparicio argues that in fact, “national identities are restructured and reorganized as a result of these increasingly hybrid spaces. New interlatino subjectivities are emerging and we need to examine them at various levels.”27 For example, Latinxs are creating new cultural productions including music, food, clothing, and language practices that coalesce from the multiple cultures within their families and neighborhoods. Hybrid identifications are also emerging that fuse two or more ethnic, racial, national, or tribal labels such as Ticano (Costa Rican and Chicano), MexiRican (Mexicana and Puertorriqueña), BlaXican (Black and Xicanx), and Apachicana (Apache and Chicana) to name a few. These hybrid labels indicate a desire for terms that capture the complexities of individual identities that are not expressed with existing national identities or with the terms Chicana/o/x or Latina/o/x.
It is imperative to recognize the nuances, complexities, and heterogeneity of Latinidad if it is to be used for self and community empowerment. Aparicio urges Latinx studies scholars and students to consider the plural Latinidades, which refers to “the shared experiences of subordination, resistance, and agency of the various national groups of Latin America in the United States.”28 She describes Latinidades “as a conceptual framework” that can be used “to document, analyze, and theorize the processes by which diverse Latinas/os interact with, dominate, and transculturate each other.”29 This framework is aligned with the relational, transnational, and intersectional approaches found across this book because it calls for the examination of “power differences, conflicts, tensions, and affinities between and among Latinas/os of diverse national identities.”30
Scholars and activists have taken up the call to consider the plural Latinidades through the development of three complementary frameworks: Critical Latinx Indigeneities, AfroLatinidad, and Queer Latinidad. These concepts reflect the realities, experiences, and histories that are not fully captured by the term Latinidad alone. Drawing on hemispheric and comparative Indigenous studies, Critical Latinx Indigeneities “emerges out of a need to examine how Indigenous migrants from Latin America are transforming notions of Latinidad and Indigeneity in the U.S.”31 The term Indígena has come into use as a pan-ethnic term of empowerment as have the variations Indigenous Latina/o/x and Indigenous Xicana/o/x (Xicana/o/x Indígena in Spanish), though most individuals prefer to self-identify with their specific tribal nation, pueblo, or community in their own language (for example, Yoeme, Wixárika, P’urhépecha, Kumeyaay, etc.). “This specificity generally affords respect for the vast differences among Indigenous peoples of the Americas, standing in marked contrast to references to the Indian, the Native American….”32 For more on Latinx Indigeneities visit Chapter 4: Indigeneities. Another framework that expands notions of Latinidad is AfroLatinidad, which centers Blackness as an analytic, acknowledging the particularities of Latin American peoples of African descent, from their racialized experiences in their countries of origin to the shifting racial meanings in the U.S., as well as their experiences with colorism within the larger Latinx community. Critical Latinx Indigeneities and AfroLatinidad are important frameworks that complicate Latinx racial identity and provide nuance to understand the Latinx population boom.
Additionally, Queer Latinidad considers queer identity in relation to Latina/o/x subjectivity, engaging in modes of inquiry that center racialized genders and sexualities, while simultaneously challenging the construction and validity of normative identity categories. Just as countless neologisms merge two or more ethnic, racial, national, or tribal labels, others unite ethnic, gender, and/or sexual identity such as joto/a/x, Chicanx, Latine, and translatina/o/x, which combines trans/transgender and Latina/o/x, while also encapsulating Latin American and latinoamericana/o identities. Gay Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes notes that because the “prefix trans- is used to indicate individuals who might have migrated (or whose family histories might include migration) and who might have transnational connections, it acquires a double valance, referring to geography and physical displacement as much as to gender identity and expression.”33 In Brown Trans Figurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies, transfronterizo scholar Francisco J. Galarte presents “brown trans figurations” as a theoretical frame to examine the nuances of racialized trans subjectivity, embodiment, politics, affect, and agency. Galarte looks to the possibilities of the coexistence of brownness and transness asserting, “both frames center modes of relationality” and have a “shared expansiveness and unboundness.”34 For more on Queer Latinidad and how this analytic has developed into a prominent subfield in Chicanx/Latinx studies, visit Chapter 6: Jotería Studies.
Sidebar: An Identity Label Timeline
This timeline35 provides readers with a quick reference of the significant identity labels that Chicanxs and Latinxs use to refer to themselves as discussed in this chapter. Emphasis is placed on the mid-twentieth century to the present and the shifting spellings of terms and their associated meanings. Even though this is a timeline, it is not a linear chronology. Some terms circulated in specialized circles prior to their popularization, and the emergence of one label did not necessarily replace its antecedent. Typically, a segment of the population took up a new term that was not utilized, or even known or regarded, by everyone in the community. All of the labels included in this timeline are still in use today, albeit in different ways, despite their emergence and popularity in a given timeframe. Moreover, this is not an exhaustive list. Other national, regional, and personal racial and ethnic identity labels are not included. Finally, it is important to note that there are in-group critiques of and resistance to all of these labels, which are not covered here. A potential research project could expand on this timeline.
Latine - 2020s
• Latine has come into usage in Spanish-speaking countries through the work of feminist, nonbinary, and genderqueer activists and academics. Its proponents argue the pronunciation is natural and already exists for nouns in Spanish (e.g. estudiante).
The drastic growth of a diverse Latinx population––impacted by structural factors such as the end of segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that ended racially discriminatory national quotas, and U.S. political, economic, and military interventions in Latin America––have contributed to a shift in the ways race and ethnicity are understood in the United States. Shifting racial meanings are ongoing and have a long history on this continent, which will be explored in the following sections.
Footnotes
24 “Introduction,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 2.
25 “Introduction,” The New Latino Studies Reader, 1.
26 Frances R. Aparicio, “(Re)constructing Latinidad: The Challenge of Latina/o Studies,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 59.
27 Aparicio, “(Re)constructing Latinidad,” 59.
28 Frances R. Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 115.
29 Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” 115.
30 Aparicio, “Latinidad/es,” 115.
31 Maylei Blackwell, Floridalma Boj Lopez, Luis Urrieta Jr. Special issue: Critical Latinx indigeneities, Macmillan Publishers (2017): 126.
32 Robert Warrior, “Indian,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (New York: New York University Press, 2020), 131.
33 Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, “Translatinas/Os,” TSQ 1 (May 2014): 237–241.
34 Francisco J. Galarte, Brown Trans Figurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021), 12-13.
35 Much of the content in this Sidebar is drawn from Amber Rose González, “Where is Indigeneity in Chican@ Studies?” in Another City is Possible: Mujeres de Maiz, Radical Indigenous Mestizaje and Activist Scholarship (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015), 51-73.
36 Sheila Marie Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 34.
37 “Introduction,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 1.
38 Hernández, Roberto. “Running for Peace and Dignity: From Traditionally Radical Chicanos/as to Radically Traditional Xicanas/os,” in Latin@s in the World System: Decolonization Struggles in the 21st Century U.S. Empire (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 123-137. Hernández elaborates on the ways in which a critical Indigenous Xican@ subjectivity, or those with an “indigenista perspective,” has led to strategic coalitions with Native American activists since (and prior to) the 1960s. Raul Salinas and Carlos Cortéz Koyokuikatl are prime examples of Chicano movement activists with an “indigenista” consciousness.
39 Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” 35.
40 Sandra K. Soto, Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 2.
41 Soto, 2-3.
42 Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” 35. For more on the “-x” see Alan Pelaez Lopez, “The X in Latinx is a Wound, Not a Trend,” Color Bloq, September 2018; and Terry Blas, “You Say Latinx,” Vox, October 23, 2019. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/02%3A_Identities/2.02%3A_(Re)constucting_Latinidad(es).txt |
Spanish Conquest, Colonialism, andMestizaje
When national regimes categorize populations, the very act of naming gives them a living reality. ––Ramón A. Gutiérrez
This section explores the ways Spanish conquest and colonization and U.S. settler colonialism and imperialism have created hierarchical identity categories inherited by contemporary Chicanxs and Latinxs. While settler projects of racial domination have attempted to cement social, economic, political, and national boundaries, marginalized communities have always resisted and subverted these projects, including the ethnic and racial classifications imposed on them by their oppressors. For example, they “generate the names they use to refer to themselves as a collectivity, often in their own native language, thus underscoring their linguistic resistance to domination.”43 In this way, race is both an organizing principle and an identity, both individual and collective, that is unstable and evolves.
The conquest of the territory that would eventually become the United States began with the Spanish empire laying down permanent settlements in Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565, followed by the kingdom of New Mexico in 1598 (which included the current states of New Mexico and Arizona), and the provinces of Texas in 1691 and Alta California in 1769. All of these settlements were situated on Spain’s northernmost frontier far away from major Spanish centers, mostly isolated from one another, and surrounded by diverse Indigenous nations, many who would remain unconquered.44 These factors led to the creation of distinct regional hybrid subcultures and affinities that were developed along religious lines. “Identification with Spain's various regions persisted in the Americas into the nineteenth century, whether in Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, or Mexico. Residents of the kingdom of New Mexico called themselves nuevo mexicanos and neomexicanos, those in California referred to themselves as californios, and those in Texas as tejanos. Throughout Spanish America loyalty and sense of attachment to the patria chica, to one’s natal place, persisted and remains strong even to this day.”45
People from the Iberian Peninsula only began to understand themselves as españoles when they became colonists in the Americas––their identities developing in relation to diverse Indigenous peoples who they reduced to indios, a misnaming by Columbus who erroneously believed he had landed in India.
Inventing Indians was to serve an important imperial end for Spain, for by calling the natives indios, the Spaniards erased and leveled the diverse and complex indigenous political and religious hierarchies they found. Where once there had been many ethnic groups stratified as native lords, warriors, crafts[people], hunters, farmers, and slaves, the power of imperial Spain was not only to vanquish but also to define, largely reducing peoples such as the mighty Aztecs into a defeated Indian class that soon bore the pain of subjugation as tribute-paying racialized subjects.46
These españoles created rigid social hierarchies and ranked people’s calidad, or social standing, through an intricate classification system that appraised a person’s religion, birthplace, property ownership, and occupation. Over time, race and color became central organizing factors laid out in the régimen de castas, as racial mixing between Spaniards, Indigenous, and African peoples became more common by the mid-eighteenth century. For details about the categories constructed through the castas visit Section 4.1: Concepts for Understanding Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities. This biological and cultural blending–– a process referred to as mestizaje––often occurred through sexual violence and exploitation against Indigenous and African women, which was sanctioned by the colonial Catholic church.
The casta system of racial classification was not abolished until Mexico’s independence in 1821, however racial and ethnic social stratification remained prevalent and echoed colonial conceptions of identity. For example, Professor Alicia Arrizón, author of Queering Mestizaje: Transculturation and Performence (2006) argues, “Before and after the independence wars in Latin American and Caribbean countries, nationalist regulations of mestizaje by the criollo elite (Europeans born in the Americas) served to eradicate not only Indigeneity but also African heritage. In addition, the effects of blanqueamiento (or whitening) were encouraged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to improve and ‘purify’ the race, meaning the general national racial composition or the Hispanic race."47 Soon after Mexico’s independence, its northern territories would contend with a new imperial power that would soon imprint its own hierarchical racial structure onto the peoples of that region.
Changing Racial Paradigms Under U.S. Imperialism
Knowledge of the history of relations between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean is indispensable to putting into focus the often forgotten events and circumstances that account for the Latino/a presence here. ––José Luis Morín
Racial Formation in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Beginning in the 1820s the fledgling U.S. nation-state sought to expand its empire through the invasion and annexation of Mexico’s northern territories, culminating in the war of 1846-1848. Opponents of annexation, predominantly politicians, journalists, and businessmen, argued that the incorporation of a “mongrel race” would pollute U.S. democracy, which up to that point, had been built on Indian removal, land theft, genocide, and slavery. Senator John C. Calhoun, a prominent Southern Democratic said, “we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race––the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race… I protest such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.” Protests against annexation would go unheeded, but perspectives such as these would shape race relations in the decades to come.
Following the end of the war, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo obliged Mexico to surrender more than 1 million square miles, nearly half of its territory, for 15 million dollars. The Treaty established social, legal, and political boundaries, which in effect, led to the incorporation of approximately 75,000-100,000 inhabitants who had been given the option to move south across the newly drawn geopolitical border or remain in the newly conquered territory and become U.S. citizens. The people absorbed were diverse and included Mexican mestizos, acculturated Indians, secularized mission Indians, as well as unconquered Indigenous nations such as the Apache, Comanche, and Diné, complicating the pledge of citizenship and incorporation into the social body. At the time, full citizenship rights were only conferred to free whites, making it feasible for legislators to “disenfranchise many Mexicans by arguing that such people were of Indian descent and therefore could not claim the political privileges of white citizens.”48 In “Chicano Indianism,” social anthropologist and Chicana/o studies professor Martha Menchaca aptly describes how the existing white supremacist racial paradigm shaped the ways people identified as a survival tactic:
Given the nature of the U.S. racial system and its laws, the conquered Mexican population learned that it was politically expedient to assert their Spanish ancestry; otherwise they were susceptible to being treated as American Indians (Padilla 1979). At the same time, it became politically expedient for American Indians to pass as Mexican mestizos if they wished to escape the full impact of the discriminatory Indian legislation (Forbes 1973).49
Key Term: Paradigm
“A paradigm is a shared set of understandings or premises which permits the definition, elaboration, and solution of a set of problems defined within the paradigm. It is an accepted model or pattern…. Paradigms of race shape our understanding and definition of racial problems.”50
The term “Spanish American” rose in popularity, especially among nuevomexicanos, in response to heightened white supremacist violence and discrimination. By attempting to align themselves with their European ancestry, however remote, some Mexicans were able to assert their de jure racial whiteness which had been promised to them under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and by extension distance themselves from Indigeneity and Blackness, which continued to be denigrated under the U.S. racial paradigm as it had under Spanish rule. This option to “pass,” however, was not available to most Mexicans who were predominantly of Indigenous and African ancestry. “Court and legislative records from 1848 to 1947 reveal that the skin color of Mexican-origin people strongly influenced whether they were treated by the legal system as white or as non-white,” however, local governments found ways to segregate and otherwise discriminate against white Mexicans based on their Spanish-language backgrounds and other racialized markers of identity.51
The settlers who came to the U.S. Southwest defined themselves as Anglos and Anglo-Americans, “vaunting their superiority, establishing structures of domination, and asserting that their primacy was rooted in their Protestant God, in their laws and constabularies, in the purity of their whiteness, and in their very way of life.”52 Racial meanings would shift into the next century, but always with the underlying goals of protecting white property and power. “By the 1920s, an influential eugenics movement attempted to clothe such racism in the prestige of science, arguing that, as a mongrel race, Mexican mestizos threatened the nation with racial degeneration.”53 For more on eugenics and segregation visit Section 8.2: The Struggle for Equality, 1900-1954.
Racial Formation in Puerto Rico
The United States continued its imperial wars of conquest through the nineteenth century resulting in the capture of several island nations including the Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1893 and the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam after the Spanish American War of 1898, settled through the Treaty of Paris. The original inhabitants would have their social, political, economic, civil, and human rights repressed and their identities would now be constructed under the U.S. racial paradigm.
Congress followed and extended the precedent set in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by exerting complete control over Puerto Rico and its inhabitants. The rationale for not granting statehood and political debates around citizenship rights were based on the white supremacist views of the inferiority of mixed-race people, particularly those of mixed African heritage, who were thought of as unable to govern themselves. Eventually, statutory citizenship was granted to Puerto Ricans, but it was merely “a way of showing that they were under U.S. control, rather than the purposes of inclusion.”54 In “A Separate and Inferior Race,” legal scholar and Latinx/Latin American studies professor José Luis Morín points out how “a racialized vision of the peoples of the developing world also proved useful in the establishment of a framework for the unequal application of the law to Latinos/as in the United States.”55 He goes on to demonstrate how decisions over the rights of Puerto Ricans made by the Supreme Court were shaped by the “separate but equal” treatment applied to African Americans for more than half a century (for more on “Jim Crow” and “Juan Crow” visit Section 7.2: Chicanx and Latinx Civil Rights Activism). A major distinction is that Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) has since been overturned but the Puerto Rican Insular Cases (1901) have not, resulting in the present and ongoing colonial status of Puerto Rico and the oppression of its people.
Ethnic Nationalism, Ethnic Pride
Following the emergence of global decolonization movements in the 1940s, twentieth-century civil rights movements in the U.S., and part of a larger wave of militant ethnic nationalism, many Mexican American and Puerto Rican community activists, students, and faculty abandoned assimilationist forms of activism and adamantly rejected their racial, social, economic, and political marginalization and systemic violence their communities experienced for generations. The late 1960s and early 1970s marked a period of Chicano and Boricua cultural pride, empowerment, self-determination, and liberation. Chicana/o literary scholar Sheila Marie Contreras asserts, “To name oneself as ‘Chicana’ or ‘Chicano’ is to assert a gendered, racial, ethnic, class, and cultural identity in opposition to Anglo-American hegemony and state-sanctioned practices of representing people of Mexican descent in the United States. As it evokes the ‘radical’ politics of cultural nationalism, ‘Chicano’ stands against the institutionally normative ‘Hispanic,’ as well as the linguistically insistent ‘Latino.’”56 A result of these social movements, Chicano studies and Puerto Rican studies programs emerged in institutions of higher learning across the U.S., providing students a space to learn about and reconnect with their histories, philosophies, epistemologies, and intellectual traditions and to develop new politicized identities.
Both Chicanos and Boricuas opposed U.S. imperialism and refuted their association with whiteness, a tactic utilized by previous generations to secure civil rights. Many who took on these new labels found inspiration in the ideologies, strategies, and aesthetics of the Black Panther Party and the larger Black Power Movement. “Equally important to both Chicanos and Boricuas was their assault on racism in its material, psychic, and institutionalized forms. Heralding their personal beauty and pride, both movements affirmed the beauty of their art, language, culture, and skin color as a way to corrode the toxicity of racism,” illustrated through the slogan “Brown and Proud” as displayed in Figure 2.3.1, which features two youth activists, one holding up a sign that reads “Brown and Proud I’m the Next Generation.”57 Similarly, Chicana feminists would go on to develop new theories—ones that centered gender, sexuality, Indigeneity, and spirituality, grounded in their embodied identities and experiences, which are explored further in the next section.
Footnotes
43 Ramón Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name: The History and Politics of Hispanic and Latino Panethnicities,” in The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, eds. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 19-20.
44 Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 21.
45 Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 22.
46 Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 23.
47 Alicia Arrizón, “Mestizaje,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 133.
48 Martha Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism,” in The Latin@ Condition, 2nd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 350-51.
49 Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism,” 354.
50 Juan F. Perea, “The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race,” in The Latin@ Condition, 2nd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 335.
51 Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism,” 355.
52 Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 30.
53 Curtis Marez, “Mestizo/a,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (New York: New York University Press, 2020).
54 Juan F. Perea, “Tracing,” 76.
55 José Luis Morín, “A Separate and Inferior Race,” in The Latin@ Condition, 2nd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 126.
56 Contreras, “Chicana, Chicano, Chican@, Chicanx,” 32. See also, Ruben Salazar, “Who Is a Chicano? And What Is It the Chicanos Want?,” Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1970.
57 Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 41. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/02%3A_Identities/2.03%3A_A_Brief_History_of_Latinx_Racial_Formation.txt |
Mestiza Consciousness
In her seminal text Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Gloria Anzaldúa moves away from masculinist, heterosexist, nationalist, and biological notions of mestizaje attributing new meaning to identity construction through her concept of “mestiza consciousness”—one that emerges from life in the Borderlands (for more on Borderlands studies visit Section 3.1: What is Chicanx/Latinx History).58 Mestiza consciousness is a cognitive decolonization process of racialized, gendered, and sexed subjects wherein la mestiza becomes aware of the Borderlands and makes conscious decisions regarding the construction of her multiple and often contradictory identities. Through mestiza consciousness––later conceptualized as “conocimiento”––la nueva mestiza rethinks her material, psychic, and spiritual existence as she negotiates contradictions and ambiguities as a subject-in-process who is constantly constructing provisional identities. AnaLouise Keating, feminist scholar and editor of Anzaldúa’s work, succinctly describes Anzaldúa’s theory of the new mestiza as “an innovative expansion of previous biologically based definitions of mestizaje. For Anzaldúa, new mestizas are people who inhabit multiple worlds because of their gender, sexuality, color, class, bodies, personality, spiritual beliefs, and/or other life experiences. This theory offers a new concept of personhood that synergistically combines apparently contradictory Euro-American and Indigenous traditions."59
Xicanisma
Chicana feminists continued to intervene in Chicano nationalist constructions of Indigeneity by unsettling myths and binaries that were delineated during El Movimiento through Xicanisma, an embodied feminist philosophy and praxis. “During the 1990s a cohort of Chicana feminists began replacing the Ch in ‘Chicana’ with a capital X (Xicana) in order to summon the lexical appearance––and sound––of Nahuatl, an ancient but still living Indigenous language. …Contemporary Xicana feminist sonic, lexical, and political replacements of the Ch with an X are meant to point to Indigenous uprisings within and throughout Chicana, Chicano, and Chicanx identities. Today, the spoken and written grapheme X acts as a mobile signifier that points to identities-in-redefinition."60
Early deployments of the term Xicana include Ana Castillo’s critical text Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma (1994) and La Red Xicana Indígena, an organization founded in 1997. Castillo further complicates queer Indigeneity and mestizaje through her use of the term “mestiza/Mexic Amerindian” to assert a U.S. Indigenous, pre-colonial Olmec, Spanish, and Mexican lineage. The label Xicana, Castillo argues, affirms Indigenous ancestry, spirituality, and sexuality, and considers other multiple, crosscutting identities. She accounts for the Arab and North African racial mixing that shaped Iberian culture and the subsequent racial mixture with Indigenous peoples of the Americas during the Spanish conquest. Castillo critiques sexism prevalent within contemporary U.S. white supremacist culture, Mexican Catholicism, and some pre-conquest patriarchal Indigenous cultures, such as the Aztecs. She argues these multiple sites of sexism across time and space have led to the subordination of Indigenous womanhood and are a result of spiritual imbalance due to the omission of the “feminine principle.”61 Castillo refutes the Chicano propensity to glorify and romanticize male supremacist aspects of pre-conquest Aztec culture.
Castillo introduces the term Xicanisma, a retrofitted form of Chicana feminism intended to create an avenue for mestizas and detribalized Indigenous women to “not only reclaim our Indigenismo––but also to reinsert the forsaken feminine into our consciousness."62 In order to heal from historical, institutional, and personal traumas, Castillo advocates acknowledging and honoring the feminine side of our complementary feminine/masculine duality. To do this, she writes, would restore spiritual balance. This restorative act challenges U.S. white supremacy, Chicano heteropatriarchy, and the Catholic Church––all rely on stringent dichotomies that repress women’s spirituality and sexuality. For Castillo, Xicanisma is “an ever present consciousness of interdependency specifically rooted in our culture and history."63 Xicanisma is a practical way for retribalizing peoples of any gender to express an Indigenous sensibility, reconnect spirituality with the body/sexuality, and to (re)claim and (re)construct their traditions in a way that serves their present needs.
Similarly, Xicana lesbian activist and playwright Cherríe Moraga explains her use of the X indicates “a reemerging política, especially among young people, grounded in Indigenous American belief systems and identities... [that] reflects the Indian identity that has been robbed from us through colonization... As many Raza may not know their specific Indigenous nation of origin, the X links us as Native people in diaspora.”64 Moraga is co-founder of La Red Xicana Indígena, (The Indigenous Xicana Woman’s Network), along with Celia Herrera Rodríguez, a collective of scholar- and community-activists who define themselves as
a network actively involved in political, educational, and cultural work that serves to raise indigenous consciousness among our communities and supports the social justice struggles of people of indigenous American origins North and South. Our name...further signifies our alliance with all Red Nations of the Américas, including nations residing in the North. We are a pueblo made up of many indigenous nations in diaspora who through a five hundred year project of colonization, neocolonization, and de-indianization, have been forced economically from their place of origin, many ending up in the United States… [W]e stand with little legal entitlement to our claim as indigenous peoples within America; however, we come together on the belief that, with neither land base nor enrollment card––like so many urban Indians in the North, and so many displaced and undocumented migrants coming from the South, we have the right to “right” ourselves.65
The writers of this document further explain that Xicana Indígena politics re-envision “families apart from the Eurocentric model of the privatized patriarchal family,” and seek to “draw examples from the tribal structure of...indigenous antecedents.” Moraga, along with co-founder Celia Herrera Rodríguez, advocate for raising the consciousness of younger generations through alternative and creative learning environments that “closely reflect an indigenous point of view.” In sum, mestiza consciousness and Xicanisma are Ch/Xican/x feminist ontologies––philosophical explorations of the nature of being––grounded in a decolonial and liberatory praxis.
Footnotes
58 Section 2.4 is adapted from Amber Rose González, “Where is Indigeneity in Chican@ Studies?” in Another City is Possible: Mujeres de Maiz, Radical Indigenous Mestizaje and Activist Scholarship (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015), 51-73.
59 AnaLouise Keating, “Appendix 1. Glossary,” in The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2009), 322.
60 Chela Sandoval, Amber Rose González, and Felicia Montes, “Urban Xican/x-Indigenous Fashion Show ARTivism: Experimental Perform-Antics in Three Actos, in meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction, eds. Aída Hurtado and Norma E. Cantú (Austin: University of Texas Press), 283-84.
61 Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma (1994), 11.
62 Castillo, “Massacre,” 12.
63 Castillo, “Massacre,” 226.
64 Cherríe Moraga, A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000-2010 (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2011), xxi.
65 La Red Xicana Indígena, “Our Purpose and Intention.”
2.05: Conclusion
Summary
“Identity” is two-faced. It is used to represent both intrapsychic states and relational processes: It can be claimed to be both socially constructed and transhistorically essential, a being and a doing, ascribed and attained, made in language and exceeding language, simultaneously intensely private and biographical, a locus for political struggle, and the focus [of] state power. It is formed along multiple historically formed social vectors we call gender, class, race, sexuality, and so on, but it is also, simply, about one's own experience here and now. ––David Valentine
The epigraph above by cultural and linguistic anthropologist David Valentine, succinctly captures what identity is and what identity does, which has been the focus of this chapter.66 Latinx demographics and the factors that impact them were reviewed, including various historical, political, and social processes. These processes have also shaped the racialization of Chicanxs and Latinxs impacting their experiences, life outcomes, and self-identification. This chapter also introduced Chicanx/Latinx studies identity concepts, theories, and frameworks, which provide a foundation for understanding the Chicanx/Latinx communities who are the subject of this textbook.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.2: Chapter 2 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Race: A social construct created by European colonists and revised by American pseudo-scientists which sorts people by phenotype into global, social, and political hierarchies. It is both an organizing principle and an identity, both individual and collective. Race is unstable and evolves due to social, historical, political, and legal processes, but is often misrecognized as natural and fixed.
Latino: People in the U.S. of Latin American descent, acknowledging a shared complex historical experience of colonization, oppression, and resistance.
Interlatino subjectivities: The result of cultural contact and mixing between different Latinx national identity groups resulting in the creation of new hybrid cultural productions from music, food, clothing, aesthetics, and language that coalesce from the multiple cultures in their families and neighborhoods.
Latinidades: An extension beyond the singular Latinidad, referring to “the shared experiences of subordination, resistance, and agency of the various national groups of Latin American in the United States.” It is “a conceptual framework” that can be used “to document, analyze, and theorize the processes by which diverse Latinas/os interact with, dominate, and transculturate each other.” Latinidades also calls for the examination of “power differences, conflicts, tensions, and affinities between and among Latinas/os of diverse national identities.”
Translatina/o/x: A neologism that combines trans/transgender and Latina/o/x, while also encapsulating Latin American and latinoamericana/o identities.
Footnotes
66 David Valentine, “Identity,” TSQ 1 (May 2014): 103–106.
67 Ramon Gutiérrez, “What’s in a Name,” 20. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/02%3A_Identities/2.04%3A_Xicana_Feminist_Ontologies-_Indigeneity_Spirituality_and_Sexuality.txt |
Introduction
History is the story we tell ourselves about how the past explains our present, and the ways in which we tell the story are shaped by contemporary needs. ––Aurora Levins Morales, “The Historian as Curandera”
Every culture tells stories about its past, albeit in different forms and for different purposes. In modern Western institutions, including those in the United States, history is often portrayed as an objective recounting of the past using facts based on documentary evidence. Chronologically ordered dates are emphasized and the accomplishments of individual “great men” are highly regarded over complex social processes. This information is then pieced together in a written format. Despite this dominant approach, many other perspectives and methods exist concerning the production of history. Sometimes, these differences can produce very different accounts of the same time period or historical event. As mentioned in Section 1.2: Struggle and Protest for Chicanx and Latinx Studies, the production of history is not impartial. The stories we tell and retell about our society are important because they shape our collective historical consciousness and affect our contemporary understandings of social phenomena, as described in the epigraph by Aurora Levins Morales.
The study of the ways a group, culture, or discipline constructs its history is called historiography. Chicanx/Latinx history, like other subfields explored in this textbook, does not mean simply studying Chicanxs/Latinxs as a topic or theme, nor does it apply an additive model to an already existing discipline (for example including a one-page biography on Cesar Chavez in a U.S. history textbook). Chicanx/Latinx history is a subfield within Chicanx/Latinx studies, created by and for the community, and is comprised of its own critical approaches, perspectives, and methods, which you will be introduced to in this chapter. We begin by exploring what Chicanx/Latinx history is, how it differs from the dominant discipline of history, and the myriad ways Chicanx/Latinx studies scholars create, revise, and correct historical narratives.
• 3.1: What is Chicanx/Latinx History?
Section 3.1 provides an introduction to the field of Chicanx/Latinx history, emphasizing the need for racially marginalized communities to tell their own stories. Three approaches to Chicanx/Latinx history are highlighted, introducing readers to the unique contributions made by scholars in the field.
• 3.2: Writing Chicanas/Latinas Into History
This section highlights the contributions of interdisciplinary feminist scholars whose work seeks to recover, reinterpret, and illuminate Chicana/Latina women’s histories, particularly those that center gender and sexuality as analytical categories, thereby intervening in and expanding Chicanx/Latinx history and women’s history.
• 3.3: Embodied Memories- Archival Movidas and Oral Hxstory
Section 3.3 introduces readers to two methodologies that have been developed by feminist and queer historians, expanding what is typically considered valid source material and documentary evidence.
• 3.4: Literary Histories
The final section of Chapter 3 explores the notion that Chicanx and Latinx literature is history, including fictional texts, autobiographies, testimonios (oral history) and novels. Section 3.4 demonstrates the recovery, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of Chicanx/Latinx literature is an important component in the larger objective of Chicanx/Latinx history to revise, recast, and correct historical narratives that shape our present-day lives.
• 3.5: Conclusion
03: History and Historiography
Chicanx/Latinx Studies Disruptions in U.S. History
At the turn of the 21st century Joseph Rodríguez and Vicki L. Ruiz, two prominent Chicanx/Latinx studies historians, completed a comprehensive review of U.S. history textbooks, finding the representation of Latinxs to be lacking in both quantity and quality, particularly before 1985. In “At Loose Ends: Twentieth-Century Latinos in Current United States History Textbooks,” they observed,
The authors found common issues across several U.S. history survey texts including the homogenization of diverse Latinx groups in terms of their national, ethnic, and racial identity as well as their immigration status and classed experiences; disconnected information across large swaths of time; omission of groups’ histories in the U.S. before the 20th century; and an overall lack of context and nuance, particularly with regards to U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Many textbooks portray “the history of the United States and its culture as the direct and exclusive result of the ingenuity, initiative, and hard work of Anglo-Saxon settlers and their descendants. Almost unfailingly, when people of color were discussed at all in these books… they were portrayed as obstacles or threats that intrepid Anglos were forced to overcome.”2 In sum, U.S. history textbooks fall short in their representation of Latinxs. Latinx history also lacks representation in K-12 curricula and mass media (for more on this, visit Chapter 8: Education and Activism and Section 10.1: Chicanx and Latinx Identities and Culture, respectively), leaving students and the general public with large knowledge gaps on the subject.
The field of Latinx history emerged, at least in part, to disrupt dominant (mis)representations (including the omissions) of Chicanxs and Latinxs by revising, recasting, and correcting historical narratives from the vantage point of the colonized, the immigrant, the refugee, and the exile3 and to demonstrate that Latinx history is U.S. history.
An Overview of Chicanx/Latinx History: Three Approaches
Chicano studies and Puerto Rican studies programs were founded beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and history emerged as a key subfield over the next three decades. In “Looking Back on Chicano History: A Generational Perspective,” Chicano historian Albert M. Camarillo describes the foundational Chicano history literature that emerged as being “concerned with ‘bottom up’ approaches, working-class formations, racialized urban experiences, and group identities shaped by race, ethnic/cultural, and class factors.”4 In other words, the majority of first-generation scholars, many of whom were men, applied a race and class analysis to the Chicano past to understand present conditions, particularly their subordinate racial and socioeconomic status and political disenfranchisement. They also examined identity development, community formation, and civil rights advocacy.
While making important advances, early histories tended to be geographically limited to urban settings in Texas and California, were generally focused on a restricted chronology bookended by the U.S. War with Mexico and World War II, and they often disregarded women beyond their role as “producers (laborers) or reproducers (mothers).”5 As the field matured in the 1980s and into the 1990s, emerging scholars greatly deepened and expanded the scope of the field, “both building on and challenging the field’s foundational scholarship.”6 Particularly notable are the studies that centered gender and sexuality as analytical categories, which will be explored in detail in the following sections. Collectively, these early scholars were journeying into uncharted territory, building the road as they walked.
Historians in Chicanx/Latinx studies continue to explore new ways to frame and teach history by posing questions such as:
Scholars worked to firmly establish Chicanx/Latinx history by interrogating these questions and more through cutting-edge scholarship and subsequent scholars would continue to push the boundaries of the field.9
As you learned in Chapter 2: Identities, Latinx is a heterogeneous ethnoracial category that encompasses a wide array of peoples and experiences, thus the field of Latinx history likely includes people who may not identify with this label. As a result, historians in Latinx studies have had to conceptualize ways to bring these differences together in an intelligible area of study. The answer for many is to utilize a hemispheric approach, that is, examining transnational histories of the Americas, beyond national, regional, or even continental borders, accounting for the ways that power structures race, culture, gender, sexuality, and resources across time and space. Put another way, students are taught to think beyond borders that contain the nation-state and expand the scope and frameworks many U.S. historians rely on. Professor of history, African American studies, and urban planning, Kelly Lytle Hernández says that this approach “may be a little unsettling for students trained in more traditional narratives with strict borders, familiar institutions, and constant westward expansion,” but many find resonance with approaches that “dislocate national triumphs as a main historical theme, and instead highlight uneven, never complete power struggles” which provides a space for students to connect “past, present, and future.”10 A hemispheric lens also allows for an expansive examination of mobile commodities, ideas, and peoples in diaspora that flow across imperial geographies.
Author Spotlight: Gloria E. Anzaldúa
The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture.11
Using her birthplace of South Texas, her Chicana-Tejana identity, and her queerness as a source of theorizing, Gloria Anzaldúa’s groundbreaking text Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) quite literally shifted the terrain of Chicanx studies and greatly impacted the development of borderlands studies, which became foundational for subsequent scholarship that has taken a hemispheric approach. Expanding on W.E.B. Dubois’ theory of double consciousness, Anzaldúa’s Borderlands theory challenges imposed nation-state borders, provides new frames for understanding identity, hybridity, and the material realities of people who reside in the b/Borderlands, extending the notion of a geopolitical border in order to explore the boundaries of gender, sexuality, spirituality, language, and other social locations, dislocations, and encounters. An artist's rendition of Gloria Anzaldúa’s portrait is displayed in Figure 3.1.1.
Activity: Life in the Borderlands
The following excerpt from Chapter 1 “The Homeland, Aztlán / El otro México” vividly illustrates Anzaldúa’s poetic vision of life in the Borderlands. Similarly, Figure 3.1.2 “I Will Never Stop Reaching for You” by non-binary artist and poet Jess X. Snow emotionally captures the longing felt by loved ones separated by the U.S./México border. The three people featured in the image are adorned with the light of a million shining stars, who, according to the artist represent “the millions of mothers, fathers, and children throughout history who attempt to cross the border into the U.S. Migrants risk enormous loss in the optimism of securing family and community in a new country.” The digital print depicts many images from Anzaldúa’s poem, most notably, her portrayal of the ocean. Read the poem aloud and examine the image closely. Then discuss the concept of the Borderlands with a partner or in small groups. How is history represented using poetry and art? What other themes and topics are addressed?
Wind tugging at my sleeve
feet sinking into the sand
I stand at the edge where earth touches ocean
where the two overlap
a gentle coming together
at other times and places a violent clash.
Across the border in Mexico
stark silhouette of houses gutted by waves,
cliffs crumbling into the sea,
silver waves marbled with spume
gashing a hole under the border fence.
Miro el mar atacar
la cerca en Border Field Park
con sus buchones de agua
an Easter Sunday resurrection
of the brown blood in my veins.
Oigo el llorido del mar, el respire del aire,
my heart surges to the beat of the sea.
in the gray haze of the sun
the gulls’ shrill cry of hunger,
the tangy smell of the sea seeping into me.
I walk through the hole in the fence
to the other side.
Under my fingers I feel the gritty wire
rusted by 139 years
of the salty breath of the sea.
Beneath the iron sky
Mexican children kick their soccer ball across,
run after it, entering the U.S.
I press my hand to the steel curtain—
chain link fence crowded with rolled barbed wire—
rippling from the sea where Tijuana touches San Diego
unrolling over mountains
and plains
and deserts,
this “Tortilla Curtain” turning into el río Grande
flowing down to the flatlands
of the Magic Valley of South Texas
its mouth emptying into the Gulf.
1,950 mile-long open wound
dividing a pueblo, a culture
running down the length of my body,
staking fence rods in my flesh,
splits me splits me
me raja me raja
This is my home
this thin edge of
barbwire.
But the skin of the earth is seamless.
The sea cannot be fenced,
el mar does not stop at the borders.
To show the white man what she thought of his
arrogance,
Yemayá blew that wire fence down.
This land was Mexican once,
was Indian always
and is.
And will be again
In addition to taking a hemispheric or transnational approach, many Latinx historians take a thematic approach to research and teaching, focusing on key concepts, topics, and themes such as empire, conquest, wars of expansion, and revolution; migration and nation-building; industrialization and labor; and civil rights and resistance movements, among others, from the perspective of Latinx populations.
Furthermore, some Chicanx/Latinx and ethnic studies historians take a relational approach, which is the study of how one racial group is affected by the ways another group is racialized through co-constitutive historical, social, and political processes. Rather than studying a racially marginalized group in contrast to white supremacist and colonial power structures exclusively, which is the dominant paradigm in social science and humanities literature, a relational approach moves beyond a white/nonwhite binary to examine racially subordinated groups in relation to one another.12 In other words, “...it attends to how, when, where, and to what extent groups intersect. It recognizes that there are limits to examining racialized groups in isolation.”13 Chicana historian Natalia Molina asserts that we can better understand how racial categories are formed and how they function if we think about race relationally and “zoom out” as we research, write, and teach. A relational view does not advocate for simply comparing and contrasting groups’ experiences, viewing them independently. Rather, groups are understood to be interdependent. Molina writes, we need to ask, “...who else is (or was) present in or near the communities we study—and what difference these groups’ presence makes (or made).”14 She continues, we must “consider how the lived experience of one group dramatically affected the experience of others.”15
For those who plan to embark on a historical research project, choosing a research subject is usually the first task in the process. When doing so, Molina urges us to consider using an organizing principle other than solely race. For example, you can study the history of a neighborhood (and the different people in it) rather than focusing only on the experiences of Mexican Americans. Another option is to conduct research collaboratively with those who have different interests or areas of expertise. A third suggestion is to reconsider what you already know. Students do not need to discover a historical event or find new sources––they can take a known historical event or moment and reexamine it from a relational standpoint, perhaps applying a new lens. All three of these options are reflected in the following case study.
Sidebar: “Contemporary Peoples/Contested Places"
Taking into consideration all three approaches discussed in this section, Latin American and U.S. Latino historian Gerald E. Poyo succinctly defines Latinx history in this way:
[It] spans at least five centuries, challenges strictly drawn historiographic boundaries, and includes many common themes, as well as involving questions of historical methodology, incorporating interdisciplinary approaches, providing chronologies and historical timelines, and creating dialogue among pertinent and diverse historiographic traditions. Latina/o history includes Latin American history, U.S. Borderlands history, Mexican American history, Cuban American history, Puerto Rican history, and the history of many other national groups and, of course, the relationship and impact of Latinas/os on the general trajectory of United States history writ large, especially immigration and ethnic history.18
Footnotes
1 Joseph A. Rodríguez and Vicki L. Ruiz, “At Loose Ends: Twentieth-Century Latinos in Current United States History Textbooks,” The Journal of American History 86, no. 4 (Mar. 2000): 1690.
2 David J. Leonard and Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, eds. Latino History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (Milton Park, UK: Taylor and Frances, 2015), xxi.
3 Adrian Burgos, Donna Gabaccia, María Cristina García, Matthew Garcia, Kelly Lytle Hernández, Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, María E. Montoya, George J. Sánchez, Virginia Sánchez Korrol, and Paul Spickard, “Latino History: An Interchange on Present Realities and Future Prospects,” The Journal of American History 97, no. 2 (2010): 426.
4 Albert M. Camarillo, “Looking Back on Chicano History: A Generational Perspective,” Pacific Historical Review 82, no. 4 (Nov 2013): 500.
5 Miroslava Chávez-García, “The Interdisciplinary Project of Chicana History: Looking Back, Moving Forward,” Pacific Historical Review 82, no. 4 (Nov 2013): 543.
6 Alexandra Minna Stern, “On the Road with Chicana/o History: From Aztlán to the Alamo and Back,” Pacific Historical Review 82, no. 4 (Nov 2013): 581.
7 “Introduction,” In Keywords for Latino/a Studies, 3.
8 Burgos et al., “Latino History,” 428.
9 Some of the pioneering scholars in Mexican American/Chicanx history include “Ernesto Galarza, George I. Sánchez, Carey McWilliams, Américo Paredes, Jovita González, Manuel Gamio, and Paul S. Taylor” (Camarillo, “Looking Back,” 499). Chávez-García notes these folks were preceded by radical newspaper writers of the nineteenth century who documented the Mexican and Mexican American experience (“Interdisciplinary, 544).
10 Burgos et al., “Latino History,” 430.
11 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2012), 25.
12 Daniel Martinez HoSang and Natalia Molina, “Introduction: Toward a Relational Consciousness of Race,” in Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice, Natalia Molina, Daniel Martinez HoSang and Ramón A. Gutiérrez, eds. (Oakland: UC Press, 2019), 1-18.
13 Natalia Molina, “Examining Chicana/o History through a Relational Lens,” Pacific Historical Review 82, no. 4 (Nov 2013): 522.
14 Molina, “Examining,” 522.
15 Molina, “Examining,” 531.
16 Sarah Deutsch, George J. Sánchez, and Gary Y. Okihiro, ‘‘Contemporary Peoples/Contested Places,’’ in The Oxford History of the American West, eds. Clyde A. Milner II, Carol A. O’Connor, and Martha A. Sandweiss (New York, 1994): 639-670.
17 Molina, “Examining,” 531-32.
18 Gerald E. Poyo, “History,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017): 83. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/03%3A_History_and_Historiography/3.01%3A_What_is_Chicanx_Latinx_History.txt |
Chicana/Latina Studies Disruptions in Chicano/Latino and Women’s History
This section highlights the contributions of interdisciplinary feminist scholars whose work seeks to recover, reinterpret, and illuminate Chicana/Latina women’s histories, particularly those that center gender and sexuality as analytical categories, thereby intervening in and expanding Chicanx/Latinx history and women’s history. The field of Chicana studies provided the foundation for creating Chicana history as a unique area of study (for more on this visit Section 5.6 Activist Scholarship and Chicana and Latina Studies). Two central topics emerged early on––a class analysis of women’s labor in the 19th and 20th centuries and the recuperation of the historical figure Malintzín Tenepal (for more on this visit Section 5.4 Cultural Activism), which extended the Chicano people’s origins to the pre-colonial era. Chicana historians have always used a wide range of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, methods, and sources in their scholarship including oral histories, testimonios, literary sources, teatro and performance art, visual art, and personal archival materials such as letters and journals, often illegible to colonial and patriarchal historiography. This feminist historical complexity is depicted artistically in Figure 3.2.1, which features The MaestraPeace Mural painted on the Women’s Building in San Francisco in 1994 by Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton, Irene Perez, and many volunteers. Central to the ornate mural is K’iche’ Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum who holds Mesoamerican earth mother goddess Coyolxauhqui in her left hand and Santería ocean mother goddess Yemaya in her right hand. The mural conveys many themes including the healing power of women’s wisdom, the spiritual-physical connections between women, earth, and water, and women as important historical actors across time and place.
The interdisciplinary nature of Chicana feminist scholarship “made it difficult for mainstream scholars to acknowledge and legitimize Chicana Studies, and Chicana history more specifically, as an academic field.”19 In addition, many Chicanas faced poverty and a lack of access to higher education into the 1980s, resulting in the slow development of Chicana history. However, by the late 1980s and 1990s, significant numbers of Chicanas and Latinas entered academia, earned doctorate degrees, and began publishing groundbreaking studies, including those that examined gender, sexuality, culture, and power.
La Cultura Cura: Medicinal Histories
One example is the seminal essay “The Historian as Curandera,” by Puerto Rican Jewish writer, artist, historian, and healer Aurora Levins Morales. The essay is a curandera handbook for socially committed historians invested in disrupting imperial histories, which she defines as manufactured official histories wielded by a colonizing power or repressive regime “to attack the sense of history of those they wish to dominate and attempt to take over and control people’s relationship to their own past.”20 Imperial histories are created to justify and explain oppressive power imbalances by naturalizing them, making them seem inherent and permanent. This is accomplished by disrupting the transmission of intergenerational knowledge through the destruction of cultural traditions and records, thereby damaging the colonized group’s sense of historical identity. To remedy the damage caused by imperial histories, a curandera historian,
…uses history, not so much to document the past as to restore to the dehistoricized a sense of identity and possibility. Such ‘medicinal histories’ seek to re-establish the connections between peoples and their histories, to reveal the mechanisms of power, the steps by which their current condition of oppression was achieved, through a series of decisions made by real people to dispossess them; but also to reveal the multiplicity, creativity and persistence of resistance among the oppressed.21
Activity: Apply Your Knowledge
The following list is a summary of 15 characteristics and practices presented in “The Historian as Curandera” that student-scholars can use as a guide to begin a medicinal history research project. Review the list and discuss the questions listed and any others that come up with a partner or in a small group. The list can also be used to review scholarship to determine if it meets the criteria to be considered a medicinal history.
An excellent example of a medicinal history is The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History by Emma Pérez (1999). Pérez confronts the expectation that historians must remain within the sanctioned boundaries of the discipline, work within the dominant systems of thought, and sustain official arguments. She argues that as a discipline, history relies on a colonial imaginary, which purports to be objective and able to provide definitive answers when in reality, it arranges time and space linearly emphasizing origins, categories, chronologies, and periodization. These prevalent approaches reinforce colonialist historiography, similar to what Levins Morales calls imperial history, and have been utilized by Chicano/a historians to construct a masculinist Chicano historiography that has omitted or obscured women, queer, and Indigenous peoples. Pérez interrogates the construction of accepted knowledges in general and examines the gaps in Chicano historical discourse in particular, marking a shift in Chicano/a historiography. To address her concerns, she deploys the decolonial imaginary, a new category, a political project, and “a theoretical tool for uncovering the hidden voices of Chicanas that have been relegated to silences, to passivity, to that third space where agency is enacted through third space feminism.”25 The decolonial imaginary allows us to “write a history that decolonizes otherness”26 by “(en)gendering Chicano history”27––in other words, to write Chicanas into history. Pérez, like Levins Morales, is concerned with processes over origins, asking questions over declaring definitive answers, making interventions over documentation, and speaking self-reflectively from the margins to reconceptualize fragmented histories that center women and queer Chicanas.
Herstorical Recovery with Chicana Movidas
Other feminist historians provide additional tools for writing Chicanas/Latinas into history. ¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement by Maylei Blackwell (2011) is the first and only book-length study of women’s involvement in the Chicano movement era to date. The text makes a critical historiographic intervention by looking to the gaps in colonial and patriarchal historical practices that continually silence and erase women. For instance, despite the historical evidence of Chicana feminist praxis (thought and activism), historians of the U.S. women’s movement and the Chicano movement have expunged Chicana contributions from the historical record. The act of periodization in particular erases women of color from the 1960s and 1970s. The so-called waves model, foundational in women’s studies, places women of color activism and writing as emerging in the third wave, denying their participation and contributions to the second wave.28 Chicano movement history periodization claims the height of the movement took place in 1968-1975 and locates Chicana feminism as occurring afterward, with some historians arguing feminism contributed to its decline.
Consequently, these acts of ongoing erasure are reflected in women’s studies and Chicano studies curricula. Moreover, the emphasis on the great man narrative in Chicano movement historiography “does a disservice to the historical memory of the majority of its participants and obscures the fact that the collective action and daily acts of courage of thousands of everyday people change the tide of history.”29 Utilizing the concept of retrofitted memory, Blackwell interrogates why certain stories remain untold, uncovering the ways power functions in the creation of truth regimes, in order to make space for women’s (his)stories and their visions of liberation and transformation. Blackwell invites readers to “continue the historical excavation and analysis, to chart underground stories, and to develop a better understanding of the actors who have already been recognized.”30
Continuing the tradition of historical recovery and destabilization of conventional social movement historical narratives that focus on iconic individual leaders, renowned organizations, and large-scale public events, Chicana movidas provides a lens to understand the everyday strategies, tactics, and relationships, often occurring within and between highly visible movements, as intentional and significant individual and collective liberatory maneuvers.31 These movidas are organized using a technique called mapping movidas, which is
a mode of historical analysis that allows us to chart the small-scale, intimate political moves, gestures, and collaborations that reflect the tactics women used to negotiate the internalities of power within broader social movements. It identifies how they tracked and negotiated multiple scales of power within their homes, communities, organizations, social movements, and dominant society. It recuperates both silenced memories and their documentary evidence to tell a story of the intimacies of struggle, challenging the knowledge/power system of traditional archival spaces and methodologies. It looks not only to marches, meetings, and conferences but also to alternative sites of collective action: the kitchens, hallways, and living rooms where Chicanas forged a praxis at the intersection of their identities.
By focusing on Chicana movidas, scholars are able to move beyond the confines of Chicano historiography, expanding the field’s spatial and temporal boundaries by documenting movidas outside of the U.S. Southwest and outside of already documented major events and actions. Chicana movidas are not limited by dominant modes of historical periodization, and as a result, studies tend to be transgenerational. For example, Chicana lesbians such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Naomi Littlebear Moreno, and Cherríe Moraga, among many others, often organized for Chicana or women’s rights in the 1970s and later produced Chicana lesbian feminist scholarship in the 1980s and 1990s, acting as a bridge between Chicana movement spaces and phases.
Chicana and Latina historians have built a robust and dynamic field over the last five decades illuminating women’s voice, agency, and material realities. They have provided us with new intersectional and interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological tools to read against the grain, recover subjugated knowledges, and center marginalized stories. While many important studies have been written, they are only scratching the surface––there are unlimited topics to explore and studies to produce in Chicana/Latina history. The next section introduces readers to two of the many decolonial-medicinal methods that have been developed by feminist and queer historians.
Footnotes
19 Chávez-García, “Interdisciplinary,” 549.
20 Aurora Levins Morales, “The Historian as Curandera,” Working Paper no. 40 (East Lansing: The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, 1997): 1.
21 Levins Morales, “The Historian,” 1.
22 Levins Morales, “The Historian,” 2.
23 Levins Morales, “The Historian,” 3.
24 Levins Morales, “The Historian,” 7.
25 Emma Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999): xvi.
26 Pérez, Decolonial Imaginary, 6.
27 Pérez, Decolonial Imaginary, 7.
28 The waves model is generally constructed as suffragettes of the first wave (mid-19th century to 1920s), the (white) women’s liberation movement of the second wave (1960s-1980s), women of color, riot grrrls, and intersectional feminism of the third wave (1990s-present), and anti-sexual harassment and violence/#metoo of the fourth wave (2010s-present). For an excellent critique of the waves model see Hokulani K. Aikau, Karla A. Erickson, and Jennifer L. Pierce, eds. Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations: Life Stories from the Academy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).
29 Maylei Blackwell, “Spinning the Record: Historical Writing and Righting,” in ¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press: 2011), 28.
30 Maylei Blackwell, “Introduction: The Telling is Political,” in ¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press: 2011), 9.
31 María Cotera, Maylei Blackwell, and Dionne Espinoza, “Introduction: Movements, Movimientos, and Movidas,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 1-30. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/03%3A_History_and_Historiography/3.02%3A_Writing_Chicanas_Latinas_Into_History.txt |
Archival Movidas
During the Chicano movement era, activists developed a robust print culture to publicize important issues, explore and debate ideas, and connect across regions. Many Chicanas published important essays and produced photojournalism, but were often not given credit. These “anonymous” sources are part of the Chicano movement archive, which scholars utilize to produce studies of the era. Coupled with colonialist and patriarchal historical practices, Chicana participation in El Movimiento is often written out of history.
Such absences in the record replicate the invisibilization of Chicana labor in the 1960s and 1970s and reinforce the need for oral historians and researchers to talk directly to movement activists, explore extrainstitutional archives, and perhaps more importantly, ask the right questions of their sources. More often than not, excavations of Chicana memory have been undertaken from the ground up, with scholars tracking down sources, sifting through personal archives, and conducting lengthy interviews and oral histories.32
These archival movidas expand what is typically considered valid source material and documentary evidence by also including oral histories as a source of embodied knowledge, which is explored further in the remainder of this section.
In The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (2003), performance studies and Latin/o American studies scholar Diana Taylor calls attention to how colonial historiography creates a distance, a binary, and a hierarchy between “the archive of supposedly enduring materials (i.e., texts, documents, buildings, bones) and the so-called ephemeral repertoire of embodied practice/knowledge (spoken language, dance, sports, ritual).”33 The texts/objects that constitute archival memory are thought to be unmediated and remain unchanged, despite changing interpretations of them, and the repertoire is often restricted to the past. Taylor argues that the repertoire enacts embodied memory and requires people to be present and participate in the production and transmission of knowledge. She says that both the archive and the repertoire are mediated (people make choices about them) and they are both important sources of information that work in tandem.
She found that gathering a personal archive was a common practice among Chicana feminists, naming this phenomenon a praxis of memory, which provides “a model to critically reframe the relationship between the past and the present” and “new objects of inquiry and new methods of analysis.”36 Through her work building the CPMR, Cotera confronted the colonial emphasis on the so-called authority of the archivist and attempts to organize the objects into a single linear narrative focusing on the product rather than the process. She recalls,
What we were collecting wasn’t just bits and pieces of evidence of historical presence, but collections themselves, some small and carefully curated, some haphazard, some sprawling and wild, and others meticulously organized in rows of file cabinets and folders. Our developing archive was something more than a collection of documents––it was a collection of collections and recollections, a space where Chicana memory practices are both preserved and performed. [This work incited] … a series of theoretical and methodological questions about memory, knowledge production, and historical meaning-making. Is it possible to interrupt erasures of the archive/knowledge system, to decolonize the archive? Can we challenge the power relations between scholars and their objects of study that all too often render silent the multitude of voices and articulations that cannot be contained in a single coherent narrative? Can we create an archive that responds to the radical potential of the memory practices it documents? Can an archive become a site/sitio of encuentro and conocimiento rather than simply a repository––a place where new ways of producing and exchanging knowledge are explored, where new modes of identity, affiliation, and memory are forged in the meeting place between present and past?37
Cotera addressed these questions first-hand, working with students to build the CPMR archive, noting that those who access the archival materials become historical practitioners, actively engaging with the past to critically theorize the present, moving through a path of conocimiento.
Key Term: Conocimiento
Conocimiento is an aspect of consciousness, a living theory, and a praxis laid out by Gloria E. Anzaldúa in her essay “now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public acts.”38 It describes the journey one takes in the development of an embodied self-awareness, questioning reality and dominant paradigms, and experiencing shifts in perception. Building on her earlier theory of mestiza consciousness, Anzaldúa writes, “Her first step is to take inventory. Despojando, desgranando, quitando paja. …She puts history through a sieve, winnows out the lies, looks at the forces that we as a race, as women, have been a part of. …She reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new myths. She adopts new perspectives toward the darkskinned, women and queers. She strengthens her tolerance (and intolerance) for ambiguity. She is willing to share, to make herself vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking.”39 The task of the traveler, then, is to take inventory and sift through history in order to develop new insights about the self and the world and to act on this new consciousness, moving towards connection, liberation, and healing.
These acts of Chicana remembrance are a technology that can bridge the past and the present of Chicana feminist thought. As an alternative archive, the CPMR attends to the structured silences and colonial mechanisms of erasure, moving beyond seeking inclusion in official archives, questioning the collecting, documenting, and organizing logics of historical knowledge production.
Chicana feminist scholars have also become historical practitioners working with their own family archives. In “A Familial Legacy of meXicana Style,” Chicana feminist literary and cultural studies scholar Domino Renee Perez longs for intergenerational family photos, saying that they are a “non-portable luxury” not afforded to her migrant family.40 Despite this limitation, Perez was able to obtain three photos of her grandmother, which led her on a journey to piece together her life story, with many questions arising along the way. She also gathered photographs from her mother, aunts, and uncles to build an abundant collection of images, memories, and stories. Using auto-ethnography, Perez digs into her family’s and communities’ complex social history through the practices of dress and adornment, offering a historical and poetic recounting of her family’s style and its influence on her own identity. Her non-linear narrative jumps back and forth in time from the story surrounding the photo to her own present-day interpretations and feelings about the encuentros with the photo and its surrounding memories. Perez presents the immigration history of her family, the class divisions among Latinas/os at the turn of the twentieth century, and the buying patterns of Latinas/os as they struggle with constructing identity through self-adornment and intersectional oppression through the impositions of social class, ethnicity, gender, and race.
Oral Hxstory
Through storytelling, testimonios, and oral history interviews conducted in the late 1990s with translatina singer, performance artist, and Bay Area, California icon Teresita la Campesina, queer Latino oral historian Horacio Roque Ramírez further expands our understandings of the archive. Ramírez documents Teresita’s life history, which represents “a living archive of evidence that responds to both the whiteness of queer archiving practices and the heteronormativity of Latino historiography.”41 As a translatina elder who lived through the second half of the twentieth century (1940-2002), the later part of her life with AIDS, Teresita was, “Deeply committed to laying out a living historical record of queer desires,” assuming “responsibility to pass on the stories and histories of the fallen, those who came before the current generations of queer Latina/o community builders.”42 Through the example of Teresita’s communal and intergenerational narratives connected to the larger socio-political landscape of San Francisco, Ramírez challenges us to think about individual memories not merely as objects to collect, but as deeply social living testimony.
Ramírez was impacted by Teresita’s presence as a queer Latinx historical anchor and a living archive of desire, meaning, the body itself holds memories, knowledge, “sexual consciousness, erotic desire, and gender expression.”43 He wrote about the profound exchange between them and his concerns as a queer oral historian, listener, and witness. Over time, they became collaborators who built a relationship based on trust. “That she trusted me in her final years of life also meant that she set a responsibility for me to do something with the archive she was revealing,” Ramírez writes.44 Maylei Blackwell contends that oral history can be understood as an embodied knowledge practice for both the narrator and the witness/researcher. Expressions and interactions may not be captured in the transcript––connections and relationships are developed and additional meanings are conveyed “off tape.” Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x feminist and queer oral historians often develop long-term collaborations with their narrators, which can grow into friendships and/or political commitments, leading to deeper knowledge and higher levels of accountability. That Ramírez was explicit about these intimate and vulnerable moments as a graduate student researcher provides a fruitful example for those of us who wish to use oral history and testimonio to gather stories from our beloved communities.
Ramírez’s work is instrumental in the development of queer oral history methods and queer Latinx archives, particularly those that document the lives, embodied memories, and histories of those impacted by the AIDS epidemic. Like other scholars discussed in this chapter, Ramírez poses a set of questions in Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (2012), along with his co-author Nan Alamilla Boyd, that create additional openings in Chicanx/Latinx historiography:
How has queer oral history evolved? Are queer methods different from other oral history methods? What has it meant for narrators to talk openly with researchers about queer life, especially when queer genders, sexualities, and desires have been protectively hidden or vowed to secrecy? What has it meant for researchers to focus their work on queer history?45
These questions can provide an important starting point for those who wish to collect queer Chicanx/Latinx oral hxstories and testimonios, which are critical acts of documentation and oppositional histories that “provide alternative perspectives to the course of history and its archives” that quite literally speak back to historical absences through the creation of new materials and new records.46 While many queer oral history projects have been developed over the past decades, similar to Chicana/Latina feminist history, there is still much work to be done.
Footnotes
32 Cotera, Blackwell, and Espinoza, “Introduction,” 10.
33 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 19.
34 María Cotera, “Unpacking Our Mothers’ Libraries: Practices of Chicana Memory before and after the Digital Turn,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 305.
35 Cotera, “Unpacking,” 299.
36 Cotera, “Unpacking,” 301.
37 Cotera, “Unpacking,” 306-307.
38 Gloria Anzaldúa, “now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public acts,” in This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, eds. Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Analouise Keating (New York: Routledge, 2002), 540-578.
39 Anzaldúa, Borderlands, 104.
40 Domino Renee Perez, “A Familial Legacy of meXicana Style,” in meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction, eds. Aída Hurtado and Norma E. Cantú (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020), 109-133.
41 Horacio Roque Ramírez, “A Living Archive of Desire: Teresita la Campesina and the Embodiment of Queer Latino Community Histories,” in Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and The Writing of History, ed. Antoinette Burton (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 113.
42 Ramírez, “A Living Archive,” 112.
43 Nan Alamilla Boyd and Horacio Roque Ramírez, eds. Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford University Press, 2012), 1.
44 Ramírez, “A Living Archive,” 7.
45 Alamilla Boyd and Ramírez, Bodies of Evidence, 1.
46 Ramírez, “A Living Archive,” 120. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/03%3A_History_and_Historiography/3.03%3A_Embodied_Memories-_Archival_Movidas_and_Oral_Hxstory.txt |
Chicanx and Latinx Literature as History
In Literature as History: Autobiography, Testimonio, and the Novel in the Chicano and Latino Experience (2016), Chicano historian Mario T. García proposes what the title of his book suggests––that Chicanx and Latinx literature is history, including fictional texts, autobiographies, testimonios (oral history) and novels, each possessing a “historical context and therefore speaking to their historical period.”47 Similarly, Louis Gerard Mendoza, professor of Latina/o literary and cultural studies, argues the literature of Mexican descent people in the U.S. has represented the past using fiction and non-fiction, pointing out that a polarity exists between history, which is understood as real/factual, and literature, which is understood as imagined/possible. According to Mendoza and García, Chicanx literature blurs these lines––a text can be both historical and literary. In other words, “…people of Mexican descent in the United States do not have simply a history on the one hand and a literature on the other; we also have that history expressed in literary form.”48 Moreover, “literature can offer imaginative reconstructions of possible events, occurrences, and interactions that are historically informed.”49 This means that Chicanx/Latinx literature can be examined as historical documents and read for insights into Chicanx/Latinx history. Mendoza addresses the following questions in his study––questions that would be productive if discussed in the classroom: “Can literature help in recovering the political/social history of Chicanas/os without distorting it or reducing it to ‘mere fiction?’ Can it render the past differently—that is, more complexly—than ‘history’ can? What can it add? Is it better able to capture the nuances of intercultural relations and intracultural conflict?”50
An important contribution to understanding and utilizing literature as history has been the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project, which began in the 1990s to recover, digitize, and make accessible hundreds of thousands of Spanish literary texts and English-language texts written by Latinxs including novels, poetry, chronicles, memoirs, photographs, and essays as well as primary source documents and newspapers dating back to the earliest encounters between Hispanic and Indigenous peoples in what would become the United States. Editors of The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature (2013) Suzanne Bost and Frances R. Aparicio remark, “Recovery projects make available texts that were ‘lost’ due to lack of readership (or sometimes outright censorship) but have been ‘found’ and republished as Latino/a literature became increasingly popular in and after the 1980s.”51 According to the project's program director Nicolás Kanellos,
Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage aspires to recover all written culture, not just literature, and it intends to restore to local and national institutions what was lost or suppressed during the ethnocentric and racial construction of the nation through such ideologies and practices as manifest destiny, slavery, segregation, and capitalist construction of the government and the economy. It recognizes that United States Latino culture has developed over a period of some five centuries––not counting the indigenous history that existed before the encounter with Europeans and became part of Latino culture.52
Commenting on the social and political implications of the project, Kanellos echoes the sentiments of other scholar-activists featured in this chapter, claiming,
Studying ideologies of racial and cultural superiority like manifest destiny also helps us to understand why little care was taken to recognize and preserve an archive of Hispanic texts and knowledge as the United States expanded southward and westward and began receiving large waves of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Simply stated, and repeated many times in postcolonial studies, an empire does not and cannot acknowledge as civilized the peoples it has conquered or incorporated; most of the archives, libraries, museums, universities, and schools that were established in the newly incorporated lands and in the labor camps of the East, Midwest, Southwest, and Florida did not collect and preserve the written and oral culture––newspapers, books, documents, spoken word––of natives, immigrants, and refugees, for to do so would have destroyed the Anglo-Americans’ claim of superiority and, thus, of the right to dominate Latinos while denying them theoretical and practical inclusion in their nation, as they defined it.53
As this section has demonstrated, the recovery, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of Chicanx/Latinx literature is an important component in the larger objective of Chicanx/Latinx history to revise, recast, and correct historical narratives that shape our present-day lives.
Sidebar: Caballero: A Historical Novel
Co-authored by Jovita González and Eve Raleigh (Margaret Eimer’s pseudonym), Caballero: A Historical Novel was written in the 1930s and early 1940, but was not published until 1996. After early failed attempts to publish the manuscript and being lost for decades, the novel was rediscovered in the Jovita González and Edmundo E. Mireles papers that were archived at the Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi library in the early 1990s. The manuscript was identified by Professor José E. Limón who, with María Eugenia Cotera, edited the novel for publication. According to the publisher, Caballero, “centers on a mid-nineteenth-century Mexican landowner and his family living in the heart of southern Texas during a time of tumultuous change. After covering the American military occupation of South Texas, the story involves the reader in romances between young lovers from opposing sides during the military conflict of the U.S.-Mexico War. The young protagonists fall in love but face struggles with race, class, gender, and sexual contradictions. This work, long lost in a collection of private papers and unavailable until now, serves as a literary ethnography of South Texas-Mexican folklore customs and traditions as well as a feminist critique of rigid patriarchal culture.”54
Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project has recovered the works of women including Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Luisa Capetillo, Adina de Zavala, María Cristina Mena, Leonor Villegas de Magnón, and Jovita González. In a keynote speech titled “The Construction of Latina Agency in Early Southwest Literature,” Dr. Rosaura Sánchez points to the ways these authors portray their women characters as having agency, but that agency is tied to being a wife or daughter of an upper-class ranchero. While Caballero and others like it are valuable texts, Sánchez cautions those of us searching for a past literary heritage to be aware of an author’s positionality and not assume that a Spanish surname equates to being a supporter of marginalized members of one’s community or critical of oppressive social structures and institutions. Sánchez asserts, “Recovery need not be uncritically celebratory; even archaeological digs run their recovered artifacts through sieves or filters to determine the artifact’s authenticity or relevance. …Ours is in large measure a history of violence and dispossession and for that reason it is important to construct our past critically. Recover we must, but with a critical perspective to point to the spatial and discursive violence that has been and to some degree continues to characterize our histories.”55
Footnotes
47 Mario T. García, Literature as History: Autobiography, Testimonio, and the Novel in the Chicano and Latino Experience (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016), 3.
48 Louis Gerard Mendoza, Historia: The Literary Making of Chicana & Chicano History (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001), 28.
49 Mendoza, Historia, 24.
50 Mendoza, Historia, 28.
51 Suzanne Bost and Frances R. Aparicio, eds. The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature (London: Routledge, 2013), 3.
52 Nicolás Kanellos, “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage,” PMLA 127, no. 2 (March 2012): 372.
53 Kanellos, “Recovering,” 372.
54Caballero: A Historical Novel,” Texas A&M Press, accessed December 10, 2022.
55 Rosaura Sánchez, “The Construction of Latina Agency in Early Southwest Literature” (keynote speech, XV Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Conference, Houston, Texas, February 21, 2020).
3.05: Conclusion
Summary
In this chapter, we defined what Chicanx/Latinx history is and covered the ways the field disrupts dominant conventions in the discipline of history through the usage of anti-imperial, anti-racist, decolonial, and medicinal approaches and methods. The contributions of feminist and queer studies scholars were highlighted, along with other activist scholars, who are working to expand and deepen the field of Chicanx/Latinx history.
Many scholars express the need for Chicanx/Latinx history to be made available beyond the college classroom and shared with the wider public through K-12 curricula, public educational programs, mass media, and other venues of public history. One way this is taking place is through Chicanx/Latinx expressive oral culture, which has been a vital method of meaning-making and knowledge-sharing for centuries. Oral traditions such as storytelling, music (especially corridos), and testimonio are used to pass on familial and cultural histories across generations and geographies. Visual culture, murals in particular, have also been used as an accessible means to publicly document and exhibit Chicanx/Latinx history (visit Section 10.5: Cultural Productions in Practice for a discussion of this topic). As this chapter has demonstrated, there are still many stories to document and historical studies to conduct and we hope that you are inspired to engage in this important work.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.3: Chapter 3 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/03%3A_History_and_Historiography/3.04%3A_Literary_Histories.txt |
Introduction
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence and Sexual Violence. Please note that this chapter includes discussions of physical and sexual violence.
This chapter explores the themes of Indigeneity and migration as they affect social, cultural, and political intra-and-inter group dynamics among Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx communities native to the Americas and Indigenous to this hemisphere. By intra-and-inter-group dynamics, we mean between and across groups, which considers global political economies and social dynamics. This complexity requires the use of a transnational framework to look beyond rigid historical narratives of nation and Indigenous identity.
Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx peoples are affected by the legacy and ongoing violence of colonialism, attempted genocide against Native Americans by Europeans, contemporary issues of land displacement (especially in Central America and Mexico), harsh immigration policies, and militarized enforcement strategies. These systems intersect, and by examining them in-depth, we observe the tradition of people’s movement across land and water, establishing contact between groups and navigating power relationships.
Each section in this chapter provides a closer look at the concepts, histories, intersections, and complexity of Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities. In the first section, you will learn more about the conceptual frameworks, terms, and definitions that inform our understanding of Indigeneity, migration, and racialized ethnic identity. This foundation guides our next section, which more closely examines the historical and political background facing Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx peoples today. These perspectives cut across human experiences and intersect with gender, sexuality, and race. This topic is the subject of the third section. In the fourth section, you will learn more about how Chicanx and Latinx Indigenous experiences intersect with sexuality, gender, and migration, including the gendered treatment of Indigenous women and social norms facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirit, and similarly identified LGBTQ2S+ people.
This chapter provides a window into the social struggles that motivate activism among Chicanxs and Indigenous Latinxs for cultural sovereignty, racial justice, decolonization of knowledge, and the production of cultural affirmation, resilience, and strong communities in the face of external threats and systemic oppression. Understanding these lessons can help us realize more opportunities to stand up against injustice in our diverse communities.
Decolonization refers to the multiple processes of resistance that work to end the dynamics of colonialism and establish, restore, and defend Indigenous sovereignty. It is important to note that decolonization is a political process that refers specifically to Indigenous sovereignty. It is not a general term that captures all forms of social justice.
Poetry Spotlight: In Lak'ech
This poem, “In Lak’ech,” is a philosophy rooted in Indigenous worldviews emphasizing interconnectedness, love, and respect, acknowledging life and community in the Anahuac (Mesoamerica) region in the oral tradition of Mayan culture, which was written by Chicano playwright and activist Luis Valdez. It is sometimes used in teaching Chicanx and Latinx studies courses.
Tú eres mi otro yo.
(You are my other me.)
Si te hago daño a ti,
(If I do harm to you,)
Me hago daño a mi mismo.
(I do harm to myself.)
Si te amo y respeto,
(If I love and respect you,)
Me amo y respeto yo.
(I love and respect myself.)
• 4.1: Concepts for Understanding Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities
The section discusses Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities, emphasizing the importance of understanding their distinct identities. It introduces concepts like Indigenous Chicanx, Xicanx, and Latinx Indigeneities, and explores Critical Latinx Indigeneities as an analytical framework. The section also highlights the presence and contributions of Indigenous peoples in Latin America, their diverse identities, and the need to respect their rights.
• 4.2: Indigenous Histories, Wars, Imperialism, and Migration
This section explores the impact of imperialism, war, and Latinx migrations. It discusses the history of Indigenous resistance in Mexico, including the Aztec empire and Spanish colonization. The Mexican War of Independence and the resistance against the Mexican government are highlighted. The section then delves into the U.S.-Mexico War, driven by colonialism, political ideologies, and the desire for territorial expansion.
• 4.3: Narratives, Representation, Epistemic Violence, and Healing
This section explores contested narratives of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples, highlighting their resilience, cultural heritage, and struggles for recognition. It discusses the importance of creation stories, solidarity movements, and the ongoing fight for truth and accountability. A timeline showcases milestones in solidarity between Chicanxs and Native Americans, emphasizing education, cultural revitalization, and activism.
• 4.4: Gender, Sexuality, Migration, and Indigeneity
The section explores the complex relationship between Indigenous peoples, migration, and gender. It discusses how Indigenous migrants navigate colonial structures, experience xenophobia, and seek solidarity across borders. Gender and family dynamics influence immigration policies and the experiences of migrant communities, with labor demands often shaped by binary gender roles. Indigenous Latinx communities challenge constricting gender and sexuality narratives.
• 4.5: Conclusion
04: Indigeneities
Core Definitions: Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities
Indigeneity is a broad term that refers to a sense of belonging and ongoing ties among people from a shared homeland that originated before colonization. It is essential to understand the distinctions between Chicanx, Xicanx, Indigenous Latinx, and Latinx Indigenites. Indigenous Chicanx is a self-defined identity category signifying Indigeneity and awareness of their historical roots in this hemisphere, including Anahuac (Mesoamerica). Xicanx is a preferred identity term among some Chicanxs involved in Indigenous movements. “Chi” produces the same sound as “Xi,” but “Chi” is the Spanishpronunciation, and “Xi” is the Indigenous one.
Indigenous Latinx is an umbrella term for Indigenous migrants to the United States from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico (for example, Maya, Mixteco, Purépecha, Taino, Zapoteco, etc.). They are members of Indigenous pueblos or nations with traditional languages, customs, responsibilities to tribal communities, sensibilities, and dispositions. These identity labels were first introduced in Section 2.1: Defining Latinx Demographics.
To understand the lived experience of Indigenous Latinx peoples examined in this chapter, we rely on the work of Maylei Blackwell, Boj Lopez, and Luis Urrieta, who define Critical Latinx Indigeneities (CLI) as an analytic framework that addresses how Indigeneity is produced differentially by multiple colonialities present on Indigenous land, where different Indigenous diasporas exist in a shared space and is used to “critique enduring colonial logics and practices that operate from different localities of power as well as the physical, social, cultural, economic, and psychological violence that often targets Indigenous Latinx peoples, including forms of state and police violence, cultural appropriation, economic exploitation, gender violence, social exclusion, and psychological abuse.”1 CLI refuses the ways migration scholars overlook the ‘‘receiving countries’’ as Indigenous territories and nations. Thus, Critical Latinx Indigeneities works against the erasure of the Indigenous People. CLI examines mobility as a global Indigenous process of displacement and considers the shifts in racial formations and how Indigenous people are racialized differently across and between different settler states.
This perspective challenges Chicanx and Latinx studies to uproot ideologies in broader society, especially as they are reproduced through narrow definitions of Latinidad, as introduced in Section 2.1: Defining Latinx Demographics. For instance, Lopez and Urrieta say that the ideology of Indigenismo deployed during the Chicano movement is an “Aztec-centric celebration of the Indigenous past of the nation, which often serves to erase the present and future of the sixty-three Indigenous pueblos of Mexico” and the millions of Indigenous peoples living around the world.2 Others, like Tomas Perez, Jennie Luna, and Susy Zepeda, dispute that Indigenismo is only tied to Aztec culture and instead consider Indigenismo as promoting the various Indigenous pueblos for a growing sense of empowerment. This was observed in the case of Mexican President Larezo Cardenas when he provided institutional support to promote the culture, art, and history of many Indigenous Mexican tribes during his administration, which was not limited to Mexica Aztec. The various approaches to Indigenous identity are the subject of inquiry for Indigenous Chicanx and Latinx scholars.
Organization Spotlight: Chicanx and Latinx Indigenous Scholars
The Indigenous Peoples/Indigenous Knowledges Caucus has been a part of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) since the mid-1990s and was formed with much struggle to recognize Indigenous roots. The caucus was established in response to the Zapatista uprising and Indigenous social movements, reminding the world of the presence of Indigenous people in the Americas. Participating scholars have contributed to scholarship for understanding Chicanx and Latinx Indigeneities in relationship to identity, foodways, land displacement, social movements, and futurities across borders. It was founded by Roberto Cintli Rodríguez, Jennie Luna, Roberto Hernández, Patrisia Gonzales, Gabriel Estrada, and Steve Casanova, and then led by Ernesto Tlahuitollini Colín, Robert Muñoz, Devon Peña, Melissa Moreno, Susy Zepeda, and others. Some caucus members are displayed in Figure 4.1.1 at a NACCS conference.
Indigenous Roots in Chicanx and Latinx Communities
Tienes el nopal en la frente (You have the cactus on your forehead) – dicho
This common and harmful saying means you are Indigenous or “look” Indigenous but are attempting to hide it. It is often used to refer to a self-hating person who appears to “clearly” look Indigenous but refuses to self-identify as Indigenous or with their Indigenous roots in any way. It is a saying that is commonly known among members of Indigenous Chicanx and Latinx communities. The common nature of this saying identifies how anti-Indigneous sentiments are part of sustained socio-cultural assumptions.
Like race and ethnicity, a sense of Indigeneity is constructed through cultural norms, shared group formations, communities, institutions, and families. Indigeneity is also often recognized and policed through phenotype, with individuals with darker skin and features associated with local Indigenous peoples being more likely to be visibly associated with stereotypes and cultural scripts about Indigenous people. However, Indigeneity is also constructed through systems of sovereignty, traditional knowledge, mutual recognition, and intergenerational kinship.
Indigenous peoples maintain and promote traditional languages, knowledge, and customs into the contemporary era. In the lands referred to as North America and Latin America, the Indigenous peoples have used names like Isla Tortuga / Turtle Island, referring to the North American continent; Abya Yala, referring to southern Mexico and Central America; and Pachamama, referring to South America. Indigenous people are also an active part of the culture, politics, and history of island societies in the Caribbean, such as the Arawak-speaking Taino people. These are regional solidarities that demonstrate the interconnected and globally conscious perspectives embedded in Indigenous communities.
In Figure 4.1.2, a visual representation is displayed with the percentage of Indigenous people living in Latin American countries today, which totals 46 million across the region and ranges from 0.2% in El Salvador to 62.2% in Bolivia. Guatemala follows this at 41%, Peru at 24%, and Mexico at 15.1%. There are over 800 recognized Indigenous groups in Latin America, with the most significant number of distinct Indigenous peoples residing in Brazil, with over 300 different Indigenous peoples represented. Scholars also estimate that 200 or more groups operate actively but do not seek state or federal recognition.
The labels on the chart read: Indigenous Peoples in Latin America. By the year 2010, an estimated 45 million Indigenous people lived in Latin America, accounting for 8.3 % of the region’s population. The United Nations has championed the promotion of their rights by using different resources and special regulations for this purpose. At present, there are 826 Indigenous peoples. An additional 200 are estimated to be living in voluntary isolation.
In the chart, the countries are labeled by their name, percentage of Indigenous people out of the total population, and Total number of Indigenous population. They are Mexico, 15.1%, 17 million, Honduras 7%, 537,000, Panama 12.3%, 420,000, Colombia, 3.4%, 1.6 million, Venezuela, 2.7% 725,000, Brazil, 0.5%, 900,000, Bolivia, 62.2%, 6.2 million, Paraguay, 1.8%, 113,000, Uruguay, 2.4%, 77,000, Argentina, 2.4%, 955,000, Chile, 11%, 1.8 million, Peru, 24%, 7 million, Ecuador, 7%, 1 million, Costa Rica, 2.4%, 105,000, Nicaragua, 8.9%, 520,000, El Salvador, 0.2%, 14,500, Guatemala, 41%, 5.9 million.
Additionally, the captions included read: “The countries with the greatest number of Indigenous peoples are: Brazil, Colombia, 102, Peru 85, Mexico 78, Bolivia, 39.” and “Many Indigenous peoples are in danger of physical or cultural disappearance: Brazil, 70, Colombia, 35, Bolivia, 13.”
And the chart is summarized with the text, “ECLAC encourages the region’s countries to put public policies in practice which: 1) are based on standards of Indigenous people’s rights, 2) include their perspectives and contributions to the region’s development, 3) consolidate improvements in their well-being and living conditions, political participation and territorial rights, 4) promote the construction of multicultural societies that benefit us all.”
Indigenous Identities: Terminology and Definitions
Various creation stories are associated with distinct Indigenous peoples and nations and tribes of the Western Hemisphere, reflecting the diversity of the land and peoples. Some peoples whose homelands are now occupied by the United States include peoples the Haudenosaunee (Peoples of the Longhouse, also known as the Six Nations), Diné (also known as Navajo), Istichata (also known as Muskogee or Creek), and Siksikaitsitapi (also known as Blackfoot). In the lands now occupied by Latin America and the Caribbean, this includes groups like the Mexica Aztec Nation, Maya, Zapotec, Purépecha, Mixteco, Mapuche Peoples, Guarani Peoples, and many more across the Southwest, Southeast, Caribbean Basin, Amazon Basin. Indigenous people have distinct names and histories, which include contact, trade, conflict, and more. There are differences and diversity among these Indigenous groups, including traditions, language, religion, political organization, and more.3 However, despite these differences, Indigenous groups across the western hemisphere share the experience of various European invasions and colonization, and resisting and adapting to preserve culture, heritage, and identity.4
As a label, the word Indigenous is “used to describe peoples who existed before colonization and can be used to describe the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.”5 Always use the capital I: “Indigenous” to designate the term as a proper noun. By contrast, the word Indian by itself “connotes the history of settlers perpetuating genocide … While there are many individuals who use the term “Indian” to describe themselves, particularly when among their own in-group, it is often seen as offensive for non-Native individuals to use this term.”6 “The terms “American Indian,” “Native American,” “First Nations,” or simply “Native” are seen as more respectful.”7 Specifically, American Indian and Native American refer to Indigenous peoples of the lands currently occupied by the United States. First Nations is most frequently used by Indigenous people in Canada. Many individuals and communities primarily associate their identity with a specific tribal group or nation, like Chumash, Salinan, Purépecha, or Mixteco, rather than a general category.
For Chicanxs, in the 1960s, Aztlán was considered the name of a homeland in the area now known as the Greater Southwest in the United States. The claim to the Greater Southwest by Chicanxs in the 1960s is troubling because it overlooks the past and present existence of Native tribal nations living in the regions in these areas, who were colonized by the Spanish before becoming part of Mexico, and then the United States. The idea that Chicanxs had a rightful claim to the land is contradicted by the Nahua paradigm, which states that the meaning of Aztlán is not a physical homeland but rather a body of water that needs stewardship, from which ancestors of Chicanxs today migrated. This emphasizes the liberatory and transformative potential embedded in the idea of Aztlán, which is focused on antiracism, self-empowerment, and solidarity among Indigenous peoples. As well, many individuals and communities can trace their lineage to both Indigenous Latinx and Native American tribes, who had regular contact, trade, and cultural exchange in the region for centuries.
Historical Spotlight: Last Message on Education (August 12, 1521)
According to oral tradition, this is the last message by the Governing Council of Mexico Tenochtitlan, given by Cuauhtémoc as his last act of government on August 12, 1521. The message is about the importance of Indigenous parents teaching children traditions in the home, even during an invasion.
Our Sun has gone down
Our Sun has hidden its face
and has left us in complete darkness
But we know it will return again
that it will rise again
to light us anew
But while it is there in
the Mansion of Silence
Very soon will we join together and embrace each other
and in the very center of our being hide
all that
our hearts love
and we know is the Great Treasure.
We will destroy all of our temples to the Principal Creator,
our schools, our sacred ball game
our youth centers
our houses of song and play
Our streets will remain abandoned
Our homes will enclose us
until our New Sun rises.
Most honorable fathers and mothers,
may you never forget to guide your young
and teach your children while you live
how good it has been until now our beloved Anahuac
sheltered and protected our destiny
and for our great respect and good behavior
confirmed by our ancestors
and our parents enthusiastically received
and seeded in our being.
Now we will instruct our children
how good it will be, they will raise themselves up
and gain strength
and how good it will be to achieve their great destiny
in this, our beloved motherland of Anahuac.
Mestizaje and the Intersection of Indigeneity and Race
Stories of heritage among Chicanxs and Indigenous Latinxs vary on their past and present ties to their homelands. Mestizas/os/xs are a diverse population that has a combination of mixed heritage, often including Indigenous lineage, along with a combination of African and/or European backgrounds. Across these diverse groups, some have experienced contemporary forced acculturation, and others have been taught to believe they can assimilate and be invested in the dominant Spanish or Anglo-American cultural ways. The investment in whiteness is sometimes experienced through colorism when children are born, as they may be referred to as being a güerita/o or morenita/o if they have light or dark skin. Children’s light skin may be celebrated guided by the belief that they may eventually pass as white, which leads to identity conflict and pressure throughout development. Even the term “mestiza” or “mestizo” is sometimes used to assert a hierarchy between individuals of mixed heritage compared to Indigenous peoples with no Europaean (or African) heritage.
The idea of mestizaje, or mixed-race identity, emphasizes the multiple lineages that not only shape individual identity, but also the communities, cultures, languages, and traditions that we practice. José Vasconcelos Calderón called mestizos la raza cosmica (“the cosmic race”). However, an overemphasis on the mixing of various groups in Latin America can be used to create a false sense of equality that is not reflected in the actual conditions of racialized groups in Latin America, the United States, and Canada. In particular, Mexico and Brazil have both promoted a sense of national unity that attempts to erase differences based on race, color, and Indigeneity.8 For communities experiencing the effects of inter-generational oppression, segregation, and exploitation, the idea that all ethnic differences have fused in a post-racial society erases the realities of inequity and the importance of advocates calling for justice. For Indigenous peoples, reductive deployments of ethnic categorization can disrupt attempts for collective liberation.9
Marginalization continues through everyday stereotypes and myths about Indigenous people taught in various institutions, such as schools, mass media, and policy. As an example of anti-Indigenous oppression among Chicanx and Latinx people, we may hear pejorative terms like “India Maria” and “Oaxaquita,” signifying a connotation of inferiority. Community responsive efforts, like in Ventura California, have included the “No me llames Oaxaquita” campaign, which translates into “do not call me little Oxacca.” This effort created greater awareness about how this harmful term can negatively impact young people and their communities, motivating people to question their own biases and assumptions. Social movements have always been important for responding to the marginalization and direct threats to the lives of Indigenous peoples. Movement mobilization includes calling for sovereignty, treaty rights, resistance to Columbus Day and triumphalist narratives in history, stopping environmental destruction, water rights, cultural revitalization, land acknowledgment, and more. A land acknowledgment is a formal statement recognizing and respecting Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of the land as well as the historical relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories.
Latinidad has also been critiqued for the ways that it calls for an overriding unity between all Latinx, Latina, and Latino people. These generalizations tend to benefit the most privileged within this group, including cisgender, heterosexual, male, English-speaking, light-skinned or white, citizen Latinos. For this reason, some groups who are multiply marginalized within the Latinx community have called against using this term, or qualifying it.10 Others have modified the term, including through the label, Afro-Latinx, which describes people from Latin America of African descent. For a refresher on Latinidad and Afro-Latinidad, you can return to Section 2.2: (Re)constructing Latinidades.
The histories and identities of Afro-descendant people and Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been interacting and intertwined for centuries. For example, the Garifuna people are of mixed African and Indigenous heritage from the island called St. Vincent. Members and descendants of this group exist across Central America, the Caribbean, and the United States, and are just one example of the strength and pride that has been built through solidarity with African and Indigenous heritage.
Afro-Latinxs are more likely to experience discrimination and policing in the United States than other Latinxs,11 and also more likely to raise these issues within Latinx communities more broadly.12 Within Latinx communities, dynamics of racism and colorism work to silence Afro-Latinx voices and discourage inclusive participation. Racial categorization in places like Brazil tends to be closely layered with colorism, leading to vastly different experiences of racial norms and consequences, even within biological families, based on one’s physical presentation of race.13
In the United States, self-identified Afro-Latinxs make up nearly 25% of the total Hispanic population.14 This suggests that the concerns of Afro-Latinx people are more central to both Black and Latinx cultures than is typically represented in popular media or social movements. For example, Black feminism often credits the development of major theoretical traditions like intersectionality to African-American women in the United States. However, when considering transnational Black communities, there have been theoretical and conceptual developments in places like Brazil that serve as roots of contemporary intersectional feminist movements. Recognizing these mutual sources of inspiration and activist mobilization is an opportunity for transnational coalitions and mutual learning. For example, Angela Davis has made a practice of collaborating with Black feminist leaders in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, such as Preta Ferriera, Lélia Gonzalez, and Marielle Franco.
The formal categorization of individuals into sub-categories by race was constructed by the Spanish empire in the Americas through the system of casta. Casta sorted people based on their heritage, religion, property ownership, occupation, race, color, place, and legitimacy of birth. A painting of the casta designations can be found in Figure 4.3 displays sixteen different designations organized hierarchically, with Spanish descendant (Español or Española) individuals ranked at the highest positions and those with Black and Indigenous ancestry ranked at the bottom. Note that these are historical terms and are not positive identity labels used in contemporary society. The categories displayed in the painting are included in the following list:
1. Español con India, Mestizo
2. Mestizo con Española, Castizo
3. Castizo con Española, Español
4. Español con Mora, Mulato
5. Mulato con Española, Morisca
6. Morisco con Española, Chino
7. Chino con India, Salta atrás
8. Salta atras con Mulata, Lobo
9. Lobo con China, Gíbaro (Jíbaro)
10. Gíbaro con Mulata, Albarazado
11. Albarazado con Negra, Cambujo
12. Cambujo con India, Sambiaga (Zambiaga)
13. Sambiago con Loba, Calpamulato
14. Calpamulto con Cambuja, Tente en el aire
15. Tente en el aire con Mulata, No te entiendo
16. No te entiendo con India, Torna atrás.
While the hierarchies created by Spanish colonizers and other European groups advancing white supremacy and settler-colonialism still influence social standing today, there are many active groups in social movements, politics, research, and education who are working to cultivate a sense of pride, community, and positive identity among Afro-Latinxs. You can learn more about these topics in Chapter 1: Foundations and Contexts. In Mexico, there is one of the largest Afro-Latinx populations. In 2020, a survey identified over 2.5 million Mexican residents who identify as Afromexican.15 As an optional exploration, you can learn more about some of the most recent research and scholarly books on the topic of Multiculturalism, Afro-Descendent Activism, and Ethnoracial Law and Policy in Latin America by visiting the Latin American Research Review website.
Footnotes
1 Blackwell, Maylei, Floridalma Boj Lopez, and Luis Urrieta. “Special Issue: Critical Latinx Indigeneities.” Latino Studies 15, no. 2 (July 1, 2017): 126–37. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-017-0064-0.
2 Blackwell, Boj Lopez, and Urrieta, 131.
3 M. Bianet Castellanos, Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera, and Arturo J. Aldama, eds., Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2012), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1kz4hbt.
4 Miléna Santoro and Erick D. Langer, Hemispheric Indigeneities: Native Identity and Agency in Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Canada (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2 018), https://muse.jhu.edu/book/62740.
5 Lori Kido Lopez, ed., Race and Media: Critical Approaches (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2020), ix.
6 Lopez, ix.
7 Lopez, ix.
8 Edward Telles, Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America, 1st ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014).
9 Gabriela Kovats Sánchez, “‘If We Don’t Do It, Nobody Is Going to Talk About It’: Indigenous Students Disrupting Latinidad at Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” AERA Open 7 (January 1, 2021): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211059194.
10 Tatiana Flores, “‘Latinidad Is Cancelled’: Confronting an Anti-Black Construct,” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 3, no. 3 (July 1, 2021): 58–79, https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2021.3.3.58.
11 Luis Noe-Bustamante, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Khadijah Edwards, Lauren Mora, and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Majority of Latinos Say Skin Color Impacts Opportunity in America and Shapes Daily Life,” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project (blog), November 4, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2021/11/04/majority-of-latinos-say-skin-color-impacts-opportunity-in-america-and-shapes-daily-life/.
12 Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “About 6 Million U.S. Adults Identify as Afro-Latino,” Pew Research Center (blog), accessed October 18, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/02/about-6-million-u-s-adults-identify-as-afro-latino/.
13 Telles, Pigmentocracies.
14 Gonzalez-Barrera, “About 6 Million U.S. Adults Identify as Afro-Latino.”
15 Jazmin Aguilar Rangel, “Infographic: Afrodescendants in Mexico” (Wilson Center, July 29, 2022), https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/infographic-afrodescendants-mexico. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/04%3A_Indigeneities/4.01%3A_Concepts_for_Understanding_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Indigeneities.txt |
Definitions and Theories of Migration and Indigeneity
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical violence.
Indigenous people in Mexico and throughout Latin America impacted by invasions since 1492, imperialist wars, settler economies, and environmental destruction have had to engage in global migration in order to sustain their families and communities. Theories of migration and identity formation rooted in sociology, political science, and immigration studies have often tried to separate or misrepresent the realities of Indigenous people, including the presence and importance of Latinx Indigeneities.16 Chicanx and Latinx studies scholars, especially Indigenous scholars, offer a more holistic and clear understanding of the historical and conceptual background for understanding conflict, war, and migration throughout history and today.
To understand the experience of Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx peoples, it is important to understand systems of colonization and settler colonialism. Colonization refers to the action of overtaking control of another group’s territory by force using social, cultural, psychological and religious forms of domination. More specifically, the project of settler-colonialism refers to ongoing processes where the colonizing groups seek to eradicate and erase the people living in the territory they are colonizing and replace the Indigenous population with the settler population. For example, while European countries colonized parts of Asia and most of Africa, settler-colonialism is carried out in places like the Americas, Australia, South Africa, and Israel. One key aspect of settler colonialism is attempted genocide, which refers to a project trying to eradicate an entire population. This is accompanied by an ideologically rooted practice of dehumanization to justify and legitimize such actions. Multiple forms of genocide that Indigenous people have experienced have been identified by the United Nations.
Factors influencing an individual or community’s likelihood to migrate away from their current residence can include things like the inability to get a job, fear of violence, environmental degradation, or loss of family, as well as the characteristics of the receiving country, which can include things like the demand for migrant labor and the presence of jobs and housing. In the context of Indigenous migrants’ experiences, land displacement, deterritorialization, war, and colonization can separate families across national lines, leading to specific networks and pipelines that facilitate circular migration and enduring transnational ties. As well, Indigenous peoples construct complex transnational identities, which include critiques of settler and colonizer forces that operate through nationalism and federal governments.
Displacement can lead to de-Indianization, which refers to the processes of hegemony that disrupt the livelihood of Indigenous peoples, through assaults on foodways, herbal medical resources, and cultural sensibilities.17 Systems of oppression by the dominant culture impact inter-and-intra-group relations as well this means affect their collaboration and conflict within and across groups. Also, de-Indianization can manifest in individuals being denied the opportunity to practice Indigenous heritages, languages, and traditions. This can also manifest in simple ways, like families hiding or ignoring their Indigenous heritage. It also results from historical, political, and transnational factors. For example, in some cases, major displacements of Indigenous Latinx communities took place during the 1842 US-Mexican Wars on both sides of the current border, the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the 1970s in Latin America, and in Central America during the 1980s as part of the US Cold War.
Imperialism, War, and Latinx Migrations
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical violence.
In Mexico, Indigenous peoples have endured and resisted multiple waves of empire and colonization for hundreds of years. Prior to the arrival of Spanish colonizers, much of central and southern Mexico, along with central America, was claimed by the Aztec empire. Notably, the Purépecha people (whose land is located in the state of Michoacan, Mexico) were one of the only groups to successfully resist and expel Aztec domination. During the period of Spanish colonization, many Indigenous groups worked toward the goal of liberation and independence, including participating in the Mexican War of Independence, which ended in 1821.
Another form of resistance by Indigenous peoples and mestizos took place with the war against Spain from 1810-1821. The new Mexican nation built off of the culture and standing of the Aztecs by including the eagle in its flag and basing its name on the Mexica region and Mexico City, a seat of power for Aztec elites. However, throughout the 1800s, multiple Indigenous groups, such as the Comanche, Apache, Purépecha, Yaqui, and Maya, continued to engage in resistance against the nationalist project and the expansive powers of the federal Mexican government. This widespread violence prompted many communities to migrate from their homelands to new communities and settlements.
In 1845, the United States government annexed Texas, which was considered an act of war by the Mexican government. A year later, in 1846, the U.S. Congress formally declared war on Mexico, at the request of President Polk. The U.S. was motivated by a desire to expand its territory westward, under the ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” which is the idea that the United States had a divine imperative to colonize the entire continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.18 Internal politics in the United States were also focused on the presence and expansion of slavery, with many of the northern states and the Northwestern territories outlawing slavery, while southern states defended the institution and sought to expand it into new areas like Texas.
The war between the United States and Mexico lasted two years. The U.S. military attacked and occupied major cities, starting at the periphery of the country and eventually moving forces deeper inland and capturing the capital, Mexico City. The war introduced American violence and colonialism into the lives of Mexican people and was ended by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. In this Treaty, Mexico ceded the land that now comprises the western United States, including all of California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. Territory boundaries in Mexico prior to the US-Mexico War are displayed in Figure 4.2.1. Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848, the territorial boundaries in the western United States and northern Mexico were significantly different from the present-day borders. The region was largely under Mexican control and included territories such as Alta California (present-day California), Nuevo México (present-day New Mexico), Tejas (present-day Texas), and parts of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. The border between Mexico and the United States was not clearly defined, and there were ongoing disputes and conflicts over the control of these territories.
At the end of the 19th century, the United States furthered its imperialist military aggression during the Spanish-American War, which occurred during the spring and summer of 1898. The Spanish government’s hold on its colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean was weakened by internal politics and growing resistance among the peoples living under colonial rule. The war began in Cuba, with the U.S. supporting the Cuban dissidents who were asserting their independence from Spain. The United States mobilized its Navy against the Spanish, however, this did not lead to independence for Cubans. Instead, Cuba was taken under U.S. control for a period of time.
The war between the U.S. and Spain also included Puerto Rico, which was converted from the Spanish colonizers to become a U.S. territory. And the war extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the U.S. taking over colonial control of the Philippines and capturing the territory of Guam. In all of these locations, including the Caribbean, the Spanish-American War created a new relationship of migration between the mainland U.S. and the peoples living in the Caribbean islands. By the 20th century, tens of thousands of Cuban and Puerto Rican migrants had made their homes in the mainland United States.
At the same time, the social and cultural upheaval in Mexico led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910. This revolution elevated the political ideology Indigenismo which emphasizes celebrating Indigenous cultures and the Indigenous peoples are often the foundation of contemporary Mexican culture, politics, and society. Indigenous Leaders like Emiliano Zapata led the 1910 revolution calling for land reform (i.e., El Plan de Ayala) to redistribute land to the working class and break up the control and domination by the landowning elite (hacienderos). Zapata’s Indigenous tribal community in Puebla was deeply tied to land and communal corn traditions. He actually carried the land grants of his tribe. This personal experience informed his commitment to fight for a degree of sovereignty.
Beyond economic concerns, the ideology of Indigenismo was also championed and represented by cultural figures like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The recognition of cultural value led the post-revolutionary Mexican government, like Lazaro Cardenas’ administration to support bilingual education in Spanish and Indigenous languages. Cardenas’ commitment to Indigenous tribal communities throughout Mexico, led to some threats on his life. At one point the Indigenous people of Janitzio, Michocan, had to hide and protect his life for a period. Anti-Indian and racist sentiments of the cientificos (eugenics) of the 1940s attacked policy and efforts benefiting Indigenous people of Mexico. In many ways, Indigenous groups have cultivated energy and support to carry on their heritage by teaching traditional customs and practices in the face of threat and violence.19
In addition to the conditions in the “homeland” in the 20th century, the dynamics of U.S. Imperialism and militarism also negatively impacted the lives and migration patterns of Indigenous peoples in Latin America. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the United States government directly and indirectly caused widespread political instability and supported the overthrow of standing governments throughout South and Central America, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Paraguay.
These actions were sponsored as part of the Cold War and politicians justified them by highlighting the antagonism between the U.S. and Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union and China. In the process, many Indigenous communities living in Latin America were subjected to violence, political corruption, and economic devastation. This led some Indigenous and mestizo groups to migrate to the United States, including entire communities and networks who brought with them Indigenous traditions of health and healing, languages, and customs of cultural wealth that they nurtured and passed on in their new homes. As a result, many communities in cities such as Los Angeles, Oxnard, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Santa Maria in California have substantial populations of Indigenous migrants from Mexico and Central America. They have created organizations of support as well, such as the Frente and others.
Footnotes
16 Douglas S. Massey and Magaly R. Sanchez, Brokered Boundaries: Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times (New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).
17 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 1st ed. (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987); Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and Phillip A. Dennis, México Profundo (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996); Jack Forbes, Aztecas Del Norte: the Chicanos of Aztlan (Robbinsdale, MN: Fawcett Publications, 1973).
18 Osuna, Steven. “Securing Manifest Destiny.” Journal of World-Systems Research 27, no. 1 (2021): 12–34, https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2021.1023.
19 José Antonio Flores Farfán, “Keeping the Fire Alive: A Decade of Language Revitalization in Mexico,” De Gruyter Mouton 2011, no. 212 (2011): 189–209, https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.2011.052. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/04%3A_Indigeneities/4.02%3A_Indigenous_Histories_Wars_Imperialism_and_Migration.txt |
Dominant Narratives in the Representation of Native American and Indigenous Histories
When was the last time someone told you that you are important, your Indigenous ancestors matter, and that you can make a difference in your community? Worldwide Indigenous peoples have emphasized the value of community survivance. The reality of Indigenous peoples living and thriving in the contemporary global society while affirming their dignity and resisting neocolonial systems of oppression continues. In this section, you will learn more specifically about contested narratives of Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples. For example, this includes a recognition of the solidarity between Chicanx and Indigenous struggles such as in the 1992 protest of the 1994 Columbus Celebration in the U.S., the struggle against the PeaBody Coal Mining Industry in reservations, and more recently Standing Rock against the DAPL.
The saying “Indians are dead” is part of a master narrative that continues to circulate in schools and society. We refute that Indigenous people are dead or have disappeared. In the western hemisphere, Central America and the southern part of Mexico are home to the largest number of living Indigenous people today. In addition, people who self-identify as Chicana/o/x, Latina/o/x, Puerto Rican, Central American, and South American often have ancestors with Indigenous roots and they carry on their cultures, languages, traditions, and lifeways. Roberto “Cintli” Rodriguez and others have referred to members of this group as la Raza, which means people whose genetic matter has been in this hemisphere for thousands of years.
For many years, American and European scholars have presented the Bering Strait Theory to describe and categorize Native Americans as migrants to this country. This follows the logic of an “Out of Africa” hypothesis of human evolution, which postulates that modern human beings emerged from a single pair of genetic ancestors living in Africa, in an approximate location that would match the Bible’s description of the Garden of Eden. This theory suggests that humans arrived in the Americas about 15,000 years ago by migrating from Asia over through the Bering Strait, a land bridge between what is today called Russia and Alaska. This area was passable by land at the time, although it is covered in the ocean today. Native Americans and Indigenous people do not describe themselves as migrants from another place but have scientific and cultural knowledge of originating in their homelands. As Indigenous scholar and activist Vine Deloria has argued, along with other scholars and critics, there are increasing amounts of archeological and scientific evidence that refute the Bering Strait Theory, suggesting that the Bering Strait was unpassable until about 12,600 years ago, which is after documented human life had spread throughout North and South America.20
The connection to the homeland is represented in creation stories. Each tribal community represents their ethics of stewardship and tending the land and culture in their stories. This is true and important for Indigenous people across the hemisphere, as noted in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. This historic document sets the precedent for international law and the need to recognize the collective rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples on their land. It is available online on the United Nations website. In specific tribal community contexts, creation stories refer to the ecology and often center on a significant relative in the region, such as ants, badgers, birds, condors, corn, eagles, ravens, serpents, turtles, whales, and specific mountains. Stories of Indigenous heritage are shared through oral history. These stories carry important values, beliefs, sensibilities, and dispositions on ecology, life, death, and regeneration. These stories reflect the diversity within Indigenous peoples, their land, and cultural pride.
Cultural Spotlight: Cahuilla Bird Songs
Bird Songs are a part of the California Native American traditions including the Cahuilla people located in southern California,. The practice of Bird Songs in celebrations, community gatherings, and ceremonies helps to communicate a continued cultural tradition that is rooted in ancestral knowledge. The documentary, “We Are Birds: A California Indian Story” by Albert Chacon, which is available on YouTube and licensed CC BY 3.0, demonstrates these practice real-time. The full documentary is one hour, seven minutes, and ten seconds.
Activity: Indigenous Land Website
Stories of Indigenous heritage are shaped by the specificity of each group’s creation story or creation story reflecting traditions and responsibilities tied to their people’s land, ecology, and/or sacred spaces. You can learn more about the Indigenous peoples of various lands throughout the world by visiting the Native Land map website. This is a secondary collection of territories and Indigenous peoples, which includes links to primary sources and information on Indigenous tribal lands. You can search by address, and one interesting place to start can be by exploring where you are currently residing or studying.
Struggles for Truth and Accountability in Cultural Narratives
Queer Chicana author Gloria Anzaldúa based her work on the knowledge of Native American studies scholars like Jack Forbes to represent the Indigenous realities of mestiza/o/x peoples. Her book Borderlands/La Frontera was first published in Spanglish and represents the sensibilities of mestizas, including topics like Indigeneity, Nepantla, Two-Spirit duality, and fluidity of gender, and colonial gendered morality. These areas of inquiry are carried on by young people and elders who work together to carry on their Indigenous traditions. Among the Indigenous cultural work Elder and Capitana of Danza Mexica Azteca Angelbertha Cobb, who is pictured in Figure 4.3.1. She posed in front of an artistic rendition of La Malinche, mother of the first mestizo, her same gesture and position. In Mexico City, Cobb was close friends with Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera and also directly benefited from the efforts of President Lazaro Cardenas, who recruited her as one of the best Indigenous dancers in the highland of Puebla. Cultural workers like her, and the work of other Indigenous cultural groups have helped to sustain and communicate traditional knowledge through art, dance, and dress.
Solidarity across Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have been key to the survivance of Native peoples.21 Survivance refers to the collective process of survival, which carries forward the culture, peoples, and land beyond the individual. For example, since the early 1970s, a segment of Chicanxs, aware of and attached to their Indigenous roots, have participated in and supported the United Nations Committee for Advancing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Cultures Worldwide. Chicanxs and Latinxs people who support solidarity with Indigenous peoples have supported self-determination, cultures, and political resilience. Through the emergence of ethnic studies, Chicanx and Latinx studies, Native American studies, and the American Indian Movement (AIM), there has been an increase in awareness of various Indigenous movements. These movements share a commitment to Indigenization, supporting revitalization of Native languages, ancestral foodways, medical use, cultural burnings, midwifery traditions, dances, coming-of-age ceremonies, land acknowledgment, and more.
In order to effectively support decolonization, it is necessary to cultivate knowledge of diverse tribal groups. Awareness and education in the US of Indigenous and Native peoples, both past and present, can be attributed to the legacy and efforts of the civil rights movement, the American Indian Movement, Native American studies, and Chicanx and Latinx studies, as well as global Indigenous movements. Some examples include Sandinistas, Zapatistas, and water protection.22 In the context of the 1960s civil rights movement, there was a call to end institutional racism and colonization, to go beyond Eurocentric curriculum/knowledge, and for self-determination. With this came the emergence of ethnic studies and Native American studies at colleges and universities, which studied and deconstructed the colonial master narrative and connotation of triumphalist narratives of white supremacy and settler-colonialism, including holidays like Columbus Day.
For 500 years, the master narrative surrounding Columbus stood in the United States. Columbus Day became a federal holiday in the 1930s, however, several communities across the U.S. have come to realize and recognize the truth surrounding the violent domination and oppression that led to the slavery and genocide against Indigenous people in the Americas. Interestingly Indigenous Peoples Day, known as “Dia de La Raza” in Latin America and Mexico, has been recognized since World War I. In the United States, in many states and cities, Columbus Day has been replaced with Indigenous People’s Day, after many protests and efforts of advocacy. For a deeper exploration of this developing history, the next section goes into more depth on the timeline of these movements.
A Timeline of Solidarity between Chicanxs and North American Native Americans
Given the lack of California homeland education, in 1969 the California Indian Education Association established the Annual California Indian Conference to begin focusing on curriculum and educational issues impacting California Indian students and tribal communities.
• In 1973, the American Indian Movement members and their allies met and decided to form the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) to seek justice in the United Nations. In July 1990, Indigenous Chicanxs and Latinxs participated in the Indigenous Encuentro in Quito, Ecuador, where they had a seat at the table.
• In 1992 the IITC, which included Indigenous Chicanxs, stood strongly against the United States celebrating the 1492 invasion of Columbus. Indigenous people from across the Americas stood strongly in opposition, vowingnot tot celebrate the genocide of their ancestors through the proposed Columbus Day Celebration. The IITC and others raised awareness about the implications of genocide and the Doctrine of Discovery of Indigenous people. Political artists like Aztlan Underground and various Mexica Aztec Danza groups supported this movement as well.
• In 1994 the Zapatista uprising and social movement that Chicanx supported began in response to the oppression and domination by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA altered the Mexican Constitution so that ejido plots of land could be sold to foreigners, where in the past it had been illegal.
• In 1995, some Chicanxs learned first-hand about resistance to environmental destruction by mining companies from the Diné Navajo Grandmothers. Chicanxs were invited to be a group of protectors for the Grandmothers from a coal mining company attempting to occupy their land. On the reservation, they learned about the historical resistance to genocide, toxic pollution in water, and nuclear waste to the environment.
• In 1998 California Native American Day was established and continues today to teach people of all ages about the tribal culture, histories, and heritage of California Native American tribes. In the same year, the State Board of Education adopted academic content standards for history-social studies but did not recognize the genocide of Native Americans. Then again in 2000, the California Department of Education did not recognize the genocide of Indigenous people in the model curriculum for human rights and genocide.
• In 2007 Josefina Medina and Rufina Juarez participated at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with La Red Xicana Indigena, an Indigenous women’s network, to present a Special Rapporteur on Migration Issues and food sovereignty.
• By 2007 the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), supported by the IITC, was completed and signed by all member countries in the United Nations. The U.S. was the last to sign. UNDRIP recognizes the history and contemporary experience of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Article 14 recognized the right to education without discrimination and access to cultural knowledge.
• In 2012, the Idle No More movement was born out of resistance to policy surrounding land and water impacting First Peoples in Canada. Native Americans, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and allies including Chicanxs supported this movement across contemporary settler borders. The conversation about genocide, land invasion and the importance of Indigenous cultural pride was highlighted throughout this movement, and continued into the United States
• In community gathering spaces formed within protest sites, from 2016 to 2017, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, water protectors from several Native American tribes, and Indigenous Peoples from across the hemisphere -- including South and Central America and Mexico -- came together to resist the Dakota Access Pipeline. They provided lessons about resistance to environmental destruction, intergenerational trauma, and survivance. These understandings were shared with thousands of families, allies, and media reporters for an entire year and beyond.
• In terms of cultural sovereignty and cultural revitalization, in the context of Indigenous Latinxs in California, we have observed a move toward bilingual and trilingual education, including English, Spanish, Mixteco, and other Indigenous languages. In 2017, First Nations launched the Native Language Immersion Initiative to support new generations of Native speakers and positive role models for young people. Some of these efforts are documented by the Oaxacalifornia Reporting Team.23
• In 2017, Maylei Blackwell, Floridalma Boj Lopez, and Luis Urrieta Jr. published a special issue on “Critical Latinx Indigeneities” in the academic journal, Latino Studies. This helped to establish the importance of considering the dynamics of Indigeneity more closely among Indigenous Latinx populations.
• In 2019, the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Advisory Committee convened at the California Department of Education in Sacramento and began with a land acknowledgment. The first draft of the high school curriculum was the first ever to recognize the genocide and survivance of California Indians and Indigenous people. Chicanx that served on the committee, originally included a lesson about land acknowledgment and protection of sacred sites, but they were phased out.
• By 2022 the Indigenous Mayan-inspired poem, In Lak’Ech, was removed from State Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Currently, the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is creating more Native American Studies lessons on topics such as environment, citizenship, and culture, compared to the State Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for various grade levels.
20 Jr, Vine Deloria. Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. First Edition. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Publishing, 1997.
21 Philip J. Deloria, “Indigenous/American Pasts and Futures,” Journal of American History 109, no. 2 (September 1, 2022): 255–70, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaac231; Vine Deloria Jr., “Alcatraz, Activism, and Accommodation,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 18, no. 4 (January 1, 1994): 25–32, https://doi.org/10.17953/aicr.18.4.34k28482k49m5145.
22 Mariana Mora, Kuxlejal Politics: Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing Research in Zapatista Communities (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017).
23 Oaxacalifornian Reporting Team / Equip de Cronistas Oaxacalifornianos [ECO], “Voices of Indigenous Oaxacan Youth in the Central Valley: Creating Our Sense of Belonging in California” (Santa Cruz, CA: UC Center for Collaborative Research for an Equitable California, July 1, 2013), https://www.academia.edu/4398867/Voices_of_Indigenous_Oaxacan_Youth_in_the_Central_Valley_Creating_our_Sense_of_Belonging_in_California. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/04%3A_Indigeneities/4.03%3A_Narratives_Representation_Epistemic_Violence_and_Healing.txt |
Gender, Migration, and Indigeneity
🧿 Content Warning: Physical and Sexual Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical and sexual violence.
Critical Latinx Indigeneity emphasizes the complicated relationship between Indigenous peoples, historical traditions, and contemporary structures of governments across borders. For instance, Indigenous migrants can benefit from and participate in colonial political and economic structures, even while experiencing xenophobia and anti-immigrant exclusion.24 Bringing together critical perspectives with cultural humility between various contexts can allow Indigenous communities to forge more effective solidarities and resist settler-colonial structures. Utilizing an intersectional perspective also helps to balance the complexity of Indigeneity with migration status, alongside gender, sexuality, and economic factors.
Gender and family dynamics are deeply influential in shaping both immigration policies and immigrant experiences. Labor demands are often constructed in binary gendered terms. For instance, the Bracero program from 1942 to 1964 solicited agricultural labor from Mexican nationals in the U.S., focusing on short-term visas offered to individual mestizo men. This was meant to restrict the formation of family and sustained communities and instead contribute to the exploitation of farmworkers.25 Farm owners ignored labor laws, and often requested more visas and workers than they could employ at any time. This created a ready supply of unemployed migrants who were ineligible for virtually any other kind of legal employment. By contrast, domestic work and care industries often rely on migrant women laborers. However, a similar logic of family separation and isolation contributes to exploitation and poor working conditions. In particular, for workers who provide service directly in the home, such as nannies, housekeepers, cooks, and nurses, employers can leverage a workers’ documentation status to exploit their time, provide substandard pay, and carry out sustained emotional manipulation.26 These positions are more often occupied by Indigenous peoples, given that they are more likely to be low-income and/or undocumented.
Gender influences the multi-level factors that determine community wellbeing, including the disparate impact of gender norms on sexual health and private relationships27 and the global dynamics of climate change and environmental crises caused by capitalist structures.28 In the context of sustained political assaults on Indigenous Latinx family structures, sustaining kinship structures takes on personal, cultural, and social implications. However, both within and outside of our communities, it is sometimes misrepresented that Latinx communities are uniformly and traditionally repressive when it comes to gender and sexuality.29 This narrative reflects the real implications of cis-heterosexist and patriarchal ideologies, including those upheld by certain aspects of the Catholic Church. However, it also erases the significance of historical and contemporary experiences of gender and sexual liberation within transnational Indigenous Latinx communities.
There are at least 65 Indigenous languages that have terms referring to non-binary gender identities.30 These typically signified a position in the community that encompassed both sexuality and gender, such as individuals born male who take on women’s social roles. In virtually all societies, they were understood as an included part of the community, often revered or eligible for advanced social standing. For example, Chumash tribes recognized “aqi” (Ventureño Chumash word for “third-gender people”)31 for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. The Chumash peoples are the stewards and Indigenous peoples of land that was previously Mexico and recolonized the United States. The previous Spanish, and sometimes Spanish Mexican, colonizers systemically assaulted the homes, lives, and lifeways of Native peoples. They made a particular target of the aqi. In Spanish, they renamed the third-gender people “joya” (or “olla”) which means jewel, because of their prized status to the Native communities, and also vessel, eliciting a derogatory association and justifying practices of inhumane torture and murder. Chumash scholar Deborah Miranda named this system gendercide and it is a common tactic in settler-colonialism.32
Third-gender people play an important role in Chicanx, Indigenous Latinx, and Latinx communities throughout the United States and Latina America. Many Native communities have continued to operate their traditional customs, languages, and ways of knowing under the radar of colonizers.33 The Zapotec people, who are Indigenous to lands in southern Mexico, presently known as the state of Oaxaca, recognize a third gender, Muxes. They are an important part of the community’s traditions and culture. Festivals and celebrations honoring Muxes have also contributed to a transnational identity for Zapotecs. Festivals honoring Muxes are held in Oaxaca and in large migrant communities in the United States, like Los Angeles. As well, La Asociación Nacional de Comercio y Turismo LGBT (Mexican LGBT National Association of Commerce and Tourism) created Ruta Istmo (Istmo Route), the first touristic route in Oaxaca to highlight the Muxe identity. These efforts work to support the contemporary Zapoteca community and their ways of life. One Muxe performer, Lukas Avendaño, is displayed in Figure 4.4.1, in a long, short-sleeve black and white dress, embroidered with red, purple, and yellow flowers. This is an example of the centrality of traditional culture and fashion to the practices of Muxes.
Two-Spirit Identities and Pan-Indigenous Solidarity
Given that both Indigenous spirituality and non-gender binary ways were stolen upon European invasion, Indigenous people from various tribes have come together to reconnect and build connections between these communities and experiences. This process contributed to the development of the term Two-Spirit in 1990 by Native people to talk about sexual and gender identities across tribal contexts. It was developed in part as a response to the widespread use of the term “berdache,” an adapted French word that was popularized by settler anthropologists and carries a dehumanizing stigma to imply a male prostitute (derived from the Arabic, “Bardaj,” meaning “captive” or “slave”). Two-Spirit is not a translation of any specific tribal term, but rather a way to communicate within an English-speaking context about the common commitment to decolonization and liberation for all Indigenous people.
The term Two-Spirit should be understood as complementary to LGBTQ, within the context of Indigenous communities. It does not replace tribally-specific identity labels, nor does it replace sexual orientation and gender identities exactly. For example, Two-Spirit people may have one or more tribal affiliations and may also identify as one or more LGBTQ identities. LGBTQ Native Americans were looking for a way to remove themselves from a culture that emphasizes sexuality over spirituality and a way to reconnect with their own tribal communities. Adopting the Two-Spirit term was the answer. The term is sometimes referenced more abstractly to indicate two contrasting spirits, such as “Warrior and Clan Mother” or “Eagle and Coyote.” Cherokee scholar, Qwo-Li Driskill describes his relationship between Two-Spiritedness, Queer and Trans Identity in his own tribal context:
I find myself using both the words “Queer” and “Trans” to try to translate my gendered and sexual realities for those not familiar with Native traditions, but at heart, if there is a term that could possibly describe me in English, I simply consider myself a Two-Spirit person. The process of translating Two-Spiritness with terms in white communities becomes very complex. I’m not necessarily “Queer” in Cherokee contexts, because differences are not seen in the same light as they are in Euroamerican contexts. I’m not necessarily “Transgender” in Cherokee contexts, because I’m simply the gender I am. I’m not necessarily “Gay,” because that word rests on the concept of men-loving-men, and ignores the complexity of my gender identity. It is only within the rigid gender regimes of white America that I become Trans or Queer.34
The embedded Video 4.4.1 discusses in further depth the complexity of perspective among queer Natives with respect to culture, tradition, and holidays like Thanksgiving. To watch the video in full is 17 minutes and 42 seconds. The video presents an interpretation and perspective from one voice, which reflects the range of factors that influence decision-making about everyday activities for Native and Indigenous peoples. As you watch the video, please note the ways that Indigeneity impacts modern experiences.
Queer and Trans Migration Experiences
🧿 Content Warning: Physical and Sexual Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical and sexual violence.
Gender and sexuality also profoundly shape the experiences of Indigenous Latinx and mestizo queer and trans migrants in the context of larger systems and structures.35 For instance, Manuel Guzmán defined “sexiles” as “those queer migrants leaving home/nation as a result of their sexuality.”36 For example, individuals may be experiencing repressive conditions, external violence, or family rejection due to sexual stigma and seek new opportunities with communities. Individuals may also immigrate to seek medical treatment, such as for HIV, or gender-affirming therapies and surgical procedures. Queer and trans communities are characterized by differential access for immigrants and citizens to cultural fields, political inclusion, and collective membership.
Queer and trans immigrants asylum seekers and refugees face persistent exclusion and barriers to migration. Gays and lesbians have been explicitly barred from immigrating to the U.S. including the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which disallowed “sexual deviants,” and remained in effect until 1990. Even after the outright ban was lifted, structural heterosexism continued to block queer and trans people. The ban on HIV-positive immigrants was in effect until 2010 and disparately affects queer and trans people. Similarly, until the federal Defense of Marriage Act was repealed in 2013, same-sex married couples were not recognized as families for immigration procedures. Today, LGBTQ people still face disparate barriers to adequate representation and may not have legal standing in their home countries to recognize important kinship ties.
Further, the violent and militarized system of U.S. immigration traumatizes and abuses asylum seekers, especially transgender migrants. Christina Madrazo sued the U.S. government for \$15 million, due to being held in detention and allegedly raped by Lemar Smith twice in May of 2000. Because of a plea deal, his charges were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, lowering his sentence from 42 years to 8 months.37 Chicanx and Latinx communities experience distinct forms of oppression, prompting some scholars and activists to further adapt terminology to reflect these differences. For example, the term cuir (queer) “registers the geopolitical inflection towards the south and from the peripheries, in counterpoint to colonial epistemology and Anglo-American historiography.”38
Queer refers [..] to those who are able to evade interpretative unidirectionality, who are able to be unintelligible at first sight, those people outside of the simple models and frames of hegemonic representation, which is not very difficult to achieve in a g-local world that is presumed to be ‘white’ even though the majority of its inhabitants are not ‘white’.39
You can review more about the complexity of queer and trans identities among Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx communities in Section 6.4: Jotería Frameworks and Scholarly Conversations. In Figure 4.4.2, a photo of London Pride is displayed with a group of activists holding a sign that says “Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group. Supporting LGBTI Asylum Seekers and Refugees,” along with various national and pride flags in hand. These types of intersectional organizations address the unique needs related to migration, gender, and sexuality.
Footnotes
24 Maylei Blackwell, Floridalma Boj Lopez, and Luis Urrieta, “Special Issue: Critical Latinx Indigeneities,” Latino Studies 15, no. 2 (July 1, 2017): 126–37, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-017-0064-0.
25 Grace Chang, Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2016).
26 Chang, Disposable Domestics.
27 Rosa Elena Durán González, Mariana Juárez Moreno, and Lydia Raesfeld., “Violencia y Derechos de Las Niñas de Origen Indígena En El Municipio de San Felipe Orizatlán, Hidalgo,” Revista Universidad y Sociedad 13, no. 3 (June 2021): 56–68, http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2218-36202021000300056.
28 Úrsula Oswald-Spring, “Decolonizing Peace with a Gender Perspective,” Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research (2022): Ahead of Print, https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-01-2022-0678; Úrsula Oswald-Spring, “The Impact of Climate Change on the Gender Security of Indigenous Women in Latin America,” in Environment, Climate, and Social Justice, eds. Devendraraj Madhanagopal, Christopher Todd Beer, Bala Raju Nikku, and André J. Pelser (New York, NY: Springer, 2022): 117–42, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1987-9_7.
29 Gloria González-López, Erotic Journeys: Mexican Immigrants and Their Sex Lives (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2005)
30 Maria Lugones, “The Coloniality of Gender,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development, ed. Wendy Harcourt (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 13–33.
31 Deborah A. Miranda, “Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 16, no. 1–2 (January 1, 2010): 253–84, https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2009-022.
32 Miranda, “Extermination of the Joyas”
33 Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. (London, UK: Zed Books, 2012).
34 Qwo-Li Driskill, "Stolen from Our Bodies: First Nations Two-Spirits/Queers and the Journey to a Sovereign Erotic," Studies in American Indian Literatures 16, no. 2 (2004): 50–64, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ail.2004.0020.
35 Eithne Luibheid and Lionel Cantu Jr, eds., Queer Migrations: Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
36 Manuel Guzmán, “Pa’la Escuelita Con Mucho Cuida’oy Por La Orillita’: A Journey through the Contested Terrains of the Nation and Sexual Orientation,” in Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism, eds. Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Ramón Grosfugel. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997): 209–28.
37 Luibheid and Cantu Jr., Queer Migrations.
38 Sayak Valencia Triana, “Teoría Transfeminista Para El Análisis de La Violencia Machista y La Reconstrucción No-Violenta Del Tejido Social En El México Contemporáneo,” Universitas Humanística, no. 78 (2014): 65–88, https://dx.doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.UH78.ttpa.
39 Valencia Triana, “Teoría Transfeminista.” | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/04%3A_Indigeneities/4.04%3A_Gender_Sexuality_Migration_and_Indigeneity.txt |
Summary
In this chapter, we applied theories and knowledge produced by Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx communities to describe the critical events, histories, intellectual traditions, contributions, lived experiences and social struggles of groups with a particular emphasis on agency and group affirmation. We learned more deeply about how settler colonialism, mestizaje (or mixed-race identity), and the complex dynamics of Indigeneity and migration affect politics, social movements, and cultural productions.
We explained and assessed how struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation, as experienced, enacted, and studied by Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx people of the Americas, are relevant to current and structural issues such as communal, national, international, and transnational politics as, for example, in immigration, settler-colonialism, multiculturalism, and language policies. Indigenous peoples have been leaders in various movements for social change, equity, justice, and inclusion that benefit all sectors of society.
Also, in this chapter, we described and learned skills to actively engage with anti-racist and anti-colonial issues and the practices and movements in Chicanx and Indigenous Latinx communities to build a just and equitable society. This includes a clear awareness of the intersecting dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality that impact both migrants and Indigenous peoples in distinct ways.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.4: Chapter 4 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Genocide: As defined by the United Nations, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Native American: A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, often used to refer to those from the continental United States, Alaska, and Canada. Native Americans are the original inhabitants of these regions and have diverse cultures, languages, and traditions that vary among different tribes and nations. They have a unique historical and cultural connection to the land and have faced a history of colonization, displacement, and ongoing struggles for recognition, rights, and self-determination.
Decolonization: The multiple processes of resistance that work to end the dynamics of colonialism and establish, restore, and defend Indigenous sovereignty. It is important to note that decolonization is a political process that refers specifically to Indigenous sovereignty, and it is not a general term that captures all forms of social justice.
Anahuac: The Nahua word for Mesoamerica. Also called Abya Yala.
Indigeneity: A broad term used to refer to a sense of belonging and ties prior to colonization among people from a shared homeland. It is important to understand the distinctions between Chicanx, Indigenous Latinx, and Latinx Indigenites.
Indigenous Chicanx: A term that signifies being Indigenous to Anahuac (Mesoamerica), It is a self-identity category used by people, unlike Hispanic or Latinx which emerged from western institutions.
Xicanx: A preferred identity term for Chicanx involved in Indigenous movements there is often a preference to use the term Xicanx and not Chicanx. The Chi is the same sound as Xi, but Chi is the Spanish pronunciation and the Xi is the Indigenous one.
Indigenous Latinx: An umbrella term used to refer to Indigenous migrants to the United States from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico (for example, Maya, Mixteco, Purépecha, Taino, Zapoteco, etc.).
Critical Latinx Indigeneity: A term defined by Maylei Blackwell and colleagues as a lens to “critique enduring colonial logics and practices that operate from different localities of power as well as the physical, social, cultural, economic, and psychological violence that often targets Indigenous Latinx peoples, including forms of state and police violence, cultural appropriation, economic exploitation, gender violence, social exclusion, and psychological abuse.”
Indigenismo: A term that emphasizes a celebration of Indigenous cultures and that Indigenous peoples are the foundation of contemporary Mexican culture, politics, and society. This is often deployed as an Aztec-centric celebration of the Indigenous past of the nation, which often serves to erase the present and future of the sixty-three Indigenous pueblos of Mexico and the millions of Indigenous peoples living around the world.
Indigenous: A label used to describe peoples who existed before colonization, and can be used to describe the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Always use the capital I: “Indigenous” to designate the term as a proper noun.
Mestizas/os/xs: A diverse population that has a combination of mixed heritage, often including Indigenous lineage, along with a combination of African and/or European backgrounds.
Mestizaje (mixed-race identity): A term that emphasizes the multiple lineages that not only shape individual identity, but also the communities, cultures, languages, and traditions that we practice.
Post-racial society: The idea that all ethnic differences have fused, and it erases the realities of inequity and the importance of advocates calling for justice. For Indigenous peoples, reductive deployments of ethnic categorization can disrupt attempts for collective liberation.
Afro-Latinx: A term that describes people from Latin America of African descent.
Settler-colonialism: Instances of colonization where the colonizing groups seek to eradicate the people living in the territory they are colonizing and replace the Indigenous population with the settler population.
Colonization: The action of overtaking control of another group’s territory by force.
Attempted genocide: A project of trying to eradicate an entire population. This is accompanied by an ideologically rooted practice of dehumanization to justify and legitimize such actions.
De-Indianization: The processes that disrupt the livelihood of Indigenous peoples, through assaults on foodways, herbal medical resources, and cultural sensibilities.
Master narratives: Culturally sanctioned stories that benefit the status quo and members of privileged groups.
Sovereignty: Not a metaphor but rather the capacity and ability to exercise collective self-determination to govern one's people and land. North American Indians are the only group in the United States whose sovereignty is recognized in the Constitution of the United States. In the context of Indigenous people, sovereignty has often been undermined and determined by settler-colonial constructs.
Survivance: A term coined by Anishinaabe scholar and writer, Gerald Vizenor, refers to the collective process of survival, which carries forward the culture, peoples, and land beyond the individual.
Indigenization: Efforts supporting revitalization of Native languages, ancestral foodways, medical use, cultural burnings, midwifery traditions, dances, coming-of-age ceremonies, land acknowledgment, and more
Gendercide: The systematic violence that targets non-binary individuals in the pursuit of settler-colonial goals. Chumash scholar Deborah Miranda coined this term in the context of Spanish assaults on the aqi.
Two-Spirit: A term that was developed by Indigenous peoples to describe the shared experience of third gender people. Two-Spirit should only be used in reference to Indigenous peoples, and whenever possible, in conjunction with a more tribally specific term.
Sexiles: Queer migrants leaving their home/nation as a result of their sexuality. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/04%3A_Indigeneities/4.05%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Outline the origins and history of Chicana/Latina feminist thought and activism.
• Explain the relationship between Chicana/Latina feminisms and U.S. Third World feminism.
• Summarize and evaluate Chicana/Latina feminist issues and movements.
• Outline the features of Chicana/Latina studies, including the field’s origins and attributes.
Introduction
What or who do you imagine when you hear the word “feminism?” You might be surprised to learn that there are numerous strands of feminism even among racialized groups, which is why we use the plural “feminisms.” In particular, Chicana/Latina feminisms constitute a multifaceted artistic, intellectual, and political project and movement invested in personal transformation and social change. First and foremost, Chicana/Latina feminists are committed to confronting and disrupting patriarchy as it intersects with multiple systems of oppression such as white supremacy, neoliberal capitalism, and imperialism- illustrated in Figure 5.1.
Key Term: Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a system of gender-based control and domination where women and gender non-conforming people are subordinated to men through legal and extralegal measures. Patriarchy “includes cultural ideas about men and women, the web of relationships that structure social life, and the unequal distribution of power, rewards, and resources that underlies privilege and oppression.”1
These systems structure our everyday lives––from our intimate interpersonal relationships, the economic and educational resources we have access to, and even the ways knowledge is constructed. Chicana feminist and professor María Eugenia Cotera defines Latina feminism this way:
Latina feminism offers an intersectional approach to understanding and combating the relations of domination and subordination that structurally disenfranchise Latina/o communities, broadly conceived. Like the Latinas who developed its primary conceptualizations, theories, and practices, Latina feminism has been shaped as much by experiences of colonization and U.S. imperialism and of diaspora and border-crossing, as it has been by day-to-day lived experiences of heterosexism, racism, and classism in the United States. Indeed, contemporary Latina feminists—from academics to community organizers—have charted a genealogy of praxis that reaches beyond national borders and deep into history, recuperating a set of feminist practices that articulate the complex intersections of identity and subjectivity.2
As you will learn, there are multiple ideologies, expressions, tactics, and modes of Chicana/Latina feminism that have been deployed since the late 1960s. These modes are regularly evaluated and debated wherever Chicana/Latina feminist discourse is taken up––in homes, grassroots community organizations, cultural production, and academia. In other words, Chicana/Latina feminisms are not static. They are constantly evolving, providing us with new knowledge, theories, and insights to this day. This chapter provides a primer on Chicana/Latina feminisms, introducing readers to the origins, early issues, ongoing movements, and activist causes, the founding of Chicana/Latina studies as an academic discipline, fundamental theories and major debates within the discipline, and tools and strategies Chicana/Latina feminisms offer those of us interested liberation and freedom.
• 5.1: The Roots and Routes of Chicana/Latina Feminisms
Section 5.1 considers the various ways that Chicana/Latina feminist activism, writing, and art have challenged patriarchy and repressive gender roles in their intimate relationships, within their organizations and movements, and in U.S. institutions. This section also underscores the tensions Chicana/Latina feminists faced in the Chicano and women’s liberation movements and the coalitions they developed with other U.S. Third World feminists.
• 5.2: Fighting for Economic Justice
Chicanas and Latinas have an extensive history of working to improve the material conditions of their communities through their participation as both rank-and-file workers and leaders in the ongoing labor movement, illustrated by the Farah Manufacturing Strike in the 1970s. Another arena where Chicanas and Latinas were actively involved in economic justice efforts was the movement for welfare rights, as described in this section.
• 5.3: Reproductive Justice
Section 5.3 examines women of color’s expansive standpoint on reproductive justice, accounting for the historical context for their local grassroots and formal national-level organizing.
• 5.4: Cultural Activism
Chicana feminist artists and scholars have long-challenged gender oppression during and since the Chicano Renaissance of the 1970s. The focus of this section is the work of Chicana feminist artivists who have challenged the patriarchal ‘mujer buena/mujer mala’ dichotomy by reclaiming and redefining cultural archetypes that structure women’s and girl’s everyday lives.
• 5.5: Disrupting Sexism and Homophobia en La Familia
Women’s participation in El Movimiento transformed their relationship to the family and to gendered expectations, providing a space to critique Chicano heterosexism and disrupt romanticized notions of la familia.
• 5.6: Activist Scholarship and Chicana and Latina Studies
In this section, we explore stories of the trailblazing activist-scholars who fought to include a feminist and queer agenda within Chicano studies and establish the field of Chicana/Latina studies.
• 5.7: Conclusion
Footnotes
1 Allan Johnson, “Patriarchy, The System,” in Mapping the Field: An Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, eds. L. Ayu Saraswati, Barbara Shaw, and Heather Rellihan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 27.
2 María Eugenia Cotera, “Feminisms,” in Keywords for Latina/o Studies, eds. Deborah R. Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 64.
05: Feminisms
A Rising Ethnic Feminist Consciousness
The emergence of what we now understand as Chicana/Latina feminisms can be traced back to ethnic nationalist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. As Chicana/o/xs and Puerto Ricans challenged racism and economic oppression across the U.S., women faced an additional battle––sexism, that is, discrimination or devaluation based on their sex or gender. Through their activism, writing, and visual and performance art, Chicana/Latina feminists brought to light the ways that patriarchy unevenly structured gender roles in their intimate relationships, within their organizations, movements, and in U.S. institutions. As noted in Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity, various struggles with different leaders, agendas, organizational philosophies, strategies, and tactics, often regional in scope, collectively defined El Movimiento. Chicanas and Latinas were active within each movement and in every locale since the beginning, and they developed as cultural nationalists alongside their male counterparts who espoused ethnic pride and self-determination. As the women developed an ethnic and class consciousness, they also began to develop a feminist consciousness critical of machismo, as it was often referred to in their early writings. Despite their critiques, most feminists did not want to create a separate movement. Instead, they hoped that their perspectives and advocacy would transform and strengthen movement ideologies and agendas. In other words, “Chicana feminist thought reflected a historical struggle by women to overcome sexist oppression but still affirm a militant ethnic consciousness.”3 Figure 5.1.1 depicts a brown-skinned Xicana who has ethnic pride and a feminist consciousness, as suggested by the title, “Viva La Mujer.” The hot pink background suggests inner strength, love, and rebelliousness.
As Chicana feminists worked to introduce their concerns into their respective movement spaces, they faced resistance from Chicanos and Chicana loyalists who believed that race and class oppression should be the primary agenda and that feminism was divisive to the movement.7 Historian Maylei Blackwell points out that the Chicano movement’s rejection of feminism was due to its reliance on a vendida logic, that is, “a silencing mechanism used against dissident Chicana activists” by labeling them as:
Guided by the ideology of Chicanismo, those resistant to Chicana feminist concerns glorified la familia and rigid gender roles that expected women to bear children, care for the household, and be subordinate to their husbands.9 Men and women were also expected to maintain a gendered division of labor in the movement. Since women were disregarded as real political actors, they were expected to do things like cook, clean, and perform clerical work. Chicana feminists began calling attention to the fact that these gendered cultural expectations were first imposed by the colonial Catholic Church during the Spanish conquest and enforced through a dichotomy that constructed women as a ‘mujer buena’ or a ‘mujer mala,’ otherwise known as the virgin/whore complex.10 On one side of the dichotomy is marianismo, the deep reverence for La Virgen de Guadalupe who is valued as the subservient all-suffering virgin mother. On the other side is the Indigenous woman La Malinche, known for being Hernan Cortes’s concubine, translator, mediator, and fabled mother of the first mestizo. As a Native woman, she is characterized as sexually available, disposable, and condemned as a traitor for contributing to the downfall of the Aztec civilization. In modern times, these doctrines about Chicana womanhood reinforce patriarchy, obliging Chicanas to take on the contradictory roles of obedient wife and mother and to also be sexually available. But the lived reality of most Chicanas did not afford them the ability to be homemakers. Because many Chicanas were working class or lived in poverty and had limited access to educational opportunities, they were compelled to take on low-wage work outside of the home, typically in domestic service or the garment industry, in addition to their household obligations. Moreover, due to gender discrimination in the workplace, Chicanas tended to earn less than their Chicano counterparts.
Chicana lesbian feminists who sought to challenge homophobia in addition to sexism faced intense backlash and were often silenced. In the groundbreaking compilation Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (1997), feminist and immigration scholar Alma M. García points out that “in a political climate that viewed Chicana feminist ideology with suspicion and, often, disdain, Chicana feminist lesbians confronted even more strident political attacks.”11 However, as El Movimiento began to transform in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the emergence of Chicano/a studies, the academic arm of the movement, Chicana lesbian feminist writing and cultural production flourished, further advancing Chicana feminist thought and activist priorities, which will be explored in Section 5.6: Activist Scholarship and Chicana and Latina Studies.
As El Movimiento was underway, so was the mainstream women’s movement, which sought to secure equal rights and access for women.12 Many Chicanas found the women’s movement agenda to be insufficient as it centered white middle-class and upper-class feminist perspectives and excluded considerations of race and class oppression. They found conventional white feminist views to be limited for focusing too narrowly on all men as the enemy, whereas Chicanas felt that colonization and structural oppression were the real issues. Not only did Chicanas speak out against sexism, but they also spoke out against racism and elitism in the women’s movement––what Angela Davis has called “bourgeois feminism.” Many Chicana feminists found that these experiences mirrored those of other women of color in the U.S., which in part, facilitated the building of strategic coalitions. Their goal was not to establish a unified position, but rather, to develop an ability to dialogue across lines of difference and come together to address important issues.
Developing a U.S. Third World Feminist Consciousness and Praxis
Since the late 1960s, Latinas have constructed a feminist standpoint not only in resistance to patriarchal ethnic nationalism and U.S. hegemonic feminism, but also in solidarity with an emerging U.S. Third World feminist consciousness informed by global decolonial and anticolonial movements. As they critiqued and attempted to dismantle interlocking systems of oppression through racially specific feminist projects, feminists of color in the U.S. created a new cross-racial political subjectivity and oppositional praxis, that is, putting theory into action, that linked various struggles for social justice. María Cotera argues, “Because Latina feminists (like other women of color feminists) understand feminism in relationship to other struggles for liberation and decolonization, their approach to ‘women’s liberation’ necessarily moves beyond gender, just as their commitment to end racism and colonialism moves beyond race and nation.”13 Figure 5.1.2, “Solidarity With All Movements,” demonstrates the throughline of this standpoint by illustrating the work of Dissenters, a contemporary youth-led national anti-militarism movement organization that prioritizes solidarity with other liberatory grassroots movements. The sign in the image says “We work in solidarity with everyday people impacted by U.S. wars and militarism. We prioritize solidarity with the demands of grassroots liberatory movements wherever possible, not state powers.” The caption in large bold letters reads “Solidarity with people and movements.”
Women of color developed new forms of consciousness characterized by critiques of capitalism, economic exploitation, imperialism, and war, grounded in international solidarity. Chicanas and Latinas in particular drew inspiration from 20th-century Latin American and Mexican feminisms and women’s revolutionary participation. They also developed their praxis by traveling to international conferences such as the Indochinese Women’s Conference in 1971 in Vancouver, Canada as part of the antiwar effort.14 Also instrumental in the development of a U.S. Third World feminist consciousness and praxis were the multiracial multi-issue print communities, such as those established through Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, founded in 1980 by Black and Chicana lesbian feminists. Kitchen Table published several seminal texts including This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldá (1981), Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology by Barbara Smith (1983), I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities by Audre Lorde (1985), Apartheid USA: Our Common Enemy, Our Common Cause: Freedom Organizing in the Eighties by Audre Lorde and Merle Woo (1985), and The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties (1986).
Emerging Movements and Ongoing Activism
While Chicana and Latina feminists share some commonalities, like their respective movements, they too had divergent ideologies, agendas, and priorities. García points out how:
Chicana feminist thought evolved with several divergent, often competing, views. Chicana feminists confronted divisions based on social class, particularly the division between academic women and grass roots community women, sexual orientation, political strategies, political goals and objectives, the relationship between autonomous Chicana feminist organizations and white women’s feminist organizations, and their relationships with Chicano organizations and Chicano men in general.15
Likewise, Blackwell notes that as political subjects with multiple identities, women of color organizing often takes on the following features: “(1) multiple issues in one movement, (2) an intersectional understanding of power and oppression, and (3) the tendency to work in and between movements.”16 Due to the complex nature and scale of Chicana/Latina activism, it would be impossible to cover every cause that Chicana and Latina feminists have participated in since the late 1960s. Therefore, four predominant and interrelated issues have been selected and will be introduced in the following sections. These include economic justice, reproductive justice, cultural activism, and family dynamics.
Artivist Spotlight: Mujeres de Maiz
Founded in 1997 Mujeres de Maiz (MdM), or women of the corn, is an unapologetic Xicana-Indígena led spiritual artivist (artist-activist) organization and movement by and for women and feminists of color whose mission is “to bring together and empower diverse women and girls through the creation of community spaces that provide holistic wellness through education, programming, exhibition, and publishing.” Early on, founders and core members participated in the Encuentro Cultural Xicano Indígena por la Humanidad y Contra el Neo-liberalismo with the Indigenous Zapatista Mayan community of Oventic. As a result, Zapatista philosophy significantly influences their artivist praxis, particularly the emphasis on building alliances with exploited and marginalized communities around the world.
Every spring MdM publishes a new issue of Flor y Canto, their poetry and arts zine, which is released at the Live Art Show, an intercultural, intergenerational, multimedia event that combines elements of an art exhibit, live performances, and ritual ceremony featuring women of color musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, actors, filmmakers, and spiritual healers. Other community events hosted by MdM include the mujer mercado, poetry night event, film screenings, women’s ceremonies such as the monthly Coyolxauhqui full moon circle, and workshops, held in person and virtually, with topics ranging from art making, creative writing, gardening, self-defense, and women’s health, often in collaboration with other feminist of color organizations and groups from the Eastside of Los Angeles such as Justice for my Sister, Af3irm, Hood Herbalism, and WE RISE LA, to name a few.17
Footnotes
3 Alma M. García, “Introduction,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 1.
4 One of the earliest Chicana workshops was held at the first National Youth Liberation Conference in 1969.
5 Mirta Vidal, “New Voice of La Raza: Chicanas Speak Out,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 21. The manifesto recognized the Plan de Aztlán but it took on additional concerns not addressed in El Plan producing resolutions on sex, marriage, and religion. It is important to note “While the Plan de Aztlán has retained its foundational status, the women’s document never entered the Chicano archive at all” (Pratt, “Yo Soy La Malinche,” 861).
6 U.S. Third-World, Puerto Rican, and Black feminists were simultaneously theorizing and organizing around the convergence of multiple systems of oppression, drawing on an intergenerational feminist lineage dating back hundreds of years. Review Elizabeth ‘Bettita’ Martínez, 500 Years of Chicana Women’s History/500 Años de la Mujer Chicana (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 2008).
7 Anna NietoGomez, “La Feminista,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 87-88.
8 Maylei Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 31.
9 This ideology can understood through the lens of compulsory heterosexuality, a concept coined by Adrienne Rich, which illuminates the societal assumption that all people are straight and will be sexually attracted to and reproduce with the ‘opposite’ sex. Under Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. patriarchy, the nuclear family has been constructed as the cornerstone of society and social reproduction. Review “Compulsory Heterosexuality” by Adrienne Rich and “Heteropatriarchy” by Andrea Smith.
10 Anna NietoGomez, “Chicana Feminism,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 57.
11 García, Chicana Feminist Thought, 7.
12 The mainstream women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s has been defined as expressing at least three distinct positions: liberal feminists who sought access to power and advanced social standing equal to men’s, radical feminists who viewed men as having access to power and responsible for women’s oppression, and liberation feminists who believed women’s oppression was one of many oppressions tied up in the economic system, which must be understood and transformed to end all oppressions (NietoGomez, “Chicana Feminism,” 55). In Feminism is for Everybody, bell hooks provides additional insight into divergent feminist activist modes, naming them revolutionary feminism, reformist feminism, and lifestyle feminism.
13 Cotera, “Feminisms,” 65.
14 Dionne Espinoza, “La Raza in Canada: San Diego Chicana Activists, The Indichinese Women’s Conference of 1971, and Third World Womanism,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 261-275.
15 García, “Introduction,” 9.
16 Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!, 27.
17 Amber Rose González, “Todos Somos Mujeres de Maiz, An Introduction,” in Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento: Spiritual ARTivism, Healing Justice, and Feminist Praxis, eds. Amber Rose González, Felicia Montes, and Nadia Zepeda (Forthcoming, Tucson: University of Arizona Press). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.01%3A_The_Roots_and_Routes_of_Chicana_Latina_Feminisms.txt |
Labor Organizing
Chicanas and Latinas have an extensive history of working to improve the material conditions of their communities through their participation as both rank-and-file workers and leaders in the ongoing labor movement powerfully emerging in the 20th century. These historical efforts are presented in eight and a half minutes in Video 5.2.1 “Latinas in the Labor Movement.”18
Video: Latinas in the Labor Movement
The fight for economic justice continued in May 1972 when 4,000 garment factory workers, predominantly Mexican American women, walked out of their jobs at Farah Manufacturing Company plants in Texas and Júarez, Mexico after six workers were illegally fired for union activity. In 1970 the majority of the workers voted to unionize with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) for higher wages, maternity leave, workplace safety, and an end to sexual harassment, but management refused to recognize their efforts. According to labor organizer and journalist Kim Kelly, “Immigrant women of color make up the bulk of the garment industry’s workforce, both in the U.S. and globally, and are forced to bear the brunt of its dangerous conditions, low pay, and high-volume output. Through decades of organizing, strikes, and knock-down, drag-out fights, they have worked to change that status quo and push back against an industry that devalues their humanity and their labor in equal measure.”19
The president of the company William ‘Willie’ Farah was a staunch anti-union employer who relied on Red Scare tactics in an attempt to denigrate and delegitimize union efforts by associating unionization with communism and firing union organizers, among other retaliatory union-busting tactics. The company went as far as running down strikers with their trucks and during the first week of the strike Farah management hired “private guards to harass the women on the picket line and menace them with unmuzzled dogs.”20
Strikers were protesting exploitative working conditions including having their already low wages docked if they did not meet increasing quotas, being denied bathroom access to meet the quotas, which caused bladder and kidney infections, poor ventilation that resulted in a variety of respiratory illnesses, and generally hazardous conditions.21 Because women did not have maternity leave and could not afford to go without pay, “women sometimes gave birth in the company clinic.”22 The racialized gendered oppression that Chicanas faced at Farah was also present within their union. Rank-and-file women workers often complained that the male leadership did not address their specific needs and demands as women. As the strike went on and their input ignored, women’s disappointment grew, leading some Farah workers in El Paso to form Unidad Para Siempre, a separate caucus that promoted the movement in their vision.
Despite these obstacles, the Chicana strikers persisted.22 With the support of religious leaders and major labor unions across the country, including the United Farm Workers, they called for a national boycott of Farah pants guided by the rallying cry, “Viva La Huelga––Don’t Buy Farah Pants!” The boycott poster, demonstrated in Figure 5.2.1, featured Rosa Flores from San Antonio, Texas, one of the first Farah workers to sign a union card and publicly announce her pro-union stance on the factory floor. The boycott transformed the local strike into a national issue, resulting in a \$20 million decline in Farah’s annual revenue, putting immense pressure on the manufacturer.
The text on the poster reads, "Viva La Huelga. Don't Buy Farah Pants! Support the strike. Help give a taste of justice to thousands of Mexican-American workers at the giant Farah pants company in Texas and New Mexico. These people have lived too long with the bitter taste of injustice and oppression. The American dream should be theirs to share, too. Their employer, the Farah Company, makes the dream seem more like a nightmare. The U.S. Government has found Farah guilty of firing workers because they want to join a union. But the company continues to break the law. And the mammoth manufacturer has instigated the arrests of over 700 strikers. Many were taken from their homes in the middle of the night. All had to post exorbitant bail. Most of them are charged with standing too close together on the picket line in the first days of the strike. The strikers had been peaceful. In fact, the only threat of violence has come from the unmuzzled police dogs the armed Farah Company guards now use to patrol the plant (and to intimidate the strikers). Show the Farah workers America's heart is still in the right place. Show the world American consumers won't buy injustice. Don't buy Farah pants. Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO."
After twenty-two months of striking and a successful national boycott, the strikers finally earned their right to unionize in 1974, becoming one of the first and only garment plants in the Southwest to be unionized.23 The new contract came with increased wages, health benefits, job security, and seniority rights. The material success was short-lived, however, as the 1970s marked the onset of deindustrialization with numerous U.S. manufacturing plants, including Farah, closing shop and moving production overseas and across the border to Mexico where labor rights and environmental laws were even more lax. The lasting effects of the strike came in the form of women’s empowerment.24 In interviews following the strike, Chicanas expressed that the movement emboldened them to take a more politically active role in their communities and to challenge repressive gender norms both at work and at home.25 The Chicana organizers of the Farah Manufacturing Strike contributed to the ongoing labor movement and unionization efforts that characterized the better part of the 20th century. Today, Latinas who work full time year-round earn 57 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.26 The struggle for economic justice continues.
Welfare Rights
Another arena where Chicanas and Latinas were actively involved in economic justice efforts was the movement for welfare rights. Deindustrialization led to an economic downturn in postwar Los Angeles characterized by high unemployment and poverty rates, particularly experienced by women of color, many of whom had previously migrated to Southern California for employment opportunities during the WWII industrial boom. Demographic shifts and policy changes that made it easier to qualify for aid in the 1950s and 1960s led to an increase in African American and Mexican American welfare recipients, which “was met by a racist backlash against families of color, cuts to welfare budgets, and punitive disciplinary measures to control the behavior of poor mothers.”27 Discriminatory laws and policies were rationalized through depictions of Latinas, Native American women, and Black women in the media and public policy discourse as dependent on the government, abusing welfare aid, and sexually promiscuous (For more on this topic visit “The Backlash and Disinvestment in Public Education” in Section 8.3: Re-imagining Education in an Era of Revolt, 1955-1975). Women of color faced systemic denial of services and unconstitutional practices such as warrantless home searches, being “compelled to answer caseworkers’ intrusive questions about their sexuality and personal behavior,” pressure “to undergo sterilization or give up their babies for adoption,” and having their children placed into foster care, limiting their reproductive choices, personal autonomy, and human rights.28
Despite this demeaning treatment, welfare recipients fought back. The Los Angeles County Welfare Rights Organization (LAWRO) developed from the collaborative efforts of Mexican American and African American women in the 1950s whose efforts grew into a “multiracial coalition of neighborhood-based AFDC recipient groups” who fought against economic marginalization in the 1960s and 1970s.29 Many Welfare Rights Organizations formed across the nation and were brought together in June 1966 by the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), of which Black and Puerto Rican women were instrumental, for the first national day of action for welfare rights. People marched in Washington D.C., Baltimore, and New York City, as well as in Los Angeles where Mexican American, Puerto Rican, African American, and white women and children demanded job training, quality jobs, childcare, and dignity for families on public assistance. The women of LAWRO, inspired by the broader civil rights struggles and power movements around them, provided know-your-rights workshops in the community, demanded a voice in welfare policy, provided social support for one another, and organized countywide campaigns and mass public demonstrations.
In Los Angeles, Chicanas and Black women organized separate but akin organizations in their respective neighborhoods and came together to form a countywide alliance of various independent WRO groups. They built coalitions around poverty, welfare, and motherhood, forging a common Brown-Black movement that honored racial and ethnic autonomy while enabling cross-racial solidarity. Chicanas were important activists and leaders from the beginning of the welfare rights movement, including Alicia Escalante, a poor single mother of five who founded the prominent East Los Angeles Welfare Rights Organization (ELAWRO) in 1967, later known as the Chicana Welfare Rights Organization (CWRO).
Activist Spotlight: Alicia Escalante
Alicia Escalante’s story is exceptional but not uncommon. Born and raised in the 1930s and 1940s in El Chamizal, a Mexican barrio in El Paso, Texas, Escalante grew up in poverty with her abusive father. As a youth, she fled to California to be with her mother where she witnessed the cruelty of the welfare and medical systems firsthand. These formative experiences, coupled with the fact that as a teenager she needed to work to sustain her household, shaped her political consciousness, leading her to become an advocate for her mother and later for herself and her own family as well as members of her community. Ecalente’s activism was rooted in an ethic of love and care for the people around her, eventually leading her to found the East Los Angeles Welfare Rights Organization in 1967 (later known as the Chicana Welfare Rights Organization) and La Causa de Los Pobres, the organization’s newspaper. Characterized by her growing empowerment and personal sense of agency, “Escalante and the [ELAWRO] challenged the status quo of the welfare system by providing informational services to recipients, representation during fair hearings (meetings to appeal decisions made by the welfare department), and direct engagement with the local and state bureaucracy to ensure that recipients rights were respected and upheld.”30 The organization ran workshops on welfare policies, advocated for welfare forms in Spanish and additional local offices staffed with bilingual Mexican American caseworkers, and worked for humane public policy at the county, state, and federal levels. While advocating for recipients in East Los Angeles, Escalante frequently collaborated with Black women activists Johnnie Tillmon and Catherine Jermany on countywide campaigns. Escalante was also involved in other facets of the Chicano Movement, supporting and participating in the East Los Angeles high school blowouts, the anti-war movement, and the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington D.C. A prolific writer and orator, Escalante demanded dignity for poor single Chicana mothers on welfare, a group relegated to the margins in both the Chicano movement and the welfare rights movement.31
Footnotes
18 Some notable 20th century labor organizers include Luisa Capetillo, Luisa Moreno, Emma Tenayuca, and Dolores Huerta, as well as the hundreds of women who participated in the cannery strikes in California and Texas and the miner’s strikes in New Mexico, documented in the work of Chicana historians Vicki L. Ruiz and Patricia Zavella and in the film Salt of the Earth, respectively.
19 Kim Kelly, “The Farah Manufacturing Strike Was Led By Chicana Activist Rosa Flores,” Teen Vogue, April 26, 2022.
20 Kelly, “Farah Manufacturing Strike.”
21 Kim Kelly, “The Garment Workers,” in Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of American Labor (New York: One Signal Publishers, 2022), 37.
22 Jennifer R. Mata, “Farah Strike,” in Latino History and Culture, An Encyclopedia, eds. David J. Leonard and Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo (London: Routledge, 2010), 180.
23 Emily Honig, “Women at Farah Revisited: Political Mobilization and Its Aftermath among Chicana Workers in El Paso, Texas, 1972-1992,” Feminist Studies 22, no. 2 (July 1, 1996): 425–52, doi:10.2307/3178422.
24 Wins for social justice are typically not black and white and they are often impermanent. Progress is not linear––it is an ongoing negotiation of power and resistance requires creative maneuvering and persistent action.
25 Honig, “Women at Farah.” In the introduction to Las Obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, Chicana historian Vicki L. Ruiz argues, “Women bring attitudes from home to the workplace and from work to home. Empowerment and conflict exist side by side as women struggle to rationalize and integrate wage earning with domestic responsibilities” (2000, 5).
26Latina Equal Pay Day 2022,” Equal Rights Advocates, accessed October 26, 2022.
27 Alejandra Marchevsky, “Forging a Brown-Black Movement: Chicana and African American Women Organizing for Welfare Rights in Los Angeles,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 231.
28 Marchevsky “Forging a Black-Brown Movement,” 232.
29 Marchevsky “Forging a Black-Brown Movement,” 228.
30 Rosie C. Bermudez, “La Causa de los Pobres: Alicia Escalante’s Lived Experiences of Poverty and the Struggle for Economic Justice,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), 132.
31 For more review Alicia Escalante in the Chicana Por Mi Raza Archive. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.02%3A_Fighting_for_Economic_Justice.txt |
Our Bodies, Our Rights: Demanding Bodily Autonomy
In May 1971 at La Conferencia de Mujeres por la Raza, the first nationwide Chicana feminist conference, more than 500 Chicanas from across the country gathered in Houston, Texas to deliberate on their concerns and dreams of liberation. The majority of the attendees were college students between 18-23 years of age.32 In fact, many Chicana feminists were youth, including high school students, college students, graduate students, and young community activists. Two resolutions emerged from the conference that “called for free, legal abortions and birth control for the Chicano community; controlled by Chicanas” and “24-hour childcare centers in Chicano communities,” pointing out that “Chicana motherhood should not preclude educational, political, social and economic development.”33 Prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade, intense debates took place among Chicanas at major workshops and conferences on the topic of legal abortion. Despite their varying positions, many resolutions did pass in support, like the one mentioned previously, often calling for Chicana bodily autonomy and community-run clinics that could provide culturally relevant medical care, health education, birth control, and abortion services.
Chicanas, like other feminists of color, have long-expressed a wide range of concerns when it comes to reproductive health and justice including issues of “population control, sterilization abuse, unsafe contraceptives, welfare reform, the criminalization of women who use drugs and alcohol during pregnancy, and coercive and intrusive family planning programs and policies,” attending to the ways that racism, disproportionate rates of poverty, and environmental inequities play a role in these issues.34 Women of color’s expansive standpoint on reproductive justice, beyond the pro-choice movement’s singular commitment to legal abortion access, is illustrated in Figure 5.3.1. The image features a woman holding a baby wrapped in a blanket and bold text that reads, “Our bodies, our rights. Reproductive health is a human right. One in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Sixty-one percent of abortions are obtained by mothers.” The mother’s shirt is covered with the words, "We need safe and healthy communities including an elimination of stereotype-based services and culturally competent providers who speak our languages. HIV and STD and AIDS information and services. We need drug and alcohol treatment services for women who are incarcerated and reproductive care coverage on all health plans. We need access to reproductive resources including birth control methods to meet our individual needs and an end to population control methods of coercive sterilization. We need prenatal and postnatal care. We also need safe and accessible and affordable abortion and contraceptive services and teen pregnancy services and comprehensive sex education beyond abstinence only."
A Brief History of Reproductive (In)justice
For most of the 20th century, Mexican American and Puerto Rican women faced widespread forced and coercive sterilization and gynecological medical experimentation by the U.S. government and private doctors, who were often subsidized by the government. For example, the birth control pill was first tested on unconsenting poor women in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, resulting in three deaths, followed by decades of forced sterilization. As noted in Section 5.4: Cultural Activism, Chicanas and Latinas have been subjected to racist and sexist stereotypes about their sexuality and reproduction, which have served as justifications for discriminatory, often violent, policies and practices. This pervasive subjection to reproductive exploitation propelled Chicanas and Latinas into legal, legislative, and grassroots activism in the 1960s and 1970s.
As with other movements discussed in this chapter, Chicana and Puerto Rican women had to contend with the patriarchal ideologies that undergirded their nationalist movements as well as the racist and classist ideologies of the women’s liberation movement. Within many ethnic-based nationalist ideologies, women were expected to bear many children in order to produce future revolutionaries for the movement and abortion was recognized as part of a larger state-sanctioned campaign of cultural genocide. While Puerto Rican and Chicano nationalists ultimately denounced reproductive abuses, two organizations took different positions on the issue of abortion. Puerto Rican women were able to integrate the struggle for reproductive rights into the Young Lords Party Platform, resulting in the establishment of community-run clinics in New York that offered a wide range of birth control options, including abortion services.37 The Brown Berets also opened community clinics in Los Angeles, but the group was steadfast in their opposition to abortion, claiming that all forms of birth control were tools of genocide, leading Chicanas to form feminist caucuses within existing organizations as well as separate reproductive rights groups.
Reproductive Justice Organizations
Both Puerto Rican and Chicana activists joined with other Latinas and women of color across the country to wage legal battles in their fight for reproductive justice. Latinas on the East Coast formed the multi-ethnic coalition Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CSEA) in 1974 and in Los Angeles, Chicana and Mexicana activists filed a civil suit against the Los Angeles County Medical Center for involuntary sterilization practices, who subsequently turned to CSEA for assistance. Local grassroots efforts of the 1960s and 1970 developed into more formal national-level Latina and multi-racial organizations in the 1980s and 1990s such as the Latina Roundtable on Health and Reproductive Rights (LRHRR) founded in 1989 by mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican women, Amigas Latinas en Acción formed in the 1990s in Boston, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR).
Organization Spotlight: California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
Founded in 2004, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ) is a statewide organization committed to honoring the experiences of Latinas/xs to uphold our dignity, our bodies, sexuality, and families. We build Latinas’/xs’ power and cultivate leadership through community education, policy advocacy, and community-informed research to achieve reproductive justice. At CLRJ we recognize that Latinas’/xs’ reproductive health and rights cannot be viewed in isolation. So we do our work using the reproductive justice framework that emphasizes the intersection with other social, economic and community-based issues that promote the social justice and human rights of Latina/x women and girls and the Latinx community as a whole.
In other words, we recognize that Latinas/xs’ access to culturally and linguistically appropriate health care, a living wage job, quality education, freedom from discrimination and violence, among many other issues that affect Latinas’/xs’ daily lives, have a profound effect on Latinas’ reproductive and sexual health, as well as our right to self-determination in all aspects of our lives.
We advance our mission through four core strategies: 1) Policy Advocacy, 2) Community Engagement, 3) Community-Informed Research, and 4) Strategic Communications. In addition to these core strategies, an important value that permeates all aspects of CLRJ’s work is that of working in collaboration with other allies who share our commitment toward promoting the health and justice of our communities, including grassroots activists, community leaders, and coalitions, policymakers, policy advocates and researchers.38
Footnotes
32 Marta Cotera, “La Conferencia De Mujeres Por La Raza: Houston, Texas, 1971,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 155-157.
33 Vidal, “New Voice,” 21.
34 Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutiérrez, “Women of Color and Their Struggle for Reproductive Justice,” in Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice, eds. Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutiérrez (Cambridge: South End Press, 2004), 3.
35 Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, “For Latinas, A Fine Line Between Reproductive Justice and Eugenics,” Ms., August 13, 2010.
36 Brigitte Amiri, “Reproductive Abuse is Rampant in the Immigration Detention System,” ACLU, September 23, 2020.
37 We Do Everything that the Brothers Do:” Women of the Young Lords,” New-York Historical Society Museum and Library, October 14, 2020. An addition resource is “1968: The Young Lord’s Organization/Party,” Library of Congress.
38About Us,” California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ), accessed August 1, 2022. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.03%3A_Reproductive_Justice.txt |
Chicana Artivists Confront Disempowering Representations
Chicana feminist artists and scholars have long-challenged gender oppression during and since the Chicano Renaissance––the flowering of arts, literature, and cultural production alongside El Movimiento. Writers such as Lorna Dee Cervantes, Ana Castillo, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Cherríe Moraga, performance artists Patssi Valdez of ASCO and Patricia Valencia, and visual artists Ester Hernandez, Santa Barraza, and Yolanda López, among others, have confronted disempowering representations of racialized women and reenvisioned Mexican/Chicanx cultural archetypes through their cultural production. Two figures, in particular, La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Malinche have been reclaimed and redefined by Chicana feminists, challenging the patriarchal ‘mujer buena/mujer mala’ dichotomy that structures women’s and girl’s everyday lives. These artivists (artist-activists) understood that mythologies and cultural stories transmit values, determine desirable and undesirable traits, and shape behavior, making their work not merely art for its own sake, but deeply political.
Redefining Guadalupe
Many artists have transformed Guadalupe’s image from a chaste, docile, martyr into an empowered feminist icon. One of the first revisionist images was an etching by San Francisco-based visual artist Ester Hernandez in 1975. “La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de los Xicanos,” displayed in Figure 5.4.1, features a young Guadalupe with an unwavering gaze framed by her long dark hair. She is dressed in a black belt karate uniform, her fists clenched, and one leg is powerfully kicking towards anyone or anything who would harm los Xicanos. Hernandez received praise and backlash for her artwork, including death threats, as did Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Alma López for the digital collage “Our Lady” created nearly 25 years later, displayed in Figure 5.4.2. Like Hernández, López portrayed the Catholic icon as a modern, familiar, corporeal woman. López’s version is a poised brown-skinned Virgen adorned in roses and a Coyolxauhqui cape, with hands-on-hips and a gaze intently focused on the viewer. She stands barefoot on a black crescent moon held up by a bare-breasted female cherub with monarch butterfly wings. The print was part of the CyberArte: Tradition Meets Technology exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. Organized attempts to censor the image were led by Roman Catholic clergy and Chicano nationalists who claimed the piece was overtly sexual and therefore sacrilegious. News of the controversy spread online across the U.S. and Mexico, consequently making López and her apparition world-famous. Through artistic reimagining, López created a cultural sign of queer Chicana desire––an action that has been taken up by many other Chicana artists, which is often met with hostility.
Reenvisioning Malintzín
Another icon has been central in feminist cultural activism. The story of La Malinche, also known as Malintzín Tenepal, Malinalli, and Doña Marina, has been taken up in a number of essays, poems, and artwork in divergent ways. Chicana author and publisher Norma Alarcón points out that Chicano and Mexicano men’s representation of La Malinche is vastly different than that of Chicana feminists. Men’s patriarchal interpretations of Malinche tend to focus on her betrayal vis-à-vis her sexuality, assigning the role of servitude to Chicanas/Mexicanas, particularly those in heterosexual relationships. Embodied by La Malinche, betrayal itself is coded as female. Alarcón argues that Malintzín has become a “reference point not only for controlling, interpreting or visualizing women but also to wage a domestic battle of stifling proportions.”39 The impacts of this myth are vast. As the primary transmitters of culture, women are not exempt from reproducing misogynistic representations, which can manifest as self-hatred. If we are expected to love and emulate Guadalupe and her virtues, according to binary thinking we must hate and reject La Malinche and those aspects within ourselves that we share. These are the representations of La Malinche that Chicana feminists have sought to undo and revise.
In Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero (1993) identify four themes that describe the work of Chicanas who have written about Malintzín. These include
Two noteworthy poetic examples include “Como Duele” by Adalijza Sosa-Riddell and “La Malinche” by Carmen Tafolla, composed in 1973 and 1978 respectively. They are part of a larger body of work that emerged during El Movimiento that seek to reformulate Chicana identity, history, and cultural politics. In the post-movement years, La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Malinche continue to be powerful symbols of Chicana representation.
Sidebar: Poetry
“Como Duele” by Adalijza Sosa-Riddell42
Ese, vato, I saw you today [Hey, buddy]
en Los y Sacra
en Santa Barbara, Sanfra
and everywhere else.
You walked, Chicano chulo,
eagle on your jacket,
y “carnales y carnalas,” [brothers and sisters]
Y “Que Viva la Raza.”
But where were you when
I was looking for myself?
As if I didn't know.
Where the MAN and
all his pendejadas? [stupidity]
sent you,
To Dartmouth, Los Angeles City College,
Barbers School, La Pinta,
Korea, and Vietnam; too many of you
returned wrapped como enchiladas
in red, white, and blue.
A Chicano at Dartmouth?
I was at Berkeley, where,
there were too few of us
and even less of you.
I'm not even sure
that I really looked for you.
I heard from many rucos [old people]
that you
would never make it.
You would hold me back;
From What?
From what we are today?
“Y QUE VIVA”
Pinche, como duele ser Malinche. [How it hurts to be Malinche]
My name was changed, por la ley. [by the law]
Probrecitos, they believed in me,
That I was white enough
to stay forever,
that I would never find you again.
I found you, Chicano,
but only for a moment,
Never para siempre. [forever]
Temilotzin died the morning after,
Malinche.
It's too late.
The world does not wait
for indecision,
neither do Chicanos.
And mis pobres padres [my poor parents]
taught me
not to hurt
others too much,
Malinche, pinche,
forever with me;
I was born out of you,
I walk beside you,
bear my children with you,
for sure, I’ll die
alone with you.
Perhaps I died before,
when I said good-bye
al barrio y al Cruiser.
He went to road camp,
por grifo y peleonero. [for drugs and fighting]
While I was saved––
for what?
Pinche, como duele ser Malinche.
Pero sabes, ese,
what keeps me from shattering
into a million fragments?
It's that sometimes,
you are el hijo de la Malinche, too.
“La Malinche” by Carmen Tafolla43
Yo soy la Malinche.
My people called me Malintzín Tenepal
the Spaniards called me Doña Marina
I came to be known as Malinche
and Malinche came to mean traitor.
they called me––chingada
Chingada.
(Ha––¡Chingada! ¡Screwed!)
Of noble ancestry, for whatever that means,
I was sold into slavery by MY ROYAL FAMILY––so
that my brother could get my inheritance.
…And then the omens began––a god, a new civi-
lization, the downfall of our empire.
And you came.
My dear Hernán Cortés, to share your “civi-
lization”––to play a god, . . . and I began to dream
I saw
and I acted.
I saw our world
And I saw yours
And I saw––
another.
And yes––I helped you––against Emperor Moctezuma
Xocoyotzín himself.
I became Interpreter, Advisor, and lover.
They could not imagine me dealing on a level
with you––so they said I was raped, used
chingada
¡Chingada!
But I saw our world
and your world
and another.
No one else could see.
Beyond one world, none existed.
And you yourself cried the night
the city burned
and burned at your orders.
The most beautiful city on earth
in flames,
You cried broken tears the night you saw
your destruction.
My homeland ached within me
(but I saw another).
Another world––
a world yet to be born.
And our child was born…
and I was immortalized Chingada!
Years later, you took away my child (my sweet
mestizo new world child)
to raise him in your world
You still didn’t see.
You still didn’t see.
And history would call me
Chingada.
But Chingada I was not.
Not tricked, not screwed, not traitor.
For I was not traitor to myself––
I saw a dream
and I reached it.
Another world………
la raza.
la raaaaa-zaaaaa………
Footnotes
39 Norma Alarcón, “Chicana’s Feminist Literature: A Re-Vision Through Malintzin/or Malintzin: Putting Flesh Back on the Object,” in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2nd edition, eds. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983), 182.
40 For a nuanced discussion of this topic see Sheila Marie Contreras, “From La Malinche to Coatlicue: Chicana Indigenist Feminism and Mythic Native Women,” in Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism, and Chicana/o Literature (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008), 105-132.
41 Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero, eds. Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), 193.
42 From Rebolledo and Rivero, Infinite Divisions, 213-215. Originally published in El Grito VII, no. 1 (September 1973): 76-78.
43 From Rebolledo and Rivero, Infinite Divisions, 198-199. Originally published in Canto al Pueblo: An Anthology of Experiences (San Antonio, Texas: Penca Books). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.04%3A_Cultural_Activism.txt |
Political Familism
While the ideological concept of la familia had some negative implications for Chicanas, one positive attribute was the call for total family participation in the struggle for racial justice. In her seminal 1975 sociological study, Chicana feminist Maxine Baca Zinn calls this fusion of cultural and political resistance political familism.44 She challenges the sociological literature that, at the time, attributed burgeoning egalitarian Chicano family dynamics to assimilation, instead arguing that family activism in general and Chicana participation in movement activities, in particular, brought about dramatic shifts in gender roles while enabling Chicanos to maintain familial ties. In fact, Baca Zinn claims that historically, the family has been a source of protection and refuge for Chicanos/as in a hostile racist society and the maintenance of the extended family kinship system is in direct opposition to the dominant colonial nuclear family structure. In other words, women’s participation in El Movimiento transformed their relationship to the family and to other’s gendered expectations of them.
Expanding Notions of La Familia
Additionally, romanticized notions of la familia were further disrupted by the Chicana Welfare Rights Organization, whose activism centered poor single Chicana mothers on welfare, unsettling the idea that the Chicano family was constituted by a male head-of-household in a heterosexual partnership. Similarly, critiques of Chicano heterosexism were taking place in the political and creative work of Chicana feminist lesbians such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Naomi Littlebear Moreno, and Cherríe Moraga. In her groundbreaking essay “Queer Aztlán,” Moraga calls for more expansive notions of la familia, expressing a desire for “a new nationalism in which la Chicana Indígena stands at the center, and heterosexism and homophobia are no longer the cultural order of the day.”45 While Chicanismo called for the involvement of la familia to challenge oppressive external conditions, Chicana feminists extended this view to include oppressive intracultural conditions, namely sexism and homophobia, within la familia itself, demonstrating the feminist principle that the “personal is political.” Chicana feminists worked to expand and reframe the notion of la familia as an important unit that could collectively demand liberation for all its members. Writer and activist Enriqueta Longeaux y Vásquez put it this way: “look at each other as one large family. We must look at all of the children as belonging to all of us. We must strive for the fulfillment of all as equals, with the capacity and right to develop as humans."46
Footnotes
44 Maxine Baca Zinn, “Political Familism: Toward Sex-Role Equality in Chicano Families,” in The Chicano Studies Reader, An Anthology of Aztlán, 1970-2015, eds. Chon A. Noriega, Eric Avila, Karen Mary Davalos, Chela Sandoval, and Rafael Pérez-Torres (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2006), 438-450. Baca Zinn provides a few examples of Chicano movement organizations that drew on the strength and power of the family to advance their agenda. These include the farmworker movement, the Chicano revolt against the Crystal City school district in 1969 and the subsequent formation of La Raza Unida Party, and El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, among others (441-442).
45 Cherríe Moraga, “Queer Aztlán: the Reformation of the Chicano Tribe, in The Last Generation: Prose and Poetry (Boston: South End Press, 1993), 145-174.
46 Enriqueta Longeaux y Vásquez, “The Women of La Raza,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 31. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.05%3A_Disrupting_Sexism_and_Homophobia_en_La_Familia.txt |
Fighting for a Feminist Agenda in Chicano Studies
As noted throughout this chapter, Chicana/Latina feminist activism has taken place in homes, in the streets, at the workplace, and in cultural production. Chicana/Latina feminists have also been active in academia. As noted in Chapter 8: Education and Activism, the number of people of color entering higher education increased as a direct result of student and community activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Activists called for a more relevant education that highlighted their community’s knowledge systems, histories, struggles, and contributions, leading to the formation of ethnic studies programs and departments across the country. The first Chicano studies programs that emerged out of El Movimiento were guided by the ideology of Chicanismo, often suppressing topics of gender and sexuality, leaving feminist and queer faculty and students to address the oppressive aspects of the burgeoning discipline. In this section, we explore stories of the trailblazing activist scholars who fought to include a feminist agenda within Chicano studies and establish the field of Chicana/Latina studies.47
At a joint Chicano studies/MEChA conference at California State University, Northridge in 1972, a resolution passed that called for all Chicano studies majors to take at least one course on “La Chicana” for graduation and in June 1973, the first Chicana curriculum was developed for colleges and universities (adaptable for high schools) at a Chicana workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles. During this time, activist-scholar and journalist Anna NietoGomez called for Chicana-specific classes to be developed that would provide Chicanas a space to develop a new empowered identity and facilitate others’ understanding and acceptance of her new role in society. She would go on to teach one of the first courses on “The Chicana Experience” at California State University, Northridge and co-found the first Chicana feminist scholarly journal Encuentro Femenil with Hijas de Cuauhtémoc in 1973.48 From the onset, the founders worked with community leaders to document issues and struggles to build awareness and rally support. The journal provided a space for Chicana cultural production and activist scholarship, which were then moved into the classroom, along with manifestos and newspapers from different sectors of the movement and other anticolonial and socialist texts.
Post-Movement Feminist and Queer Interventions
After the height of the El Movimiento (1968-1975) and the formative years of Chicana studies, many feminist and queer activists and scholars “abandoned nationalist claims and nationalist imaginaries to create alternative ways of belonging.”49 The feminist struggle against sexism in Chicano studies, while operative since the inception of the field, was on full display at the National Association for Chicano Studies (NACS) conference in 1982 when Mujeres en Marcha, a group of Chicana scholars from UC Berkeley, organized a panel on gender inequality.50 The Chicana Caucus of NACS was established the following year. The caucus focuses on gender equity, sexism, patriarchy, and the needs and interests of women, whether queer or straight, in the association and in everyday life. Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS), also formed in 1982, is a professional organization for Chicana/Latina/Indigenous women and gender-expansive academics and activists “dedicated to building bridges between community and university settings, transforming higher education, and promoting new paradigms and methods.” MALCS flagship biannual publication, Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, “publishes groundbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship, creative works by and about Chicanas/Latinas and Indigenous women of the Americas, and is receptive to all scholarly methods and theoretical perspectives that examine, describe, analyze, or interpret our experiences.”
Moreover, Chicana/x feminist lesbian writers began emerging in greater numbers in the 1980s and 1990s. Their work centered queer women’s perspectives in both fiction and non-fiction, critiqued heterosexism and heteronormativity, and addressed the exclusion of gender and sexuality in the field of Chicano studies. Through and despite the resistance, queer caucuses were established at NACS in the early 1990s including the Lesbian Caucus (now Lesbian, BiMujeres, and Trans Caucus) and the Joto Caucus, consisting of men who are gay, bisexual, and trans. After decades of feminist and queer interventions, NACS finally changed its name from National Association of Chicano Studies to National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) in 1995 and numerous resolutions were passed in the 90s that addressed issues of gender, sexuality, sexism, and homophobia in the organization. Over the years, Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x gender and sexuality have become the fastest-growing areas of study within the field and scholarly and political explorations have become more complex and consequential. Visit Chapter 6: Jotería Studies for a history of Jotería studies and a discussion of the activist scholars who have expanded the Chicana/o/x studies canon. Since the 2000s, NACCS and MALCS have broadened their membership and missions as a result of interventions by Indigenous Latinxs, Afro-Latinxs, and trans and gender-non-conforming Latinxs. In conclusion, a distinct feature of Chicana/Latina studies is its commitment to community-engaged activist scholarship that “links research to community concerns and social change,” centering Chicana/xs Latina/xs as multifaceted agent-subjects.51
Footnotes
47 Section 5.6 draws on a timeline by Wiliam Calvo-Quiros, News From Nepantla, University of California, Santa Barbara Chicana and Chicano Studies newsletter 7, (Fall 2012): 7, which was originally based on Antonia Castañeda’s 2012 MALCS plenary presentation “MALCS’ Decolonizing Work: Naming and Undoing Institutional Violence, from SB 1070 to Chicana/o Studies.”
48 Anna NietoGomez, “The Chicana––Perspectives for Education,” in Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings, ed. Alma M. García (New York: Routledge, 1997), 130-131; Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!, 145. To learn more about and from NietoGomez, review “Interview of Anna NietoGomez,” Center for Oral History Research, UCLA Library; and “Anna Nieto-Gomez,” Chicana Por Mi Raza.
49 Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!, 210.
50 Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!, 204.
51 Adela de la Torre and Beatríz M. Pesquera, eds., “Introduction,” in Building With Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 1.
5.07: Conclusion
Summary
In this chapter we explored a variety of Chicana/Latina feminist political, social, artistic, and scholarly issues, movements, and practices that have taken shape in a variety of contexts. Chicana/Latina feminists draw inspiration from a long lineage of radical feminist praxis across the hemisphere and around the world, often building coalitions with other marginalized communities. Some key issues that were introduced include economic justice, reproductive justice, cultural activism, family dynamics, and scholarship. However, these are only a few of the many ongoing movements and causes that Chicana/Latina feminists participate in. Hopefully you complete this chapter informed and inspired taking with you new perspectives, tools, and strategies to utilize in your own advocacy work, whether that be in your home, community, school, or beyond.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.5: Chapter 5 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/05%3A_Feminisms/5.06%3A_Activist_Scholarship_and_Chicana_and_Latina_Studies.txt |
Introduction
When most students learn about jotería studies for the first time, they are surprised that it is even a thing. Often they say, “isn’t jotería a negative or derogatory word?” Or they will say with some confusion that they have only ever heard joto used as a way to offend someone or call them gay. None of those responses are surprising or incorrect. Jotería, joto, and jota have been used, and continue to be used, in negative and derisive ways in the United States, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. However, like the word Chicano or queer, which were reclaimed as part of social justice activism, joto, jota, and jotería, have been reclaimed, redefined, and resignified as empowering terms for many people who find pride and strength in their queer, trans, Chicanx and Latinx identities.1
Not only have folks reclaimed these words, but there is an entire field of studies called jotería studies and a national organization called the Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS) created in the 2010s that has helped shape the field.2 Courses are being taught in jotería studies at colleges and universities near you, you can find merchandise with the words jotx written on it, and students and activists are seeing themselves represented more in more and more spaces. None of this would have been possible, however, without the activism of trans and queer Chicanxs and Latinxs and other people of color who have fought for visibility, representation, and basic human rights.
In her 1987 book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Chicana lesbian author, philosopher, poet, and independent scholar, Gloria Anzaldúa wrote, “People listen to what your jotería is saying,” meaning that cisgender heterosexual Chicanas and Chicanos needed to pay attention to what queer members of the Chicanx community were saying.3 It has taken a long time, but folks are now paying attention. Privileging some of those jotería voices, this chapter traces the genealogy of jotería as an identity and epistemology (way of thinking and knowing) and of the field of jotería studies, which is indebted to Chicana feminisms, women of color feminists, Chicanx studies, ethnic studies, and activism for women’s, queer, and trans rights. The chapter highlights topics such as jotería education, pedagogy, activism, art, nightlife, spirituality, sex, and others, and how jotería as a community and as an academic field have paved an innovative and transformative path for thinking about the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality in Chicanx and Latinx communities. This is only an introduction as there is so much more to cover than these pages permit. But we hope this sparks your interest and you continue to learn about jotería!
• 6.1: Reclaiming Jota/o/x and Jotería
This section focuses on the etymology of the words jota and jota, discussing the derogatory aspects of the words as well as how they have been reclaimed by Chicanx and Latinx queer folks. The section also provides a definition of joteria, especially as defined by the Association for Joteria Arts, Activism and Scholarship (AJAAS), and gives examples of artists who use these terms in empowering ways.
• 6.2: Genealogy of Jotería Studies
Section 6.2 engages with the genealogy of jotería studies as an intersectional and feminist academic field which although relatively new, can be traced back to early work of ethnic studies and Chicanx studies and gay, lesbian, gender non-conforming, and trans artists, activists, and scholars of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including Chicana feminists, third world (women of color) feminists, Chicana lesbian feminists, and trans feministas.
• 6.3: Jotería Activism Past and Present
This section explores the interconnected social justice movements in which jotería have participated in and fought for change. It discusses jotería’s specific involvement in movements in early gay and lesbian Latinx organizations like Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU), the struggle against the AIDS epidemic, the development of AJAAS, immigrant rights organizing, and more.
• 6.4: Jotería Frameworks and Scholarly Conversations
Section 6.4 introduces various jotería perspectives and theories around identity and consciousness, healing, the body, communication, language and the environment. The section lays out how these frameworks and scholarly conversations stem from lived experiences and collective struggles, and how these have shaped the field of jotería studies.
• 6.5: Jotería Aesthetics and Cultural Production
This section argues that jotería cultural production (visual art, literature, film, social media) have been an integral part of the development of jotería studies. Artists and cultural producers have used visual and literary language to subvert norms and resist homophobic, transphobic, and gender exclusionary narratives and iconography. It also looks at the role of sound as a viable method of analysis and maps out future directions for the field.
• 6.6: Conclusion
Footnotes
1 Maricón is another derogatory word in the US, Mexico, Cuba, and other parts of Latin America, that has been reclaimed by many and has been used in art and literature as a banner of pride like Joteria See this article by Ernesto Cuba on the use of the word maricón. https://latinxtalk.org/2022/03/16/ma...se-of-maricon/
2 As discussed later in the chapter, AJAAS was formed when members of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), Joto Caucus (Gay men’s caucus) and Lesbian, Bi, Mujeres, Trans Caucus, and community members, decided to create their own organization.
3 Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 107.
06: Joteria Studies
Etymology of Jota/o/x
I remember being called a joto when I was a kid. It was painful when my cousins, family members who I loved, used that slur to belittle me and dehumanize me. I carried shame from that for many years. Today I have healed from those experiences. I am proud to be a joto and find beauty in my queerness.
The etymology and meaning of the terms joto/a/x and jotería are important to understand the shift from derogatory insults to terms of empowerment and the development of jotería studies as an interdisciplinary academic field of study. The term jotería derives from the colloquial Spanish language term joto (sissy, faggot) for gay men in Mexico and Mexican and Chicanx communities in the US.4 The word derives from jota (Cell Block J) of the Lecumberri Federal Prison (1900-1976) in Mexico City where prison authorities kept effeminate men isolated from the rest of the prison population starting in the early part of the 20th century.5 Prisoners in cellblock J were called jotos and the word became synonymous with homosexuality.6 A colorful artistic representation of the term Joto is displayed in Figure 6.1.1.
Reclaiming and Redefining Jotería
While “joto” and “jota” have been used as a hurtful slur that impacts one’s sense of self, it has been reclaimed and resignified as a term of empowerment and beauty for many. This reclaiming as a “linguistic subversion may create new worlds in the present.”7 Juan Sebastian Ferrada argues that “through the reclaiming of jotería, Latinx communities resignify their own futures into existence.”8 In 2021 The Los Angeles Times printed the word jotería in a positive way in an article about a gay bar in downtown Los Angeles that was struggling to survive during COVID.9 Based on an interview I did with the journalist, she cited my use of “jotería spaces” in talking about the importance of bars and clubs for jotería. This is a big deal because that word is not used often in journalistic material. This also shows it can be reclaimed and redefined in popular media and not just in-group usage. As the rest of this chapter shows, jotería has not only been reclaimed but has empowered many people to be their authentic selves while doing work to uplift their communities and heal from past traumas attached to homophobia and transphobia. Scholars, artists, and activists then have created a new discourse around what jotería means and what its liberatory praxis looks like. Ellie Hernandez underscores that we “have to start creating discourses'' around these topics.10
Two examples of artists reclaiming the word joto or jota are Chicana lesbian playwright and performer Monica Palacios and queer Chicano poet and performer Yosimar Reyes. In 2015, Palacios wrote and performed along with two other artists, Vanessa Terán and Andrea Vargas, a show titled “Jota Love” at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, California. The performances consisted of different genres including comedy and dance by Latina/o artists in Los Angeles. The other example of artists reclaiming the world joto or jota are queer Chicano poet Yosimar Reyes and artivist (artist + activist) Julio Salgado, who in collaboration with the online creative expressions organization Dreamers Adrift (co-founded by Salgado), created a short video called “Behind the Image: Quiero Que Me Llames Joto” (I Want You to Call Me Joto), based on a poem by Reyes, which he recites as Salgado illustrates. “I want you to call me joto,” he says in the poem, not as an insult or a joke but in a humanizing way. As the poem unfolds, and the poet resignifies (gives new meaning) the word joto, he confronts the pain the word has caused him but also affirms that he has learned to love himself. In the video, Reyes recites his poem, presumably written for a parent, there are scenes of Salgado in the process of creating an illustration of Reyes, and scenes of Reyes writing the poem. By the end of the video, there is the completed drawing of the poet, arms raised high with the words “Quiero que me llames joto” across his bare body, and Reyes’ handwritten words from the poem on a bright pink background. Reyes’ face emanates pleasure and peace. The juxtaposition of Salgado’s sketching and Reyes’ writing that lead to the finished product, the final illustration at the end of the poem, points to the process of self-integration, self-love, and wholeness, which Reyes suggests is possible through the reclaiming of a word like joto.
Over the years, the term jotería has developed multiple meanings. Many queer Chicanx and Latinx organizations, especially in the southwest have used jota, joto and joteria as empowering terms in their slogans or in posters they have used in protests, as you’ll learn more about later in the chapter. On their website, the Association for Jotería Arts, Activism and Scholarship AJAAS, defines jotería as a noun: “queer Latina/o, Chicana/o Indigenous people; a reclaimed term of empowerment.”11 They also describe it as an adjective: “relating to or supporting queer Latina/o, Chicana/o, and Indigenous people” and “a decolonial queer feminist sensibility and politics, a mode of seeing, thinking, and feeling geared towards empowerment and social transformation.” In alignment with the definitions put forward by AJAAS, communications scholar Robert M. Gutierrez-Perez defines jotería as “an identity category, a cultural practice, and a social process.”12 Luis M. Andrade argues that these definitions are an “interplay between individual and group processes and practices” showing “the productivity and complexity of the term.”13 We can observe these meanings manifested in the testimonios, or “jota-historias” of participants in José Manuel Santillan’s research on La Jotería, a Chicanx Latinx queer student activist group at UCLA.14 Alex, one of the participants in his study said that he embraced the word jotería because he saw himself as part of the community, “a community that I come from being queer, working class, Chicano, and [with] immigrant parents. Like many other jotas y jotos, I know its not that easy to separate our identity from our queerness and our jotería.”15 These examples of what jotería means to student activists are called “jotería-historias.”16 Jotería, albeit imperfect, is an inclusive term that spoke to both their queer and Chicanx identities and also encompassed their gender and other parts of their identities. While these moments of reclamation are important, Francisco Galarte reminds us that joteria studies and Chicanx studies must be inclusive of trans perspectives and that transgender as an identity and frame of analysis helps us think differently about rigid gender binaries embedded in Chicana/o scholarship even in recent queer Chicana/o scholarship.17
Footnotes
4 Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. and Jorge Estrada, “Joteria Studies,” in Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trsngender and Queer (LGBTQ) History, eds. Howard Chiang, Anjali Arondekar, Marc Epprecht, Jennifer V. Evans, Ross G. Evans, Hannadi Al-Samman, Emily Skidmore, and Zeb Tortorici (New York: Charles Scribner’s Son, 2019), 863.
5 Alvarez Jr. and Estrada, “Jotería Studies,” 863.
6 Robert Buffington, “Los Jotos [The Jotos]: Contested Visions of Homosexuality in Modern Mexico,” in Sex and Sexuality in Latin America, ed. Daniel Balderston and Donna J. Guy (New York: New York University Press 1997), 118-132; Magalli Delgadillo, “El Palacio Negro que invento a los jotos” El Universal, January 6, 2016, https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/entrada-de-opinion/colaboracion/mochilazo-en-el-tiempo/nacion/sociedad/2016/06/1/el-palacio-negro.
7 Juan Sebastian Ferrada, “Resignifications: Linguistic Resistance and Queer Expressions of Latinidad,” in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, eds. Kira Hall and Rusty Barret (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2018.
8 Ferrada, “Resiginifications.”
9 Andrea Castillo, “A Lifeline for LGBTQ Latinos on the Brink of Closure,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-15/a-lifeline-for-lgbtq-latinos-on-the-brink-of-closure
10 Ellie Hernandez, Zoom, Epilogue Books, October 14, 2022
11 "Jotería” Association for Joteria Arts Activism and Scholarship, accessed December 8, 2022, https://www.ajaas.com/joteria
12 Robert M. Gutierrez-Perez, “Disruptive Ambiguities: The Potentiality of Joteria Critique in Communication Studies,” Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research 14, no. 2 (2015): 92.
13 Luis M. Andrade, “Joteria Studies and/in Communication,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia August 15, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1200
14 José Manuel Santillana, “Somos Jotería: UCLA Chicanx Latinx Student Activists Fighting for Social Justice,” in Transmovimientos: Latinx Queer Migrations, Bodies and Spaces, eds. Ellie Hernandez, Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr., and Magda García (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2021), 34.
15 Santillana, “Somos Jotería,” 40.
16 Anita Tijerina Revilla and José Manuel Santillana, “Joteria Identity and Consciousness,” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no.1 (Spring 2016): 167.
17 Francisco J. Galarte, “Trans* Chican@; Amor, Justicia, y Dignidad” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no.1 (Spring 2014), 229-234. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.01%3A_Reclaiming_Jota_o_x_and_Joteria.txt |
Intersectional Feminist, Queer, and Trans Genealogies
“Yes, there is a jotería movement! Although it hasn't been explicit, Cherríe and Gloria have fought for it. It has been an ongoing movement.” Lupe from UCLA student activist group La Joteria18
Although its name, jotería studies, is relatively new, the field has a long interconnected genealogy. The trajectory of jotería thinking, writing, performing, and engaging in activism is woven together like a carefully crafted braid of hair or like sequined fabric, sequins stitched together, creating a luminous tapestry.19 Jotería studies can be traced back to early work of ethnic studies and Chicanx studies and gay, lesbian, gender non-conforming, and trans artists, activists, and scholars of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including Chicana feminists, third world (women of color) feminists, Chicana lesbian feminists, and trans feministas. (For more on this, review Chapter 5). Collectives of lesbian and queer Chicanas have been at the forefront of these movements and shifts in consciousness. Like Gloria Anzaldua, Osa Hidalgo de La Riva is an important filmmaker and activist who laid the foundation for much of the creative and philosophical thinking. She is shown in Figure 6.2.1. When asked about her participation in the Chicano movement, Hidalgo De La Riva says, “Well, we were all active, as a family. My brother Louis did Chicano murals and he was always painting. When we organized events like a poetry reading or a Chicano art show, we would always have family and a large mix of people.”20 De La Riva’s comment reminds us that joteria were also part of the Chicano movement, even if those voices have often been excluded from the historical record.
Jotería studies also has muxerista foundations. According to Anita Tijerina Revilla, a “muxerista is a person whose identity is rooted in a Chicana Latina feminist version for social change, committed to ending all forms of oppression including but not limited to classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and citizen ism. Its definition is rooted in the scholarship and activism of Chicanos and feminists of color, but it's extended by the work experience and theoretical understandings of the members of Raza Womyn,” an organization at UCLA in the late 1990s.21 Anita Tijerina Revilla, Joanna Nuñez, José Manuel Santillana, and Sergio A. Gonzalez remind us of this concept and its history, expanding it and arguing for a jotería-muxerista approach, a radical queer, gender expansive feminist perspective anchored in multidimensional and intersectional struggle, love, social justice, accountability, friendship, and healing.22 The historical, theoretical, and spiritual connections to women of color feminisms are particularly important to discuss in relation to the liberatory epistemologies that have shaped the critical work we do. Tracing the influence of women of color feminisms on queer of color theories and jotería studies demonstrates the interconnectedness of the diasporic, transnational, hemispheric, decolonial, and antiracist frameworks central to jotería studies, this chapter, and this whole book, and to the larger project of autonomy and self-determination for colonized peoples.
Jotería studies builds on the activism and writings of lesbian feminists of color such as the Combahee River Collective Statement, This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color, Borderlands: La Frontera/The New Mestiza, Zami by Audre Lorde, and more.23
In This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, the collection of essays and poems were theories in the flesh, meaning they were creating theories from their lived experiences.24 For example, Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of “el mundo zurdo” (left-handed world) referred to those of us on the margins, outside of the dominant world, because of our multiple intersection identities such as queer folks, immigrants, disabled, and others, and the potential among us to create solidarity and social change.25 For the Combahee River Collective, race was inseparable from gender. Emma Pérez developed the concept sitio y lengua, which is about the empowerment of women, specifically Chicana lesbians, based on shared language and space, and how this bonding and nurturing makes it possible to embark upon struggles for social change.”26 Chela Sandoval’s concept of differential consciousness is the shifting modes in thinking (and action), involved in navigating systems of power, in turn leading to action. These early contributions, concepts, and theories by feminist lesbians of color and the different namings of their identities point to interconnectedness, power in difference, solidarity, and what Anzaldúa called spiritual activism, and have been instrumental to understanding the interconnected nature of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and the idea that “the personal is political,” which is central to jotería identity. See Chapter 5: Feminisms for more details on this.
In his essay, “Queer Theory Revisited” Micheal Hames-García, like other queer scholars of color, critiques the erasure of queer people of color from writings on the development of the field of queer studies.27 Hames-Garcia offers an alternative timeline that includes lesbian, gay, and queer of color writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Cherríe Moraga. Theorizing from the flesh, jotería studies is influenced by and part of what we understand as queer of color theories, which emerged as a response to the whiteness of queer theory, its tepid inclusion of race, and its overemphasis on high theory.
Scholar Spotlight: Horacio N. Roque Ramírez
An award-winning scholar, archivist, and oral historian, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, featured in Figure 6.2.2, was one of the leading scholars in queer Latinx studies and Central American studies in the United States. He was an immigrant from El Salvador who received a Ph.D. in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. His research focused on gay Latino San Francisco 1990s, AIDS and HIV, queer oral history, queer migrations, and transgender Latina studies. His essays on Teresita la Campesina were instrumental to current work on trans studies and jotería studies. For more on this, review Section 3.3: Embodied Memories: Archival Movidas and Oral History. He was also an expert witness in political asylum cases for queer and trans folks. Ramírez often used the term “centroMaricón” to refer to his intersectional identity as Central American, Salvadoran, gay, and immigrant.28
Ramírez passed away on December 25, 2015 from complications of alcoholism. His legacy lives on in the students he mentored at the University of California, Santa Barbara and elsewhere and in his research, which has heavily impacted what we know today as jotería studies and trans Latinx studies. Memorials and tributes for him after his death remember him for loving dancing and partying, for his sassiness, and for his commitment to queer Latina/o histories. Dr. Roque Ramirez warned his graduate students of the dangers of not taking care of oneself in academia and recognized the damage it had done to him. Unfortunately, the interconnected wounds he experienced in his life, took a toll on him. One of his collaborators, also a queer feminist Central American oral historian, Nan Alamilla Boyd, wrote in a memorial to him: “He did this work from the heart because he believed that people on the margins—queers, trans immigrants, and people of color—have important stories to tell.”29
NACCS Joto Caucus
As noted, the Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS), came out of NACCS. In the early 1990s, a gay men’s group within the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) named themselves the Joto Caucus.30 Raúl Coronado recounts that at his first NACCS in San Antonio, he called for a meeting of “Chicano jotos.” Initially calling themselves NALGA, they changed it to the Joto Caucus officially in 1993. His participation at NACCS was partly inspired by his involvement in MECHA, (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) at the University of Texas, Austin. He cites that he soon learned that not all chapters were as inclusive. Although things have changed over the years, the organization has been critiqued for its homophobia and sexism. Conversely, other chapters have been inclusive and intersectional such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas MEChA which played a critical and foundational role in the first Joto Caucus conference of NACCS. The Joto Caucus would have a pivotal part in AJAAS as described later in this chapter.
In 2007, the NACCS Joto Caucus hosted a quinceañera to celebrate fifteen years of existence. This event was hosted in collaboration with allgo, an Austin-based queer people of color organization. To honor the intersectional feminist genealogies discussed earlier in this chapter, especially Chicana lesbian feminists, the event organizers decided to honor Chicana lesbians as madrinas, or godmothers, as a form of expressing solidarity with them.31Among the madrinas honored were Emma Pérez, Deena J. Gonzalez, Yolanda Chávez-Leyva, and more.
Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS)
Pinpointing the exact moment when a field of study started can be difficult, but often there is an event, a publication, or a debate that is associated with its beginnings. In the case of jotería studies, the development in 2011 of the organization AJAAS, its first conference in 2012, and the publication of the 2014 Joteria Dossier in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies is that string of moments. The Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS) has been instrumental in the development of jotería studies as a discipline and field of study. The conferences organized by AJAAS have brought together folks doing critical work in the classroom, organizing spaces, and in the arts, and have served as spaces of community building and creative and scholarly partnerships, as well as spaces where friendships have started and romantic relationships have blossomed among jotería. The conversations and experiences have nurtured scholarship in Chicanx studies and young scholars who are now faculty members teaching jotería studies courses and mentoring a new generation of jotería. There have been many challenges along the way, including painful moments of wounding among and within the organization, but there have also been dedicated moments for healing and reconciliation. This section focuses on the importance and critical role of AJAAS in the field, providing a timeline of the gestation of the organization to the present moment.
In 2011, AJAAS was founded by queer Chicanx and Latinx artists, activists, and scholars. Members of the Joto Caucus and Lesbian Bi Mujeres Trans (LBMT) caucuses of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) came together because of a need for their own space feeling that while NACCS was an important space, they needed to expand and create their own organization. They had also grown frustrated with moments of cisheteropatriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia in the organization and challenges with representation within the organization, and challenges with representation within the organization. Still, as part of NACCS, the Joto and LBMT caucuses organized conferences in Las Vegas (2007), Los Angeles (2008), and Oregon (2010) where many younger generations of queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx folks were coming together for the first time seeing themselves reflected in a conference and feeling in community.
The 2008 conference in Los Angeles was held at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) organized by Adilia Elena Torres, Emmanuel Santillan and José Aguilar Hernández. This conference brought jotería across different generations and hosted important conversations such as the need for jotería studies curriculum at the CSU. Horacio Roque Ramirez, Peter Garcia were among the panelists talking about this topic. The keynote speaker was Cherríe Moraga and some of the panels were on fat shaming within the Chicanx Latinx community, jotería activism, and more. As with most of the conferences and jotería events, many of the participants who attended the conference felt empowered by the conversations they witnessed. One of the attendees was Zoraida Ale Reyes ( at the time she went only by Ale), a trans Mexicana activist and student at University of California, Santa Barbara. In an email Ale sent a few weeks after the conference to a group of people (including me) whom she met there, she wrote, “Compañeros y compañeras. I’m glad I can write to people from across the U.S. and from North to South...I was deeply moved by Cherrie Moraga's conversation[s]. Now, as we go back to our personal space, it’s good to work with our experiences and to share them just [as] I'm doing. Thank you for becoming part of the sacred space that grows with each of us wherever we are.”32 Al Reyes’ message marks an important historical moment for jotería but also speaks to the importance of jotería being in community with each other and of building a “sacred space” together as she emphasized in her email.
At the first conference at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in 2007 youth from UNLV MEChA expressed that the conference felt like a queer version of the Denver Youth Conference of 1969. This was a groundbreaking moment for jotería studies because young jotería started to see themselves reflected in their own history. After these successful and empowering conferences organized by the caucus still under NACCS, and after many conversations, they felt it was time to form their own organization. Activists, scholars, and artists met for several long meetings at University of California, Berkeley, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and University of California, Los Angeles, finally coming up with the name and structure for the organization, although not without contention and disagreements about what the organization should be. Their conferences took place in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico in 2012, at Arizona State University and Pueblo in Phoenix in 2014, University of Minneapolis and El Colegio Charter School in 2017, and Portland State University in 2019. The 2021 conference was supposed to be held at University of Nevada, Reno but due to the COVID pandemic, instead AJAAS held a series of online symposia on Zoom on activism and jotería scholarship.
The Jotería Studies Aztlán Dossier
Edited by Michael Hames-Garcia, the collection of essays in Aztlán put jotería studies on the map and is regarded by scholars and educators as foundational to the field.33 The essays focused on topics ranging from activism to trans identity, spirituality, identity, aesthetics, and pedagogy and served as an entry into the field, providing room for others to continue to define and reimagine its contours and themes. Garcia wrote, “The essays in the dossier are gestures toward elaborating this emergent formation, whatever it might finally become.”34
The dossier gave a name to this emerging field as it honored the work up to that point that had allowed for jotería studies to exist, like women of color and lesbian feminists of color as described in the section earlier in this chapter. The editor’s introduction essay, “Jotería Studies, or the Political is Personal” situates jotería studies in a genealogy of past scholarship, activism, and art by, about, and among queer Chicanxs and Latinxs and also highlights the importance of the personal experiences and auto-historias as central to jotería theorizing. Hames-Garcias shares that his jotería consciousness came not just from reading books or taking classes but also from his romantic encounters and sexual experiences.
As the dossier reminded us, many writers, scholars, and artists across different fields and different generations within Chicanx studies and Latinx studies during the 1990s-2000s, whose work addressed the intersections of history, colonialism, Chicanidad, Latinindad, and gender and sexuality, opened the path to talk about jotería as an identity, a politic, and a theoretical framework. Joteria Studies builds on the work of writers and artists like Ana Castillo, Arturo Islas, Gil Cuadros, Carla Trujillo, and scholars like Catriona Rueda Esquibel, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, Juana María Rodríguez, Tomás Almaguer, Richard T. Rodríguez, Sandra K. Soto, David Román, Deborah Vargas, Larry LaFountain Stokes, and Carlos Decena, who have helped shape our thinking as scholars and practitioners of jotería studies.35 Some of these earlier works are part of this genealogy but don’t necessarily use the word jotería to refer to themselves, or communities or theories they write about.
Footnotes
18 Santillana, “Somos Jotería,” 53.
19 Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr., “Finding Sequins in the Rubble: Stitching Together an Archive of Trans Latina Los Angeles,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3, no.3-4 (November 2016): 618-627.
20 Osa Hidalgo De La Riva and Maylei Blackwell, “Visions of Utopía While Living in Occupied Aztlán,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era, eds. Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, Maylei Blackwell (Austin: University of Texas Press 2018), 212.
21 Anita Tijerina-Revilla, “Are All Raza Womyn Queer?:An Exploration of Sexual Identities in a Chicana/Latina Student Organization,” NWSA Journal 21, no. 3 (2009): 49.
22 Anita Tijerina Revilla, Joanna Nuñez, José Manuel Santillana, and Sergio A. Gonzalez, “Radical Jotería-Muxerista Love in the Classroom: Brown Queer Feminist Strategies for Social Transformation,” in Handbook of Latinos and Education: Theory, Research and Practice, eds. Enrique G. Murillo, Dolores Delgado Bernal, Socorro Morales, Luis Urrieta Jr., Eric Ruiz Bybee, Juan Sanchez Muñoz, Victor Saenz, Daniel Villanueva, Margarita Machado-Casas, Katherine Espinoza (New York: Routledge 2022), 22-34.
23 The Combahee River Collective. “A Black Feminist Statement,” in All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies, eds. Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith (New York: The Feminist Press, 1982), 13-22.
24 Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, eds. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (New York: SUNY Press, 2015).
25 Gloria Anzaldúa, The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, ed. Ana Louise Keating (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 322.
26 Emma Pérez, “Irigaray’s Female Symbolic in the Making of Chicana Lesbian Sitios y Lenguas (Sites and Discourses),” in Living Chicana Theory, ed. Karla Trujillo (Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1997), 98.
27 Michael Hames-García, “Queer Theory Revisited,” in Gay Latino Studies, ed. Michael Hames-García and Ernesto Javier Martinez, (Raleigh: Duke University Press, 2011).
28 José M. Aguilar Hernández and Cindy Cruz, “ Grounding Emerging Scholarship on Queer/Trans* Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x Pedagogies,” Association of Mexican American Educators Journal 14, no. 2 (2020): 18.
29 Nan Alamilla Boyd, “Memorial,” Outhistory, https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/roque-ramirez/memorial.
30 Raúl Coronado, “Bringing it Back Home: Desire, Jotos, and Men,” in The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Angie Chabram-Dernersesian (New York: Routledge, 2006), 234.
31 In the past gay Chicanos had not always shown support for lesbianas despite them being there for them, especially during the AIDS crisis. Catriona and Luz essay
32 Ale Reyes, Email message to author, October 23, 2008. Text was edited for clarity.
33 Alvarez and Estrada, “Jotería Studies,” 863.
34 Michael Hames-García, “Jotería Studies, or the Political is Personal,” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no.1 (Spring 2014), 138.
35 Juana María Rodríguez, Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (New York: NYU Press, 2003). This book was a central book to help understand queer Latina/o identity and how identity practices are situational. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.02%3A_Genealogy_of_Joteria_Studies.txt |
Building on Previous Struggles
The activism discussed in the symposium in the previous section is part of a continuum of activism from the Chicana/o movement to the present. AJAAS and other organizations have been possible due to the work of previous organizations such as Latino Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO), Gay Latino Alliance (GALA), Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU), La Jotería de UCLA, and other queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx organizations from the 1960s to the present, including those that engaged in AIDS activism. These are all part of the legacy of jotería activism and this section provides historical and contemporary examples.
First, jotería are in every movement from reproductive rights, to housing, to sex worker rights, to immigrant rights and transgender rights, to recent mobilizations for Black Lives Matter––jotería are doing organizing work across racial lines and within diverse movements. Art, activism, and scholarship have always been interconnected. While people are writing and creating art and theorizing from the flesh, on-the-ground activism has also utilized a jotería approach: attentive to healing, unapologetic, reclaiming language, and disinvesting in respectability politics.36 One organization that has done important work is Familia Trans Queer Liberation founded by Jennicet Gutiérrez, Jorge Gutiérrez, Zoraida Reyes, and others in Santa Ana, California. This organization merged immigrant rights with queer rights. Some of their programs have included Jotas vs ICE, an initiative to strategize, mobilize, and do campaign work in 2020 and LGBTQ Border Project, a 2019 collaboration with the Transgender Law Center, Los Angeles LGBT Center, San Diego LGBT Center, Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project, National Immigrant Justice Center, Arcoiris, Jardin, and others, to support LGBTQ asylum seekers with humanitarian, legal, and medical support, and build long-term advocacy and grassroots organizing infrastructure along the US-Mexico border.37
The immigrant rights marches in 2006 were in response to HR 4437, the Sensenbrenner Bill which criminalized undocumented immigrants. Immigrants and their allies took to the streets en masse in cities across the United States. In Los Angeles, the marches which took place on March 25th and May 1st were among the largest mass demonstrations ever in the city. Workers, students, families, activists, and members of immigrant rights and worker rights organizations marched in downtown Los Angeles to make their voices heard. Among the protestors in the Los Angeles march on May 1st, was a group of students and professors from CSUN. Some of these students were members of La Familia de CSUN. The group, carrying posters they had made the night before, took the Red Line Metro train from North Hollywood to downtown. One of the protestors carried a sign that read “La Jotería Unida Jamas Será Vencida.”
Footnotes
36 The idea of respectability politics, first coined by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham as “politics of respectability,” has been used to police Black women and Black people generally, who according to Jalina Joseph and Roades remain hypervisible and under surveillance. Through this lens Black folk have had to perform respectability at the expense of radical or transgressive practices. For example, Rosa Parks has been considered a respectable Black woman. Other ethnic and racial and sexual communities like Joteria also navigate this concept. https://www.aaihs.org/black-women-an...-introduction/
37 Familia Trans Queer Liberation Movement | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.03%3A_Joteria_Activism_Past_and_Present.txt |
Jotería Identity and Consciousness
Jotería studies encompasses various areas of study from a jotería lens. This section is a brief introduction to the various modes of thinking, disciplinary offshoots, movements, and intersecting conversions within the broad field of jotería studies. As a reminder, none of these are in an academic vacuum as they are interconnected to daily responses by jotería to multiple forms of dehumanization in the streets, in our homes, in our communities, and institutions. The concepts and ideas that spring forward are described earlier as theories in the flesh that come from lived experiences. From jotería consciousness to health and healing including spirituality, to higher education, to communications and sound studies, science, and the environment, jotería has been imagining new ways to understand the world, writing about it, creating art, and giving names to those processes. These are only a few examples of the way jotería consciousness has impacted different fields of study and branches of thought. We encourage readers to do further research to learn other areas where jotería is shifting ways of thinking.
Jotería is more than just a word. Jotería studies is more than just the study of queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx communities, although that is part of it. It is a way of knowing––what we call an epistemology, a sensibility, a politic. When we say jotería there is an implied notion of these radical tenets of social justice, not just about gender and sexuality, but rather an intersectional lens. Anita Tijerina Revilla and José Manuel Santillana define jotería identity consciousness through eleven characteristics.38 According to the authors, jotería identity/consciousness:
1. Is rooted in fun laughter and radical queer love,
2. Is embedded in Mexican Latin American Indigenous ness and African diasporic past and present,
3. Is derived from the terms Jota and Joto and has been reclaimed as an identity consciousness of empowerment,
4. Is based on queer Latina/o Chicana/o and gender non-conforming realities or lived experiences,
5. Is committed to multidimensional social justice and activism,
6. Values gender and sexual fluidity and expressions,
7. Values the exploration of identities individually and collectively,
8. Rejects homophobia, heteronormativity, racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, gender discrimination, classism, colonization, citizenism, and any other form of subordination,
9. Claims and is aligned with a feminist/muxerista pedagogy and praxis,
10. Claims and immigrant and working-class background/ origin,
11. Claims a queer Latina/o and Chicana/o ancestry, and
12. Supports community members and family and their efforts to avoid and heal from multi dimensional battle fatigue.
Jotería consciousness is a journey. Anita Tijerina Revilla and José Manuel Santillana’s essay on jotería consciousness was the first to provide a working definition of what this consciousness might look and feel like. Other scholars have built on their essay, which appeared in the Joteria Studies Dossier in 2014. Sergio A. Gonzalez, building on Anita Revillas’s work, applied this to his research on students in higher education.39
Jotería Health and Healing
As part of radical self-care, health and healing are important to jotería. Rooted in the intersectional perspectives discussed, health is understood through antiracist, decolonial, holistic, and ancestral lenses. Given the racist history of the medical industrial complex, eugenics movements, racist practices of sterilization, and the rampant homophobia of the inaction towards the AIDS crisis, jotería imagined alternative community-based ways to be healthy and heal, that don’t always mean resorting to mainstream medicine. Spirituality, reclamation of our bodies, holistic thinking about our bodies and healing, sex positivity, mental health, and resisting fatphobic narratives are all important aspects of jotería health and healing. In the book Voices from the Ancestors Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices, edited by Lara Medina and Marta R. Gonzales, the editors assemble a collection of songs, prayers, poems and essays that speak to how Chicanx and Latinx communities approach healing and sacredness. Several examples in the book are by jotería and demonstrate specific ways that we use everyday practices to heal. For example, in my poem, “Un rezo pa’ los mariconxs,” I underscore the sacredness of our joteria communities, of my own body, and the sacredness found within my queerness.
Recognizing the spiritual, sacred, and ancestral within us is critical to jotería consciousness. While not everyone who identifies as jotería may consider themselves spiritual, this holistic thinking, the connection behind the body-mind-spirit matrix is central to jotería ways of knowing or epistemologies. Robert Gutierrez-Perez writes that “our spiritual practices as Jotería energy out of our deep and personal investigations into the very bodies and locations we inhabit.40
Reclaiming the Body
One way that this reclamation of the body has happened has been through art, for example, the art of Laura Aguilar. Like Aguilar, whose images of her nude body as art have inspired many, reconnecting with our bodies has been a way that jotería have engaged in healing and reclamation of their bodies. After the culmination of the 2018 AJAAS Board Retreat in Reno, Nevada, members of the executive board who attended in person planned a day at Lake Tahoe. They decided to hang out at a secluded part of the lake, a cove, that was known for nude bathing. While some of the members were shy about it at first, eventually they eased into it and had a great time. It was liberating to be in the water with people we loved and to rid ourselves of the stigmas placed on our bodies and existence, to reconnect with nature. This was our way of reconnecting with nature, being in unison with the local outdoors near Reno, and to be in community. Other organizations like Latino Outdoors and Wild Diversity aim to reclaim the outdoors for Latinx and other people of color. One of the swim guides for Wild Diversity states, “we reflected on the ways that water has affected our lives and our ancestors’ lives. Some participants spoke of how colonization has disconnected us from waterways as well as our ancestors.”41 These practices are part of healing journeys for jotería and other QTBIPOC but can also be considered to be part of jotería environmentalists as described in the next section.
OJO: Within this consciousness sex-positivity is integral. Sex-positive approaches allow us to think beyond the socially constructed norms of what is considered normal, sinful, and appropriate behavior in terms of sexuality, masculinities, femininities, and desire. In a general sense, sex-positivity is about “having positive attitudes about sex and feeling comfortable with one’s own sexual identity and with the sexual behaviors of others.”42 Jotería artists, activists, scholars, and practitioners work to decolonize colonial, heteronormative, and demonizing views on sex and sexuality. Sex workers have taught us greatly about the intricate positions of power, sex, our bodies, and the need for bodily autonomy. Check out this episode on La Jotería Podcast for some fun, sex-positive stories. Another podcast that talks about putería is Latinxperts, the official podcast of the Latino Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin.
Jotería Environmentalisms
Chicanx and Latinx folks have always been environmentalists even if they haven't always labeled themselves as such. The concerns of the Chicano activists during El Movimiento had environmental dimensions from farmworker rights to land sovereignty. These were depicted in the artwork of artists and writers Santa Barraza and Judy Baca. One example of Judy Baca’s work is the Great Wall of Los Angeles, which is a monument of cultural pride for Chicanx peoples. The mural sits along the LA River in the San Fernando Valley. A portion of this wall is displayed in Figure 6.4.1. The mural is on the wall of an empty concrete river. Above the mural are grass and trees and in the distance, fences and cars.
Similarly, writers like Cherríe Moraga, Helena María Viramontes, and Gloria Anzaldúa have incorporated environmental questions in their writing. Many of these writers, however, do not associate with the mainstream environmental movement for its whiteness and elite perspective and focus on beautiful landscapes or outdoors at the expense of people and other organisms. For jotería, environmental issues are part of the intersectional struggle. Emerging scholars such as Stephanie Martinez, José Manuel Santillana, and Oscar Gutierrez are addressing these issues in their scholarship.
These perspectives fit into what Maria DeGuzman refers to as "queer trans Latinx environmentalisms," which is about our relationship to the environment and a lens that looks at intersectionality from a queer, trans Latinx perspective and the environment. This can also be observed in cultural production such as zines. Jotería Cientifica Zine, for example, was created by graduate students Catalina Camacho and Chris Sandoval at the University of Texas A&M, as a way to fight back against racism in STEM fields but also as a
stance against the popular conception of science as all-knowing, objective, or ethical. It is a resistance tool, a grassroots space for a theory and praxis of indigenizing science and medicine. It is a loud rejection of the scientific “progress” narrative, a myth that extends and excuses colonialism to oppress, blame and control us. We oppose science’s basis in colonial violence, genocide, and disenfranchisement. And we call out the mass land theft and fundamental disrespect for Indigenous sovereignty and culture, which so often manifests in scientific “research,” resource extraction, or so-called efficiency.43
Jotería Pedagogies and Higher Education Interventions
Higher education and jotería studies scholarship has flourished in recent times. Journal articles and special issues, presentations, panels, and social media conversations are addressing jotería studies recognizing the need to learn about jotería in their drive to be more equitable and serve students better. For example, in 2021, I delivered an invited talk on jotería and higher education for the American Association for Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHEE). In 2020, José Aguilar Hernández, one of the founders of AJAAS, and Cindy Cruz edited a special issue on gender and sexuality in higher education in the Journal of Mexican American Educators. Many of the papers engaged with jotería studies in particular. This shift is evident in the work by Chicanx graduate students and early career scholars who are engaging with Jotería and publishing important work such as Roberto Orozco’s essay on jotería in higher education and epistemological shifts, Sergio Gonzalez’s research on jotería consciousness and college students, and Omi Salas-SantaCruz’s writings on trans Chicanx folks and the concept of terquedad as a strategy of resistance.44 Terquedad means stubbornness but in Salas-SantaCruz’s version of terquedad, inspired by their childhood memories of being "terca," and by Anzaldúa’s writing, the stubbornness functions as a way to resist the violence of society’s imposition of binary gender ideologies. Terqueded is a survival strategy and is composed of “creative acts in accordance with the worlds we may inhabit.”45
An important dialogue about joteria studies took place on social media, specifically on Twitter. Sergio Gonzalez, a member of the board of AJAAS, organized a Twitter conversation on Jotería studies in partnership with The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute at Rutgers University. This social media dialogue was fruitful and allowed folks to learn through this platform as well as engage in the topic. Another example of young scholars expanding the conversation in Joteria studies is Olga Estrada, a doctoral student at University of Texas, El Paso, who in 2022 presented their work on sucia theory and reclaiming joy in academia at the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) conference. Some of these publications and presentations are path-breaking because they have initiated conversations, brought visibility to jotería, or called in homophobia and transphobia, and the erasure of jotería within higher education research.
Jotería Language, Communications, and Media
In his essay on shared authority, Horacio Roque Ramírez, writes, “What language do we use to remember things that, historically, are outside language? How do we put into words experiences that are so meaningful or so painful that they can’t be spoken?” He is speaking about language in relation to memory and history. Speaking on language, Juan Sebastian Ferrada has written about linguistics and language from a jotería perspective. One outlet where language is experimented with is the media. Social media is one avenue where jotería are using media and communication to share ideas, build community, and create change. Robert Gutierrez-Perez and Luis Manuel Andrade have made interventions into the field of Communication studies by introducing jotería perspectives in the realm of communication studies. In his book, Joteria Communication Studies: Narrating Theories of Resistance, Gutierrez-Perez shares that jotería approaches to communications, like storytelling, chisme, testimonios, consejos, among others, function as alternative, “borderlands” communication modes forms of resistance.46 While in the past jotería activists like Pedro Zamora used his time on the MTV reality show The Real World to send his message about the AIDS epidemic, or Chicanx activists using newsletter or news media to send their message, social media has changed how messages and community building and activism happens. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic many jota/o/xs used social media and virtual meeting platforms like Zoom to bring people together such as the comedy shows curated by Cuban-American lesbian artist Marga Gomez, conversations of La Botanica Azul’s Adilia Elena Torres with healers on Facebook live, the DJ Sizzle Cumbiatón on Instagram and Twitch events, Maya Chinchilla’s "Central American Unicorns in Space," on online event featuring Central American poets and artists, and more. These events were generative and brought jotería together despite the isolation caused by the pandemic.
Footnotes
38 Anita Tijerina Revilla and José Manuel Santillana, “Jotería Identity and Consciousness” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no.1 (Spring 2014), 174-175.
39 Sergio Gonzalez, "Joteria Identity and Consciousness: Pláticas of Co-Creation with Undergraduate Queer Latinx Students,” (New Brunswick, 2021, Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute), 2-12.
40 Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Joteria Communication Studies: Narrating Theories of Resistance (New York: Peter Lang, 2021), 64.
41 “Home,” Wild Diversity, accessed November 12, 2022, https://wilddiversity.com/
42 “What Does Sex Positive Mean,” International Society for Sexual Medicine, accessed November 21, 2022, https://www.issm.info/sexual-health-qa/what-does-sex-positive-mean/
43 Jotería Cientifca, “Queer Scientists Decolonize the Field One Zine at a Time” Brokenpencil, January 8, 2021, https://brokenpencil.com/news/queer-scientists-decolonize-the-field-one-zine-at-a-time/.
44 Omi Salas-SantaCruz, “Terca, pero no pendeja:Terquedad as Theory and Praxis of Transformative Gestures in Higher Education,” Association of Mexican American Educators Journal 14, no. 2 (2020): 21-43.
45 Salas-SantaCruz, “Terca pero no pendeja,” 32
46 Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Joteria Communication Studies: Narrating Theories of Resistance (New York: Peter Lang, 2021), 70-71. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.04%3A_Joteria_Frameworks_and_Scholarly_Conversations.txt |
Jotería Creative Expressions
Jotería cultural production (visual art, literature, film, social media) have been an integral part of the development of jotería studies. Artists and cultural producers have used visual and literary language to subvert norms and resist homophobic, transphobic, and gender exclusionary narratives and iconography.47 According to William Calvo-Quirós, jotería cultural texts use a certain aesthetic that creates “new spaces and ruptures” and is about imagining a world where we are not dehumanized and fully embrace difference.48 These aesthetics, rooted in the Chicano artistic sensibility called rasquachismo, are composed of elements that represent jotería consciousness in a visual, sonic, and gestural manner. Calvo-Quirós mentions examples like drag shows, quinceañeras, altars, and more.
Jotería cultural texts or cultural production have created space to create the worlds Calvo-Quirós talks about. For example, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz, in her essay in the Jotería Studies Dossier, talks about when she went to see a play, “Men on the Verge of a His-panic Breakdown,” by Guillermo Reyes at UC Riverside when she was an undergraduate student while she was still in process of coming out as a lesbian. She laughed at all the queer jokes. pretending she didn't know what her friends were talking about. Later they had a conversation and she was able to finally feel at home. This is an example of how a jotería cultural text, a play, could open the space to feel seen and also create the space of vulnerability to open up to your friends.
Other plays include Cherrie Moraga’s Giving Up the Ghost, Luis Alfaro’s one man show, Monica Palacios, I Kissed Frida, the theater works of VIVA. Ellie Hernandez has written about how films like La Mission (2009), starring Peruvian-American actor Benjamin Bratt, and Mosquita y Mari (2013) directed by queer Chicana Aurora Guerrero, are examples of this.49 Most recently shows like "Vida" on FX, “Gentefied” on Netflix, and "Los Espookys" on HBO are examples of jotería frameworks and or aesthetics guiding television projects. Performance artists Adelina Anthony, the collective Tragic Bitches, of which she was a part, and the Maricolectiva, an undocuqueer performance group in the mid to late 2000s are all performers or groups that deploy what Calvo-Quirós calls a jotería aesthetic through their performances.
Jotería Sound Studies
Another academic area where jotería studies is in conversation is with sound studies. Sound studies is a field that, according to Joseph Salem, studies the role of sound in culture. Through this lens we aim to understand and analyze what sound can tell us about history, the environment, politics, urban space, and more. Scholars of color and jotería studies focus on how sound, gender, race, and sexuality work together. For example, Dolores Inés Casillas looks at radio and immigrants, Alexa Vasquez looks at Cuban music, Jennifer Lynn Stoever looks at the sonic color line. Deborah Varags studies the sounds of Texana music, Wanda Alarcón analyzes how literature can be sonic, and how Chicana literature is filled with sonic elements. Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. builds on these authors and the work of jotería studies scholars mentioned here to develop a concept called jotería listening which is about how jotería listen collectively and what meaning they make of music, sounds, and memories.50 What are jotería sounds? For more on sound studies visit “Thinking Sounds,” which provides an introduction to sound studies.
Future Directions
Growth and change are important and inevitable in any academic field as they are in life. As we have discussed here, jotería studies, although a relatively young field, stands on the legacy of ancestors who have shaped our thinking and fought hard for our voices to be heard. The future of jotería studies is already being shaped by folks who are expanding the conversation to include more conversations around self care, pleasure, hidden archives, and transnational perspectives. More and more jotería studies is making its way into the curriculum in college classrooms. Francisco Galarte's words about trans in joteria studies remain an ongoing challenge but that is changing. As more trans and non-binary voices contribute to the field and cisgender folks pay attention, as we listen, the emancipatory possibilities of the work of joteria studies becomes even more possible, and ensures no one is left behind as in past movements. This book you are reading is evidence of the future of jotería studies in relationship, and because of, Chicanx and Latinx studies, and social movement activism, and art.
Footnotes
47 Daniel Enrique Pérez, Rethinking Chicana/o and Latina/o Popular Culture, (London: Pallgrave Macmillan, 2009)
48 William Calvo-Quiros, “The Aesthetics of Healing and Love: An Epistemic Genealogy of Jota/o Aesthetic Traditions,” Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no.1 (Spring 2014), 183-184.
49 Ellie D. Hernandez, “Cultura Joteria: The Ins and Outs of Latina/o Popular Culture” in The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture, ed. Frederick Luis Aldama (London: Routledge, 2016), 298-299. https://doi-org.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/10.4324/9781315637495
50 Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr., Embodied Collective Choreographies: Listening to Arena Nightclub’s Jotería Sonic Memories,” Sound Acts Part 2, Receiving and Reflecting Vibration, Performance Matters 8, no. 1 (2022): 109-124. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.05%3A_Joteria_Aesthetics_and_Cultural_Production.txt |
Summary
In this chapter, you learned the multiple meanings of jotería and the relationship and contributions of joteria studies to Chicanx studies and ethnic studies. You have learned the importance of self-naming through the genealogy of jotería studies by studying its origins and impact on Chicanx activism, cultural production, performance, identity, and scholarship.
The chapter has demonstrated how jotería frameworks help to think critically about gender sexuality, race, and culture. Through the testimonios of young people finding themselves in jotería studies, we can recognize the importance of jotería studies to present and future studies on gender and sexuality within Chicanx studies. This chapter has covered the legacy of past Chicanx studies scholars and women of color feminists who paved the way for jotería studies to exist. What do we gain from having a jotería studies lens? This is an invitation for more work to fill in those gaps and more conversations within jotería studies.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.6: Chapter 6 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Jotería identity and consciousness: a way of thinking and being based on a journey of self-discovery and collective healing, guided by eleven tenets that include a commitment to multidimensional social justice, values gender fluidity and self-expression, is rooted in laughter, fun and radical queer love.
Jotería-historias: Individual and collective histories that embrace the contradictions and beauty of being queer and Chicanx and Latinx and recognize the need for interweaving personal experiences in our telling of history
Muxerista: is a person whose identity is rooted in a Chicana Latina feminist version for social change, committed to ending all forms of oppression including but not limited to classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and citizenism. Its definition is rooted in the scholarship and activism of Chicanos and feminists of color, but it's extended by the work experience and theoretical understandings of the members of Raza Womyn
Theories in the flesh: woman of color feminist and queer theories created from lived experiences
El mundo zurdo: (left-handed world) refers to those of us on the margins, outside of the dominant world, because of our multiple intersection identities such as queer folks, immigrants, disabled, and others, and the potential among us to create solidarity and social change
Differential consciousness: Shifting modes in thinking (and action), involved in navigating systems of power, in turn leading to action. This is based on early contributions, concepts, and theories by feminist lesbians of color and the different namings of their identities point to interconnectedness, power in difference, and solidarity.
Sex-positive: Having positive attitudes about sex and sexuality and recognizing how colonialist and white supremaist ideologies led to stigmatization of sexuality, especially queer of color sexualities.
Queer trans environmentalisms: Relates to our relationship to the environment and a lens that looks at intersectionality from a queer, trans Latinx perspective and the environment
AJAAS: Association for Joteria Arts, Activism, and Scholarship, an organization central to the development of joteria studies and the nurturing of joteria voices an expressions
Joteria listening: A sonic approach to the world that describes how jotería listen collectively and what meaning they make of music, sounds, memories. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/06%3A_Joteria_Studies/6.06%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Introduction
In Chicanx and Latinx Studies, activists, scholars, and political figures have worked to not only educate communities and themselves, but to affect change through policy advocacy and grassroots resistance. Social movements may operate in different ways depending on their context, goals, and supporters. However, they can be analyzed through common theoretical frameworks for change, which identify groups and communities that coordinate sustained action to challenge (or defend) existing structures of power and social organization. Three frameworks will be explored in this chapter: Chicana movidas, Chicanismo, and reform, revolutionary, and reactionary movements. In Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x communities, struggles for justice and equity (“la lucha”) may centrally focus on racial justice and decolonization, intersectional issues like gender justice and sexual liberation, or issues like education and health. For more on these topics, visit Chapter 8: Education and Activism and Chapter 9: Health, respectively. This chapter demonstrates the strategies and tactics used by Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x groups to advocate for political change and mobilize social movements.
This spirit of resistance is shown in Figure 7.1, which depicts a striking worker created for the Yakima Valley Fruit Workers strike in 2020.
• 7.1: Theoretical Frameworks
This section introduces conceptual frameworks for analyzing Chicanx and Latinx social movements. It discusses Chicana Movidas, which encompasses innovative concepts, tactics, and methodologies at the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing both traditional social movement organizing and creative strategies rooted in cultural traditions. These frameworks provide tools for analyzing specific examples and campaigns led by social movement activists in subsequent sections.
• 7.2: Chicanx and Latinx Civil Rights Activism
This section explores the roots of contemporary Chicanx and Latinx advocacy in the United States. It highlights the contributions of these communities to civil rights frameworks and policies, including their fight against racist policies, mobilization for social and economic justice, and establishment of non-discrimination principles.
• 7.3: Queer and Feminist Chicanx Movements
This section focuses on the presence of hyper-masculinity, sexism, and homophobia within Chicano identity and Chicanismo, as well as the challenges faced in addressing these dynamics. The section explores the struggles faced by Chicana feminists in advocating for gender justice within the Chicano movement and the formation of organizations and campaigns to address women's issues. Additionally, it touches on the experiences of queer Chicanas and their efforts to build solidarity.
• 7.4: Labor, Farmworker, and Immigrant Movements
Section 7.4 explores the labor, farmworker, and immigrant movements in the United States. The section highlights the solidarity between Chicanx, Latinx, Asian American, Black, and Indigenous communities in advocating for worker justice and immigration justice. The section further discusses the historical context of immigration policies, the recruitment of migrant labor, and the punitive measures against undocumented immigrants.
• 7.5: Chicanx and Latinx Political Representation
This section discusses formal politics in Chicanx and Latinx communities, focusing on political representation and the challenges faced by Latinx individuals in the United States. The representation of Latinx people in government and politics is highlighted, revealing the underrepresentation of Latinx individuals in elected positions at the local and federal levels. The section also introduces notable Latinx leaders in politics and highlights broader patterns of representation.
• 7.6: Conclusion
07: Social Movement Activity
Concepts for Analyzing Chicanx and Latinx Social Movements
In order to effectively analyze social movements and political activity, we can use existing theoretical frameworks that have been developed by Chicanx and Latinx scholars and activists. These conceptual frameworks help us to organize the key patterns and differences that influence how and when people mobilize for change, and how successful these efforts are. Specifically, in this section, you will learn the definitions of Chicana Movidas, Chicanismo, and the differences between reform, revolutionary, and reactionary movements.
Chicana Movidas
Chicana Movidas, or Movidas, are new politicas (politics) “at the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality, [that] developed innovative concepts, tactics, and methodologies that in turn generated new theories, art forms, organizational spaces, and strategies of alliance,” as well as policy change.1 This includes aspects of social movement organizing that are typically considered by scholars and activists, like marches, protests, demonstrations, advocacy, lobbying, and labor organizing. It also emphasizes creative and innovative strategies that build on cultural traditions, like teatro, storytelling, murals, altars, testimonios, filmmaking, performance, and more. Chicana movidas highlight the role of drawing from cultural, familial, traditional, and spiritual strengths to develop collective resources. They also respond to the patriarchal biases embedded in the ideology of “Chicanismo,” which dominated some early mobilizations for Chicana/o/x liberation.
Chicanismo
Chicanismo is a form of political consciousness calling for “Chicano liberation” that was widely mobilized in the 1960s in response to “economic inequality, everyday and institutional racism, and the increasingly militant struggle to end the Vietnam war.”2 Chicanismo amplified the voices of Chicano men, in particular, as advocates for fairness and justice. This galvanized large numbers of Mexican Americans, Latinas/os/xs, and supporters from other racial and ethnic groups to adopt a political identity as Chicano or Chicana, and contributed to a larger project of racial justice, anti-war activism, and economic liberation. However, in both implicit and explicit ways, Chicanismo often erased Chicanas, feminist concerns, and issues related to gender and sexuality. While Chicanas were on the frontlines of these movements, they were often sidelined both within El Movimiento and by politicians and the media. Using movidas, Chicana feminists name oppressions that are ignored, subordinated, or not perceived and identify and challenge the marginalization of their communities by outlining the ways in which gender, race, class, and sexuality are mutually constituted.
Reform, Revolutionary, and Reactionary Movements
Using the framework of Chicana movidas, we can examine social movements and advocacy in terms of the intersectional dynamics that inform communities’ identities and relationships to structures of power. It is also helpful to analyze movements in terms of both ideology and strategy.3 Reform movements seek to change a specific policy, either at the organizational or political level. These movements work within existing structures to improve the distribution of resources or practices of a group. Revolutionary movements transform society and bring about new ways of life. Advocates work to end policies that cause inequities and establish systems that are organized around collective values. For example, the early 20th-century anarchist movement in southern California worked toward transforming social institutions, including major figures like Ricardo Flores Magón and his brother Enrique Magón.4 From a broader Latin American context, revolutionary movements include the Zapatista movements in Chiapas, Mexico that organized for self-determination and governance over their lands. A mural of Zapatista women caring for their children is shown in Figure 7.1.1. As well, the Purépecha people in Michoacán, Mexico continue their revolutionary resistance against oppressive structures, including in 2011, organizing what is known as Cheran’s levantamiento (uprising) against Mexico’s militarized police force. Finally, reactionary movements exist to oppose and counter other movements. When two or more movements persistently work against each other over time, they can take on unique dynamics as opposing movements. For example, this is the case for anti-immigrant and immigrant justice movements.
Each of these three frameworks provides us tools for analyzing social movements and political activity. In the following sections of this chapter, we will explore specific examples and campaigns led by social movement activists, using these conceptual frameworks to guide and shape our analysis.
Footnotes
1 María Cotera, Maylei Blackwell, and Dionne Espinoza, “Movements, Movimientos, and Movidas,” in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2018), 3.
2 Cotera, Blackwell, and Espinoza, “Movements,” 1.
3 Roberto Regalado, Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives (Melbourne; New York, NY: Ocean Press, 2006).
4 Yesenia Barragan and Mark Bray, “Ricardo Flores Magón and the Anarchist Movement in Southern California,” KCET, May 29, 2014, https://www.kcet.org/history-society/ricardo-flores-magon-and-the-anarchist-movement-in-southern-california. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.01%3A_Theoretical_Frameworks.txt |
Roots of Contemporary Chicanx and Latinx Advocacy
Chicanx and Latinx communities have played an important role in the development of civil rights frameworks and policies in the United States. While these contributions are often overlooked, Chicanx and Latinx advocates have helped to establish principles of non-discrimination, mount legal struggles against racist policies, and mobilize multiracial coalitions for social and economic justice. This work has been carried out by generations of activists and made a lasting impact on U.S. and transnational legal structures.
For example in 1903, Mexican and Japanese farmworkers formed the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) and won a strike against the agricultural industry in Oxnard, California. The farm owners typically used workers’ ethnic or cultural backgrounds to encourage mistrust and competition, leading to lower wages and poor working conditions. The JMLA created a sense of unity and pride among Mexican workers in solidarity with Japanese communities. After tireless activism, including the death of one protestor, this group won better pay and ended the subcontracting system that was exploiting workers. After winning these victories, organizers of the JMLA attempted to join the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and continue as a labor union, but they were blocked by the AFL organizers, who said that members of Asian origin would not be allowed in the group. The JMLA organizers refused to accept this discriminatory policy and went on to continue their work and local organizing.
Juan Crow Racism
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussion of physical violence.
Throughout the early 20th Century, The United States was in an era of Jim Crow and Juan Crow Laws, which legally enforced racist segregation policies that separated facilities and services for white people and excluded communities of color. Official segregation policies were matched by virulent racism and violence. The simultaneous dehumanization of both Black and Latinx communities can be seen in public signs that read, “No Dogs, No Negroes, No Mexicans,” as shown in Figure 7.2.1. One brutal instance of coordinated white supremacist terrorism occurred in Los Angeles in 1943, in what historians call the Zoot Suit Riots. During World War II, the deployment of massive numbers of working-age men into war created vacancies in the domestic labor force. This contributed to a range of social changes, including the entry of people of color and white women into industries recently dominated by white men. The deficit of labor in the agricultural industry also led the federal government to sponsor the Bracero program in 1942, allowing Mexican citizens to work in the U.S. temporarily. The growing Mexican and Mexican-American community in places like Los Angeles caused anxiety for elites in power interested in maintaining the status quo racial hierarchy. Media accounts used exaggerated and misleading language to spread fear and produce stereotypes of Black and Latino men as violent criminals. Latinas and Black women were also targeted for policing, although the stereotypes constructed threat primarily through hypersexualization.
Historical Spotlight: Analyzing the Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were an example of communities coming together to defend themselves and fight back against racism and violence affecting Latinx communities. This event responded to the pervasive violence that characterized the Jim Crow era, and it is an important backdrop for understanding the development of civil rights and legal advocacy strategies among Chicanx and Latinx communities. While reform strategies gained a lot of attention in the 1940s and 1950s, this was not the only approach to advocacy.
Zoot suits are outfits characterized by oversized wool coats that were popular among Black, Latino, and Filipino communities and inspired by the styles worn in Harlem, New York. The use of extra wool fabric to create large, baggy outfits was a symbol of status and prosperity, especially given the strain on fabric supplies during the war. Pachucos were especially known for their zoot suits and jazz music. In Figure 7.2.2, the image shows a group of young Mexican American boys who were rounded up and detained simply because of their zoot suit style. In Figure 7.2.3, the image shows a positive depiction and celebration of the zoot suit style as part of a stage performance in Mexico in 2010.
In 1943 in Los Angeles, white American sailors claimed that they were taunted by Pachucos, and proceeded to take cabs across town to East Los Angeles, a predominantly Mexican-American area, and start attacking any Latino wearing a zoot suit on the street. When the police arrived, they arrested the victims of these crimes rather than the assailants. Media spread word about these racist attacks, often mirroring the same beliefs as the police officers and blaming the folx wearing zoot suits for being attacked. On June 3, 1943, 50 servicemembers from the U.S. Navy marched through the streets of Los Angeles with clubs, beating Latinos wearing zoot suits or similar clothing.
Thousands more white military service members, off-duty police officers, and civilians were emboldened to violence over the following days. They beat and publicly stripped men wearing zoot suits, attacked and cut the hair of those with non-white hairstyles, like a ducktail, and rampaged throughout the city, unleashing violence on communities of color. The spread of violence can be attributed to the widespread racist ideologies of the assailants as well as the cultural and institutional response. Media messages reinforced racialized narratives, while law enforcement openly sanctioned the attacks, and the city government failed to intervene effectively. Eventually, all service members were banned from Los Angeles and the military police were brought in to stop the violence.
Sidebar: White Supremacy Repeats Itself
Retaliation by white supremacist groups is a common theme in the United States, and we can see examples of this today. For instance, in recent years, we have seen a rise in violent, mass shootings that target communities of color. In 2015, a white supremacist assailant traveled to a Charleston Church and murdered nine people. His statements online prior to the shooting, confession to the police, and statements after being tried and prosecuted all indicated that he was motivated by a racist ideology and felt no remorse for his actions. Similar to the attacks on people wearing zoot suits, the killer traveled away from his residence to encroach on a community of color’s space with the explicit goal of inciting violence and harm.
In 2019, another violent assailant in El Paso, Texas attacked nearly 50 people, killing 23, and then publicly stated to the police that he was motivated by a desire to kill as many Mexicans as possible. In 2022, different white supremacists killed ten people in a mass shooting targeting Black people at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York and 21 people, including 19 children, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Unfortunately, these are just a few of many examples of racially motivated violence against communities of color in the United States. For a more holistic picture of the status of hate crimes and violent extremist groups in the United States, you can explore the Statista website linked here.
The experience of violence across different groups has also inspired solidarity among the people taking action to end racism and white supremacy. For example, in Figure 7.2.4, there is a poster that reads, “Raza en Defensa de Las Vidas Negras” (“La Raza in Defense of Black Lives”) with two Latinas protesting for Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter.
Civil Rights and Legal Advocacy
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussion of physical violence.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was a frontrunner in the struggle for civil rights, as it was formed in 1929. This group advocates for civil rights and has helped contribute to social, policy, and legal change. For example, members were involved in Hernandez v. Texas, which dealt with the exclusion of Mexican-American people from jury service. The Hernandez case began because an all-white jury convicted Pete Hernandez of the murder of Joe Espinoza. Hernandez’s attorney sought to invalidate this verdict on the basis of the jury, as Mexican Americans were formally excluded from jury service. A lower court denied Hernandez’s case and claimed that people of Mexican origin are not included in the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution because the Census legally classifies Mexican Americans as white. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court affirmed in 1954 that equal protection does in fact apply to Mexican-origin people, as well as multiple racial groups who have experienced historical marginalization and systemic oppression. This is just one of the many struggles that took place to dismantle racist legal structures affecting Chicanxs, Latinxs, and other people of color in the United States. In Section 8.2: The Struggle for Equality, 1900-1954, you will learn more about the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster case which was a landmark decision for desegregation in public schools and paved the way for the Brown v. Board of Education decision at the federal level.
Even as the legal structures of racial segregation began to falter, Latinx communities still experienced exclusion and discrimination in all arenas of life. In Figure 7.2.5, there is a poster that reads, “Queremos Nuestras Escuelas Abiertas y Seguras” (We want our schools to be open, secure, and safe.”) Public schools were failing Chicanx and Latinx communities. Students were receiving sub-par educational preparation, resulting in the lowest reading rates and graduation rates of any racial or ethnic group. Teachers did not represent their community and the curriculum rarely incorporated any culturally or historically relevant content. Students were being pushed out of school and tracked into vocational career pathways, meaning that not many Chicanx and Latinx folx had the opportunity to attend college. This also contributed to Chicano and Latino men being drafted in disparate numbers for the Vietnam War. Local police were constantly surveilling and profiling Mexican-origin and Latinx communities. Negative stereotypes of Chicano and Latino males as gang members and drug dealers created stigma in their daily lives and have long-term negative implications. American labor markets restricted opportunities to well-paid jobs and representation in unions, forcing Chicanx and Latinx people into underpaid employment with poor working conditions. In the 1960s, the growing momentum of civil rights advocacy, along with opposition to the Vietnam War, the growing agricultural labor economy, and federal Native American relocation policies contributed to the collective feelings of unrest and resistance.
Identity Politics and Chicanismo
In Section 2.1: Defining Latinx Demographics, you learned about the various labels and identities associated with Chicanas, Chicanxs, Chicanos, and Latinas, Latinos, and Latinxs. In the context of social movements, Chicana/o/x identities began to emerge in the 1960s, led by Mexican-origin communities in response to the gains of Mexican American groups, as well as critiques of the integrationist and assimilationist perspectives in the reform-focused advocacy of the 1940s and 1950s. Access to mainstream institutions did not yield the gains promised by previous generations.5
The term Chicano emerged to cultivate a sense of cultural and ethnic pride and mobilize community members to commit to revolutionary change and re-organizing societal institutions around inclusion and justice. The Chicano movement originated as a set of diverse local and regional struggles for social justice, civil rights, and political representation throughout the U.S. Southwest and Midwest. Activists, men and women, young and old, demanded equal rights under the law, an overhaul of the educational system, access to decent housing, community-run healthcare, and an end to police brutality and the Vietnam War. There was no singular origin point of the movement, and scholars still debate the histories of how the Chicano identity formed and spread among multiple groups. However, most agree that the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially 1969-1973, were characterized by a surge of Chicano activism and high rates of mobilization throughout the U.S. While local groups often had specific, tangible goals that they were working to achieve, the shared mission uniting these efforts was “to construct a new political subject for the world stage—the Chicano—who sought to transform his subjugation as an ethnic Mexican living in the United States into a persona much more powerful and respected in daily life.”6
A simplistic definition of Chicano / Chicana / Chicanx is that these are simply a replacement for the term Mexican-American. For example, Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines Chicano as “a person living in the US whose family came from Mexico.” From this point of view, Chicano can be derived from “Mexicano.” By removing the “Me” at the beginning, the word shortens to “Xicano.” In Spanish, the X is pronounced like “Ch” in English, so the term becomes “Chicano,” and Chicana and Chicanx then form the feminine and gender-neutral versions of the word. While the term is sometimes used this way, the simplistic definition hides the more complex history and political significance of the word as a collective identity-based in social movement advocacy, which you first learned about in Chapter 2: Identities.
First and foremost, the term Chicano was used first as a derogatory term against Mexican American communities, and activists reclaimed the term to give it a positive meaning associated with self-determination. Some groups retain the X at the beginning of the word: Xicano, Xicana, and Xicanx, in part to signal this association. By using the X, groups intentionally amplify the Spanish spelling of the word, affirming the cultural identities of bilingual communities as valid and valuable members of our cultures and societies on their own terms, rather than within the boundaries and expectations of the Anglo, English-speaking dominant group. This mirrors some of the policy demands of grassroots movement organizing, including protections against discrimination based on language use, and access to bilingual services and materials.
As Ana Castillo asserted in 1994, Xicana/o/x is “a political identity that emphasizes decolonization, rejection of cultural convention, and activism over origin or language.”7 In particular, by emphasizing “activism over origin or language” this recognizes that Xicanas, Xicanos, and Xicanxs may or may not speak Spanish, and may or may or may not have direct family lineage to Mexico or Latin America. In this sense, one is Xicana/o/x as a direct correlation to their ongoing contributions to activism for equity and justice for La Raza (all people of Latinx descent and their families).
The broad identity created by Chicano activists was able to bring together large groups to accomplish a shared goal. It also meant that the label can mean different things to different people, including contradictory perspectives on social movement tactics and strategies. For instance, some Chicanxs emphasized taking pride in their cultural roots and Indigenous heritage, while others sought to enact political revolution and create an autonomous nation-state. However, many Chicanos in the 1960s and 1970s were disconnected from Mexican lands, cultures, languages, and traditions by decades of immigration policy and because there were no educational opportunities in the school systems to learn about their own heritage. For more on the relationships between Latinxs and Indigeneity, you can review Chapter 4: Indigeneities.
Students Lead the Way: El Movimiento
A major influence on Chicanxs mobilizing in California took place on March 5, 1968, when 22,000 students walked out of their classes at Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, and Wilson High Schools in East Los Angeles. Also known as the East L.A. Blowouts, this demonstration brought attention to 26 demands, including changes in academics, administration, and facilities, as well as recognition of students’ rights and humanity. Students’ peaceful protests were met with police violence, and they were arrested and locked behind gates. The Board refused the students’ demands, and the police held a local teacher, Sal Castro, on charges of conspiring to disturb the peace for months. After round-the-clock protests at the School Board Office, Mr. Castro was released. However, the schools continued to resist structural changes, and activists became entrenched in a decades-long struggle to reform and transform L.A. schools. In Chapter 8: Education and Activism, you can go more in-depth into Chicanx and Latinx experiences in education and the formation of Chicanx and Latinx Studies fields.
Students and activists were also inspired by El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán during the 1969 Chicano Youth Conference hosted by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez in Denver, Colorado. This document focused on translating the spirit of protest into organizational principles that can sustain action over time. The seven goals laid out in the plan pertain to unity, economy, education, institutions, self-defense, cultural values, and political liberation. The 1,500 young people at this conference shared these ideas with their communities and continued to mobilize toward specific action items and policy goals. The term Chicanismo was born at this event, and it emphasized the need to come together as Chicanos to make unified claims for racial liberation.
One major issue affecting the Chicanx community, especially Chicano men, was the disparate rate of being drafted into dangerous military service to wage war in Vietnam. The National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against the Vietnam War (or simply, The Chicano Moratorium) was a movement of anti-war activists. These efforts emphasized resistance to the war effort, both because the costly war was depleting resources needed to deal with social and economic issues facing communities living in the U.S. and because Mexican-Americans made up 20% of all casualties in the war, when they only accounted for 10% of the U.S. population at the time. In 1970, the group mobilized a demonstration of 30,000 people in East Los Angeles, which was the largest anti-war protest organized by any single ethnic group in the United States. News coverage of the Chicano Moratorium, including images of the protestors is shown in Figure 7.2.6.
Activist Spotlight: Corky Gonzalez
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales was born on June 18, 1928. He was a boxer, writer, and Chicano activist. He worked on voter registration for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and successfully registered more Mexican Americans than at any other time in Colorado’s history. Gonzales founded Crusade for Justice in 1967, which was a militant organization of high school and college students who sought to increase educational opportunities and equity for Latinx students. He inspired the Chicano movement with his organizing and the poem, “I am Joaquín.” You can read the poem in English and Spanish on the Chicano History and Culture website linked here. A photo of Corky is shown in Figure 7.2.7.
Footnotes
5 Vilma Ortiz and Edward Telles, “Racial Identity and Racial Treatment of Mexican Americans,” Race and Social Problems: 4, no. 1 (April 2012): 41–56, http://dx.doi.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/10.1007/s12552-012-9064-8.
6 Francisco A. Lomelí, Denise A. Segura, and Elyette Benjamin-Labarthe, eds., Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies, 1st edition (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).
7 Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma, First Printing edition (New York, NY: Plume, 1995). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.02%3A_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Civil_Rights_Activism.txt |
Confronting Patriarchy and Heterosexism in Chicanismo
🧿 Content Warning: Physical and Sexual Violence. Please note that this section includes discussion of physical and sexual violence.
Chicano identity and Chicanismo have a history of hyper-masculinity, sexism, and homophobia. These dynamics have been systematically challenged, and some of the success can be seen in the names of academic and activist groups that reflect greater gender inclusion, such as “Chicana and Chicano Studies” or “Chican@ Studies” and “Chicanx Studies.” Beyond naming, however, the structures of patriarchy and heterosexism influence movement organizations, protests, and advocacy campaigns. Men leaders often called for unity on behalf of Chicanos or La Raza, while prioritizing issues that centrally concerned men, like the draft, job discrimination, access to political power, entry into educational institutions, and community autonomy.
While these issues also affect women, other concerns like birth control, ending forced sterilization, welfare rights, protecting against domestic violence, and women’s sexual liberation were ignored or actively resisted by organizational leadership. “La Nueva Chicana” (The New Chicana Woman) was determined to bring these concerns together and simultaneously address systems of subordination based on both race and gender. In Figure 7.3.1, an artist has rendered a group of women marching to two drums, with their reflection showing beneath, over the words “La Memoria es Feminista" (Memory is feminist). Text on the image reads, “La Memoria es Feminista” (Memory is feminist) and one of the reflections is holding a sign that says, “Dónde están nuestros hijos” (Where are our children). This message connects current struggles for gender equality to previous ones, and also reminds us that feminism has a long history. Feminism creates new opportunities for women, and it also builds on Indigenous traditions that include matriarchal systems and other traditional ways of maintaining gender equality.
Chicana feminisms engage in political struggles for liberation and create knowledges that build coalitions across difference to mobilize consciousness and transform systems. Chicana writers and feminists reinterpreted the world for Chicanas to draw connections and develop their identities in a society that devalues women, especially women of color. This draws on distinct solidarities with Chicano men, Indigenous peoples, people of color, white women, and gender non-binary people. For instance, white feminism provides tools to discuss and analyze sexual violence and sexual pleasure, topics that are often silenced. However, Chicana experiences have to be understood and interpreted from their own intersectional standpoint. Chicanas have written about and amplified their experiences in “Chicana- and Chicano-generated newspapers, journals, and, later, anthologies, such as Aztlán, El Grito del Norte, Encuentro Feminil, and Regeneración.”8
Opposing Movement Dynamics among Chicana Women
Not all Chicanas agreed with Chicana feminists’ view that achieving gender justice was an important part of Chicanx communities’ liberation from white supremacy. Chicana “loyalists” were women in the Chicano movement that believed their place was to support Chicano men in their struggle against racialized oppression, not women’s liberation. The women often joined men in ridiculing women who sought positions of power, calling them terms like malinchistas (race traitors), and marimachas (lesbians). Leaders tried to dissuade women from voicing feminist concerns by framing the struggle as “Chicano primero,” (Chicano identity first) pitting their movement for cultural and racial heritage (“la causa”) against calls for women’s liberation.
When nearly 600 Chicana activists gathered in Houston on May 28-30, 1971 for the first National Chicana conference, La Conferencia de Mujeres Por La Raza, “loyalist” women walked out of the conference in protest over differences in political identity and goals. Ultimately, this confrontation elevated discussion about women’s issues and inspired Chicana activists to critique patriarchy and homophobia. This led to the formation of new organizations and campaigns. Adelaida del Castillo and Anna NietoGómez founded and edited the journal Encuentro Feminil at California State University, Long Beach. This became one hub of knowledge that centers the voices and perspectives of Chicana scholars and researchers. For a more in-depth exploration of these topics, visit Chapter 5: Feminisms.
Advocating for change requires sacrifice and collective support and incurs costs for those involved. Organizational structures within social movements help to fortify activists, recruit new members, train emergent leaders, and generate resources for mobilization. In particular, Chicanas and Latinas have led efforts to form and grow organizations and link social movement advocacy to existing kinship networks, family structures, and friend groups that nurture and sustain advocacy. For example, in 1970, the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional (CFMN, National Mexican Women’s Coalition) was formed to address the needs of Chicanas and the issues facing women, children, families, and communities that had gone overlooked. This group was determined to provide women with the social and political capital necessary to produce social change. This led to the formation of the Chicana Service Action Center (CSAC) in 1972, as well as the Centro de Niños and League of Mexican American Women, both in 1973. These groups reflect the wide breadth of activity included under calls for “Chicana Power,” a rallying cry that’s shown in Figure 7.3.2.
Activist Spotlight: Francisca Flores
Francisca Flores is a key figure for understanding Chicanx activism. She supported and inspired Chicana feminist organizers to create organizations that focused on the intersection of race and gender. Her work helped to create new opportunities for the recognition and celebration of women’s voices. This commitment to collective effort helped mobilize Chicanas and Latinas to develop leadership consciousness and fend off the barriers created by patriarchy and sexism.
She was involved at all levels of civil rights work. As an activist in the California Independent Progressive Party and the National Progressive Party, she amplified the experiences and perspectives of Chicanas in social and economic policy debates. She was also a member of Mexican American civil rights organizations such as the Sleepy Lagoon Barrio Defense Committee in 1942; Asociación Nacional México Americana, founded in 1949; the Community Service Organization (CSO), formed in 1947; and the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), created in 1960. Seeing that women leaders were often central to the functioning and success of these groups, she brought together other Chicanas and Latinas and they established many organizations focused on women.
Queer Latinxs Resisting Oppression
Rampant homophobia in both Chicano and Chicana activism creates a unique experience of isolation and exclusion for queer folxs, especially Chicanas. Queer Chicanas engaged in women’s liberation and queer activist spaces to build solidarities across racial lines and build community around an analysis of gender and sexuality. This included developing allies within queer communities to advance intersectional justice. Despite white, middle-class domination of these spaces, their experiences inspired intersectional mobilization and solidarity with Black queer women and other queer POC communities. Connecting with diverse queer people of color allows queer Chicanxs to work in solidarity, rather than in isolation. Queer scholars and leaders in particular used poetry and writing to influence and transform heteronormative Chicana and Chicano movements.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a queer Chicana poet, writer, and feminist theorist. Her poems and essays explore the anger and isolation of occupying the margins of culture and collective identity. For example, this quote from Borderlands shows her poetic interpretation of the collective identities of mexicanos:
Nosotros los Chicanos straddle the borderlands. On one side of us, we are constantly exposed to the Spanish of the Mexicans, on the other side we hear the Anglos' incessant clamoring so that we forget our language. Among ourselves we don't say nosotros los americanos, o nosotros los españoles, o nosotros los hispanos. We say nosotros los mexicanos (by mexicanos we do not mean citizens of Mexico; we do not mean a national identity, but a racial one). We distinguish between mexicanos del otro lado and mexicanos de este lado. Deep in our hearts we believe that being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives in. Being Mexican is a state of soul not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither eagle nor serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects borders.9
While her perspective was rooted in an inclusive queer Chicana sensibility, the wisdom of her words extended far beyond this specific experience. Anzaldúa has been awarded the Lambda Lesbian Small Book Press Award, a Sappho Award of Distinction, and an National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Award, among others. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa emphasized indigeneity and mestiza identities. Similarly, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa “critiqued sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia in communities of color and in the larger society.”10 A picture of Anzaldua is shown in Figure 7.3.3.
While early calls for Chicano liberation operated from a narrow view of patriarchal nationalism, Chicanas and Chicanxs have challenged and transformed this project. Chicana/o/x Power is a movement and political identity that emphasizes decolonization, rejection of cultural convention, and activism over origin or language. There is no one right way to achieve liberation, but communities can work in solidarity and through organized movements to bring about justice.
Today’s movements have been deeply informed by the alliances and bridges formed by these forward-thinking activists. For example, the undocumented immigrant youth movement “borrowed” the cultural schema of “coming out” and joined it with “out of the shadows” for successful mobilization. Undocumented queer leaders were key in amplifying this framing and forging the connection between the different experiences of being socially constrained by the heteronormative expectations of “the closet” and the structural violence that places undocumented children in fear of having their immigration status used against them or their families. You can explore more topics related to queer and trans experiences and activsm in Chapter 6: Jotería Studies.
Footnotes
8 Miroslava Chávez-García, “A Genealogy of Chicana History, the Chicana Movement, and Chicana Studies,” in Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies, eds. Francisco A. Lomelí, Denise A. Segura, and Elyette Benjamin-Labarthe (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 68.
9 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 62.
10 Chávez-García, “A Genealogy of Chicana History,” 73. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.03%3A_Queer_and_Feminist_Chicanx_Movements.txt |
The United Farm Workers
Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) with Cesar Chavez in order to organize for labor rights and win recognition of poor working conditions and pay. The UFW was successful because it incorporated cultural strategies to mobilize immigrant and Indigenous communities. Huerta’s leadership was especially instrumental, although she was often overlooked when compared to Chavez. Despite this, her leadership was vital to the movement and mobilized 17 million people to boycott grapes in solidarity with farm workers. She is also credited with popularizing the phrase “¡Si se puede!” (Yes we can!), which was also a rallying cry during the Obama presidential campaign and continues to be used in social movement advocacy today. She continues to have an impact through the Dolores Huerta Foundation and was recognized by President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 for her contributions to social and economic justice.
Working on behalf of communities that have been socially and economically exploited regularly brings Chicanx and Latinx movements into solidarity with other ethnic groups and immigrant communities.11 In California especially, struggles for worker justice have often been conducted in larger coalitions, including Asian Americans, Black communities, and Indigenous peoples. Immigrants have been a consistent part of the agricultural labor force, with employers exploiting the communities’ precarious legal and economic status by providing poor working conditions and low wages. While employers benefit from encouraging racial animosity between groups, social movements have used cross-ethnic solidarity to inspire successful collective mobilization. For instance, the UFW built from the successful mobilization in Filipinx communities, with leaders like Larry Itliong coming together with Latinx communities and migrants.
Labor and Farmworker Movements Today
While the UFW continues to operate today, it has become a centerpiece within a much broader movement for farmworkers and labor rights in agricultural industries. For example, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers sponsors campaigns for fair food industries, as well as against slavery within the agriculture industry, especially in the southeastern United States. In California, Santa Maria farmworkers organized a month-long campaign in 2021 to have local berry farms raise the wage for farmworkers who harvest strawberries. After collecting over 60,000 signatures nationwide, the growers agreed to a new rate of \$2.10 compensation per box of strawberries. Organizers risked their jobs and their safety to protest the low wages, but they ultimately won in court and received a settlement from their employers and a commitment to have the management trained in workers’ rights.12
Farmworkers have been a frontrunner in the labor rights movement, inspiring changes that are later taken up by unions and through employee advocacy. However, workers in this industry also face disparate barriers to union representation and labor rights legislation. California Assembly Bill 2183, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, was proposed in 2022 to make it easier for farm workers to join or form a union by providing more options and protections when voting in a union election. Multiple unions have come together to support this because it would establish and affirm a strong standard for individuals’ right to collective representation in employment matters.
Beyond direct advocacy, farmworker movements also work to fill in the gaps left by current structures of exclusion. For example, in addition to the Dolores Huerta Foundation, the UFW Foundation, and other major organizations sponsor programs to provide farmworkers with food assistance, legal aid, housing support, educational opportunities, and other social services that are often restricted to citizens, or underutilized by migrant communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants were excluded from federal stimulus programs, which prompted some community groups to fundraise and provide direct aid to undocumented peoples.
While labor rights issues and immigration issues are often handled by different policies, the movements that advocate around these topics share resources, cultural narratives, cross-ethnic solidarities, and leaders, including within Chicanx and Latinx communities. In Figure 7.4.1, the image shows a march sponsored by the UFW for immigration reform in northern California. The larger patterns in immigration policies contribute to many of the underlying factors of inequity in labor rights. Activists recognize this and work to support the mutually reinforcing goals of immigrant rights and labor rights to ensure fair treatment of all communities.
Immigrant Rights Movements
When examining migration from Latin America, it is important to recognize that the term “immigrants” often also refers to Latin American Indigenous peoples. For example, immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico may also identify as Indígena (Indigenous) and speak a native language, such as Mixteco, Zapotec, Mazatec, Chinatec, or Mixé. Although immigrant and immigration policy sound alike, they each play different roles in shaping the ways immigrants experience life in the United States. Immigration policy is about the laws and policies that determine the process and number of people who can immigrate in various ways, whereas immigrant policy refers to the laws and regulations that impact immigrants currently residing in the country. For example, immigration policy reflects systems such as visa lotteries and temporary worker programs, whereas immigrant policy is enforced by federal institutions such as Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). While some policies attempt to curtail migration by restricting access, the economic and military policies of the United States continue to encourage migration, including through dangerous and unauthorized migration.
In the United States, early immigration acts (e.g., the Immigration Act of 1875, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act) enforced racial and ethnic (national) quotas on immigrants coming to the United States and, ironically, called for the removal of Native Americans. The use of quotas creates a baseline expectation that migration to the United States will be carefully limited and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship will be restricted. While the U.S. uses a logic of restriction and exclusion, it has also created specific policies to recruit migrants to work in industries where the domestic labor supply is failing. For example, the Bracero Program (1942-1965) encouraged a pattern of cyclical migration by legalizing migration for individual men working seasonally on farms. In 1965, the program was ended and the amended Immigration and Nationality Act removed all country-of-origin quotas, which led to an increase in the number of migrants coming from Latin American countries. At the same time, the U.S. government has continued to encourage the flow of migration by facilitating military and economic campaigns that destabilize Central and Latin American countries. Widespread corruption, crime, and violence are exacerbated by continuous external interference, resulting in vulnerable individuals and communities seeking out new opportunities and protection in the United States.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was a major shift for immigrant communities, as it offered amnesty to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants living in the U.S. It also promised more punitive policies and restrictions for immigration moving forward. Since then, policymakers have not made any structural changes to immigration policy that facilitate pathways to citizenship or offer amnesty to undocumented workers living in the United States. Instead, politicians have focused on encouraging immigration among educated and professional immigrants, also known as “brain drain,” while providing more punitive and militarized immigrant policies, like border patrol, deportation, immigrant detention, and family separation. Pervasive immigration and anti-immigrant policies at both state and federal levels perpetuate nativist discourses of “us” versus “them,” where Latina/o/x immigrants are overwhelmingly portrayed by the media as criminals, invaders, and terrorists. This leads to an illegalized identity that can have serious ramifications. The image in 7.4.2 highlights that these ramifications are often fatal, as it memorializes the names of 215 people who died in immigration detention between 2003-2020. Hegemonic institutions, like ICE, instill fear among migrants by threatening their livelihood and family life. Further, racial profiling in immigration enforcement extends this fear to Latinx communities and people of color.
The caption on the text reads, “Immigration detention is deadly. Since 2003, 215 people have died in immigrant detention. The past four years (2016-2020) mark an unprecedented increase in deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, their names are shown here. COVID-19 has exacerbated the catastrophe of ICE detention – a system well-known for widespread abuse, fatal medical neglect, horrific conditions, and a lack of due process rights. People in detention are bravely protesting and speaking out against ICE abuses, demanding to be released immediately. Since March of 2020 there have been at least 42 confirmed hunger strikes across the country in 24 ICE detention centers. The 24 birds represent those facilities. Both 19 month old Mariee Juárez and 42 year old Oscar Lopez Acosta died soon after being released from ICE custody. Oscar had tested positive for COVID-19. Data provided by the Detention Watch Network (DWN).”
Advocates focused on immigration have used creative strategies to advance policy goals for groups who are formally excluded from political representation and legal rights in the United States. Immigrant justice movements mobilize around a range of issues that include, but are not limited to, legal reforms around immigrant rights. This takes into account the heterogeneity of immigrant communities whose concerns also include dignity, health, economic justice, and connections with mixed-status family members. While activism focused on legal rights emphasizes the state’s control over citizenship, immigrant communities also include Indigenous peoples from Latin America and advocates focused on sovereignty and cultural preservation. The range of concerns present among Latinx immigrant and Indigenous communities leads to movements that combine direct action with community support and policy change at every level (local, state, and federal).
One common issue facing both immigrant and Indigenous communities is language barriers and access. For Latinx migrant communities, access to multilingual translation and interpretation facilitates inclusion for Spanish speakers and Indigenous language speakers within Latinx communities. In California, the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) centralizes language interpretation in their work and lifts up Indigenous language access within networks of immigrant and health advocates. The group launched Radio Indígena in 2014, a local FM station with over 40 hours of weekly live programming, featuring at least seven Mixteco languages, Zapoteco, and Purépecha. This service provides information and entertainment that is relevant to Indigenous farm working communities, such as support for low-income individuals to receive rental assistance, energy payment programs, and family-paid leave.13 These groups put into practice a human rights framework for providing holistic support to communities. In Figure 7.4.3, an artist has depicted a family traveling in a pick-up truck accompanied by the phrase “Freedom of Movement and Family Unity are Human Rights.”
This platform served a crucial role in spreading vital public health information during the COVID-19 pandemic. They quickly expanded to include Facebook Live broadcasts to supplement radio programming and demonstrate visually how testing works and show images of how others have participated in testing. These events are interpreted in at least one Indigenous language, often through consecutive interpretation. In engaging the audience, the speakers use a conversational style. The interpreter does not just repeat the words translated from Spanish, but rather, they have coordinated in advance to share the message in a relevant way for a heterogeneous audience. For further accessibility, the videos include visual aids and photographs to guide individuals through practical steps for how to access transportation and where to arrive for testing. This visual demonstration helps to work against stigma and decrease fear of health services. The group emphasized overall health and well-being to encourage maximum prevention and safety when information about transmission was limited.
Footnotes
11 Ruth Milkman, Joshua Bloom, and Victor Narro, eds., Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy, Working for Justice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801459054.
12 Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick, “Movement Pandemic Adaptability: Health Inequity and Advocacy among Latinx Immigrant and Indigenous Peoples,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 15 (2022): 8981.
13 Espinoza-Kulick, “Movement Pandemic Adaptability.” | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.04%3A_Labor_Farmworker_and_Immigrant_Movements.txt |
Formal Politics in Chicanx and Latinx Communities
Political representation of Latinx communities creates opportunities to advocate for better policies and new reforms. In the U.S., trailblazing leaders have crossed barriers for Chicanx and Latinx communities, opening new doors for others to continue the work of equity and justice for all. However, Latinx people remain under-represented in nearly all aspects of government and politics. In 2018, Latinx people were only 1% of all local and federal elected officials, according to the NALEO Educational Fund.14 In 2022, that number is similar, with only four U.S. Senators and 40 U.S. Representatives. Women are underrepresented among Latinx elected officials, being only 1 Senator and 12 House Representatives. On the website from Rutgers University, you can explore more statistics about women of color in politics and elected positions.
Some of the leaders for Latinx communities in politics include the U.S. Congressperson Romualdo Pacheco who was first elected in 1879 as a Representative from California. Pacheco had previously served as the first Mexican American governor of California in 1875. Even in states that include a high number of Latinx people and voters, such as California, researchers have identified a pattern of underrepresentation, including in appointed and elected positions in state government, county supervisors, school board members, and city-level positions. Groups like the California Latino School Boards Association have emerged to address some of these specific issues of representation and political power. You can learn more about the California Latino School Boards Association on their website.
Federal Representation of Latinx and Hispanic People
At the federal level, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus represents the interests of Hispanic Congresspeople and it includes over 30 members including many Latinx representatives and their allies. Some Latinx Congresspeople are not members of the Caucus, in part due to partisan divides between Republicans and Democrats. In the Senate, U.S. Senator Octaviano Larrazlo from New Mexico was the first Latino and Mexican-American Senator in 1928. Despite gains for representation won in states with high proportions of Latino people, it took decades of additional advocacy before major federal and judicial positions were held by Latinos. For example, there has never been a Latinx President of the United States, Vice President, or Secretary of State. It was not until 1988 that Lauro Cazavos became the Secretary of Education and the first Latinx or Hispanic person to serve in the U.S. Cabinet. On the U.S. Supreme Court, when Justice Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed to her position in 2009, she became the first Latinx person and the third woman to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. In Figure 7.5.1, there is a photo of Justice Sotomayor fulfilling one of her duties on the Supreme Court by swearing in Kamala Harris as Vice President, who is another woman who broke barriers as the first Black person, first Asian person, first multiracial person, and first woman to serve as Vice President of the United States.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, popularly known as AOC, has been a major figure for Latinx representation in politics. This is in part because she actively embraces her connection to the Latinx community, foregrounding her status as a young Latina woman living in New York City, who recently paid the bills by bartending. Her continued and unapologetic presentation of herself positions her as a capable and strong advocate for diverse people living in the United States, including immigrants, women, and people of color. In Figure 7.5.2, she appears in a photograph, speaking passionately in front of a crowd of people.
Her passion and tenacity represent a commitment to social change and a critical lens that is relatable for many Latinx people as well as her wide range of supporters. The video included in Video 7.5.1 describes what AOC has accomplished as a leading Latinx political figure in her own terms. The video is 4 minutes and 44 seconds long, and it demonstrates the way that Latinx politicians have made a considerable impact on their field and on our broader society.
Politics and Liberation
Many members of Latinx communities are disengaged from formal political processes, including voting and representation. This is in part due to the exclusion of immigrants from voting, which prevents families from engaging in a shared practice of voting and being represented. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has had a significant impact on Latino people and their political participation in the United States. Prior to the Act, many Latinos faced barriers and discriminatory practices that limited their access to the voting booth, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation tactics. The Act aimed to combat these obstacles and ensure equal voting rights for all citizens, regardless of their race or ethnicity.
The Voting Rights Act has helped empower Latino communities by prohibiting discriminatory practices and ensuring their political representation. It has led to increased voter registration and turnout among Latinos, enabling them to elect candidates of their choice and have a stronger voice in the political process. By eliminating discriminatory voting practices, the Act has paved the way for greater political engagement and representation for Latino individuals and communities.
The Raza Unida party, founded in the late 1960s, emerged as a political movement that sought to address the issues and concerns of Mexican Americans and other Latino groups. The party advocated for self-determination, civil rights, and political empowerment for the Latino community. It aimed to challenge the existing two-party system and provide an alternative political platform for Latino voters. While the Raza Unida party made significant strides in mobilizing and organizing Latino communities, its influence and success were relatively short-lived. The party faced internal divisions and external challenges, including legal battles and limited resources. However, it played a crucial role in raising awareness about the issues faced by Latinos and fostering a sense of political empowerment among the community.
Overall, the Voting Rights Act has been instrumental in expanding political rights and opportunities for Latino individuals and communities, while the Raza Unida party served as a catalyst for political mobilization and empowerment during a crucial period in Latino political history. However, in recent years, there have been changes that have weakened the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. One significant development was the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. In this case, the Court struck down a key provision of the Act, namely Section 4(b), which established a formula for identifying jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination that were required to obtain federal preclearance before making changes to their voting laws.
The Court's decision effectively invalidated the formula used to determine which jurisdictions were subject to preclearance, arguing that it was based on outdated data and no longer reflective of current conditions. As a result, the preclearance requirement was effectively nullified unless Congress could enact a new formula. This ruling has had implications for Latino voters, among others, as it removed a critical safeguard against discriminatory voting laws and practices. In the absence of preclearance, jurisdictions have been able to implement changes to voting laws without prior federal approval, potentially leading to the adoption of laws that disproportionately impact minority communities, including Latinos.
Since the Shelby County decision, there have been concerns about the rise of voter suppression efforts, including the adoption of stricter voter identification laws, reductions in early voting periods, purging of voter rolls, and gerrymandering. These measures can disproportionately affect marginalized communities, including Latinos, by making it more difficult for them to exercise their right to vote and diminishing their political representation.
Efforts to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act have been made in Congress, such as the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This legislation seeks to update the coverage formula and restore the preclearance requirement, aiming to address the challenges created by the Shelby County decision. However, the act's passage has faced obstacles and partisan divisions, resulting in ongoing debates about voting rights and protections for historically marginalized communities, including Latino voters.
Beyond that, many Latinx people also share the critical perspective that the U.S. government itself and U.S. society are built around principles of division, exclusion, and exploitation and must be critically examined and transformed. Under this view, participation in the system only serves to encourage people to believe in the possibility of reform, while ultimately failing to address the root causes of racism, xenophobia, and intersectional oppression. Among Native American and Latinx Indigenous peoples, this sentiment can be accompanied by a commitment to tribal sovereignty and the creation of modern systems rooted in traditional and sacred relationships with the land.
The contradictions of political representation can also be seen in Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory. Although the people of Puerto Rico bear many of the responsibilities of U.S. citizenship, including paying taxes, being drafted, and following the laws created by the government, they are not politically represented at the federal level. You can see a Puerto Rican flag hanging in Old San Juan in Figure 7.5.3, showing the people’s pride in their island. More recently, this lack of representation has had devastating effects in the face of increased hurricanes in the region and the larger dynamics of climate change. While Puerto Ricans are clearly not represented equally in the U.S. governmental system, the people of the island remain persistently divided as to whether to pursue statehood or independence. The Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act, also known as H.R. 4901 and later reintroduced as H.R. 1522, is a bill that was presented during the 116th and 117th sessions of the United States Congress. Its purpose is to enable Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, to become a state within the Union. The bill was initially introduced in the 116th Congress and reintroduced in the 117th Congress as H.R. 1522 on March 2, 2021. The continued debate over statehood efforts shows how diversity of perspective within Latinx communities and in solidarity with other racial and ethnic groups ultimately contributes to the use of multiple strategies in advocacy and politics. This creates opportunities for future generations to continue the struggle and find new solutions to long-standing systems of white supremacy, xenophobia, and settler colonialism.
Footnote
14 National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, “National Directory of Latino Elected Officials.” (Los Angeles, CA: National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, 2021). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.05%3A_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Political_Representation.txt |
Summary
In this chapter, we explained the dynamics of struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation among Chicanx and Latinx communities. Exploring these topics showed us the various focus areas among Chicanx and Latinx social movements and advocacy groups, including things like civil rights, Indigenous sovereignty, solidarity, queer, feminist, and intersectional issues, labor rights, and political mobilization and representation.
This chapter also explored how historical and contemporary Chicanx and Latinx movements have enacted equity, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, and anti-racism. Movements have been successful in raising awareness about issues, creating opportunities for communities to take charge of their own destiny, and confronting and changing policies that oppress Chicanx and Latinx peoples. At the same time, these movements have navigated substantial barriers, which impede their goals and allow for systemic racism and settler-colonialism to continuously operate. Only through sustained collective action can individual acts of advocacy lead to a larger change.
Finally, throughout this chapter, we critically analyzed the uses of intersectionality among Chicanx and Latinx communities to understand how movements address class, gender, sexuality, national origin, immigration status, sovereignty, and language. Together, these learning tools can prepare you to take action in your own community, in solidarity with existing and new groups that are working to make change. There are also many more topics to explore and learn about, which is always an important first step for all activists and social movement groups.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.7: Chapter 7 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Chicana Movidas: A political framework that is rooted in an intersectional perspective, acknowledging the uniquely racialized and gendered experiences of Chicanas, as well as the value of using transformative and innovative approaches to build coalitions and advocate for social change.
Chicanismo: A political framework that calls for justice and liberation for Chicano communities, which was widely mobilized in the 1960s as a response to pervasive social, economic, and racial issues in the United States, especially the Vietnam War, segregation, and discrimination.
Reform movements: Movements that involve advocacy and mobilization to accomplish focused, limited goals that change laws, regulations, and policies within existing organizations and institutions. These movements respond directly to the needs of groups that are currently being harmed.
Revolutionary movements: Movements that advocate for transformative changes in society that include abolishing, replacing, and fundamentally challenging the institutions that exist. These movements work to address the root causes of inequality.
Reactionary movements: Movements that work against other movements, often through direct opposition or by countering their activity. Reactionary movements are often politically conservative and form in response to the gains of historically marginalized groups.
Jim Crow and Juan Crow: An era of legal segregation that focused on maintaining social and structural separations between white people and Black and Brown people. These specific laws were most prominent in the late 1800s, as a response to the end of slavery, and they maintained this form until the middle of the 1900s when they were challenged by civil rights movements.
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán: A document that inspired and motivated Chicanx activists to pursue liberation and justice, especially in education. This document was published during the 1969 Chicano Youth Conference hosted by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez in Denver, Colorado. The seven goals laid out in the plan focus on unity, economy, education, institutions, self-defense, cultural values, and political liberation.
The Chicano Moratorium (The National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against the Vietnam War): A movement of anti-war activists opposed to the U.S. military’s role in Vietnam. The protest emphasized how the war was disproportionately impacting Chicano and Chicanx communities.
Intersectional standpoint: The unique knowledge and perspective developed based on the combination of one’s multiple identities, especially race and gender, as well as sexuality, immigration status, ability, age, religion, and other social categories.
United Farm Workers (UFW): A labor rights and social movement organization that was founded by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez in central California. This group represented the predominantly migrant labor force in the fields and built solidarities between Mexican origin communities and Filipinxs. The UFW still operates today to advocate for labor rights and has inspired the formation and mobilization of multiple organizations that serve, represent, and advocate for farmworkers.
Immigrant and immigration policy: Laws that influence immigrant experiences and the rates of immigration in a country. Whereas immigrant policy regulates the experiences of people who have already immigrated to the country, immigration policy refers to the processes and practices that influence the process of migration itself. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/07%3A_Social_Movement_Activity/7.06%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Introduction
This chapter explores public education in California as a site of struggle, resilience, and transformation for students, caregivers, families, and communities of Latin American heritage. Schools do not exist outside of the historical context that informs them nor do they exist outside of the society they are situated in. Therefore, the struggle for education is also a struggle that intersects with the struggle for justice in housing, employment, health, immigrant/human rights, and self-determination. This chapter provides a historical overview that is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather provides historical snapshots into the ways Latinx communities have been shaped by and have shaped public education.
As education remains a site of politics and power, each generation builds upon the legacy of those that came before them. The struggle for educational self-determination is multifaceted––at times it can look like families arguing in courts about the constitutionality of laws, students walking out of their schools, or community leaders creating autonomous schools. All of these efforts were effective in acquiring and enacting people power and doing so in solidarity with other historically minoritized communities. Collectively, these struggles have transformed the educational landscape and it is the activist legacy on which we continue to build upon.
• 8.1: The Crisis and Hope in Education
Section 8.1 introduces the crisis and hope of Chicanx/Latinx education. It provides Tara Yosso’s community cultural wealth as a framework of hope in education that enables us to make visible how communities have acquired and enacted power in the educational landscape.
• 8.2: The Struggle for Equality, 1900-1954
Section 8.2 overviews the racialization of Mexican/Latinx children as “Indian” in an era of school segregation. The chapter highlights Latinx families working alongside other communities to successfully defeat school segregation in local, state, and federal courts.
• 8.3: Re-imagining Education in an Era of Revolt, 1955-1975
Section 8.3 presents efforts to reclaim and re-imagine education. It highlights Chicanx/Latinx communities as they reclaim education as a central function of self-determination. This section concludes with a look into the backlash and disinvestment in public education.
• 8.4: When Ganas is not Enough, 1976-2000
Section 8.4 situates xenophobic fears in an educational landscape of neglect, disinvestment, and exclusion. Using Leo Chavez’s Latino Threat Narrative, this section highlights the dominant narratives that shaped education initiatives and the resistance to them.
• 8.5: Aquí Estamos y No Nos Vamos, 2001-2012
Section 8.5 presents how an entire generation of students in under-resourced schools was left behind with the only prospect of joining the military. It highlights youth activism in a digital era that redefined politics, presented new forms of organizing, and created social change.
• 8.6: Conclusion
08: Education and Activism
Community Cultural Wealth as a Tool for Social Justice
Today Latinx students make up 54% of the student population in California K-12 schools, yet they remain a numerical minority when it comes to educational attainment in all of the critical transitions between elementary school, high school, college, and graduate school.1 In fact, according to the Chicano Studies Research Center 2015 report “Still Falling Through the Cracks: Revisiting the Latina/o Educational Pipeline,” the Latinx student population is falling behind all other major racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.2 What attributes to the cracks causing Latinx students to "leak out of" the educational pipeline? Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras tackled this question in their book, The Latino Education Crisis pointing to failed social policies that position Latinx children at a disadvantage, even before they enter school.3 The authors point to the need for comprehensive support in health care, quality school facilities, enriched curriculum, qualified teachers, language support, and intervention/support programs. Furthermore, they point to poverty, segregation, and the lack of a sense of belonging that students and their families experience in schools.
Pause and Reflect
Muxerista and joteria activist-scholar and professor Anita Tierina Revilla (2021) defines spirit protectors and spirit restorers "as people, places, organizations, beliefs, and/or practices (they can also be art, poetry, books, music, and dance) that give marginalized people the strength to reject and survive attempted spirit murder and/or restore our wounded spirits, especially in the face of repeated attacks and woundings both inside and outside of institutions of education.”6 While it is important to name and identify the trauma inflicted violence caused by education, we must equally make space to ask, “Who are your spirit protectors and your spirit restorers?"
Critical Race Theory scholars have challenged dominant orientations of education with asset-based discourses, noting that working-class Latinx students in particular come from communities with extensive funds of knowledge (i.e. skills, abilities, ideas, practices) that schools do not reflect or honor.7 Funds of knowledge view households and communities as essential educational settings where learning takes place and knowledge is generated, transmitted, and preserved, providing a form of non-monetary educational capital or value that is either unrecognized and when it is, is devalued in mainstream education.
Chicana education scholar Tara Yosso contributes to this understanding of educational capital, adding that students possess six forms of cultural capital, which she identified as community cultural wealth (aspirational, familial, social, navigational, resistant, linguistic).8 From this standpoint, Latinx cultures are an asset not a detriment to student educational success and achievement. Taking it one step further, Yosso and Burciaga remind us that a focus on the cultural wealth of Latinx communities is foundational to locating how communities acquire and enact power in the educational landscape. The community cultural wealth of marginalized groups strengthens their survival and resistance to racism and other forms of oppression. This theoretical orientation allows us to observe what we may miss otherwise due to active projects of erasure, co-optation, marginalization, and re-writing of our histories.9
Theory Spotlight: Tara Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth Framework
“As we consider the generations of communities who have preserved and passed down cultural wealth despite harsh conditions, let us be fierce visionaries for generating opportunities to cultivate community cultural wealth as a tool of reclamation––a tool for social justice.”11 The act of reclaiming our stories is a tool for social justice. This chapter presents historical snapshots in which Latinx communities activated change in education and society, employing and expanding their community cultural wealth in the process of doing so.12 It is through these activist traditions that Latinx communities continue to maintain hope and possibility to activate change today.
Footnotes
1 Latinos are 54% of the student population, followed by White (24%), Asian (9%), African American (6%), Filipino (3%), two or more races (3%), non reported, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and Pacific Islander (2%). Manuel Buenrostro, “Latino Students in California’s K-12 Public Schools,” CSBA FactSheet (October 2016): 1–5.
2 Lindsay Huber Pérez, Maria C. Malagón, Brianna R. Ramirez, Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, Alberto Jimenez, and Verónica N. Vélez, “Still Falling Through The Cracks: Revisiting the Latina/o Education Pipeline,” Chicano Studies Research Center, No. 19 (November 2015): 1–23.
3 Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras, The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
4 Bettina L. Love, “Anti-Black State Violence, Classroom Edition: The Spirit Murdering of Black Children,” Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2016): 22–25; Bettina L. Love, “I see Trayvon Martin”: What teachers can learn from the tragic death of a young black male, The Urban Review Vol. 45, No. 3 (2013): 1–15; Patricia J. Williams. The Alchemy of Race and Rights, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).
5 Richard Valencia, ed. The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice. (New York and London: Routledge, 1997).
6 Anita Tijerina Revilla, “Attempted Spirit Murder: Who Are Your Spirit Protectors and Your Spirit Restorers?,” The Journal of Educational Foundations, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2021): 36.
7 Luis C. Moll, Cathay Amanti, Deborah Neff, and Norma Gonzalez, “Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms,” Theory into Practice Vol. XXXI, No. 2, (Spring 1992): 132–141; Norma González, Luis C. Moll, Cathy Amanti, eds. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. (New York and London: Routledge, 2006).
8 Tara J. Yosso, “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth,” Race Ethnicity and Education, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2005): 69–91.
9 I am reminded here of mythical claims of reverse racism where the idea of a post-racial America enables white Americans among others to make claims of racial victimhood that give credence to proclamations such as “White lives matter”. Also, the way Dr. Martin Luther King’s work is used to propel narratives of individualism and colorblindness, stripping away his more radical orientations rooted in a socialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist worldview.
10 Tara J. Yosso and Rebeca Burciaga, “Reclaiming Our Histories, Recovering Community Cultural Wealth” Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA, No. 5 (June 2016): 1–4.
11 Yosso and Burciaga, “Reclaiming Our Histories” pg 2.
12 As Tara Yosso reminded me when I was her student at UC Santa Barbara, history matters. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/08%3A_Education_and_Activism/8.01%3A_The_Crisis_and_Hope_in_Education.txt |
Education for Social Control
The educational system was historically created to sustain and perpetuate notions that equate whiteness and American as synonymous. For people of Mexican descent, the question of race has always been a complicated one. When the peace treaty that ended the U.S. invasion of Mexico was signed and the U.S. annexed ⅓ of Mexico, in exchange, Mexicans in the newly conquered territories were granted federal U.S. citizenship and racially categorized as white (Review Chapter 2: Identities). The racial re-designation of Mexicans under American colonization held no power in everyday life, especially in educational institutions as the practice of segregation of Mexican children is dated back to as early as the 1880s. Education is often perceived as a benevolent system and a gateway to social mobility, however, tracing it’s history allows us to see education as a site used to maintain racialized hierarchies and power. Figure 8.2.1 captures this sentiment today, reading, fight poverty not the poor. This is particularly significant for Latinx communities that continue to endure the historical legacy of colonization, white supremacy, racism, assimilation, xenophobia, and discrimination in schools.
At the turn of the 20th century, the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson ruled that racial segregation was constitutional so long as it was equal. This historic ruling justified an era of segregation at a time when the U.S. also experienced the first major immigration wave of Latinxs, that is, 1.5 million Mexicans entered from 1900-1930 due to the Mexican Revolution.13 The ruling also came at a time when a Chinese family successfully won against the San Francisco Board of Education when their child was denied entry in school. The California Supreme Court decision in Tape v. Hurley (1885) effectively ruled that all minority children, including immigrants, were entitled to attend public schools in California. While anti-Asian hatred found new ways of creating “separate but equal” schools for Asian children,14 the question of whether children of Mexican descent could legally be separated would become central in this time period.
Mexican and Mexican American families lived in segregated colonias and barrios that often lacked basic necessities such as plumbing and electricity.15 Overt racism through signage read, for example, “We serve Whites only. No Spanish or Mexicans” was common in restaurants, theaters, bowling alleys, parks, and swimming pools (Review Section 7.2: Chicanx and Latinx Civil Rights Activism). When not visible, such as in schools, the practices of exclusion and discrimination were present. Unlike Native American and Asian American students that endured education codes that granted schools the right to legally segregate them, the practice of segregating Mexican American students prevailed despite their white racial categorization.
Americanization and Eugenics
For children of Mexican descent, the denial of access to equal quality educational opportunities given to Anglo students was justified through Americanization efforts.16 The Americanization movement of the early 20th century was intended to help new immigrants assimilate into America’s civic culture and skilled workforce. Americanization aimed to change Mexican students who were characterized as dirty, un-Christian, and lacking social morals and etiquette. Central to this was assimilation, the process whereby a historically marginalized person or group voluntarily or involuntarily adopt the social, psychological, cultural, and political characteristics of a dominant group. As Chicano historian Gilbert Gonzalez noted, the first segregated school for Mexican children was established in Orange County, California in 1919 and by 1930, there were 15 Mexican schools throughout the county.17 Yet, not all children of Mexican descent were equally discriminated against. A study of Oxnard’s segregated school system in the early 1900s exposed how school officials used race, class, hygiene, and skin tone to identify “a few of the brightest, cleanest Mexican children.”18
Schools became one of the main functions of the Americanization movement, and for children of Mexican heritage, efforts instilled that their Mexican culture impeded their academic success. Language was often the target of these efforts and special classes were designed so as not to impede the education of their Anglo peers. Mexican children were often placed into lower-level courses or placed into segregated “Mexican schools” altogether.
In addition to Americanization, eugenics was a popular ideology that informed ideas of race and intelligence. Eugenics ideology is rooted in the belief that the white Anglo race is genetically superior and to maintain this group’s racial purity, it informed social policies, programs, and practices set out to control “undesirable” populations. For a review on this topic, you can also review Chapter 2. As noted by Valencia, Menchaca, and Donato (2002), “Historically, the rationale used to socially segregate Mexicans was based on the racial perspective that Mexicans were ‘Indian,’ or at best ‘half-breed savages’ who were not suited to interact with Whites.”19
Mexican American students were regarded as intellectually inferior, culturally backward, and linguistically deprived. One of the key instruments to determine a person’s intelligence prominently used in schools was the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, a standardized test that supported the racialized view that students of color were intellectually inferior to whites because they scored a lower IQ score. This institutionalization of racism systematically tracked students in lower-level courses, and vocational trade training, and deprived them of opportunities to succeed.20 Although Mexican children were classified as white, they “were by far the most segregated group in California public education by the end of the 1920s.”21
The Lemon Grove Case
School segregation was met with resistance from families throughout the Southwest. On July 23, 1930, the all-white school board members of the Lemon Grove School District decided to place all students of Mexican descent attending the elementary school in an inferior quality, two-room building near the Mexican colonia of Lemon Grove, California. The school board members cited concerns with overcrowding, sanitation, social morals, and language as justification for the separation. Essentially, the school board argued that white students were held back when teachers needed to cater to the needs of Mexican students. The concerns of the school board, along with the all-white Parent Teacher Associated that began the effort and the Chamber of Commerce who supported the move, relied on coded language. Coded language is a practice long used in policy in which race-neutral terms are used to disguise the racist motives that maintain power structures meant to sustain white supremacy. Citing clogged toilets and student overpopulation are euphemisms for race without stating race explicitly. Video 8.2.1 is of Luis Alvarez, grandchild of the plaintiffs in the Lemon Grove case, recounting how his familial history inspired him to become a historian.
Video: The Lemon Grove Incident and the Making of a History Professor with Luis Alvarez
Chicano historian Luis Alvarez, whose grandparents, Roberto and Mary Alvarez, were students in Lemon Grove during that time, recounts the political context of that era in the following way.
Film Spotlight
The Lemon Grove Incident (1986) The 1986 documentary film, The Lemon Grove Incident, provides a glimpse into historical footage of the time, oral histories, and re-enacted scenes to take viewers back to life in Lemon Grove, CA during the first successful school desegregation case in the state. Explore San Diego. The Lemon Grove Incident (1986). PBS.
Pause and Reflect
Mutualista (mutual-aid) societies are used by many communities of color to survive economic hardship and provide a support network for newly arrived (im)migrants. Have you witnessed any mutualista practices in your school, community, and/or family?
In California, the case against the Lemon Grove School District helped to defeat growing political attempts such as the 1931 Bliss Bill that was introduced by Assemblyman George R. Bliss of Carpinteria to re-categorize Mexicans as “Indian” rather than “white.” A legal redefinition of Mexican children as “Indian children whether born in the United States or not” would have justified segregation as was done with Black, Asian, and Native American students.25 The Lemon Grove case is noted as the first successful legal challenge to school segregation in the U.S.26 While victorious for the local Mexican families of Lemon Grove, resistance to segregated schools continued across California and the Southwest.
The Mendez et. al. Case
In California, de jure, the legal practice of segregation ended as a result of the class-action lawsuit, Mendez, et. al v. Westminster School District (1947).27 (For further reading on the Mendez case, review Section 7.2 Chicanx and Latinx Civil Rights Activism). At the height of WWII, when Japanese American families were forcibly evacuated and relocated to internment camps, among them was the Munemitsus family of Westminster. The Mendez family moved to Westminster from Santa Ana because an opportunity opened to lease and run a 40 acre asparagus farm that belonged to the Munemitsus family.28 The Mendez family managed this farm that was labored by Mexican Braceros. To learn more about the Bracero program, review Section 7.4: Labor, Farmworker, and Immigrant Movements, or Section 4.4: Gender, Sexuality, Migration, and Indigeneity.
Video: Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children
In 1944, Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez’s Mexican-Puerto Rican children were denied enrollment into their neighborhood school, the same school where their nieces attended. In an attempt to enroll their children, their aunt went to the school. The Mendez daughter, Sylvia, remembered that moment as an adult in Video 8.2.2, which is Sandra Robbie’s documentary, “Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children.” A picture of Sylvia Mendez is shown in Figure 8.2.2.
So when we got to the school they told her, "Mrs. Vidarri, you can leave your kids here but your brother’s kids will have to go to the Mexican school. The Mexicans are segregated here in Westminster. They have to go to the Mexican school."29
Since her Mexican American aunt married a French man with the last name Vidaurri and their children were light-skinned, easily passing as white, they were allowed to enroll in the “white” neighborhood school. The colorism, that is, the prejudice or discrimination based on dark skin color, enacted by the school demonstrates the complexity and proximity of whiteness available to some in the Mexican community and not to others.
In this scenario, we learn that whiteness was not necessarily available to all Mexicans, including the Mendez family who despite their higher class standing from operating a farm and owning a cantina (bar) business in Santa Ana, they remained unsuccessful in accessing the “white” school because their skin was much darker than that of their relatives.30 What their class standing did give them, however, was the financial means to fight segregation legally in court. Ultimately, the Mendez case was successful it but did not go unchallenged in the Court of Appeals. The Mendez case received an outpour of support from organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and American Jewish Congress (AJC) that all submitted briefs in support of their case. In their brief, AJC mentioned, “We believe, indeed, that the Jewish interests are inseparable from those of justice and that Jewish interests are threatened whenever persecution, discrimination, or humiliation is inflicted upon any human being because of his race, creed, color, language, or ancestry.”31
The solidarity of all the organizations and community leaders who were able to recognize that while they may be racialized differently, there are shared interests in challenging racism. They were able to prove that separate schools violated the equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, not on grounds of racial discrimination, but national origin because after all, no one contested whether the children were white, but rather, that discrimination was based on their Mexican and Latin national origin.32 As a result of growing state-wide political momentum in support of desegregation, state Governor Earl Warren signed legislation in the state to repeal state law segregating American Indians and Asian Americans, effectively outlawing state-sanctioned de jure segregation.33 Figure 8.2.3 showcases the first issue stamp released in 2007 celebrating 60 years after the Mendez vs. Westminster School District case.
Nationally, segregation was legal until it was challenged with the Supreme Court decision with Brown v. Board of Education Topeka (1954).34 Chicana sociologist and lawyer Marisela Martinez-Cola argues, the success of Brown was in part due to the over 100 legal challenges to segregation in state and federal courts, among them the victories led by Latinx families.35
Education has historically been an issue over civil rights denied, the right to a free public education. In this section we learned that Latinx families struggled for civil rights in education, paving the way for future movements in education. While segregated schools were now ruled unconstitutional, it is important to remember that white supremacist ideologies that inform a person’s racialized worldview and maintain divides do not change overnight. Latinx families continued to endure discrimination in housing, employment, and schools. The growth of urbanization and suburbanization across California would contribute to de facto segregation in housing and schools, introducing a new era of social change.
Footnotes
13 The Mexican Revolution represented the rise against the regime of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, a regime that maintained a widening gap between the rich and poor. For more information of this time, review George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
14 In response to the success of this state case, AB 268 was passed to establish separate schools for students of “Mongolian or Chinese” descent.
15 For further reading on what life was like, review “A Tale of Two Schools” Learning for Justice. August 7, 2017. To read about how segregated life allowed Mexican American families to preserve their heritage and cultivate community and traditions, review Jennifer R. Nájera, Borderlands of Race: Mexican Segregation in a South Texas Town (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015). You can also engage with the interactive map on redlining in America, “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” Digital Scholarship Lab and Julius Wilm, University of Richmond, Accessed July 20, 2022.
16 Eastern and Southern European immigrants were also included in Americanization efforts.
17 Sandra Robbie “Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children” YouTube, 2003.
18 David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas, “‘A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children’: School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940,” Harvard Educational Review Vol. 82, No. 1 (2012): 1–25.
19 Richard R. Valencia, Martha Menchaca, Ruben Donato, “Segregation, Desegregation, and Interation of Chicano Students: An Overview of Schooling Conditions and Outcomes” in Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present and Future, 2nd Edition, Richard R. Valencia, editor (New York and London: Routledge, 2002); Martha Menchaca, “Chicano Indianism: A Historical Account of Racial Repression in the United States” American Ethnologist, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1993): 583–603.
20 The Whittier State School was a model for how to reform deficient and youth of color perceived as delinquent. For more on the history of race and science in California’s juvenile justice system, review Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California’s Juvenile Justice System. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2012). Also, Martha Menchaca and Richard R. Valencia, “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s: Their Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California” Anthropology and Education, Vol. 21, No. 3 (1990): 222–249.
21 As referenced in David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas “A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children”: School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940” Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 82, No. 1 (2012): 1–25.
22 “The Lemon Grove Incident and the Making of a History Professor with Luis Alvarez,” YouTube video, 10 minutes, University of California Television, November 30, 2021.
23 LULAC was first formed in Texas in 1927 for the purpose of ending discrimination. During this era, LULAC was instrumental in fighting school segregation cases. While many scholars have regarded LULAC as an assimilationist, anti-immigrant, anti-working class organization, Cynthia E. Orozco offers a re-reading of LULAC’s history in No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009).
24 The 1930 Census classified “Mexican American” as a race, receiving an outpour of backlash from the newly established organization, LULAC, to classify Mexicans as white. In 1940, there was a reclassification of Mexicans as white in U.S. Census as a protection mechanism in light of internment of Japanese Americans, which used Census data to locate Japanese-Americans. To learn more, read “On the Census, Who Checks ‘Hispanic,’ Who Checks ‘White,’ and Why,” Code Switch, NPR, June 16, 2014.
25 The Bliss bill called for an amendment to section 3.3 of the California school code which provided local school districts with “the power to establish separate schools for lndian children, and children of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian ancestry.” Assemblyman Bliss wanted the section dealing with Indian children modified to read “Indian children whether born in the United States or not” to give schools the authority to separate Mexican and Mexican American students from their Anglo counterparts on the grounds that “la raza children were Indians.” To read more about efforts to re-define Mexicans as “Indian” to justify legal segregation in schools, review Francisco E. Balderrama In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Community,1929 to 1936 (Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 2018).
26 Roberto R. Alvarez Jr., “The Lemon Grove Incident” The Journal of San Diego History, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1986)
27 It is worth noting that while the Mendez family is often highlighted in this case, it was a class-action case that involved other families, including Thomas Estrada, William Guzman, Frank Palomino and Lorenzo Ramirez who joined as co-plaintiffs against school segregation in Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Orange.
28 Janice Munemitsu, The Kindness of Color: The Story of Two Families and Mendez, et al v. Westminster, the 1947 Desegregation of California Public Schools (Janice Munemitsu, 2021); Luis Alvarez and Daniel Widener, ‘‘A History of Black and Brown: Chicana/o African-American Cultural and Political Relations,’’ Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring 2008), 147. This history is also captured in the children’s book by Duncan Tonatiuh, Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation (Harry N. Abrams, 2014).
29 Sandra Robbie, “Mendez v. Westminster: For All The Children” (2003) Youtube. 33 minutes.
30 For an in-depth discussion that complicates Mexicans proximity to whiteness and recognizes that they were part of the full racial spectrum, review Marisela Martinez-Cola, The Bricks Before Brown: The Chinese American, Native American, and Mexican Americans' Struggle for Educational Equality (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2022).
31 Reproduced from Natalia Molina, ‘‘Brief for the American Jewish Congress as Amicus Curiae,’’ Westminster School District of Orange County, et al. vs. Gonzalo Mendez, (U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 9th Cir. Oct. 28, 1946), p. 1.
32 The 1954 Hernandez v. Texas case validated that Mexicans, while racially white, were in fact treated as “a class apart” from whites.
33 The Governor signed the Anderson Bill which specifically repealed Section 8003 and 8004 of the California Education Code.
34 The leading attorney, Thurgood Marshall cited the Mendez ruling as a precedent during deliberations.
35 Martinez-Cola, The Bricks Before Brown. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/08%3A_Education_and_Activism/8.02%3A_The_Struggle_for_Equality_1900-1954.txt |
Education for Liberation
Education has always been a central function of colonization and oppression, but when reclaimed by oppressed people it can be a key function for liberation struggles. As the struggle for civil rights continued into a new era of social change, it created opportunities for students, families, and activists to re-imagine their local schools and education in general. While today it may be easy to take for granted the existence of ethnic studies classes such as the one you are in, it is important to know that the field was created and sustained as a result of political pressure by social movements. Before the formation of ethnic studies, communities that were historically marginalized took education into their own hands, such as offering political education and presenting counter cultures, such as art, murals, teatro, and music to uphold values and norms contrary to mainstream society (Visit Chapter 10: Cultural Productions). These non-traditional forms of education are among the many ways that history is recorded, disseminated, and preserved.
The Chicano movement (Review Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity for a history of the Chicano movement), and other movements of the time, such as the antiwar and women’s rights movements, collectively are examples of different communities taking more militant approaches to generating political power. During these times, younger generations of Mexican Americans also redefined their identity to include radical political identities such as Chicana and Chicano that extended beyond their ethnicity and united in solidarity with peoples of the “third world” to create change (Review Chapter 1: Foundations and Contexts and Section 7.2: Chicanx and Latinx Civil Rights Activism). The education that occurred in and out of schools, ignited and sustained generations of activists working to transform their high schools, colleges, and universities. During this time, the struggle was no longer merely about access to education, but questioning the function and responsibility of educational institutions altogether.
Little School of the 400
The absence of effective schools to address the discrimination Mexican American children experienced, led to the formation of schools that were run by Mexican Americans. In 1957, one such school was spearheaded by LULAC. The Little School of the 400 (LS400) was a preschool program that was first created in Texas to teach Spanish-speaking children to be bilingual by teaching them 400 English words. These preschool classes would help children build their English vocabulary, giving them the academic confidence to succeed in school. The LS400 was an initiative to Americanize children of Mexican heritage, but unlike Americanization efforts led by whites, this school did not instill a sense of inferiority.36 Instead, it was a school that instilled cultural pride and empowered children to be embrace their Mexican and American culture.
These classes were taught by Mexican American women, such as Isabel Verner, who was the first to pilot the program in Ganado, Texas.37 The success of the LS400 schools in Texas served as a model for the nationally sponsored Head Start Program that emerged during the “War on Poverty” initiatives by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration.
The East LA School Blowouts
In March of 1968 in East Los Angeles, California the country witnessed a series of walkouts across high schools like never before. According to La Raza Newspaper, “The first 15 days of March of the year 1968 will be known in the ‘new’ history of the Southwest as the days of the BLOWOUT. Chicano Students define Blowout as ‘high school students walking out for a better education.’”38 An estimated 15,000 students walked out of classes from seven high schools, what became known as the East LA blowouts. The students gathered the results from surveys they created and compiled a list of 26 student demands that addressed a range of issues with academics, administration, facilities, and student rights. In their demands, students called for culturally relevant and responsive education, critiqued the lack of college preparatory courses, and the punitive school culture. The list of demands was presented to the LA Board of Education on March 28, 1968 only to be denied in front of the more than 1,200 community members present.
Sidebar
To view the proposals presented by the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC) to the Los Angeles Board of Education on March 28, 1968 visit Latinopia.com (March 6, 2010).
The walkouts were made possible because the students had the support of their community. Salvador “Sal” Castro, a teacher at Lincoln High School, who extended his support to the students, recruited students to attend the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference,39 a space that was critical to nurturing political identities among Chicana/o youth of the time. Among those students was Moctesuma Esparza, a student of Mr. Castro at Lincoln High School. Moctesuma remembered those pivotal years for a PBS documentary titled, “Civic Leader Moctesuma Esparza: Educational Equity”
Young Citizens for Community Action initially formed in 1965, while Moctesuma was in high school, and eventually evolved into the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and Brown Berets while he was a student at the University of California Los Angeles. Moctesuma recounts the role of university students in mentoring local high school students stating,
The students in East LA had support from their parents, political organizations, and former students. By offering the community independent forms of communication through newspapers such as La Raza, Inside Eastside, and The Chicano Student, activists in East LA were able to control the narrative and inform the community, galvanizing their support, which was crucial to their success.
The movement that was forming around the walkouts was actively repressed by school administrators and law enforcement agencies. High school seniors who were recipients of scholarships were threatened with having their scholarships taken away. Students and their supporters were brutalized by the Los Angeles Police Department and arrested. The LAPD issued an arrest to 13 Chicano men for “disturbing the peace” and conspiracy charges. Those arrested were better known to the community as the East LA 13, and among the youngest was Moctesuma who was only 19 years old at the time.42 Mr. Castro was also among the arrestees and consequently fired as a result. The decision to fire Mr. Castro was reversed after the community demanded he be reinstated and occupied the school board room until he was. The political repression of activists at this time was part of the systemic counter insurgency efforts of law enforcement, most notably, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that targeted political organizations, surveilled their activities, infiltrated their efforts, and ultimately used that intelligence to incarcerate an entire generation of activists leaders.
The 60s was a crucial time for youth to develop their political identities and exercise their freedom of speech in efforts to change their schools and society. The walkouts, like other sit-ins and marches of the era, used non-violent resistance to protest systemic racism. Crucial to creating an alternative educational system as was proposed by the students in their demands and in the aftermath of the walkouts, was the need for greater control over the decision-making process in schools and the district. While the students did not achieve all of their demands, they were successful for bringing generations together and laying a foundation to their own political trajectory.
The Formation of Chicano Studies and Ethnic Studies
During the civil rights movement, there were many alternative models to mainstream education that emerged from historically minoritized communities, most prominently within the Black community, from the Citizenship Schools (1945-1965) that were a response to the racist literacy tests that disenfranchised Black voters to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Freedom Schools that began in the summer of 1964 to encourage Black Mississippians to think independently and act creatively. Not to mention in 1969, the Black Panther Party (BPP) launched Liberation Schools that offered a political education to resist power structures.
Within traditional institutions of higher education, BIPOC as minority groups on college campuses all across the state supported each other and united in their demands for change. In the Bay Area, the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), a coalition of multiracial and ethnic groups of students and organizations at San Francisco College and University of California, Berkeley, spearheaded a movement for ethic studies. TWLF specifically employed the term “third world” as a radical identity that positioned itself as anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist.43 From the beginning of its formation, ethnic studies recognized distinct histories in the U.S., and proposed an internationalist connection of solidarity to liberation struggles in the Global South, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands. Led by the Black Student Union, the TWLF joined together to form two strikes that began in 1968 and presented a list of 15 demands, among the list was to create a School of Ethnic Studies. It was in these times that ethnic studies was defined as groups of the Third World, Chicano/Latino studies, African American studies, Asian American studies, and Native American studies. As noted by Ziza Delgado, ethnic studies emerged within a radical political framework that included elements of culturally relevant education, but were not limited to only the study of culture.44
Globally there were revolutionary struggles against colonialism, imperialism, racism, white supremacy, and capitalism. In the midst of these movements, there was the return of WWII Chicano veterans who gained access to higher education unlike ever before as a result of the GI Bill and the American GI Forum that ensured veteran rights were respected. These veteran students among others gave way for the formation and growth of activist student organizations such as United Mexican-American Students (UMAS). The population of students of color at the University of California, Santa Barbara was severely low, and there were only about 50 Chicano/Latino students. At UC Santa Barbara, students from UMAS joined in solidarity with the Black Student Union (BSU) and the mostly all-white Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) under what they called United Front to take over and occupy the University Center. They called for a free-student run university that incorporated instruction on revolutionary movements, global capitalism, and Marxism.
That same year at UC Santa Barbara, Chicana/os across the states came together under the newly formed Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education to create a blueprint for the formation of Chicano studies. The result was a 155-page manifesto titled, El Plan de Santa Barbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education (“El Plan”) that outlined the three-fold function of the university: teaching, research, and public service.45 The blueprint opened with a quote from Jose Vasconcelos, former Secretary of Public Education of Mexico, that captured the sentiment of the time. “At this moment we do not come to work for the university, but to demand that the university work for our people.” El Plan outlined the importance of the newly established student support program, Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and the need for a unified national student-led organization, which became Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano Aztlan (MEChA). It called for the formation of research centers and the institutionalization of Chicano Studies departments.
While El Plan and the Chicano movement in general were instrumental in paving new directions for the Chicano community, they were not absolved of critique. In “Sexism in Chicano Studies and the Chicano Community” Cynthia Orozco identifies the sexist ideologies that made gender a secondary issue to race and class.46 Orozco offered a sobering critique of Chicano studies as an academic discipline, citing the first edition of Rodulfo Acuña’s Occupied America (1972) and its failure to incorporate Chicana history, leadership, and contributions. Orozco even pointed out how “La Chicana” was a tokenized course, often the only course in that interrogated issues of gender, patriarchy, and what feminists of color at the time articulated as “triple oppression” and ultimately intersectionality. In Orozco’s view, El Plan was truly a “man-ifesto” that lacked a feminist vision. Instead, Orozco provides a Chicana feminist revision of El Plan renaming it to, “El Plan de Santa y Barbara” and that parts with the words of Señora Josefa Vasconcelos, “At this moment we do not come to work for Chicano studies and the community, but to demand that Chicano studies and the community work for our liberation too.”47 The feminist critiques of El Plan, Chicano studies, the Chicano movement, and the community at large gave way to Chicana studies and Chicana-led organizations (Review Chapter 5: Feminisms and Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity for more on this topic). Similarly, critiques over the lack of an interrogation of sexuality gave way to Jotería studies (Review Chapter 6: Jotería Studies). Figure 8.3.1 is from a history and cultural museum in Los Angeles that featured an exhibit on Chicana women leaders and activists.
By this point, there was not a formalized ethnic studies field, but that’s not to say that the scholarship that emerged from traditional academic fields such as sociology, anthropology, history, along with other disciplines did not contribute to the development of ethnic studies. We can take for example, Chicana/o historians such as Vicky Ruiz and George Sanchez or Chicana/o sociologists such as Mary Pardo and Alfredo Mirande who emerged from traditional disciplines, but are regarded as foundational to the field. Furthermore, the role of public intellectuals outside of the academy were instrumental in carving new trajectories and uplifting political movements, such as anarchist journalist Ricardo Flores Magon and civil rights activist Adela Sloss Vento. From the beginning, ethnic studies redefined traditional notions of scholarship, intellectualism, and what we consider to be texts. The work of these scholars built a foundation for future generations of BIPOC scholars to build upon.
Unlike all other academic disciplines, Chicano studies, like ethnic studies, is more than just an academic discipline. Ethnic studies is a political project born out of struggle and critique of the institution it emerges within and education in general. It was not meant to conform to the status quo of these institutions, rather to serve as a powerhouse of change. From the beginning, ethnic studies was a community-driven project. And unlike other academic disciplines that make claims of objectivity and to present in unbiased or impartial ways, ethnic studies stands firmly against oppression of any form. Paulo Freire in The Politics of Education (1985) wrote about the impossibility of neutrality in the face of oppression stating, “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”48 Ethnic studies does not only study oppression, it directly engages with struggles for liberation that go beyond education.
The Backlash and Disinvestment in Public Education
As urban schools and cities experienced the changes of deindustrialization and disinvestment, the racialization of the welfare state through popular cultural deprivation theories continued to gain traction. Ronald Reagan’s deployment of the racialized and gendered trope of the so-called “welfare queen” throughout his 1976 presidential campaign trail demonstrated the growing binary of white “taxpayer” versus Black “tax-recipient.” Martha Escobar argues that the perceived threat of Black mothers as “breeders” of deviancy, criminality, and poverty is transposed onto Latina mothers, immigrant Latina mothers especially, who are viewed as unworthy and undeserving of social welfare services, including health and education.49 This growing fear over financing of Black and Latinx communities, along with the economic insecurities fueled the racialized tax revolts of the late 70s and 80s.
This white backlash enabled Caifornia laws such as Proposition 13 to pass, signaling a critical turning point for the finance of public education.50 Prior to 1978, public schools collected as much funding as was needed from local property taxes. This meant that neighborhoods with higher property taxes could collect more money for per pupil spending. Prop 13 set a 1% property tax limit across the state, where the assessed value could not grow more than 2% a year. The state, however, was either not financially able or willing to supply the needed local financing of schools that was not supplied through local property taxes. As a consequence, the most impacted were school budgets that cut nurses, counselors, librarians, vocational education, music and art programs, adult education, summer and after-school programming, and anything viewed as excess to the core academic curriculum such as elective courses.
Sidebar
In 1965, California had one of the highest rates of per-pupil spending in the U.S. Today, it is one of the lowest. This is the legacy of Prop 13. How much wealthier are white school districts in comparison to nonwhite ones? \$23 billion.
The disinvestment in public education fueled by the racialized tax revolts of the late 70s and 80s made school districts heavily dependent on state budgets. These changes came at a time when civil rights victories fought to desegregate schools and students of color were redefining the role of education. In the 70s, desegregation efforts were often circumvented, like the case in Houston, Texas, when a school district claimed their district integrated Mexican “white” students with Black students, maintaining white schools intact.51 In other cases, white families fled to surrounding suburbs with LAUSD experiencing a drop of 20,000 white students after busing programs were introduced.52 This was part of the larger pattern of white flight in cities such as Los Angeles as suburbanization gave white families an opportunity to sell their home, maintain their wealth, and escape into the suburbs.
This issues have spurred activist responses. Figure 8.3.2 demonstrates critiques of criminalization and incarceration as responses to social problems. The poster reads, “Building strong communities not prisons and jails! The prison crisis in California is not over. People are organizing and fighting back!” Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is a broad-based coalition of over 70 organizations seeking to CURB prison spending by reducing the number of people in prison and the number of prisons in California. Similarly, Figure 8.3.3 is a 2008 poster that reads, “Abolish the prison industrial complex. Missing: 2.3 million Americans from their family, friends, and community.”
Footnotes
36 In Texas, Mexican families preferred sending their children to church schools or private schools known as colegios. El Colegio Altamirano was taught in Spanish so that Mexican children would preserve their culture.
37 For further reading on the LS400, review Erasmo Vázquez Ríos, “The Little School of the 400: A Mexican-American Fight for Equal Access and its Impact on State Policy,” (Master’s Thesis, University of Nebraska, 2013).
38 La Raza Newspaper, Vol. 1, No. 2. (March 31, 1968). La Raza Publication Records, 1001. Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
39 This camp was intended to tackle the most pressing issues affecting Mexican American youth, such as gangs, access to college, and school dropout rates.
40 “Civic Leader Moctesuma Esparza: Educational Equity,” Youth Stand Up, PBS Learning Media, Accessed September 9, 2022.
41 Democracy Now! “Walkout: The True Story of the Historic 1968 Chicano Student Walkout in East L.A.” March 29, 2006.
42 The arrestees were Sal Castro, Moctesuma Esparza, La Raza newspaper editors Eliezer Risco, 31, and Joe Razo, 29, Brown Beret “ministers” Carlos Montes, David Sanchez, Ralph Ramirez, and Fred Lopez (ages 18 to 20), Carlos Muñoz Jr., 20, Gilberto Olmeda, 23, Richard Vigil, 27, Henry Gomez, 20 and Juan Sanchez, 41.
43 Jason Michael Ferreira, “All Power to the People: A Comparative History of Third World Radicalism in San Francisco, 1968-1974,” Ph.D. Dissertation (University of California Berkeley, 2003)
44 Ziza Joy Delgado, “The Longue Durée of Ethnic Studies: Race, Education and the Struggle for Self-Determination,” Ph.D. Dissertation (University of California, Berkeley, 2016).
45 As remembered by Fernando Negochea for the article by Armando Carmona, “El Plan de Santa Barbara: Beyond Studying Politics, a Legacy of Activism” UC Santa Barbara Alumni, Coastlines, Spring 2019. Accessed October 25, 2022.
46 Cynthia Orozco, “Sexism in Chicano Studies and the Chicano Community” (1984) NAACCS Annual Conference Proceedings. 5.
47 Orozco, “Sexism in Chicano Studies”, pg. 15
48 Paulo Freire. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation (Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1985) pp. 122
49 Martha Escobar, Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina (Im)migrants. (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2016)
50 Daniel Martinez HoSang, Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California, (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2010)
51 Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., Brown, Not White: School Integration and The Chicano Movement (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005)
52 “The Busing Controversy in Los Angeles as of 1980” CBS News. October 22, 1980. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/08%3A_Education_and_Activism/8.03%3A_Re-imagining_Education_in_an_Era_of_Revolt_1955-1975.txt |
Public Schools as Scapegoats
By the 1980s, an era obsessed with academic “excellence” was introduced. This was evidenced in the report A Nation at Risk (1983), which cautioned over a “rising tide in mediocrity” and sustained a discourse that advocated for higher standards in public schools. It is no coincidence that this report emerged at a time when the rise in foreign-born populations from Latin America and Asia gave rise to xenophobic fears and an English Only movement. At the center of these debates was the Plyler v. Doe (1975) Supreme Court case filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF). Decided in 1983, it involved the state of Texas changing an Education Code to allow schools to withhold admission or charged tuition to undocumented children. The court ruled that every young person, regardless of their immigration status, has a right to attend a free public school in grades K-12. This historic case was essential for combating early efforts to create a school-to-deportation pipeline, that is, school policies and practices that effectuate the removal of undocumented immigrant youth from schools and ultimately the U.S.
While the removal of undocumented immigrant children in schools remained unsuccessful, language in schools continued to be a political battleground that enabled the continuance of segregation and Americanization efforts previously employed to discriminate and exclude non-native English speakers, including Latinx children. In 1986, Proposition 63 passed, which made English the official language of California.53 The xenophobic fears of the time were among many other social fears attached to crime and poverty that targeted the most vulnerable student populations in our schools.
Mr. Escalante’s Math Enrichment Program
Mainstream portrayals of urban schools as pathological, deficient, decaying, and failing were captured through popular media productions such as the iconic films, Stand and Deliver (1988) and Lean on Me (1989), which were both based on true stories. For example, Stand and Deliver focuses on Bolivian American math teacher, Jaime Escalante, from Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, who raised expectations and instilled the ganas (spirit of motivation, willpower, grit, and resilience) in his students.54 The film credits his ethic of care and strict pedagogy to the success of 18 of his students who passed their AP Calculus exams in 1982. The Educational Testing Service accused the students of cheating, made them retake the exam, and when they did they passed with even higher scores, and proved to the nation that inner city kids were teachable. While the film sheds light on the importance of educators that extend an ethic of care to their students, the truth is these students were successful because they had years of preparation and support.
The failure of Hollywood films such as these are that they do not give credit to the real source of student success. Escalante, with the support of his principal, built a math enrichment program that partnered with local feeder schools to replace basic math with algebra, giving students the opportunity to enter high school on a higher level of math. The program also partnered with the local community college to provide a 7-week intense math training course in the summer, allowing students to either get ahead or practice their skills.55 Escalante practiced an open enrollment policy for his classes, meaning anyone who was interested could take his classes, as he did not approve of gifted, honors, tracking, or the need for qualifying exams to prove they were ready. “The only thing you need to have for my program––and you must bring it every day ––is ganas.”56 The program also ensured students were provided with tutoring before and after school, and even offered paid opportunities for previous students to provide tutoring. Essentially, Escalante’s students were successful because he disrupted the status quo, created a new academic pipeline in math, and provided the support students needed to succeed.
Stand and Deliver, like many films of the time, does not accurately show why students were successful and instead credited a tough, punitive approach to schooling. Mr. Escalante knew that students needed more than ganas to succeed academically, hence he went beyond his role in the classroom to create educational opportunities that would have been absent otherwise. In an under-resourced school such as Garfield High School, Escalante went out of his way to create a pipeline of hope for student’s to succeed.
Films such as Stand and Deliver and Lean on Me gave mainstream audiences a glimpse into “urban schools” for the first time, or perhaps more correctly, schools where the majority of the student demographic was of color. The dominant narrative was that these urban schools were failing because they were ungovernable and out of control, not because they were overcrowded, inadequately resourced, and segregated. Change for these schools was only possible with the presence of an unrelenting patriarchal figure, whether it was Mr. Escalante’s unwillingness to give up on his students or the more punitive approach depicted in the film Lean on Me where the new principal, Mr. Clark, infamously expelled hundreds of “troublemakers” in a school assembly for their misconduct. After doing so Mr. Clark declares to the rest of the student body, “My motto is simple. If you do not succeed in life, I do not want you to blame your parents. I don’t want you to blame the white man. I want you to blame yourselves. The responsibility is yours.”57 The bootstraps narrative captured in this statement, that is, the idea that educational success is attainable through personal initiative, hard work, responsibility, and drive, is a common narrative in schools. Students are expected to beat the institutional odds set up against them as if individual effort was all that was necessary to overcome them.
Moreover, films of this time served to fuel the media hysteria over violent youth perceived as “super-predators” and implement zero tolerance policies, that is, punitive school measures that push out “problem students” through practices such as expulsion and suspension regardless of the severity of a student’s behavior. In the next decades, these types of practices and policies would become the norm for inner city schools, coalescing with what scholars identify as the school-to-prison pipeline––the school practices and policies that disproportionately place students of color into the juvenile and adult criminal justice system. The most under-resourced schools have the most resources funneled into creating prison-like school environments by implementing random locker and person searches, metal detectors, security cameras, security guards, and police presence. The disinvestment in the quality of life and educational opportunities for children of color in poverty, with the investment in the criminalization and surveillance efforts both in and out of school, effectively strengthen a pipeline from schools to prisons.
Sidebar
Latinx and Black youth are the most impacted by zero-tolerance policies and practices, accounting for the majority of school suspension and expulsion rates.
Pause and Reflect
In your opinion, what can schools do better or differently to challenge the school-to-prison pipeline?
The Latinx Threat in Schools
By the 1990s, it was clear that future immigrants were not coming from European countries nor were they Anglo-Protestants. The demographic changes were of concern to many political and academic conservatives who cautioned that future immigrants would be from Spanish-speaking countries, immigrants that once they arrived did not assimilate to American culture and life.58 In fact, demographers predicted that by 2025, Latinos would become the largest ethnic group in California. These concerns coincided with the economic recession in the early 1990s and growing civil unrest evidenced by the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992. In communities with an absence of a large white population, narratives of racial conflict among children of immigrants and more established populations were repeatedly portrayed in the media. Most notably, Fox News coverage on what was commonly referred to as “Black and Mexican conflict” in schools. These type of stories sensationalized racial conflict and tension, grew concerns over crime and violence, and emerged at a time when California relied on undocumented immigrants as a scapegoat to be blamed.
Theory Spotlight: Leo Chavez's The Latino Threat Narrative
The xenophobic concerns of the time are best summarized by Latino anthropologist, Leo Chavez, in what he identifies as the Latino threat narrative––a dominant narrative reproduced in society:
1. Latinos are a reproductive threat, altering the demographic makeup of the nation.
2. Latinos are unable or unwilling to learn English.
3. Latinos are unable or unwilling to integrate into the larger society; they live apart from the larger society, not integrating socially.
4. Latinos are unchanging and immutable; they are not subject to history and transforming social forces around them; they reproduce their own cultural world.
5. Latinos, especially Americans of Mexican origin, are part of a conspiracy to reconquer the southwestern United States, returning the land to Mexico’s control. This is why they remain apart and unintegrated in the larger society.59
While there are many ways in which the narratives that Latinxs are a threat to society manifest, in California, there were two key propositions that captured how education became a site for policy makers to ease xenophobic fears, Proposition 187 and Proposition 227.
Proposition 187
In 1994, Proposition 187 was an initiative that, as its title indicated, attempted to “Save Our State.” The title alone invoked the idea that in the public’s imagination, California was a non-immigrant state that needed to be saved from undocumented immigrants, commonly racialized as “illegal aliens.” Governor Wilson made undocumented immigrants the focus of his political re-election campaign, endorsing Prop 187 and advertising a commercial that depicted undocumented immigrants running across the border from Mexico, warning viewers, “They keep coming. Two million illegal immigrants in California. The federal government won’t stop them at the border, yet requires us to pay billions to take care of them.”60 The proposition was passed with nearly 59% of voters approving the creation of a state-run citizenship screening system meant to deny undocumented immigrants state public social services, including access to public education and non-emergency health care. Moreover, the proposition would have deputized anyone that served or assisted an undocumented immigrant, including teachers and doctors. Essentially, employees of schools and hospitals would operate as immigration enforcement officers. It was estimated that 300,000 undocumented children were to be denied public education if enacted. However, the proposition was never enacted due to the successful legal challenge by MALDEF, ACLU, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), and AAAJ (Asian Americans Advancing Justice), among others, that argued it was unconstitutional and violated Plyler v. Doe.
Film Spotlight: Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary (1997)
The 1997 film, Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary, directed by teacher-turned-filmmaker Laura Simons, takes us into Hoover Street Elementary to expose how Proposition 187 directly impacted the lives of students in one of the most diverse areas of Los Angeles.
The fight against Prop 187 was a true testament of communities rising up in solidarity. As African American high school student Annette Wells, co-founder of South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action (SCYEA), shouted to a crowd of 70,000 in Los Angeles, “This racist unjust government that we live in, finds some way to break us down. We need to join together in unity. It is about time we have peace within our community. Join us! Join us! We need to fight for voter education. Fight for voter registration, orale!”61 On November 2, only days before election day, over 10,000 youth across the state walked out in opposition to Prop 187. College students and labor unions, all united against the proposition. There was a strong presence and organized effort from Asian, Black, and white communities. The opposition to Prop 187 served to increase voter turnout among the Latinx community and created a generation of activists.62 Figure 8.4.1 and Figure 8.4.2 are from two demonstrations against Prop 187, the first in Fresno and the second in Los Angeles.
Proposition 227
Furthermore, xenophobic fears gave way for Califonia voters to approve the 1998 Proposition 227, “English Language in Public Schools,” which effectively eliminated bilingual education in public schools and weakened language equity gains of the 1970s. Specifically, in regard to the Supreme Court decision in Lau vs. Nichols (1974) in which Chinese parents in San Francisco Unified School District filed a class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit emerged when Chinese, Filipino, and Latina/o children failed in school due to not being able to understand the lessons in English. The families essentially argued for language equity, that is, a bilingual curriculum that allowed students to comprehend and succeed. The school district counter-argued that all students were offered the same curriculum, therefore, it offered an equal education. In other words, the district asserted that offering a distinct curriculum was discriminatory as it catered to students based on their national-origin. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the parents citing that the district was in violation of the Civil Rights Act (Title IV), which meant that schools were required to create a distinct curriculum that catered to English language learners, essentially supporting bilingual education. Figure 8.4.3 illustrates the difference between equality and equity. As the image states, “1. Equality: is giving people the same thing/s. 2. Equity: is fairness in every situation.”
The ruling in Lau vs. Nichols is an example of why there needs to be a differentiation of equality versus equity in education. Whereas equality means that each individual or group of people are given the exact same resources and opportunities, equity recognizes that equal outcomes cannot be produced without catering to the specific needs. In this case, bilingual education was meant to address a specific need for English language learners to master the English language while retaining their native language. However, not everyone viewed bilingual education as a way for students to succeed academically. After Jaime Escalante successfully eliminated most of Garfield High School’s bilingual education classes because he believed they held students back, he served as Honorary Chairperson of the “English for the Children” campaign that sponsored Prop 227. By this time, Escalante was the most prominent Latino teacher in the state due to the appraisal of the film Stand and Deliver (1988). Escalante, like many supporters of Prop 227, argued that since language immersion programs would not exceed one year, students would master the English language faster.
However, opponents argued that Prop 227 destroys local control over language instruction for English language learners and effectively positions students to fail as they are fast-tracked to learn English in one year before transitioning to English-only classrooms. Fernando Alberto, a senior at Roosevelt High School who walked out with thousands of students across the state to protest the approval of the proposition, expressed the same sentiment exclaiming, “I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have those classes,” referring to the bilingual classes he was placed in after emigrating from Honduras. “It’s ridiculous for them to think everyone is going to make it in just one year.”63
Sidebar
Generations of students were severely impacted by the aftermath of Prop 227. Not until 2016, did 73% of voters overturn the almost 20 year ban on bilingual instruction with Proposition 58. Today, research demonstrates that students in dual-language immersion and bilingual education students outperform traditional English-only students. California accounts for 60% of dual language programs in the U.S.
Proposition 209
The 90s was an era that blatantly attacked the Latinx community, whether it was efforts to deny undocumented students from receiving a public education or eliminate bilingual education altogether. In this era, Californian’s also witnessed institutions of higher education impacted by the Proposition 209 “California Civil Rights Initiative” (1996), which prohibits affirmative action, or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in operating public employment, public education, or public contracting.
Affirmative action programs were essential for providing equal opportunity and diversifying colleges and universities in regard to hiring of faculty and staff, but also admissions of students. This is particularly important for underrepresented Latinx and Black students who have the lowest number of enrollment in colleges and universities. In fact, the backlash with affirmative action was a direct result of a civil rights gain in the the Supreme Court ruling of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which ruled in favor of university affirmative action programs, deciding that race can be one of several factors in admissions policies, but not the use of quotas. In that case, Allan Bakke was a 35-year-old white male who was denied admissions twice to the UC Davis Medical School. Bakke claimed that the special admissions reserved for minority groups excluded him based on his race. Essentially, Bakke made claims of reverse discrimination, that is, when members of dominant or privileged groups make claims of discrimination based on the rights (or in this case access) given to historically minoritized groups. Bakke claimed to be a victim of affirmative action programs designed to level the playing field for minoritized groups. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of affirmative action, but would set the waves of backlash that culminated with Prop 209.
Pause and Reflect
In 2020, Proposition 16 was placed on the ballot to repeal Proposition 209, but Californian voted against it. Do you think affirmative action programs are necessary today to provide equal opportunity in employment and education?
Starving For Justice
In the 90s, university campuses in California were called into question by the courageous leadership of BIPOC students who employed hunger strikes, literally starvation and the risk of death, as a political tactic to create social and institutional change. The hunger strikes, though not in unison or at all at once, emerged at a time when all universities experienced severe budget cuts and fee hikes, making it more challenging for BIPOC to gain access to the university and for programs such as ethnic studies to be sustained. Chicana/o Studies professor Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval’s book, Starving for Justice (2017) provides an in-depth documentation of three hunger strikes led by students at UC Los Angeles (May 24-June 7, 1993), UC Santa Barbara (April 27-May 5, 1994), and Stanford University (May 4 - 6, 1994).64 Certainly the hunger strikes were a last resort to further pressure university administrators to implement their demands for change.
In the 1990s, nearly every university campus engaged in countless protests against higher fees, budget cuts, and the university’s failure to invest in BIPOC recruitment and retention of both faculty and students. At UCSB, for example, students went on a hunger strike in 1989 and when the demands were left unmet, hunger striked again in 1994. While there were many similarities across the hunger strikes, each campus has their unique history, struggles, and set of demands. It is important to note that while the establishment and expansion of ethnic studies departments was a central concern across all of the hunger strikes, it was not the only one. In reference to the hunger strikes at UCLA, UCSB, and Stanford, professor of Chican/o studies, Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval notes, “Chicana/o studies was critical, but so were obtaining better wages and working conditions for farm workers; creating safe spaces where students and low-income immigrant families could organize and mobilize to stop budget cuts, deportations, and unscrupulous landlords; lowering student fees; and establishing a more diverse student body and faculty.”65
The strength in student power was effective because multiracial/ethnic coalitions were formed across student organizations. Students were supported by faculty who were actively engaged in the strikes, risking their own positions in doing so. The hunger strikes were effective across all of the universities in getting the administration’s attention and their commitment to implement changes. While each campus created their distinct set of demands, the self-sacrifice of hunger strikers and the communities that supported them halted the systemic demise of ethnic studies, paved the way for the university to commit to hire more faculty of color, and institutionalized the financial support for the recruitment efforts of students of color. The image in Figure 8.4.4 depicts the Third World Liberation Front 2016 hunger strikers at San Francisco State College.
Sidebar
The Third World Liberation Front 2016 at San Francisco State College organized a 10-day hunger strike with a list of 10 demands. To meet the demands, the collective called for the university’s investment of \$8 million. As a result, there is now a Pacific Island Studies minor and faculty, two positions in Africana Studies were restored, Race and Resistance Studies was departmentalized, funding was restored to the College of Ethnic Studies, and many support programs and services for students were put into place for future generations to come.
Pause and Reflect
Why do you think students historically and today continue to take such drastic measures such as a hunger strike to enact social and institutional change?
Footnotes
53 Prop 63 was never enforced through state legislation, thereby making it unenforceable. In spite of this, the fact that 73% of voters approved the proposition is itself telling of the time.
54 For a reinterpretation of ganas as a framework see, Rebeca Mireles-Rios, Victor Rios, Bertin Solis, Jose Gutierez, “Ganas as a Praxis: Cultural Responsiveness in Latinx/a/o Higher Education Success” Studying Latinx/a/o Students in Higher Education: A critical analysis of concepts, theory, and methodologies (New York and London: Routledge, Taylor & Frances Group, 2021), pp 91–105.
55 Jerry Jesness, “Stand and Delivery Revisited,” Reason, July 2002. Last accessed October 25, 2022.
56 Jaime Escalante and Jack Dirmann, “The Jaime Escalante Math Program.” The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 59, No. 3, (1990): 407–423.
57 John G. Avildsen, Lean on Me. (United States: Warner Bros, 1989.)
58 Samuel P. Huntington, “Hispanic Challenge” Foreign Policy Vol. 141 (2004): 30–45
59 Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Redwood City, California: Stanford University Press, 2008) pg. 53
60 Otto Santa Ana, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2002)
61 Thirteen, “Chapter 3: Taking Action” 187: The Rise of the Latino Vote. October 6, 2020. Last accessed October 25, 2022.
62 Erick Galindo, “Brown People 25 Years Ago Created a New Generation of Activist,” LAist, November 8, 2019. Last accessed October 25, 2022.
63 James Rainey, “500 Students March Against Prop. 227,” Los Angeles Times (June 12, 1998).
64 Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2017). Hunger strikes also took place at UC Irvine (October 17 - 1995), UC Berkeley (April 29- May 7, 1999), and University of Colorado, Boulder (April 19-25 1994) and Northwestern University (April 12-26 1995).
65 Armbruster-Sandoval, Starving for Justice, pg 8. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/08%3A_Education_and_Activism/8.04%3A_When_Ganas_is_not_Enough_1976-2000.txt |
No Child Left Behind
In 2002, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), a reauthorization of The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, a cornerstone of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s efforts to carry the “War on Poverty” efforts, but this time through education. Essentially, the ESEA allows states to manage federal funds in an effort to provide an equal quality education to children in poverty. While NCLB was not the first reauthorization of the ESEA, it was different.
NCLB was a law that introduced an era of standardization and accountability in K-12 education unlike ever before. The act made the federal government’s role in education greater than ever, while allowing for schools to have local control and for parents to exercise school choice. Each public school entity was required to show adequate yearly progress (AYP) based on state-set standardized tests, with the goal that by 2014, all schools and its students were expected to perform at grade-level. The law provided federal financial support to under-resourced schools or schools classified as Title I, schools with high numbers or high percentages of low-income families, in exchange for greater accountability. In essence, the schools with the most need would get greater assistance, and all schools were expected to demonstrate AYP.
It did not take long for the results of NCLB to confirm what many critics cautioned, which is that NCLB’s unrealistic expectations will set up schools and school districts that serve historically marginalized communities to fail. In fact, a 2006 study revealed that schools that did not meet AYP in California and Illinois served 75-85% minority students, meanwhile schools that met AYP enrolled less than 40% minority students.66 Furthermore, critics stressed that state defined academic content standards and predefined achievement standards in reading/language arts and math left behind the most marginalized students, such as students with learning disabilities and English language learners, who were expected to perform at the same level of “proficiency” predetermined by the state.
The NCLB Act greatly impacted entire school cultures and school communities as they were essentially punished when they did not improve their academic performance on standardized tests. Lower performing schools prioritized teaching to the test, often with scripted lessons, and made subjects like art and history secondary as students were not tested in them.67 As a high school student in the city of Compton during this time, I recall our principal bringing a few of the AP and honors courses together to teach us how to take a test. I was blown away at how I could answer test questions for the language arts portion without actually reading the literary passage. The strategies he taught us had nothing to do with reading comprehension and more to do with test-taking skills. Our principal was willing to do what it took to excite students about the yearly testing season. He often rode a bicycle around the campus with a bubble machine to remind us, “Make sure to fill in all of the bubbles” on the test. We had pizza parties and jumpers after a long morning of testing to incentivize and reward students for attending school. While at the time I did not understand the repercussions for attending a school deemed as “failing” and “in need of improvement,” I knew that we had lost our accreditation and with it, most of our student population. These are the stories of many school communities across the U.S.
NCLB introduced an era of accountability that consequently fueled the push out of students, teachers, and in some cases, enabled the closure of public schools. What a narrow focus on standardized test outputs revealed was that the achievement gap is truly an opportunity gap that extends beyond the scope of increasing federal funds in schools. The opportunity gap refers to life chances that are determined by the lack of opportunities, which are inherently influenced by factors such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and ZIP code, among other social and structural conditions that prevent student readiness and better educational outcomes. None of these factors should matter, but they do. There will always be success stories of individual students that beat the odds, educators that go above and beyond, parents that become fierce advocates, community leaders that pose creative solutions, but these stories are not the norm for most students.
Militarization of Schools
A provision of the NCLB act was for military recruiters to have access to school facilities and, upon request, the contact information of each student. In other words, schools that did not comply with this provision of the federal law jeopardize receiving federal aid. Parents were given the option to opt their children out. This provision was highly criticized by students and parents alike. It opened up the question: does a military presence belong in schools? Military recruiters on school campuses are known to establish rapport with students, often serving as coaches, substitutes, and filling in where needed. Military recruitment takes place through class presentations, lunch time, and some campuses even provide a permanent office space for military recruiters to meet with students. Writing on a campaign to remove a military recruiter, Roberto Camacho summarizes:
In 2018, Truth In Recruitment helped spearhead a movement to remove a noncommissioned California National Guard recruiter who actually had an office on Santa Maria High School’s campus. Although the recruiter was officially listed as a “volunteer” who was supposed to facilitate an anti-bullying and holistic “rehabilitation” program, the office essentially served as a de facto recruitment center. Literature, pamphlets, and banners for the California National Guard were plastered both inside and outside of the recruiter’s office. A California Public Records Act request revealed that school policy dictated that volunteers could not use campus space to promote another business, and the recruiter was eventually removed. The school’s principal, however, was not happy and subsequently banned Truth in Recruitment from participating in career day events or giving presentations to students on campus.68
Educational campaigns such as those brought forth by Truth In Recruitment in Santa Maria are necessary for school communities to be self-determined in creating learning environments that reflect how they wish to experience their schools.
Many critics of military recruiters in working-class schools state that they exploit the financial and social insecurity of working-class students with the promise of a career through the military and scholarships for college. There are also issues over students’ privacy and whether the military should have access to all of a students’ contact information, especially in cases where students experience heightened military recruitment but insufficient college recruitment.
The provision in the law sparked controversy, especially because it emerged after 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, giving way to an anti-war movement. The anti-war sentiment was strong among Santa Cruz High School students, who, at the height of the war, 300-500 students participated in a walkout in protest. This is why it was no surprise when in 2003, Santa Cruz high school students launched a campaign to adopt an opt-in policy.69 There were concerns that parents are often unaware that their child’s information was automatically shared with military recruiters. Rather than leaving the burden of opting out to parents, parents now had to opt-in to have their child’s information shared with military recruiters. The successful campaigning of students led to the district adopting this change, however, it never took effect as that summer the Department of Education and Department of Defense joined in a letter to inform all school superintendents that the “opt-in” policy is in violation of the NCLB law.
The promises offered by military recruiters is very enticing for youth who are uncertain about their future after high school. Undocumented youth, for example, are encouraged to enlist with the promise of citizenship, even though the military does not and cannot grant citizenship to its undocumented members. In fact, to enlist one needs to be a permanent resident (“green card” holder). There are, on average, 8,000 permanent residents that enlist annually. Enlisting does not guarantee a pathway to citizenship, but the military can assist its members with completing paperwork to effectuate the process. At a time when undocumented students are presented with the challenge of college affordability and access, enlisting in the military may present itself as more promising and realistic. Figure 8.5.1 displays an activist poster that reads, “Defund militarism. Reclaim our resources.” It was produced in 2020 as part of the De-mil-i-ta-rise movement to reclaim resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving institutions, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world..
Sidebar
The presence of military recruiters is only one of the ways schools have become more militarized. Today, the rise of gun violence in schools has opened up the conversation on whether a stronger police presence in school is needed and some have even called for the arming of teachers and staff with guns.
Pause and Reflect
What is your opinion on military recruitment in schools and the overall militarization of schools? How do we increase campus safety?
Undocumented and Unafraid
In 2001, the first version of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was first introduced to Congress. In short, the DREAM Act is targeted to protect current, future, and former undocumented high school graduates or GED recipients who emigrated to the U.S. as children by providing them a pathway to citizenship through college, work, or military service. For the past two decades, there have been over 10 versions of this act proposed, each time failing to garner sufficient Congressional votes to pass. In consequence, the undocumented population of over 2 million that is eligible is left deportable.
Sidebar
Annually, households that include Dreamers generate \$15.5 billion in federal taxes and \$8.5 billion in state and local taxes, and they hold \$66.4 billion in spending power. Collectively, Dreamers own 144,000 homes and pay \$1.5 billion each year in mortgage payments.70 In California, Assembly Bill 540 passed in 2001 allowing eligible undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Since then, there have been other bills passed (AB 2000 and SB 68) that expand the scope of undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition in spite of not having resident status. While paying for in-state tuition is a great first step, it is not enough for undocumented students if they are ineligible for financial aid to assist them in paying for a higher education. In 2011, AB 130 and AB 131 were signed allowing for undocumented students designated under AB 540/AB 2000 to apply for state financial aid and state funded scholarships under the California Dream Act Application (CADAA). These reforms are critical as they allow for undocumented students financial need to be served and for them to have a sense of belonging.
Sidebar
Approximately 98,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools every year. 27,000 of those students graduate from California’s high schools.71
None of these reforms would be possible without the social unrest of undocumented students who have led and provided new directions to the (im)migrant rights movement, engaged in acts of civil disobedience, and risked arrest, detention, and deportation. Early on, the term “DREAM-er” was employed by undocumented student activists, also referred to as the 1.5 generation who emigrated to the U.S. as children. This generation identifies as American, attended and graduated from American schools, and yet are faced with institutional barriers that serve as reminders that they do not belong. Video 8.5.1 provides a glimpse into the work of Julio Salgado, an undocumented and queer (undocuqueer) activist who continues to play a pivotal role in the immigration rights movement.
Video: My Name is Julio: A Short Film By His Best Friend Jesús Iñiguez
The creative genius of the undocumented student activist community was instrumental in creating awareness and mobilizing support to create change. Students wore caps and gowns and performed mock graduation ceremonies as tactics to raise awareness and redefine negative images of undocumented immigrants that depict them as criminals and unassimilated. Immigrant youth boldly affirmed they were “coming out of the shadows” and proclaiming themselves as “undocumented and unafraid.” The courage of undocumented student activists encouraged others to do the same, especially those who grew up with the understanding that no one should ever know your unauthorized immigration status. Students continue to lead reforms, such as the student organization Students for Quality Education (SQE), the signing of AB 21 in 2017, a bill to protect the information of undocumented students on CSU campuses, and to create a protocol in the event that federal immigration enforcement enters the campus.
Many colleges and universities now have a Dream Center, annual undocumented student programming, and undocumented student organizations. In spite of the gains, the fear of detention and deportation continues to be a possible reality for “DREAM-ers” and their families as none of the reforms mentioned enable a pathway to U.S. citizenship, permanent residency, nor do they assist undocumented immigrant populations that entered the U.S. as adults.
Walkouts Against HR 4437
🧿 Content Warning: Self-Harm. Please note that this section includes discussion of self-harm.
The “Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act” (HR 4437) passed the House of Representatives in December 2005 and if signed into law, it would have criminalized any undocumented immigrant without authorization to be in the U.S.. making it a felony charge. Returning from winter break, students across schools and universities expressed their opposition and organized through MySpace, text messaging, chat rooms, and email. What we collectively witnessed were nation-wide youth walkouts in hundreds of schools.
Unlike the East LA walkouts of 1968, the students who walked out in 2006 were not organizing to reform their schools from within, but to change society. Wayne Yang observed that in the Bay area, “There was no clear single leader in the student strikes, nor was there a vanguard youth organization.”72 This was true across many schools and is testament to the role that social media began to play in grassroots, organic, bottom-up youth organizing––a fast type of organizing that did not require political leadership or formal organizations. This is not to say that some schools did not have leadership, or that leaders did not emerge from the organizing.
Similar to the 1968 East LA walkouts, students were quickly reprimanded by administrators and threatened with suspension and lock downs to prevent them from walking out. At DeAnza Middle School, eight-grade student Anthony Soltero was punished for walking out by his Vice Principal, only to commit suicide later that day. As reported, the Vice Principal “terrorized” Anthony with threats of three years of prison time, forbade him from attending his 8th grade graduation ceremony, and mentioned truancy penalties his parents would have to pay for walking out.73 Anthony was already on probation for a previous offense (bringing a pen knife to school). The punitive approach taken by an administrator added unnecessary pressure to a child who was in the beginning stages of developing their own political consciousness and becoming civically engaged. It was not uncommon for students to be threatened with losing their scholarships or not being able to participate in graduation ceremonies to prevent the walkouts from continuing. Afterall, schools lose per-pupil funding when a student is marked absent and are therefore incentivized to keep students in schools. Figure 8.5.2 depicts people holding signs that honor and commemorate the life of Anthony Soltero during an anti-HR4437 demonstration, clearly conveying that these two events are connected.
What the country collectively witnessed in the spring of 2006, were a series of school walkouts to collectively express opposition to HR 4437 and support for comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty. Aquí estamos y no nos vamos (Here we are and we are not leaving) was a rallying cry across nationwide demonstrations. Students engaged in walkouts, teach-ins, and collaborated with other youth across schools and districts. Entire families participated in marches such as “A Day Without Immigrants” or The Great American Boycott, that promoted “no work, no school, no shopping” for society and industries to recognize the economic value of immigrant labor and their contributions to society. In downtown LA, we witnessed the mega-marches unlike ever before.74 Many proclaimed that the “sleeping giant” was finally awakened. The mass mobilization efforts against HR 4437 effectively prevented it from becoming law and an entire generation of students learned the collective power they have when they unite in defense of their communities.
Somos Semillas: Re-Igniting an Ethnic Studies Movement
In 2006, Dolores Huerta was invited to deliver a talk to students at Tucson Magnet High School after the nation-wide walkouts against HR4437. Upon the request of school administrators, Huerta encouraged students to explore alternate ways to create social change, such as to identify and write to their Congressional representatives and question them on why “Republicans hate Latinos.” Afterall, the anti-immigrant bills were spearheaded by the Republican party. She motivated students to continue their engagement in activism by exploring other forms of political power. This remark set off a wave of backlash by conservative Republican legislators, including Arizona’s Superintendent of Instruction of the time, Tom Horne who began probing into the school.
In “An Open Letter to the Citizens of Tucson” released in 2007, Horne began to make his case against the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, MEChA, ethnic studies textbooks, and made a call to action for citizens to pressure the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) to terminate ethnic studies.75 Horne’s initial strategy of mobilizing community members against the school was ineffective, and on the contrary, the entire school community along with other supporters, unified to defend what rapidly became an attack against ethnic studies in general. Horne, along with other key players, were able to get a newly elected Latino Republican state legislator, Steve Montenegro, who emigrated from El Salvador as a child, to sponsor the House Bill (HB) 2281 (2010), a revision to statute 15-112(A), which effectively sought to terminate ethnic studies.
In spring of 2010, the MAS program effectively became the target of HB 2281, which prohibited a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:
This bill was passed to dismantle and ban ethnic studies programs, courses, and literature. School districts then set out to expand the list of banned books used in ethnic studies classrooms, preventing teachers from integrating ethnic studies texts into their courses.
Pause and Reflect
Examine the fourth point under Arizona’s HB 2281. In your opinion, why do you think “ethnic solidarity” was presented negatively and used to justify the elimination of ethnic studies?
The Mexican American Studies program emerged as a community-driven initiative in the late 1990s. There was a concern that Mexican American students needed a curriculum that incorporated their background and identities as a means for improving student academic achievement.76 Perhaps what was most unique about this ethnic studies program was the centering of Indigenous ancestral knowledge, epistemologies (ways of knowing), and pedagogies. The decolonial approach to learning posed a threat to the daily operation of schools and learning, as summarized by award-winning MAS literature teacher, Curtis Acosta in “Dangerous Minds in Tucson,”
Our Mexican American Studies classes were pedagogically forged to combat the passivity and acquiescence of student experiences within the status quo of public schools. Specifically, in my Latin@ Literature classes, I intentionally created educational experiences that provided spaces and time for students to reflect upon their world through the lens of the literature we studied in class. This practice, which was based upon indigenous epistemologies from our local community and cultural context, provided the foundation to build, not only an authentic classroom curriculum and climate where the students could analyze the experiences in their world, but also an immediately disrupted traditional school hierarchy through the organic injection of student voice as the initial step toward the rigorous study of literature. Through weekly journaling, casual classroom sharing, as well as formal presentations and discussions, student voice was consistently valued and normalized in the educational experiences of MAS classes.77
The program was a proven success. MAS students outperformed students not in the program when it came to reading, writing, and graduation rates. In spite of the program’s success, the state of Arizona spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to discredit and eliminate it. The state went so far as to contract Cambium Learning Incorporated to conduct an independent curriculum audit in the spring of 2011. The results of the audit only served to reinforce the effectiveness of the program and proved that the curriculum was not in violation of Arizona’s revised statutes 15-112(A). Furthermore, during this time Christine E. Sleeter (2011) documented an extensive research overview on the academic and social value of ethnic studies in schools and universities.78 As the movement in support of ethnic studies grew, so did the role for research in ethnic studies at every level of education and in the areas of curriculum, pedagogy, and policy. In spite of the extensive research positively supporing why ethnic studies is beneficial to all students, especially students of color, Arizona moved forward with the implementation of HB 2281.79
It is no coincidence that the same year HB 2281 presented its attack against ethnic studies, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer signed another controversial bill, Senate Bill 1070 “The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.” This policy was the strictest anti-immigration law in contemporary history, calling for the implementation of legal racial profiling in Arizona allowing law enforcement to question the immigration status of anyone stopped, detained, or arrested for a possible state violation. It criminalized any undocumented immigrant who could not provide the appropriate documentation with a misdemeanor crime and criminalized seeking employment without authorization. While SB 1070 and HB 2281 were ultimately ruled unconstitutional in court, the devastation caused by these attacks on Arizona’s youth in regard to mental health and communities altogether cannot be underestimated.
Sidebar
In 2017, a federal district judge ruled HB 2281 unconstitutional, arguing that the law was enacted with “racial animus” and used “discriminatory ends in order to make political gains.” The ban on ethnic studies in Arizona sparked a movement for ethnic studies in California.
California activists, including many educators and students, protested against Arizona’s SB 1070 and HB 2281. Across campuses, students organized demonstrations of all types– whether they were teach-ins, marches, boycotts, even caravans to Arizona– this outpour of solidarity was powerful. For many involved in these protests, including myself, it served as a reminder that while we were fighting to save ethnic studies in Arizona, in California, the number of ethnic studies courses available to high school students was small and in most cases non-existent. The sense of defeat from Arizona’s racist and xenophobic laws were transformed into an opportunity to re-ignite the fight for ethnic studies in California. In the aftermath, the formation of conferences, summits, campaigns, and institutes devoted to teaching and organizing ethnic studies grew stronger each year. The movement for ethnic studies in California continues to be a force to be reckoned with. For an overview of the growth and institutionalization of ethnic studies, review Section 1.2: Struggles and Protest for Chicanx and Latinx Studies. What we are witnessing today is the contemporary civil rights movement in education, and the enduring fight for ethnic studies is at the forefront. As the Mexican dicho (saying) reminds us, “Quisieron enterrarnos, pero se les olvido que somos semillas” (They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds). Like the students of yesterday, the students of today will continue to pave the way for generations to come.
Pause and Reflect
What is the state of ethnic studies today? What new laws, policies, and practices do you observe in support of and/or against ethnic studies? What is the state of ethnic studies on your campus?
Footnotes
66 Ann Owens and Gail L. Sunderman, School Accountability under NCLB: Aid or Obstacle for Measuring Racial Equity? (Cambridge: Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 2006)
67 Wayne Au, “High-Stakes Testing and Curricular Control: A Qualitative Metasynthesis,” Educational Researcher Vol. 36, No. 5 (2007): 258–267.
68 Roberto Camacho, “Marginalized students pay the price of military recruitment efforts,” Prism, April 18, 2022. Last accessed October 25, 2022.
69 Rebecca Patt, “By Any Means Necessary,” MetroActive, March 2003. Last accessed October 25, 2022.
70 Nicole Prchal Svajlenka, “The Dream and Promise Act Put 2.1 Million Dreamers on Pathway to Citizenship,” American Progress, March 26, 2019. Last accessed October 25, 2022
71 Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova, “How Many Unauthorized Immigrants Graduate from U.S. High Schools Annually?” Migrant Policy Institute, April 2019
72 K. Wayne Yang, “Organizing MySpace: Youth Walkouts, Pleasure, Politics, and New Media,” Educational Foundations (Winter-Spring 2007): 17.
73 Favianna Rodriguez, “Death By Suicide,” (blog), April 10, 2006 (Last accessed October 25, 2022).
74 Alfonso Gonzalez, Reform without Justice: Latino Migrant Politics and the Homeland Security State, (Oxford University Press, 2013)
75 Tom Horne, “An Open Letter to the Citizens of Tucson,” State of Arizona Department of Education, June 11, 2007.
76 To read more about the formation of the program, see Conrado Gomez and Margarita Jimenez-Silva, “Mexican American Studies: The Historical Legitimacy of an Educational Program” Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMAE) Journal Vol. 6, No. 1 (2012): 15–23.
77 Curtis Acosta, “Dangerous Minds in Tucson: The Banning of Mexican American Studies and Critical Thinking in Arizona,” Journal of Educational Controversy, Vol. 8, No. 1, Article 9 (2012): pg. 9.
78 Christine E. Sleeter, “The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies: A Research Review,” Washington, DC: National Education Association, 2011.
79 For an introduction to curriculum, pedagogy, and research in ethnic studies see, Christine E. Sleeter and Miguel Zavala, Transformative Ethnic Studies in Schools: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Research, (Teachers College Press, 2020).
8.06: Conclusion
Summary
Brazilian education philosopher, Paulo Freire wrote about praxis––ongoing cycles of theory, reflection, and action––as a practice of freedom stating,
Authentic liberation - the process of humanization - is not another deposit to be made in [people]. Liberation is praxis: the action and reflection of [people] upon their world in order to transform it.80
This chapter presented historical moments in which communities engaged in praxis to effectively build collective power; in effect, they transformed themselves and the educational landscape. There are many ways one can study, reflect upon, and work to reform education. This chapter presented some of the major issues that have shaped and been shaped by historically marginalized communities. This chapter explored concepts to critically understand key debates, issues, and education initiatives. It provided and overview of historical and contemporary laws in public education that have impacted and been shaped by Chicanx/Latinx communities. Lastly, extra effort was placed to highlight the practices, tactics, strategies, and movements that emerge from Chicanx/Latinx communities to reform and transform the educational landscape. While it is impossible to present a comprehensive history of everything, it is a reminder that there is a long legacy of activism we carry with us as we strive for change today. As students-teachers-scholars, we must be equally invested in engaging in social justice work as we are in studying it. The legacy of activism in education is one we inherit and will continue to build upon. This is embodied in the image in Figure 8.6.1. The poster was created for the Poor People’s Campaign, a grassroots movement fighting to end poverty, racism, militarism, and environmental destruction. The 2018 poster reads, “Learn as we lead, walk as we talk, teach as we fight.”
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.8: Chapter 8 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Colorism: Prejudice or discrimination based on dark skin color.
Footnote
80 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, New York: Continuum, 1994): pg. 79. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/08%3A_Education_and_Activism/8.05%3A_Aqui_Estamos_y_No_Nos_Vamos_2001-2012.txt |
Introduction
In this chapter, you will learn about the factors, conditions, and cultural contexts that influence Chicanx and Latinx health. This includes health outcomes and behaviors that occur at the individual level, like disease, illness, and well-being. It also includes the collective realities of communities, organizations, politics, and social constructions that influence patterns of health disparities and inequalities. Many negative factors like attempted genocide, settler-colonialism, systemic racism, xenophobia, and intersectional oppression create distinct risks for negative health in Chicanx and Latinx communities. However, we’ll also explore the many factors that promote health, strength, resilience, and tenacity among the diverse communities (i.e., Mexican, Mestizxs, Indigenous Mexican, Central American, Chicanxs, Latinx, South American, Indigenous Latinx, etc.) that make up these populations.
In the first section, you will have the opportunity to explore these broader factors and understand the conceptual frameworks for analyzing health. This includes a discussion of institutional health, traditional health, and processes that affect migrant communities and people of color, like acculturation. This also emphasizes the importance of an intersectional perspective, including feminist and queer contributions to the promotion of Chicanx and Latinx health. Then, you will have an opportunity to explore these concepts in the realm of mental health, learning about some of the documented disparities in this area. While Latinx people suffer many risk factors, the “Latino Health Paradox” has been noted by health researchers, as Latinx people fare better with respect to some health outcomes, especially among first-generation immigrants, compared to non-Hispanic whites and other communities of color.
In the final section, we will be broadening the scope to look at the environments that influence health, including the relationships between human societies and the natural world, as well as the environments where Latinx people live and work. These topics have become discussed more widely in recent years, thanks to the activism of social movement leaders. For example, the globally recognized Indigenous-led struggles to stop and prevent pipeline projects in the U.S. and Canada have elevated conversations about the importance of protecting healthy water supplies for humans. As well, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to society’s attention the working conditions that influence health among many working-class communities, including industries that disproportionately employ Latinxs, including agriculture, retail, logistics, construction, maintenance, and sanitation.
• 9.1: Frameworks for Analyzing Chicanx and Latinx Health
This section explores the conceptual tools for understanding Chicanx and Latinx community health. It highlights the historical and contemporary challenges faced by these communities, including colonization, violence, acculturation, and environmental toxins. The section emphasizes the importance of culture and its influence on health, considering factors such as nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, language, and disability.
• 9.2: Mental Health
This section discusses the prevalence of mental health conditions among Latinx individuals and the factors that impact Chicanx and Latinx mental health. Factors such as trauma, discrimination, restrictive immigration policies, and structural vulnerability contribute to mental health disparities. Barriers to accessing care include fear of deportation, discrimination, and mistrust. A comprehensive model for mental health services is proposed to address disparities.
• 9.3: Environmental Justice and Health
This section highlights the interdependence of the environment and human society, emphasizing the impact on individual and community health. It discusses how structural inequalities disproportionately affect communities of color, low-income areas, and immigrants, leading to unhealthy environments. The section also explores environmental justice advocacy, showcasing grassroots efforts led by Latina/x activists.
• 9.4: Workplace Health
This section discusses the factors influencing workplace health for Chicanx and Latinx communities. It highlights the overrepresentation of these groups in industries with high risks of exposure to toxic chemicals, exacerbated by language barriers and exploitation of legal and immigration status. The COVID-19 pandemic further emphasized the health vulnerabilities faced by essential workers, including agricultural workers and retail clerks, who were disproportionately impacted by infection rates.
• 9.5: Conclusion
09: Health
Conceptual Tools for Understanding Chicanx and Latinx Community Health
There is much health and healing of body, mind, and spirit to do given our Chicanx and Latinx history of genocide, colonization, violence, acculturation, sterilization, hazardous working conditions, environmental toxins, diabetes, intergeneration trauma, abuses, and more. Views of health are shaped by one's culture, and culture is informed by nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, language, and dis/ability.1 At the same time, health access and health resources are historically and negatively impacted by a history of anti-Indianness, racism, classism, undocumented status, and region.2 The implications of wealth, or net worth (what you own minus what you owe) by race, home ownership, and neighborhood income is apparent in the health inequality and lack of health access. There are often better health facilities and well-trained doctors and fully staffed medical facilities in more affluent communities compared to poor ones. For this reason, the emergence of community-based clinics has been critical to racialized ethnic communities, especially in California Chicanx and Latinx communities.3
Think about your own experience with health and healing and that of your parents and grandparents. Where have they received most of their health and healing information? Both institutional and traditional health care are key to our communities. Institutional health care has to do with health care provided by hospitals and with doctors, physicians, prescribed medications, surgical procedures, and psychiatric appointments, which typically involve insurance. Traditional health care has to do with Indigenous ways of health and healing of cuerpo y alma (body and soul) mediated through curanderas/os (healers) or other specialists, like parteras (midwifes) and involves remedios (medicinal herbs), ceremonies, limpias (spiritual cleansings), sobaradoras/os or sobadas (massage therapist or massage), huezeras/os (bone setter), informal counseling for bilis (rage), susto (fright), or envido (envy), ancestral foodways, and referrals to medical doctors if needed.4 Traditional health care has been in existence since before colonization and requires skilled and experienced healers.
There are a number of pathways that influence the relationship between settler-colonialism, white supremacy and health. These include the types of foods we eat and what kinds of foods are available for consumption, as well as the environments in which communities live, work, and raise families. These examples show how settler colonialism and white supremacy operate to reproduce health disparities and the ways that communities contest these systems through resilient communities and collective resistance.
Traditional Health Practices and Perspectives
In recent years, with an alarming rate of cancer and research on the connection between our gut and minds, there has been an attempt to move away from processed foods and move towards decolonizing diets and cultivating gardens.5 This means moving towards the use of ancestral foodways, which includes Mesoamerican (Anaucan) super foods like corn, beans, squash, nopales (cactus), chiles, amaranth, and chia and regarding food as an essential part of health and healing rather than only for consumption. However, Chicanx and Latinx communities are more likely to have a hard time accessing fresh fruits and vegetables. In many low-income and immigrant communities, few stores and markets sell fresh items compared to alcohol and processed foods within approximate distance to homes. This can result from zoning processes that place low-income residences and immigrant worker housing in areas far away from central commercial areas and restaurants. Chicanx and Latinx farmworker families who work in the food industry and provide sustenance for communities around the globe are often directly impacted by these disparities.
In terms of abortion, there are various understandings and stances in Latinx communities. Historically among some Chicana/x and Latina/x Indigenous women, there is an awareness of herbs (ruda, etc.) and teas that are believed to terminate a pregnancy under the direction of a healer and seriously considering the context of a woman. Given the understanding of the importance of body, mind, and spirit and deep connection to cosmology, abortion is viewed by some healers as a sacred decision that can only be made with much prayer or meditation for permission from the cosmos or divine universe. In a traditional approach, the decision to undergo an abortion requires healing and asking for forgiveness specifically of the uterus because it is viewed as the living organ in which the spirit of the aborted needs to be acknowledged before letting go. There is the healing of the uterus as well as the emotional healing for mental health. A ceremony of healing for loss is needed, requiring prayers in a circle of women who understand life, death, and regeneration, as well as the connection of body, mind, and spirit. On the other hand, the conversation and practice of abortion for Chicanas/xs and Latinas/xs in the context of Christian and Catholic households is sometimes filled with stigma, shame, and embarrassment. Making the decision and undergoing the medicalization of abortion in isolation or secrecy, without the support of mothers or family members, sometimes poses challenges to health and healing in the body, mind, and spirit.
In “To Valerse Por Si Misma between Race, Capitalism, and Patriarchy: Latina Mother-Daughter Pedagogies in North Carolina,” Sofia Villenas and Melissa Moreno examined the narratives or conversations and oral life histories of a group of Latina mothers focusing on the teaching and learning that occurs between mothers and daughters on gender and sexuality through consejos (advice), cuentos (stories) and la experiencia (experience), which are filled with tensions and contradictions yet open with spaces of possibility. Latinas evoked patriarchal ideologies about being a mujer de hogar (woman of the home), while simultaneously negotiating these in discourses about knowing how to valerse por si misma (to be self-reliant). Mothers teach daughters to be submissive, rebellious, and conforming, all at the same time, as they maneuver between race, patriarchy, and capitalism in the United States.6
Traditional health through an Indigenous framework acknowledges the connection and health between body, mind, and spirit. Another example of Indigenous health practices is in the realm of birthing, which is typically regarded as a ceremony, where mothering is considered to be a state of reverence and sacredness as mothers bring life into the world.7 The guidance of a midwife and doula is valued. You can learn more about the diverse perspectives of midwives of color at this blog site. Indigenous labor practices can involve birthing while squatting, holding on to someone, or using a rebozo (traditional shawl) to be held up rather than laying on a bed. Postpartum, the healing after birthing, is thought to require la cuarentena, forty days of rest to restore body, mind, and spirit. Specifically restoring the uterus from birthing the child is important. This can include the use of eating and drinking only warm food elements for one’s body and steady milk production. It can also include using a rebozo or faja (girdle) around the abdomen for support and receiving proper and gentle massages. In terms of connection, there is a family ritual of burying the umbilical cord in a special place where a child can return for a sense of connection and belonging when and if needed in their cycles of life. During newborn stages, the baby is swaddled tightly in the hope of providing comfort similar to in-utero and slow integration into the outside world.
Although there are generations of scientific, religious, and cultural knowledge embedded in traditional health practices, these perspectives are often disregarded in the face of dominant western healthcare. The positive value of these practices depends on the continued health and vitality of the communities that carry them forward.
Healthcare Access and Institutional Health
Traditional remedios or medicinal herbs and ancestral foodways for the people connected to land have been impacted by invasion and colonization by the Spanish and European Americans beginning 500 years ago to 150 years ago, depending on the region in this hemisphere, and continuing to today through the structure of settler-colonial governments.8 When people are de-territorialized or displaced, they lose their land and access to remedios (medicine) and ancestral foodways. In combination with settler-colonialism, industrialized capitalism has led to the increased production and sale of processed foods. When you lack access to ancestral food and shift to more processed foods, the increase in sugar, lard, and other chemicals leads to an increase in diabetes and other related health conditions. Diabetes, in some cases, is caused by the experience of being torn from ancestral food and shifting into colonized foodways.9
Acculturation refers to the process of adapting to and adopting cultural practices of a new environment, which can include both individual change and community and cultural change. In the context of Chicanx and Latinx health, acculturation is often measured through the number of generations one’s family has lived in the United States. Acculturation is associated with many important health outcomes, including diabetes, obesity, negative birth outcomes, and substance abuse.10 This can be attributed to the stress that occurs for Chicanx and Latinx families, which includes systemic barriers in housing, education, and employment, as well as bias and discrimination against immigrants. This can impact health outcomes at the community, individual, physiological, and cellular levels.11
Institutional health care has contributed to a range of injustices and health disparities. For Chicana/x and Latina/x, Native American, and Black women there is a history of reproducing injustice dating back to colonization and slavery.12 In the early 1900s, the Eugenics Movement mobilized racist theories of intelligence that also enabled the practice of forced sterilization. For more details on this topic, you can review Section 5.3 on Reproductive Justice. It impacted family formation and served as a form of population control. This history of medical violence experienced by women of color, including Chicanas/xs, Puertorriqueñas/xs, and Latinas/xs continues to cause harm in the lives of people who were not able to have children and entire communities who avoid or delay care due to mistrust of medical providers.13 In Figure 9.1.1, there is an activist poster from the Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas which leads with the popular reproductive rights framing, “My Body. My Choice,” along with the statements, “Fight for Reproductive Justice” and “Real Feminism Includes Trans Women” around a brown woman sitting in a meditative position.
Accessing institutional health requires health insurance or large out-of-pocket payments. Both of these can be prohibitive for low-income communities, immigrants, and communities of color like Chicanxs and Latinxs. As well, language barriers can play a role in the struggle for health access. In some Latinx communities, bilingual or Spanish-speaking promotoras are essential to helping community members navigate the health system and receive care.14 Promotoras are health workers who have received specialized training to provide basic health education in the community, who have been key mediators for Chicanx and Latinx communities to gain health access. You can learn more about how promotoras have been part of saving lives and caring for communities with HIV/AIDS in Chapter 6.
The lack of clean and safe water and toxic pollutants used on crops compounds health issues and avoidable illnesses. The impacts of contemporary food systems on our bodies, minds, and spirit have been detrimental. Historically groups like the United Farmworkers, American Indian Movement, Black Panther Party and the South Central Los Angeles Farm have raised awareness about this reality concerning food access and insecurity in Chicanx, Latinx, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Food is ultimately important to forming healthy families and communities. In response, more and more farmers' markets are emerging in low-income working-class communities, aided by the ability to accept EBT payments (food stamps).
Oftentimes, traditional food and food cultures of people of color are characterized as unhealthy, without regard to their place in spiritual, physical, and social processes. For example, outside observers may not understand that certain dishes are meant for holidays, special occasions, and family gatherings. While they may build from the same staple ingredients within the diet, daily dishes are often more modest. In the most extreme distortions, Americanized versions of Chicanx and Latinx foods with processed ingredients, extreme portion sizes, and unhealthy additives are taken to stand in for traditional foods.
In some contexts, researchers have observed a pattern that can be described as the Latino Health Paradox. This means that immigrant Mexican and Latinx people report better health and longer life expectancy compared to their acculturated Mexican origin and Latinx counterparts as well as European Americans, includcing those of higher class statuses. Despite experiencing discrimination and institutional exclusion, which are typically risk factors that exacerbate bad health, recent migrants carry forward strong traditions of resilience and well-being. Traditional diet and lifestyle play a major role in the Latino Health Paradox theory. Fewer years of processed foods, more walking, and less drug and substance abuse by immigrants make a difference in everyday health and overall longevity.
Institutional health has been structured around the role of doctors exclusively tending to the physical body. This perspective is supported by western medicine and, in the U.S. context, involved with the for-profit pharmaceutical and health insurance industries. However, there has also been a movement towards holistic medicine that has found supporters in hospitals and clinics, including formal partnerships with traditional healthcare providers. For example, certified midwives have only recently been accepted to work in hospital settings in the state of California since 2010. Nursing and breast milk have recently been valued compared to the once popular formula and commercialized milk. Some hospitals have an option for birthing in water. Some physicians have improved care for transgender and other vulnerable communities. For supplemental exploration on this topic, explore this short post from UC Davis on the topic of transgender care.
Holistic health practitioners and traditional health perspectives recognize the need to radically shift the current medical system of health services to a commitment to healthcare for all. The image displayed in Figure 9.1.2 visualizes the activist call for “Health Care For All!”
Disability Justice among Chicanx and Latinx Communities
Disability justice and the health of the Chicanx and Latinx community are interconnected in several ways. The principles of disability justice emphasize the rights and inclusion of individuals with disabilities, recognizing that disability is not solely an individual issue but a result of societal barriers and systemic oppression. In the context of the Chicanx and Latinx community, this means acknowledging and addressing the unique health challenges faced by individuals with disabilities within these communities.
Chicanx and Latinx communities often faces disparities in access to healthcare, which can further impact individuals with disabilities. Limited resources, language barriers, and cultural factors can hinder their ability to receive adequate healthcare services and support. Disability justice advocates for a comprehensive approach to health that addresses these barriers and ensures that healthcare systems are inclusive, culturally sensitive, and accessible to individuals with disabilities within the Chicanx and Latinx community. This includes promoting awareness and education about disability rights, advocating for equal healthcare access, and creating support networks that prioritize the well-being and needs of individuals with disabilities in these communities. By integrating disability justice into Chicanx and Latinx community health initiatives, we can work towards a more equitable and inclusive healthcare system that promotes the overall well-being of all community members.
Footnotes
1 Angie Chabram-Dernersesian and Adela de la Torre, eds., Speaking from the Body: Latinas on Health and Culture (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2008); Adela de la Torre and Antonio Estrada, Mexican Americans and Health: ¡Sana! ¡Sana!, 2nd edition (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2015); Yvette G. Flores, Chicana and Chicano Mental Health: Alma, Mente y Corazón (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013); Rose M. Borunda and Melissa Moreno, Speaking from the Heart: Herstories of Chicana, Latina, and Amerindian Women, 3rd edition (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2022).
2 Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes, Patricia Y. Miranda, and Sawsan Abdulrahim, “More than Culture: Structural Racism, Intersectionality Theory, and Immigrant Health,” Social Science and Medicine, 75, no. 12 (December 1, 2012): 2099–2106, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.037.
3 Castulo De la Rocha, Diana M. Bonta, and Jose J. Garcia. The Chicano Boom: Healing California 1965-19865 (Los Angeles, CA: Alta Med Health Services, 2019).
4 Elena Avila and Joy Parker, Woman Who Glows in the Dark: A Curandera Reveals Traditional Aztec Secrets of Physical and Spiritual Health (New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2000); Flores, Chicana and Chicano Mental Health; Brian McNeill and Jose M. Cervantes, eds., Latina/o Healing Practices: Mestizo and Indigenous Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011); Bobette Perrone, Henrietta H. Stockel, and Victoria Krueger, Medicine Women, Curanderas, and Women Doctors (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989); Jerry Tello, Recovering Your Sacredness (Hacienda Heights, CA: Sueños Publications LLC, 2019).
5 Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel, Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing (Vancouver, Canada: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015); Devon Peña, Luz Calvo, Pancho McFarland, and Gabriel Valle, eds., Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways, and Social Movements: Decolonial Perspectives (Fayetteville, AK: University of Arkansas Press, 2017).
6 Sofia Villenas and Melissa Moreno, “To Valerse Por Si Misma between Race, Capitalism, and Patriarchy: Latina Mother-Daughter Pedagogies in North Carolina,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 14, no. 5 (2001): 671–87.
7 Lara Medina and Martha R. Gonzales, eds., Voices from the Ancestors.
8 Roberto Cintli Rodríguez, Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2014); Elisa Facio and Irene Lara, eds., Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2014); Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2015); Brian McNeill and Jose M. Cervantes, eds., Latina/o Healing Practices: Mestizo and Indigenous Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011); Lara Medina and Martha R. Gonzales, eds., Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2019); Eliseo Torres and Imanol Miranda, Curandero: Traditional Healers of Mexico and the Southwest (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2017).
9 Leslie O. Schulz, Peter H. Bennett, Eric Ravussin, Judith R. Kidd, Kenneth K. Kidd, Julian Esparza, and Maruo Valencia. “Effects of Traditional and Western Environments on Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes in Pima Indians in Meixco and the U.S.” Diabetes Care 29, no. 8 (2006): 1866–1871. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc06-0138
10 Marielena Lara, Cristina Gamboa, M. Iya Kahramanian, Leo S. Morales, and David E. Hayes Bautista. “Acculturation and Latino Health in the United States: A Review of the Literature and its Sociopolitical Context.” Annual Review of Public Health 26 (2005):367–397. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144615
11 Rosa M. Gonzalez-Guarda, Allison M. Stafford, and Jamie L. Conklin. “A Systematic Review of Physical Health Consequences and Acculturation Stress among Latinx Individuals in the United States.” Biological Reserach for Nursing 23, no. 3 (2021): 362–374.
12 Elena R. Gutiérrez, Fertile Matters (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2008), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/716810.
13 Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, 20th Anniversary Edition, 20th Anniversary ed. (New York, NY: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2008); Gutiérrez, Fertile Matters.
14 Natalia Deeb-Sossa, Doing Good: Racial Tensions and Workplace Inequalities at a Community Clinic in El Nuevo South (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/09%3A_Health/9.01%3A_Frameworks_for_Analyzing_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Health.txt |
Prevalence of Mental Health Conditions
🧿 Content Warning: Self-Harm and Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussion of self-harm and physical violence.
Latinxs demonstrate variability in the prevalence of mental health disorders.15 In 2018, 8.6 million Latinx adults had a mental health or substance use disorder.16 While this is a substantial burden of mental health issues, evidence also suggests that Latinx individuals experience a lower risk of most mental health disorders compared with non-Latinx white individuals, which means that we can learn about important protective factors by examining the practices of Chicanx and Latinx groups. However, U.S.-born Latinxs report higher rates for most psychiatric disorders compared with Latinx immigrants.17 Latinxs may identify with different racial categories, immigration experiences, languages spoken, and more, but all Latinxs share a common experience of family origin in Latin America.18
Latinx youth are at particular risk of mental health disorders: among Latinx high school students, 18.9% had seriously considered attempting suicide, 15.7% had made a plan to attempt suicide, 11.3% had attempted suicide, and 4.1% had made a suicide attempt that required medical attention.19 Furthermore, Latinx youth report a higher prevalence of illicit substance use and initiation of alcohol or cigarette use in the past year relative to youth belonging to other racial/ethnic groups.20
Factors Impacting Chicanx and Latinx Mental Health
🧿 Content Warning: Physical and Sexual Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical and sexual violence.
Several mutually constitutive and overlapping factors contribute to the development of mental health disorders in Latinxs. Latinxs, particularly those who have migrated to the U.S., report high rates of trauma. Migration, or transnational mobility, entails multiple vulnerabilities, including violence and economic precarity in one’s country of origin; threats or risks of physical and sexual violence, dehydration, kidnapping, and exploitation during border crossings; family separation; and detention and deportation.21 Experiences are particularly harrowing for women, who may confront rape, forced prostitution, trafficking, and physical violence.22 Reports of trauma exposure are extremely high among Latina migrant women, with prevalence rates around 75%.23 In addition, many Latinxs carry historical trauma relating to European colonization, enslavement, sexual violence, and genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas.24 Such reproductive and genocidal violence continues with reports of recently coerced hysterectomies on (im)migrant women detained in Georgia.25
Discrimination, Exclusion, Violence, and Health
🧿 Content Warning: Physical Violence. Please note that this section includes discussions of physical violence, including violence against people of color by police and immigration enforcement.
Latinx migrants and their descendants experience discrimination. Both acculturative stress and discrimination have been shown to impact physical health through the mediating effects of anxiety.26 For example, greater experiences of discrimination moderate the effect of harsh working conditions, increasing symptoms of anxiety and depression among migrant farmworkers in the rural Midwest.27
Restrictive immigration policies and enforcement contribute to psychosocial stress among Latinxs. Increased immigration enforcement is associated with higher mental distress and decreased self-reported health.28 There are consistent associations between restrictive immigration policies and outcomes including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).29 Similarly, citizen children who worry about losing a caregiver suffer from higher rates of depression, anxiety, emotional distress, and hypervigilance.30 Among pregnant women, fear of deportation and fear of a family member being deported are associated with higher prenatal and postpartum anxiety.31 For example, following the implementation of 287(g) agreements, which permit the cooperation of federal immigration authorities with local police, pregnant Latina women sought prenatal care later and had inadequate care when compared with non-Latina women.32 One study found that a 1% increase in a state’s immigration arrest rate was significantly associated with multiple mental health morbidity outcomes.33 In the wake of immigration raids and mass deportations, (im)migrants and Latinxs in particular report greater stress and fear and worse health.34 Many activists have worked to actively contest these fears. One example of this is shown in Figure 9.2.1, which displays an image of two Latina activists, holding a sign that reads, “End SB 1070 and Family Separation,” referring to to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 that authorized widespread racial profiling against Latinxs and immigrants. The scene is accompanied by the words, “Nos Tienen Miedo” and “Porque No Tenemos Miedo,” which translates into English as “They are afraid of us, because we are not afraid.”
These latter findings are particularly relevant amid intensifying anti-immigrant sentiment and increased deportation in recent years. In 2016, within days of his inauguration, former President Trump signed Executive Order 13768 entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” which expanded deportation priorities to effectively include every undocumented (im)migrant, promoted increased use of state and local police to enforce federal immigration law through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (i.e., 287(g) agreements), and directed the hiring of 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.35 Following this order, an additional 52 jurisdictions signed 287(g) agreements. In addition, the Trump administration attempted to revoke temporary protected status from individuals who emigrated from Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador; however, this effort was stymied by the Ramos, et al. vs. Nielsen, et al. decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.36 The administration also enacted a Zero Tolerance Policy with respect to unauthorized immigration, prosecuting (im)migrants as criminals, detaining them in hieleras (ice-cold cells) and separating children from their parents at the border. The subsequent Biden administration has begun to counter some of these policies; however, even by their own admission, this is a lengthy political process. Beyond that, the harsh policies enacted by the Trump administration have a lasting impact, even as they are dismantled at the federal level. State and local activists have also continued to mobilize around similar policies, including the building of a border wall in Texas.
Structural Vulnerability and Health Disparities
Structural vulnerability—or an individual’s “location in their society’s multiple overlapping and mutually reinforcing power hierarchies (e.g., socioeconomic, racial, cultural) and institutional and policy-level statuses (e.g., immigration status, labor force participation)”37—conditions mental distress and inadequate access to care. Among migrant farmworkers, harsh working conditions significantly predict symptoms of anxiety and depression.38 Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), permanent residents are ineligible for public assistance during their first five years in the U.S. The public charge rule, a broader interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 212(a)(4), states that individuals are inadmissible to the U.S. if they are “likely at any time to become a public charge” and has discouraged noncitizens from pursuing needed benefits prior to regulating their status.39 Although the Biden administration has repealed the changes to this policy made during the Trump administration, fear persists among immigrants who are eligible to access services. In addition, due to their explicit exclusion from the Affordable Care Act, undocumented (im)migrants have almost no access to public health insurance as well as limited options for employer-based or private insurance.40
Many of the barriers to mental health care are rooted in the same factors that drive disparities in negative health conditions. For instance, immigration policies are often designed to explicitly and systematically exclude immigrant communities, especially undocumented individuals. Further, even when immigrants do access services, they face discrimination that can further activate mental health trauma. The provision of services in English only also creates major barriers for communities that speak Spanish or any number of non-English and Indigenous languages. Beyond that, Latinx migrant communities are often economically exploited and therefore face barriers at disparately high rates, including the cost of services themselves, access to childcare, transportation, and the inability to take time off from work. While these barriers are well-documented, more attention is needed to connect these disparities with potential solutions that can close equity gaps. In the face of nearly insurmountable odds, many Latinxs cultivate positive mental health and access services as needed.
Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick and Jessica Cerdeña proposed a comprehensive model for mental health services for Latinx (im)migrant communities, modified from the World Health Organization Optimal Mix of Services Pyramid, which is shown in Figure 9.2.2. From bottom to top, the base layer is green and labeled, “Self-care and expansion of public health insurance to undocumented individuals.” The second layer is a lighter green and labelled, “Promotorxs and community health workers.” The third layer is yellow and labelled, “Primary care mental health services.” The fourth layer is labelled, “Advanced health providers in general hospitals and community mental health.” The top layer is labelled, “Specialist psychiatric services.” The second through fifth layers are labelled, “Multilingual and structurally competent.” The fourth and fifth layers are also labelled “Trauma-informed.”
This model provides a starting point for providers and evaluators to identify the gaps and next steps in solving the inequities in mental healthcare for Chicanxs and Latinxs. Fundamental to addressing the mental health needs of the widest group of individuals is to expand public health insurance programs, including undocumented individuals of all ages. Further, additional funding and resources are needed to increase access points for service delivery, which often begins with community health workers. Starting from this point, it is vital to ensure accessibility by providing multilingual interpretation services for individuals seeking care. Increasing capacity for these preventative measures can reduce the strain on general and specialty care providers and provide more effective care for all. However, even for those who do need more intensive forms of mental health care, communities would benefit from more providers who are structurally competent, meaning that they can assess how environmental and social factors may be influencing the individual health of their patients. Related, at every level of care, paid interpreters can ensure multilingual services. Lastly, effective advanced health providers and specialty psychiatric services benefit from utilizing a trauma-informed approach, to identify and address the potentially traumatic events influencing individuals’ high mental health burden.
Sidebar: LGBTQ2S+ Chicanx and Latinx Youth Mental Health
Mental health issues within Chicanx and Latinx communities can be especially challenging for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two-Spirit, and similarly identified young people.45 Chicanx and Latinx LGBTQ2S+ youth may experience additional distress due to homophobia and transphobia, as well as heterosexism and cissexism. Part of the reason is the stress-related stigma, discrimination, and difficulties expressing gender and sexual identity, which many LGBTQ2S+ people of color face. (See Chapter 6 for more on this topic). In addition, Chicanx and Latinx youth may face particular barriers related to their immigration status, family, and language accessibility. Coming out as LGBTQ2S+ may increase an individual’s risk of family rejection. Cultural messages in society in general and among Chicanx and Latinx communities about LGBTQ2S+ people communicate denigration and stigma. Further, existing resources and supportive communities for LGBTQ2S+ people tend to exclude Latinxs, oftentimes are not accessible in Spanish, and tend to take an individual approach that does not address the root causes of family rejection or social exclusion.
Footnotes
15 Flores, Chicana and Chicano Mental Health.
16 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Hispanics, Latino or Spanish Origin or Descent,” Annual Report (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, January 14, 2020).
17 Margarita Alegria, Glorisa Canino, Patrick E. Shrout, Meghan Woo, Naihua Duan, Doryliz Vila, Maria Torres, Chih-nan Chen, and Xiao-Li Meng. “Prevalence of Mental Illness in Immigrant and Non-Immigrant U.S. Latino Groups,” The American Journal of Psychiatry 165, no. 3 (March 2008): 359–69, https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2007.07040704.
18 Content in this section is drawn from Mario Alberto V. Espinoza-Kulick and Jessica P. Cerdeña, “We Need Health for All”: Mental Health and Barriers to Care among Latinxs in California and Connecticut.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 19 (2022): 12817; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912817 which is licensed CC BY 4.0.
19 Maria Jose Lisotto, “Mental Health Disparities: Hispanics and Latinos” (American Psychiatric Association, 2017); Laura Kann, Tim McManus, William A. Harris, Shari L. Shanklin, Katherine H. Flint, Barbara Queen, Richard Lowry, David Chyen, Lisa Whittle, Jemekia Thornton, Connie Lim, Denise Bradford, Yoshimi Yamakawa, Michelle Leon, Nancy Brener, and Kathleen A. Ethier. “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2017,” Surveillance Summaries, Surveillance Summaries, 67, no. 8 (June 15, 2018): 1–114, http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6708a1.
20 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “Behavioral Health Barometer: United States, 2015” (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015).
21 Tracy Chu, Allen S. Keller, and Andrew Rasmussen, “Effects of Post-Migration Factors on PTSD Outcomes among Immigrant Survivors of Political Violence,” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 15, no. 5 (2013): 890–97; Krista M. Perreira and India Ornelas, “Painful Passages: Traumatic Experiences and Post-Traumatic Stress among US Immigrant Latino Adolescents and Their Primary Caregivers,” International Migration Review 47, no. 4 (2013): 976–1005; Wendy A. Vogt, “Crossing Mexico: Structural Violence and the Commodification of Undocumented Central American Migrants,” American Ethnologist 40, no. 4 (2013): 764–80; Wendy A. Vogt, Lives in Transit: Violence and Intimacy on the Migrant Journey, vol. 42 (California Series in Public An, 2018).
22 Elizabeth Miller, Michele R. Decker, Jay G. Silverman, and Anita Raj, “Migration, Sexual Exploitation, and Women’s Health: A Case Report from a Community Health Center,” Violence Against Women 13, no. 5 (2007): 486–97; Charlotte Watts and Cathy Zimmerman, “Violence against Women: Global Scope and Magnitude,” The Lancet 359, no. 9313 (2002): 1232–37.
23 Carol Cleaveland and Cara Frankenfeld, “‘They Kill People Over Nothing’: An Exploratory Study of Latina Immigrant Trauma,” Journal of Social Service Research 46, no. 4 (August 2020): 507–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2019.1602100; Lisa R. Fortuna, Kiara Álvarez, Zorangeli Ramos Ortiz, Ye Wang, Xulian Mozo Algería, Benjamin Cook, and Margarita Algería, “Mental Health, Migration Stressors and Suicidal Ideation among Latino Immigrants in Spain and the United States,” European Psychiatry 36 (August 2016): 15–22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.03.001; Stacey Kaltman, Alejandra Hurtado de Mendoza, Adriana Serrano, Felisa A. Gonzales, “A Mental Health Intervention Strategy for Low-Income, Trauma-Exposed Latina Immigrants in Primary Care: A Preliminary Study,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 86, no. 3 (2016): 345–54, https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000157.
24 Jessica P Cerdeña, Luisa M Rivera, and Judy M Spak, “Intergenerational Trauma in Latinxs: A Scoping Review” (Unpublished manuscript, 2020).
25 Rachel Treisman, “Whistleblower Alleges ‘Medical Neglect,’ Questionable Hysterectomies Of ICE Detainees,” NPR, September 16, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913398383/whistleblower-alleges-medical-neglect-questionable-hysterectomies-of-ice-detaine.
26 Annahir N. Cariello, Paul B. Perrin, Chelsea Derlan Williams, Antonio G. Espinoza, Alejandra Morlett-Paredes, Oswaldo Moreno, and Michal A. Trujillo. “Moderating Influence of Enculturation on the Relations between Minority Stressors and Physical Health via Anxiety in Latinx Immigrants,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 26, no. 3 (July 2020): 356–66, https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000308.
27 Arthur R. Andrews III, James K. Haws, Laura M. Acosta, M. Natalia Acosta Canchilla, Gustavo Carlo, Kathleen M. Grant, and Athena K. Ramos. “Combinatorial Effects of Discrimination, Legal Status Fears, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Harsh Working Conditions among Latino Migrant Farmworkers: Testing Learned Helplessness Hypotheses,” Journal of Latinx Psychology 8, no. 3 (August 2020): 179–201, https://doi.org/10.1037/lat0000141.
28 Julia Shu-Huah Wang and Neeraj Kaushal, “Health and Mental Health Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement,” International Migration Review 53, no. 4 (2019): 970–1001.
29 Omar Martinez, Elwin Wu, Theo Sandfort, Brian Dodge, Alex Carballo-Dieguez, Rogerio Pinto, Scott D. Rhodes, Eva Moya, and Silvia Chavez-Baray. “Evaluating the Impact of Immigration Policies on Health Status Among Undocumented Immigrants: A Systematic Review,” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health / Center for Minority Public Health 17, no. 3 (June 2015): 947–70, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-013-9968-4.
30 Edward D. Vargas, Gabriel R. Sanchez, and Melina Juárez, “Fear by Association: Perceptions of Anti-Immigrant Policy and Health Outcomes,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 42, no. 3 (June 2017): 459–83, https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-3802940.
31 Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, Elinor M. Fujimoto, Christine Oksas, Yafei Jian, and Allen Gharheeb, “Pilot Study Exploring Migration Experiences and Perinatal Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Immigrant Latinas,” Maternal and Child Health Journal 23, no. 12 (December 2019): 1627–47, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-019-02800-w.
32 Scott D. Rhodes, Lilli Mann, Florence M. Simán, Eunyoung Song, Jorge Alonzo, Mario Downs, Emma Lawlor, Omar Martinez, Christina J. Sun, Mary Claire O’Brien. “The Impact of Local Immigration Enforcement Policies on the Health of Immigrant Hispanics/Latinos in the United States,” American Journal of Public Health 105, no. 2 (2015): 329–37.
33 Emilie Bruzelius and Aaron Baum, “The Mental Health of Hispanic/Latino Americans Following National Immigration Policy Changes: United States, 2014–2018,” American Journal of Public Health 109, no. 12 (December 2019): 1786–88, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305337.
34 Karen Hacker, Jocelyn Chu, Carolyn Leung, Robert Marra, Alex Pirie, Mohamed Brahimi, Margaret English, Joshua Beckmann, Dolores Avecedo-Garcia, and Robert P. Marlin. “The Impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Immigrant Health: Perceptions of Immigrants in Everett, Massachusetts, USA,” Social Science and Medicine 73, no. 4 (August 1, 2011): 586–94, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.007; William D. Lopez, Daniel J. Kruger, Jorge Delva, Mikel Llanes, Charo Ledón, Adreanne Waller, Melanie Harner, Ramiro Martinez, Laura Sanders, Margaret Harner, and Barbara Israel, “Health Implications of an Immigration Raid: Findings from a Latino Community in the Midwestern United States,” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 19, no. 3 (June 2017): 702–8, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0390-6.
35 American Immigration Council, “Summary of Executive Order ‘Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,’” American Immigration Council, May 19, 2017, https://www.americanimmigrationcounc...xecutive-order; Lucila Ramos-Sánchez, Kipp Pietrantonio, and Jasmín Llamas, “The Psychological Impact of Immigration Status on Undocumented Latinx Women: Recommendations for Mental Health Providers,” Peace and Conflict 26, no. 2 (May 2020): 149–61, https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000417.
36 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Nicaragua,” November 1, 2019, https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status/temporary-protected-status-designated-country-nicaragua.
37 Philippe Bourgois, Seth M. Holmes, Kim Sue, and James Quesada, “Structural Vulnerability: Operationalizing the Concept to Address Health Disparities in Clinical Care,” Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 92, no. 3 (2017): 299.
38 Andrews et al. “Combinatorial Effects of Discrimination, Legal Status Fears, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Harsh Working Conditions among Latino Migrant Farmworkers.”
39 Erin Quinn and Sally Kinoshita, “An Overview of Public Charge and Benefits” (San Francisco, CA: Immigrant Legal Resource Center, March 26, 2020).
40 Samantha Artiga and Maria Diaz, “Health Coverage and Care of Undocumented Immigrants,” Kaiser Family Foundation (blog), July 2019, http://files.kff.org/attachment/Issue-Brief-Health-Coverage-and-Care-of-Undocumented-Immigrants; Linda Bucay-Harari, Kathleen R. Page, Noa Krawczyk, Yvonne P. Robles, Carlos Castillo-Salgado, “Mental Health Needs of an Emerging Latino Community,” Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research 47, no. 3 (July 2020): 388–98, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-020-09688-3.
41 Robin A Cohen et al., “Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2019” (Atlanta, GA: National Center for Health Statistics, September 2020).
42 Office of the Surgeon General (US), Center for Mental Health Services (US), and National Institute of Mental Health (US), Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, Publications and Reports of the Surgeon General (Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (US), 2001), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44243/.
43 Julie L. Hudson, G. Edward Miller, and James B. Kirby, “Explaining Racial and Ethnic Differences in Children’s Use of Stimulant Medications,” Medical Care 45, no. 11 (2007): 1068–75; James B. Kirby, Julie Hudson, and G. Edward Miller, “Explaining Racial and Ethnic Differences in Antidepressant Use Among Adolescents,” Medical Care Research and Review 67, no. 3 (June 1, 2010): 342–63, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558709350884.
44 Frank H. Galvan, Laura M. Bogart, David J. Klein, Glenn J. Wagner, and Ying-Tung Chen, “Medical Mistrust as a Key Mediator in the Association between Perceived Discrimination and Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy among HIV-Positive Latino Men,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 40, no. 5 (October 1, 2017): 784–93, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9843-1.
45 Javier Garcia-Perez, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer+ Latinx Youth Mental Health Disparities: A Systematic Review.” Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services 32, no. 4 (2020):440–478; Flores, Chicana and Chicano Mental Health. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/09%3A_Health/9.02%3A_Mental_Health.txt |
Interdependence and the Environment
Indigenous traditions tend to view aspects of the environment as relational rather than as being separated from human society and communities.46 This perspective underscores the importance of environmental factors to both individual and community health. For example, pollutants in the air and water affect individual health and can also increase a community’s risk for various diseases like cancer, heart disease, cholera, hepatitis, dysentery, respiratory diseases, and much more. Further, the denigration of natural environments also harms plants and animals, which can affect food supplies, water cycles, and natural recreation areas. In Figure 9.3.1, this idea is represented through the image of a child looking into the water to see the outlines of adult figures, which is captioned with the sentence, “What we do to water, we do to ourselves.”
Structural Inequalities and the Built Environment
Structural inequalities in society mean that unhealthy environments tend to disproportionately impact communities of color, low-income areas, and immigrants. Chicanx and Latinx communities are more likely to live in areas that have air pollution by industrial factories and large-scale agriculture. This can lead to high rates of preventable illnesses like asthma. In the context of climate change and global warming, the risks to the environment have become more pronounced and severe. This can be observed in places like Puerto Rico, which has suffered an onslaught of devastating natural disasters, including hurricanes and earthquakes. The negative impacts of these events on everyday residents’ health and well-being are made much worse by the prevailing U.S. political and economic interests that operate on the island.47
As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico is politically vulnerable. While the U.S. is responsible for the island, there are no elected officials who have the authority to hold the government accountable for its response at the federal level. After Hurricane Maria in 2017, the sitting U.S. President downplayed the effects of the hurricane on the island, delayed federal aid, and turned the event into a political sideshow. The island is also threatened by inadequate infrastructure. In 2022, after Hurricane Fiona, nearly a million residents remained in an extended power outage, despite paying some of the highest electricity rates in the country. The existence of laws like Act 22, which allows individuals to operate in Puerto Rico without paying any capital gains taxes, encourages predatory capitalism that has left the island in a constant cycle of exploitation.
These same dynamics that are present in Puerto Rico are reflected in Chicanx and Latinx communities throughout the U.S. and Latin America. For example, critical infrastructure and conservation projects in Latin America are threatened by widespread corruption and political instability, which has been encouraged by decades of U.S. intervention in Latin American elections, especially through the CIA and organizations like the School of the Americas. In the United States, Chicanx and Latinx communities are disproportionately excluded from political representation through the disenfranchisement of individuals with a criminal record and the fact that immigrants cannot vote in U.S. elections. This means that Latinx communities are much less likely to receive funding for neighborhood improvement projects, the development of public parks, and environmental protection efforts.
Environmental Justice Advocacy and Activism
An environmental justice perspectives takes into account the interwoven social, cultural, geographic, and systemic factors that influence who has access to safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environments. Environmental justice refers to addressing environmental concerns in conjunction with other aspects of exploitation and oppression, including white supremacy, capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, and settler-colonialism. Chicanx and Latinx communities often suffer the direct effects of pollution and industrialization, with power plants, chemical refineries, and factories located in disparate proximity to housing.48
For example, in Oxnard, California, the group Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) successfully advocated against the building of a new large fossil fuel power plant in 2018 called the Puente Project.49 This required four years of advocacy, which was driven forward by grassroots mobilization led by Latina women in their local neighborhoods. The concentration of agricultural business and infrastructure in the city has led to stark rates of health disparities for this majority people of color and heavily immigrant community. While people have long felt the effects of these disparities, CAUSE was able to lead a campaign that prevented the supposedly inevitable growth of the power plants and industrial pollution. Through a combination of raising political support and taking direct, creative public actions, everyday people led by Latina/x activists were able to prevent the Puente project and create a platform for clean energy, which benefits the people of the city and all of the surrounding communities.
Footnotes
46 Medina and Gonzales, eds., Voices from the Ancestors; Rodríguez, Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother.
47 Jason Cortés, “Puerto Rico: Hurricane Maria and the Promise of Disposability,” Capitalism Nature Socialism (Taylor and Francis, 2018); Carmen D. Zorrilla, “The View from Puerto Rico—Hurricane Maria and Its Aftermath,” New England Journal of Medicine 377, no. 19 (2017): 1801–3.
48 Anguiano, Claudia, Tema Milstein, Iliana De Larkin, Yea-Wen Chen, and Jennifer Sandoval. “Connecting Community Voices: Using a Latino/a Critical Race Theory Lens on Environmental Justice Advocacy.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 5, no. 2 (May 2012): 124–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2012.661445
49 Khan, Sabithulla. “Puente Power Plant Crisis: Lessons in Planning for Local Administration.” In SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals, 2019. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/09%3A_Health/9.03%3A_Environmental_Justice_and_Health.txt |
Factors Influencing Workplace Health
The impacts of external factors on health also deeply influence community health in the context of workplaces. Chicanx and Latinx people are over-represented in industries that include a high risk of workplace exposure to toxic chemicals, such as agriculture, gardening, cleaning, construction, and food service. Vulnerability to this exposure is made worse by language barriers and exploitation of legal and immigration status. Required safety procedures, training, and materials are often provided in English and not translated or interpreted into other languages. Further, even when the dangers of poor working conditions are well known and understood, employers may refuse to provide proper safety equipment or adjust the workplace setting and instead threaten the workers’ legal status to coerce compliance. You can review more about the advocacy around workers’ rights and health in Chapter 7: Social Movement Activity.
COVID-19 and Chicanx and Latinx Workers’ Health
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of workers’ health and safety became a question of national discussion and policymaking. Employers and politicians constructed the category of essential work to describe the people whose jobs contribute directly to the daily basic functioning of society, most of whom would be categorized as low-income and working-class workers, including agricultural workers, retail clerks in grocery stores, pharmacies, and supply stores, and maintenance workers. These individuals were asked to continue to work and expose themselves to a potentially lethal disease in order to ensure the ongoing comfort and stability of society as a whole. The image in Figure 9.4.1 shows the representation of Black and Brown workers in retail, farmwork, logistics, sanitation, and office work who were deemed “essential” and continued working during the most dangerous parts of the pandemic. The image includes the words, “My heart overflows with gratitude for the workers giving us life.”
Corporations sought to frame these workers as “heroes” in order to place a symbolic value on this sacrifice without providing any policy or economic redress. However, labor unions, workers’ organizations, and liberal politicians advocated for employers to be required to provide safety equipment, paid sick time, and protections for workers who exercised their rights. However, despite these efforts, Chicanx and Latinx communities were still disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 infection rates. Migrant communities, who were already more likely to be exposed to chemicals and working conditions that deteriorate respiratory health, were put into the position of risking infection and their own health and that of their families to continue feeding the world. In Figure 9.4.2, an activist artist has crafted an image of recognition and gratitude, with a Latina farmworker carrying a box of tomatoes surrounded by palm fronds and the words “Migrant Womxn Feed the World” written across the produce box.
The COVID-19 pandemic also reflected many recurring and long-term barriers to healthcare, including a lack of healthcare providers in Chicanx and Latinx communities, skepticism of physicians, and the exclusion of immigrants and non-English speakers from health resources.50 This has led to not only higher rates of COVID-19 infection among Chicanx and Latinx communities but also increased risk of hospitalization, serious symptoms, and death. Even after the virus has been declared endemic by the CDC, these overall barriers have continued to disparately impact Chicanx and Latinx communities, who are more likely to live and work in densely populated environments and be subjected to continuous controls like mandated mask-wearing in retail, food service, cleaning, and healthcare settings.
Footnote
50 Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick, “Movement Pandemic Adaptability: Health Inequity and Advocacy among Latinx Immigrant and Indigenous Peoples,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 15 (2022): 8981. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/09%3A_Health/9.04%3A_Workplace_Health.txt |
Summary
The health and well-being of Chicanx and Latinx communities are influenced by many factors. Throughout this chapter, we learned about and analyzed aspects of traditional health and healing that have been degraded by generations of settler-colonial structures and the enforcement of western medicine. These larger structures have influenced health disparities for Chicanx and Latinx communities, including individual-level indicators like physical health and mental health. Institutional healthcare has failed to address the wellbeing of Chicanx and Latinx communities, ranging from direct violence at the hands of medical practitioners to exclusions in health policy and bias and discrimination in the delivery of healthcare.
Yet, communities, healthcare providers, and activists have continued to sustain traditional practices of health and healing for the present and future generations. This work addresses the disparities and gaps created in the dominant western medical system, and creates opportunities for collaboration to invest in holistic health, community wellbeing and healthcare for all. With a sustained effort grounded in education, families, and creating spaces of belonging, we heal from the physical, mental and spiritual struggles of the body, mind, and spirit.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.9: Chapter 9 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Institutional health care: Health care provided by hospitals and with doctors, physicians, prescribed medications, surgical procedures, and psychiatric appointments, which typically involve insurance.
Traditional health care: Indigenous ways of health and healing of cuerpo y alma (body and soul) mediated through curanderas/os (healers) or other specialists, like parteras (midwifes) and involves remedios (medicinal herbs), ceremonies, limpias (spiritual cleansings), sobaradoras/os sobadas (massage therapist or massage), huezera/o (bone setter), informal counseling for bilis (rage), susto (fright), or envido (envy), and ancestral foodways.
Acculturation: The process over time of adapting to and adopting cultural practices of a new environment, which can include both individual change and community and cultural change.
Latino Health Paradox: The pattern of immigrant Mexican and Latinx people report better health and longer life expectancy compared to their acculturated Mexican origin and Latinx counterparts and European Americans of higher class statuses.
Promotoras: Health workers who have received specialized training to provide basic health education in the community, who have been key mediators for Chicanx and Latinx communities to gain health access.
287(g) agreements: Policies that permit the cooperation of federal immigration authorities with local police and have increased the use of invasive and violent strategies in deportation and other immigration enforcement activities.
Structural vulnerability: Someone’s status in society’s multiple overlapping and mutually reinforcing power hierarchies.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA): Law that made permanent residents are ineligible for public assistance during their first five years in the U.S.
Public charge rule: A policy based on the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 212(a)(4), which states that individuals are inadmissible to the U.S. if they are “likely at any time to become a public charge”, and discouraged noncitizens from pursuing needed benefits prior to regulating their status
Act 22: Law that allows individuals to operate in Puerto Rico without paying any capital gains taxes, which encourages predatory capitalism that has left the island in a constant cycle of exploitation.
Environmental justice: Addressing environmental concerns in conjunction with other aspects of exploitation and oppression, including white supremacy, capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, and settler-colonialism.
Essential work: A phrase that describes people whose jobs contribute directly to the daily basic functioning of society, most of whom would be categorized as low-income and working-class workers, including agricultural workers, retail clerks in grocery stores, pharmacies, and supply stores, and maintenance workers.
COVID-19: A pandemic that reflects many recurring and long-term barriers to healthcare, including a lack of healthcare providers in Chicanx and Latinx communities, skepticism of physicians, and the exclusion of immigrants and non-English speakers from health resources. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/09%3A_Health/9.05%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Introduction
This chapter explores the production, distribution, and reception of culture among Chicanx and Latinx communities. We will begin by operating conceptualizations of identity, community, and social movements in the context of culture and performance. Culture travels far and wide, and the transnational Latin American music scene is deeply influential for Chicanx and Latinx communities as well as cultures around the world. In this chapter, we will learn from artists and producers in places like Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and more. Cultural productions include all kinds of items, events, and activities, such as news, radio, art, music, television, film, video games, clothing, and theater. All of these activities communicate values, narratives, and beliefs that sustain cultural practices. Further, with the widespread use of social media, culture and content are created and distributed in wide-spanning networks.
Cultural productions (e.g. news, radio, art, music, tv, film, etc.) and social movements will be analyzed to understand how they are reflective of Latina/o/x ethnic identity. Special attention will also be paid to how gender, race, immigration, and sexuality are embedded in cultural attitudes and expressions.
• 10.1: Chicanx and Latinx Identities and Culture
This section focuses on frameworks for cultural analysis within Chicanx and Latinx studies. It begins by highlighting the significance of culture as a system of shared meaning, encompassing various aspects such as language, art, music, food, religion, and ceremonies. The media is identified as a crucial institution within culture, while pop culture refers to cultural practices produced and distributed for mass audiences.
• 10.2: Chicanx and Latinx Storytelling
This section explores the role of narratives, identity, and media within Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. It highlights the historical use of cultural tools such as storytelling and self-produced media to foster a sense of community and pride in one's identity. Oral traditions and written stories have played a significant role in conveying traditions, culture, and meaning across generations.
• 10.3: National and Transnational Rhythmic Formations
This section explores regional and local styles in Chicanx and Latinx music and dance. These styles showcase pride in identity and heritage through the use of regionally specific instruments, rhythms, melodies, and themes. Music and dance play a significant role in the development of Chicano identity and political movements.
• 10.4: Television and Film
This section discusses the representation of Chicanx and Latinx individuals on screen, focusing on television and film. The concept of image analysis is introduced as a way to examine the racial politics and ideological messages conveyed by media texts. The section highlights media representation, Latina icons, and children's media as sites of shared meaning making.
• 10.5: Cultural Productions in Practice
This section explores the ways in which culture influences politics and society, with a specific focus on activist forms of culture within Chicanx and Latinx communities. Artivism, the combination of art and activism, plays a crucial role in mobilizing social movements by communicating demands, claims, and critiques to various audiences.
• 10.6: Conclusion
10: Cultural Productions
Frameworks for Cultural Analysis
Culture is a system of shared meaning. This includes the narratives, beliefs, behaviors, norms, and customs that establish a group and interact with identity, political structures, and social life. Some examples of culture are language, art, music, food, religion, ceremonies, and more. Within this broad understanding of culture, the “media” is a significant institution that includes various groups who professionally create content. Similarly, pop culture (or “popular culture”) refers to those cultural practices that are produced and distributed for mass audiences. Historically, studies of culture and society have focused within rigid boundaries, such as focusing only on the elite culture of “high culture.” However, this ignores critical components of cultural practices and the people who carry them out.
In the context of Chicanx and Latinx studies, Frederick Aldama defines pop cultura analysis in terms of “our everyday lives, scholarly inquiry, and knowledge dissemination. Not all pop culture is made equally—especially when it comes to matters of race, sexuality, gender, and differently abled subjects and experiences.”1 Chicanx and Latinx communities often find and claim representation in pop culture, as it creates opportunities to identify with individual experiences. Through representation, communities create their own sense of self and agency and are better equipped to resist the oppressive narratives imposed on them by the dominant culture.
Given the prevailing norms of white supremacy and settler-colonialism present in dominant media, engagement in pop culture can bring about challenges to one’s perceived authenticity. This is especially true with respect to Indigenous identity and a connection to one’s cultural heritage. For example, Mintzi Auanda Martinez-Rivera notes, “Many scholars and the general public consider that Indigenous persons cease to be Indigenous if they partake in modernity (broadly construed). In this regard, popular culture, as a product of modernity, commodification, consumption, and mass media, is often considered antithetical to the experiences of Indigenous peoples.”2 However, rather than focusing on false distinctions between high and low culture, we can follow, “the Gramscian approach, [in which] popular culture is a ‘site of struggle between the ‘resistance’ of subordinate groups and the forces of ‘incorporation’ operating in the interests of the dominant groups.’”3
In addition to engagement with mainstream culture, Chicanx and Latinx communities have resisted exploitation and exclusion by creating unique cultural forms and content. In the 1960s, this was the main focus of the Chicano Renaissance, an era of cultural flourishing that corresponded to the movements for justice, equity, and civil rights that were central to the political climate of the era. This time included the celebration of the unique cultural strengths of Chicanx communities, including melding English and Spanish (Spanglish), bold artistic styles, and literary themes that explored the complexity of Mexican American identities.
This chapter builds from a broad conceptualization of culture to take a broad approach to Chicanx and Latinx Cultural Productions. This includes works that are by Chicanx and Latinx artists and creators, regardless of the specific subject matter. Content producers range from large-scale films, television programs, radio shows, and performances to the everyday work of Chicanx and Latinx people to create meaning and carry on traditions through daily tasks. Chicanx and Latinx cultural productions also include work that is intended for or claimed by Chicanx and Latinx audiences. Marketing professionals have been emphasizing the benefits of dual-language marketing, including the existence of over 60 million Latinxs, with a median household income of \$55,658.4 Media catered to Latinxs have a wide reach into mainstream audiences, including Selena, The George Lopez Show, American Family, and Dora the Explorer Finally, Chicanx and Latinx cultural productions also include media produced about Chicanx and Latinx groups, characters, and stories.
Encoding and Decoding
Black cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall developed a framework for cultural analysis that focuses on the processes of encoding and decoding.5 Encoding and decoding is an information transmission process that creates frameworks of knowledge. This includes interpersonal and institutional processes that produce a nuanced relationship between subjects and their perspective and interpretation of the world around them. Encoding refers to the process of constructing meaning in creating culture. This refers to the producers, writers, artists, performers, and others who showcase narratives and cultural scripts. Decoding is the process by which people view, understand, and interpret these stories. Both processes contribute to the “programme as meaningful discourse” and carry with them frameworks of knowledge, relations of production, and technical infrastructure. This is visualized in Figure 10.1.1.
Media Analysis in Practice in Ethnic Studies
By examining culture, we can understand and interpret how narratives and meanings impact all aspects of life, including prevailing inequities and opportunities for resistance and justice. One key component of media representation is the creation of stereotypes. These are limited representations of individuals that reduce someone to a negative association with their group status. As stated by Debra Merskin, “stereotypes go beyond obvious manifestations such as name-calling or facile characterizations, rather they drive Latina educational challenges and disparities, contribute to disparate levels of domestic violence, depression, internalized oppression, as well as distressing legal and societal treatment. Hence, understanding media-engendered stereotypical images are, at least in part, responsible for the denial of opportunity for Latinas in their struggle for identity.”6
Controlling Images
Building from the notion of stereotypes, Patricia Hill Collins coined the term controlling images to describe the ways that common narratives about Black women are used to reinforce exploitative and racist systems. For Chicanx and Latinx communities, specific stereotypes have been constructed in response to social, political, economic, and cultural systems. For example, tropicalism is a negative trope that homogenizes Latinx people by focusing on a fixed set of shared traits: bright colors, rhythmic dancing, and darker skin suited to an “exotic” locale. Audiences internalize these images and some resist them, creating a social system that responds to the prevailing constrictions on identity and representation.
A common controlling image used in the media is the Latin Lover. The Latin Lover stereotype is a construction of Latinos as aggressively sexual and exotic. The trope was developed by white actors like Rudolf Valentino, who played Latin characters with a vague accent and no specific cultural or familial ties. In his times during the 1900s, this construction supported the idea of Mexico as a wild place, which legitimized the prevailing policy of the time, incluiding the recent annexation of Texas (1845) and colonization of Northern Mexico. Now, the image remains and creates a set of expectations and biases against Chicanx and Latinx peoples.
Similarly, G. D. Keller identified the range of stereotypes deployed to represent Latinas as love interests to white male protagonists. First, the cantina girl is characterized by ‘‘Great sexual allure,’’ teasing, dancing, and ‘‘behaving in an alluring fashion.” These are hallmark characteristics of this stereotype. This is also a form of sexual objectification, and the narrative of a ‘‘naughty lady of easy virtue.” While the cantina girl is most often presented physically as an available sexual object, the vamp is a trope of an individual who uses their intellectual and devious sexual wiles to get what they want. This poses a threat, counterbalanced by the draw of charisma. The vamp is a psychological menace to anyone who is ill-equipped to handle them. By contrast, the faithful, self-sacrificing señorita is a woman who usually starts out good but goes bad over time. This character realizes she has gone wrong and is willing to protect her love interest by placing her body between the threat intended for him, ultimately becoming a martyr.7
Repeated exposure to these controlling images can create internal distress for Latinxs, leading to mental health challenges, body dysmorphia, low self-esteem, and impaired cognitive performance. They also promote predatory behaviors in the form of dating violence and sexual harassment.8 Similarly, la doméstica (the Latina/o/x maid/nanny) is a persistent media representation and stereotype of Latinas.9 Represented in productions like Devious Maids, Casa de Flores, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, As Good as it Gets, Babel, Spanglish, Will and Grace, Dirt, I Married Dora, Dharma and Greg, Veronica, Closet, My Name is Earl, El Norte, Clueless, The End of Violence, Storytelling, #blackAF, and Family Guy. For example, on the show, Will and Grace, Rosario, played by Shelley Morrison, is a character who raises comical relief and reflects narratives around social class and occupational distinctions. While the reality of Latinas in domestic work is a social reality and an important part of cultural storytelling, the representation in terms of stereotypes is limiting and reproduces systemic inequality. By contrast, on Dirt, Dolores, played by Julieta Ortiz, is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador who works as a maid for wealthy New Yorkers. As the protagonist, she is politicized and contends with the hegemonic systems that exploit domestic workers. This interrupts the prevailing assumption of marginality among Chicanxs and Latinxs.
Concept Spotlight: Disidentifications
Among the many narratives promoted through the media, culture also consists of the ways that people understand, interpret, critique, and recreate those narratives. The term disidentification comes from the book, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics by José Esteban Muñoz.10 Disidentification refers to the process of situating oneself within a broader cultural narrative while also existing in opposition to that narrative. For example, queer of color subjects may identify with heroic characters in pop culture that have typically been portrayed by white, heterosexual men, but defy and resist associations with patriarchy, white supremacy, and U.S. nationalism. This process reflects the stakes of both survival and resistance for minoritized subjects.
Due to wide-standing biases in media, it is impossible for some minoritized subjects to fully identify with available images and narratives. Disidentification provides an alternative solution. When disidentification is used in performances, it can also expose and critique the problematic dynamics embedded in existing systems of power and control. This approach recognizes and analyzes the importance of race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, and sexuality in understanding social and cultural relations. Queer of color critiques is associated with scholars and critics like Roderick Ferguson, José Esteban Muñoz, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldúa who have opened up new fields of inquiry through their research and writing on topics affecting Black and Latinx people within the LGBTQ community.
Footnotes
1 Frederick Aldama, “Foreword: Assembling an Intersectional Pop Cultural Analytical Lens,” in Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture, ed. Domino Renee Perez and Rachel González-Martin (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), ix–xii.
2 Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera, “(Re)Imagining Indigenous Popular Culture,” in Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture, ed. Domino Renee Perez and Rachel González-Martin (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 91.
3 Martínez-Rivera, “(Re)Imagining Indigenous Popular Culture,” 95.
4 The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. “Profile: Hispanic/Latino Americans.” HHS.Gov. 2022. https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=64.
5 Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner, Rev. ed, Keyworks in Cultural Studies 2 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 163–73.
6 Debra Merskin, “Three Faces of Eva: Perpetuation of The Hot-Latina Stereotype in Desperate Housewives,” Howard Journal of Communications 18, no. 2 (April 2007): 133–51, https://doi.org/10.1080/10646170701309890.
7 Gary D. Keller, “Bilingualism, Biculturalism, and the Cisco Kid Cycle,” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 28, no. 3 (2004): 195–231.
8 Lori Kido Lopez, “Racism and Mainstream Media,” in Race and Media: Critical Approaches, ed. Lori Kido Lopez (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2020).
9 Yajaira M. Padilla, “Domesticating Rosario: Conflicting Representations of the Latina Maid in U.S. Media,” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 13 (2009): 41–59.
10 José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.01%3A_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Identities_and_Culture.txt |
Narratives and Identity
Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have always used cultural tools, including storytelling and self-produced media, to build a sense of shared community and pride in one’s identity. Prior to written stories, oral traditions have communicated tales of tradition, culture, and meaning from generation to generation, evolving and growing with the times. This has led to the cultural scripts that form today’s literary contributions, ranging from bilingual children’s literature and stories for young adults to novellas and epic volumes. For example, in 2008, Junot Díaz won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which explores the experiences and identity of Dominican communities. Stories form the basis of shared identities and influence the meanings of day-to-day life.
Radio, Podcast, and News
U.S. Latinx/a/o newsmaking can be analyzed as far back as 1848 when Mexicans were made immigrants on their own land by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The traditional forms of Latinx newsmaking were corridos (story-based ballads) that originated in the U.S.-Texas borderlands prior to this time. By the early 1900s, Latina/o/x newspapers that emerged, like El Heraldo de México, El Fronterizo, Arizona Citizen, and El Clamor Público (Public Clamor or Shouting). Most of these newspapers exposed injustices and demanded public services, all the while urging their readers to mobilize against the mistreatment of Mexicans in the United States.11
The largest of the Los Angeles Spanish language newspapers (circulation of 4,000) was El Heraldo de Mexico (1916-1920), which billed itself as the "Defender of Mexicans in the United States." Its primary mission was combating discrimination and exploitation of Mexican immigrants. Headlines such as "The Exploiters Beware! Mexicans Beware!" illustrate calls for collective action, as do testimonials such as this one:
Excuse the molestation I bring in the name of more than 30 Mexicans who find ourselves here in the desert... They brought us with the hoax that we were going to camp at Salt Lake… A number of comrades have died on the road. The contractors promised us a wage of \$ 1.75 daily, but it is a lie… Do me a favor and publish these words… so that they serve as a warning to other fellow countrymen: [that they] not allow themselves to be tricked.12
Today, Spanish-language radio targets Latinx audiences through niche marketing. Advertising campaigns on Spanish-language radio are often developed with the ethnic groups in mind, such as Mexicans in Los Angeles or Cubans in Miami, each of whom has a unique set of Spanish words and cultural customs.13
Media Spotlight: Tune In! Spanish Radio Stations
You can find various radio stations, including Spanish-language stations, using the website Radio Locator. Some examples of local Spanish radio stations are listed here:
Spanish International network (SIN), now known as Univisión, launched Noticiero Nacional in 1981 as the inaugural Spanish language news program. The first Noticiero National broadcast on June 1, 1981, opened with a dedication from President Ronald Reagan (sitting before the U.S. flag, his words translated to Spanish with subtitles):
Buenas tardes. I want to say how happy I am to help inaugurate the first national news program carried in Spanish... I recognize the growing influence of Hispanic citizens in our communities and throughout the nation... The Supreme Court once wrote that a free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. The medium of television, in particular in a Special language newscast, is such an interpreter... Muchas gracias and buenas noches.14
Two popular news sites that Latina/o/x viewers prefer today are Univision and Telemundo. As shown in Figure 10.2.1, Univision is an established institution in the community, supporting local events and celebrations, such as the Dominican Day Parade, celebrating the ethnic and cultural heritage of Dominican origin people.
In recent years, there has been massive consolidations between media conglomerates. The 2002 merger between the largest Spanish language television and radio station networks (Univisión and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation) in a 3-billion-dollar deal consolidated a range of diverse viewers under a single network’s influence.15 This was possible, in part due to the 1996 Telecommunications Act that passed to allow for increased competition, lower prices and higher quality telecommunication products. The Telecommunications Act virtually deregulated radio, which enabled it to become more privatized. Companies were now allowed to own as many radio stations as they wanted because there were no longer caps that prevented them from doing so.
As of 2017, 699 Spanish-language radio stations existed in the U.S., out of 11,231 stations total (6%). These stations are widely utilized, with over 90% of self-identified Hispanics listening to the radio weekly. However, this is also an under-representation compared to the U.S. population, which was approximately 18% Latinx/Hispanic in 2017.16 Some Spanish Language radio networks emerge out of a need to keep the community entertained and informed (e.g., news and policy); as well as to benefit from the "untapped' Latina/o/x consumer market. Latinx news producers assert that their audiences have needs and interests that are distinct from that of the general market news audience--and that it is their professional responsibility as journalists to address those particular concerns.17
Community Spotlight: Radio Indígena
Radio stations may also be inclusive of Indigenous Languages from Latin America. For example, Radio Indigena was started as an online-only access station in 2014 by the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP). By 2017, the station had raised enough funds to set up an FM station, which currently broadcasts to the greater Oxnard area on 94.1 FM. The station meets the needs of predominantly farm working, Latinx Indigenous migrant communities. The content is culturally appropriate and broadcasted in multiple Indigenous languages, including Mixetco, Zapoteco, and Purepecha. The programs feature health, relationships, Indigenous language, culture, and music. Listeners around the country and the world can listen live from the station’s app or a broadcast-by-phone number: 605-475-0090. For more information, including links to the apps for Android and Apple, as well as the station’s schedule, visit the MICOP webpage.
With the emergence of independent and DIY media platforms, podcasts have become a popular venue for Latina/o/x audio productions and audiences. Show hosts and producers use platforms like National Public Radio (NPR), Apple Podcasts, Anchor FM, and Spotify to broadcast/stream to the public. Podcasts enable artists, journalists, and community members to resist the mainstream industry’s hegemonic culture. Shows like Chicas Politicas, Afro-Latinas, and Maria Hinojosa’s Latino USA utilize this platform to inform their audiences of local, state, and national politics, Latinx life, art, stories, and culture.
Latinx newsmaking produces symbolic systems by capturing and sharing the reality that places Latina/o/x peoples everywhere: as presidential candidates, first responders, essential workers, etc. Latino journalism provides a prism through which to analyze Latino political culture. However, we should recognize the limitations and constraints on Latinx newsmaking as well. Like other media, Latinx news must attract and maintain an audience that can be sold to advertisers through the mediation of audience measurement rating systems.
Latinx news is also a site of participation in the U.S. political process. Univision and CNN Español are prime sites for electoral news, including debates, polls, and relevant U.S. and Latin American policies. Nationalisms are explicitly pronounced in the process. Contemporary Latinx newsmaking, and conceptualizations of race, language, and class, are evolving social, political and cultural processes.18 Latina/o/x news makers understand the complexity of U.S. Latinx Identity and often highlight the interconnectedness between American and Latin American culture and society.
Sidebar: Maria Hinojosa, Futuro Media, and Latino USA
Maria Hinojosa established her own award-winning studio, Futuro Media, to deliver culturally relevant content to Latina/o/x audiences. As a Latina journalist, Hinojosa has overcome and resisted the tokenization of her identity as the first Latina woman to be hired at National Public Radio (NPR). Hinojosa is known for hosting her show, Latino USA, which is aired on NPR. She helped to start the show in 1992, became the Executive Producer in 2000, and founded Futuro Media Group to take over production in 2010. She has been widely recognized for her reporting and impact on the field of journalism and is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize 2022, four Emmy Awards, and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from DePaul University in 2010. Her work covers important social issues, including a frequent focus on communities of color, Latinx people, and immigrants. She is shown in Figure 10.2.2.
Video Games and Social Media
While video games are sometimes left out of broader conversations about media, their importance and role in culture are undeniable. Video games make up a \$100 billion industry with millions of users. Games offer an interactive site for storytelling, cultural production, and critique. However, stereotypes are often reinforced and perpetuated by production and writing teams that are not representative of the stories they are telling. Further, in multiplayer and online games, virtual communities can perpetuate bullying, racism, discrimination, white supremacy culture, sexism, settler-colonialism, and other forms of systemic marginalization.
The disparities in gaming culture are reflected in the industry that produces games. There are major opportunity gaps within the game industry, which exclude communities of color. Only 5% of game developers are Latinx, 2% are Arab/Middle Eastern, 2% are Aboriginal or Indigenous, and 1% are Black. Hardcore gamers are the imagined audience for many producers, with white cisgender males as the stereotypical expectation. Disregarding and diminishing casual gamers delegitimizes women and people of color, who are less likely to fit the cultural script of a hardcore gamer.19 Indie gaming industries have emerged to contest these dynamics and cultivate diverse narratives within games. However, they tend to have a much smaller reach than mainstream games with massive production and distribution budgets. Organized gatherings, like the Game Devs of Color Expo cultivate the positive representation of communities of color within gaming communities.
Latinxs make up a proportional segment of the gaming community and are more likely to identify as a "Gamer" (19%), compared to the general population.20 However, Latinxs make up only 4% of game producers, and games widely include negative stereotypes of Chicanx and Latinx people. For example, Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands falsely places a narrative of Mexican drug cartels in Bolivia, producing a harmful generalization of Latinos as "bad hombres" Gamers and producers are coming together to combat the bias in the mainstream industry and misrepresentation of Latinx gamers and characters, like the Latinx in Gaming initiative and Latinx Games Festival.
Historically underrepresented groups in video games have used new media and increased access to technology to resist racism and intersectional oppression in the gaming industry. For example, interactive platforms like Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube allow gamers to create supportive spaces for communities of color to exist and game together. Expos, non-profits, and professional associations help support people of color throughout the gaming industry. Transforming the culture of oppression in gaming will require challenging long-held assumptions about who makes and who plays games.
Relatedly, the widespread use of new media technologies has fundamentally shifted the dynamics of pop culture and storytelling. In some ways, new technologies lead to greater opportunities for historically underserved groups to gain recognition and produce cultural narratives. Changes in the industry create openings for new voices and encourage diversity and inclusion. Many of these changes are then sustained to retain viewers and gain new followers. New technologies can also reproduce existing dynamics, especially of racism, sexism, and capitalist exploitation. For example, while YouTube lowers the barriers to entry for contemporary artists, the DIY approach contributes to reproducing the status quo because the platform does not specifically invest in artists of color.
Footnotes
11 América Rodriguez, “Local Latino News: Los Angeles and Miami,” in Making Latino News: Race, Language, Class (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1999), 107–30, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233345.
12 América Rodriguez, Making Latino News: Race, Language, Class (Thousand Oaks, California, 1999), 62, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233345.
13 Mari Castaneda Paredes, “The Transformation of Spanish-Language Radio in the U.S,” Journal of Radio Studies 10, no. 1 (June 2003): 5–16.
14 Rodriguez, Making Latino News, 79.
15 Paredes, “The Transformation of Spanish-Language Radio in the U.S.”
16 Paredes.
17 América Rodriguez, “Nationhood, Nationalism, and Ethnicity in the Making of U.S. Latino News,” in Making Latino News: Race, Language, Class (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1999), 75–106, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233345.
18 Rodriguez, “Nationhood, Nationalism, and Ethnicity in the Making of U.S. Latino News.”
19 Jacqueline Land. “Indigenous Video Games.” In Race and Media: Critical Approaches, edited by Lori Kido Lopez, 92–100. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2020.
20 Spectr Gaming. Latinx Characters in Video Games: Where Are They?, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zy56YGixbY. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.02%3A_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Storytelling.txt |
Regional and Local Styles
One of the common themes in Chicanx and Latinx music and dance is the use of regionally specific instruments, rhythms, melodies, and themes to showcase pride in one’s identity and heritage. These songs are as diverse as the people who created them and represent distinct styles, sensibilities, and messages. And, to varying degrees, these songs reflect and reproduce existing socio-political realities like national identity, borders, and more.
Music played an important role in the development of Chicano identity and political movements. Groups like Chicano Batman and Las Cafeteras from Los Angeles and Califanes from Mexico City reflect the transnational character of Chicanx communities’ experiences, which reflects the distinctive combination of Indigenous, Mexican, Spanish, and American traditions into something wholly new. Similarly, Tejano music, sometimes called Tex-Mex, is known for its use of vocal melodies that mirror traditional Mexican musical styles, combined with instruments and rhythms with American and European influences. This genre exploded in popularity in the 1990s with the rise of crossover pop star, Selena. It is also both geographically and musically similar to the Norteño style, which is popular in northern Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States, and reflects a cultural blend of musical instruments and moving narrative ballads.21
Within Mexico, various musical styles are used to promote regional and national cultures. For example, rancheras are songs that focus on love, beauty, and nature, as well as regional and national pride. They tend to take on a local character, with references to specific places and activities that resonate with audiences in that region, as well as form a symbolic connection to individuals who have personal or family ties to these other regions. Another common style is corridos, which use complex narrative to tell stories through song. This genre inspired American country music, which utilizes similar narrative formats and styles. In addition, boleros are songs with a slow or moderate tempo and a repeating rhythm that supports a strong melody by the lead singer. These are rooted in Cuban and Spanish influences that were reinvented by Mexican composers.22
Artist Spotlight: Selena Quintanilla
Selena Quintanilla, more commonly known as Selena, was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. Selena grew up speaking English, but her father taught her to sing in Spanish so she could resonate with the Latinx community and have a broader appeal as a recording artist. Known as the "Queen of Tejano Music," Selena Quintanilla was a beloved Latin recording artist who was killed by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, on the 31st of March of 1995 at age 23. In addition to the significance of her music, she was an important figure in representing Tejana culture. Related to this, Frances Aparicio stated:
Selena reaffirmed a Tejana identity through her repertoire, her fashion and style, and her persona… her musical selections, arrangements, and hybrid fusion of tejano music with other musical forms, allowed Selena to create a larger, Latin American and Latino/a audience that identified with her.23
After her untimely death, Selena has continued to be a central cultural figure for Tejanx, U.S. and Latinx cultures. As shown in Figure 10.3.1, a mural by Alan Calvo depicts Selena in the now iconic purple jumpsuit she wore during her last concert before her death.
Other styles represent the history and identity of the places they are from. For example, bachata grew out of the fusion of European and African influences with Indigenous Taino sounds, reflecting the rich and diverse culture of the Dominican Republic. Similarly, cumbia comes out of Colombia and reflects the unique combination of European, African, and Indigenous influences of the Colombian peoples. Other styles, like reggaeton, have developed with a more regional and global character. While the genre originated in Panama, it spread to Puerto Rico and rose to prominence there and brought together Afro-descendent styles from Panama, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the United States (particularly, Afro-Latinx communities in New York City).
Folk Dances
In 1952, Amalia Hernandez established the Ballet Folklórico de México, which synthesized local folk dances and Indigenous traditions into a nationalistic dance style. This effort was supported by the government, who encouraged the celebration of folk dance to promote a positive national identity, encourage tourism, and cultivate local economic development. The style of ballet folklórico has become popular in the United States, with local groups and schools sponsoring dance groups and holding lessons for children, adolescents, and adults. Figure 10.3.2 shows an example of a ballet folklórico performance.
Before Ballet Folklorico emerged, danza existed. In addition to the nationalistic style that celebrates the general tradition of Indigenous cultures in Mexico, communities also carry on specific dance forms and performances. For example, in Michoacan, the Danza de los Viejitos (Tharep’ Hiti Huarar'i in Purépecha) has dancers who dress in traditional attire with masks of old men and women. The dancers use canes and play at being hunched over and feeble throughout the dance. The early origins of this dance are thought to reflect narratives about aging and humor. After European and Spanish colonization, the dance changed somewhat, and now includes elements of poking fun at elderly Spanish men who have exerted colonial power. An example of this dance in Pátzcuaro, Michoácan, México is displayed in Figure 10.3.3
Other local dances that are still carried on today include the Danza del Diablo in Oaxaca, Danza Azteca (Mi'totiliztli), and Danza del Venado (Maaso Yiihua).
Nationalism, Race, and Indigeneity in Cultural Productions
Nationalism is a social construction, which then takes on its own authority and power to implement policies. While we often take borders for granted, it takes continual efforts to create and maintain a sense of national identity, which justifies and legitimates the actions of elected officials and government agencies. Nationalism exists based on the perception of the people who are part of that nation, and the symbolic connection between a seemingly unified political body.24 Nationalism often constructs and reproduces racial and ethnic hierarchies to enforce boundaries and uphold a sense of national identity.
Nations are primarily and fundamentally constructed through the creation and distribution of shared cultural narratives, images, and symbols. Contrary to some common conceptions, cultural narratives (e.g., music, fashion, television and more) are not the opposite of politics, but rather a different expression of societal systems and structures. For example, in a classical study of self-identity among Mexican Americans published in 1987, Roger Batra identified four key practices that aligned individuals with a collective sense of “Lo Mexicano”:
The artists and pieces that centralize Mexican identity change over time, but the use of shared cultural legacies continues.
In Mexico, nationalistic cultural styles emphasize the commonalities and unifying symbols that can bring together diverse populations across the country. For example, mariachi are bandas (bands) that typically wear full charro/charra attire, signaling a post revolutionary Mexican aesthetic. This historical reference is important, because this signals an emphasis on the political efforts to unify the Mexican people to overthrow colonial control and re-establish a locally governed system. The politics of mariachi are also gendered. Historically mariachi are often, but not always, male-dominated. However, key figures like Aida Cuevas have broken barriers for women to perform in this style as respected lead vocalists. As shown in Figure 10.3.4, groups like the Mariachi Divas highlight women artists and performers.
Performing National Identity in La Tequilera
In the Chicanx and Latinx music worlds, it is very common for popular artists to cover both new and traditional songs by others, sometimes changing the style and tone in their adapted version. For example, the song La Tequilera (The tequila girl) was popularized by Lucha Reyes in the 1930s. In her original version, the telling followed the ranchera style and signaling the soldadera (soldier) imagery of women in the Mexican Revolution. Since then, the song has been performed by countless women, including Selena, Jenni Rivera, and Alicia Villaseñor, both reprising this story and infusing it with new meaning.
Astrid Hadad is a Mexican singer of mixed Mayan and Lebanese heritage. In her performances of La Tequilera, she utilizes the imagery of armed Mexican revolutionary women to signal the original Lucha Reyes version of the song. She also embeds aspects of rock and roll to bring the song into a more modern era, focusing on current issues related to gender equality and women’s agency.26 This signals the ongoing revolution against patriarchy and interlocking systems of domination. For example, in her concerts, when Hadad sings “Como Buena mexicana sufriré el dolor tranquila” (Like a good Mexican woman, I will suffer in silence), she whips herself, emphasizing how women have been socialized into their own marginalization in the name of cultural and national identity.27 This is an example of disidentification, as Hadad is both deploying Mexican national identity through ranchera style, a traditionally male-dominated genre, as a way to critique patriarchal gender roles and patriarchy.
Lila Downs is a globally recognized signer from Oaxaca, Mexico and is shown in Figure 10.3.5. When she has performed the same song, she shifts the musical style to a norteña, both increasing the tempo and adding elements like the accordion. Because norteño music is associated with northern Mexico, Texas, California, the U.S. Southwest, and Mexican migrant communities around the world, this gives the song a transnational character and invites a global Latinx audience. Following this global-facing Mexican identity, Downs melds the soldadera style with dress that reflects both traditional Oaxacan styles, as well as the Mexican nationalistic aesthetic style of ballet folklorico.28 This flips the significance of the narrative in the song from being about reflecting Mexican identity within a nationalistic community to representing Mexicanidad to a Latinx and global audience. Links to publicly available, copyrighted recordings of Hadad’s and Downs’s recordings of La Tequilera are included in the supplemental resources for this chapter.
Indigenous Rock
Indigenous identities, cultural practices, musical traditions, and dress are all key parts of Chicanx and Latinx music and dance. These are celebrated through traditional ceremonies, festivals, and rituals, along with day-to-day culture. For example, Pirekua is music “that expresses the thought, feelings and pride of the P’urhépecha people from Michoácan, México, where creators (composers) and the pirericha (performers) manifest all their talent, their creativity and their most profound feelings.”29 While this genre grows out of a long tradition, each generation has adapted and transformed the music to reflect the changing times and their modern identities.
For example, Hamac Caziim is a Comcáac punk group from Punta Chueca, Sonora that seeks to help young people find pride in their culture and language. They have also helped to encourage self-expression by helping new rock and punk groups form and organizing the Festival Xepe an Cöicoos to celebrate Comcáac communities. Similarly, Sak Tzevul is a Tzotzil progressive rock group from Zinacantán, Chiapas. They originally struggled for recognition especially among their Indigenous peoples but won over fans and support who were able to recognize the authentic connection of rock music to their cultures and values.30
Afro-Latinx Music
People of African descent have been widely influential in the creation of all types of culture in Latin America, despite being under-recognized in political, social, and cultural domains. For example, rhythms, instruments, melodies, and styles rooted in African traditions are embedded throughout styles like meringue, bachata, and cumbia. Further, prominent Afro-Latinx artists have operated through different contemporary genres like R&B (e.g., Cristiana Milian), reggaeton (e.g., Amara La Negra), and rap (e.g., Princess Nokia). These artists provide representation and cultural narratives that respond to the specific and diverse experiences of people of Afro-Latinx descent.
Artist Spotlight: Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz, in full Úrsula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso, was born on October 21, 1925 in Havana, Cuba, and she died July 16, 2003 in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in the United States. She was a Cuban-American singer who reigned for decades as the “Queen of Salsa Music,” electrifying audiences with her wide-ranging soulful voice and rhythmically compelling style. She was exiled from Cuba for her outspoken political and cultural commentary and her fame as an Afro-Latina singer. Even though the Cuban government had tried to erase her from its history, her fans still living in Cuba commemorated her death by chalking slogans that read “Azucar! Celia, Cuba te ama!” (“Azucar! Celia, Cuba loves you!”) on walls throughout the island.31
Cubanidad can be understood as a Cuban-specific expression of Latinidad, particularly among the Cuban exile and diaspora community. Celia Cruz contests the homogenization of Latinidad by affirming her Cubanness and Blackness through musical style and performance. Cruz embedded political speech and acts into her concerts using the Spanish language as well as direct political claims, like “Bring Down Fidel Castro.”32 As stated by one commentator, the complexity of Celia Cruz can be understood in terms of “the image of ‘azúcar negra’... as Celia’s Black body, Afro-Cuban rhythms and voice together indexed the cultural survival of slaves in Cuba while she simultaneously vocalized the discourse of a pro-capitalist, white Cuban bourgeoisie while embodying colonial desire with her blonde wig.”33 An artistic rendition of Celia singing in her iconic blond wig is shown in Figure 10.3.6.
Footnotes
21 Angelique K. Dwyer, “Performing Nation Diva Style in Lila Downs and Astrid Hadad’s La Tequilera,” in Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture, ed. Domino Renee Perez and Rachel González-Martin (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 132–51.
22 Dwyer. “Performing Nation Diva Style.”; Martínez-Rivera. “(Re)Imagining Indigenous Popular Culture.”
23 Frances R Aparicio, “Jennifer as Selena: Rethinking Latinidad in Media and Popular Culture,” Latino Studies 1, no. 1 (March 1, 2003): 97, https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600016.
24 Dwyer. “Performing Nation Diva Style.”
25 Roger Bartra. La Jaula de La Melancolía. Identidad y Metamorfosis Del Mexicano. México: Grijalbo, 1987.
26 Dwyer. “Performing Nation Diva Style.”
27 Dwyer.
28 Dwyer.
29 Martínez-Rivera, “(Re)Imagining Indigenous Popular Culture,” 103.
30 Martínez-Rivera.
31 Christina D. Abreu, “Celebrity, ‘Crossover,’ and Cubanidad: Celia Cruz as ‘La Reina de Salsa,’ 1971-2003,” Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana 28, no. 1 (2007): 94–124.
32 Abreu.
33 Abreu, 130. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.03%3A_National_and_Transnational_Rhythmic_Formations.txt |
Chicanx and Latinx Representation on Screen
When considering the role of Chicanx and Latinx representations on television and in films, Mary Bletrán offers us the concept of image analysis. Image analysis is an approach that is complementary to a variety of research methodologies, and “can illuminate a great deal about a media text’s racial politics, as well as its implied ideological messages about ethnic and racial groups and race relations.”34 To undertake image analysis, we go through the following steps:
For example, TV westerns in the 1950s typically displayed Latinxs as one-dimensional stereotypes (for example, Zorro and Tanto). In these performances, Latinx characters were often played by white actors, and they were signified by speaking broken English, being uneducated, and working in a low-paying job. These representations activated myths about the racial status quo and the assumed superiority of whites. In the overall narrative structure, Latinxs were typically not central figures in the storyline, showed little personal development, and were in positions of subservience.
An important counter-example is The Cisco Kid, which ran from 1950-1956, and featured a Latino main character, similar to the other TV cowboys of the era. However, upon further examination, Cisco is still characterized by the racial ideology of the time, with the sidekick character, “Pancho,” who is also Latino, has darker skin, more Indigenous features, and his character is portrayed as less intelligent and important than Cisco. Further, because Cisco was played by Duncan Renaldo (Romanian born American) and Pancho was played by Leo Carrillo (Californian/Spanish), this reinforced the audience’s perception of racial hierarchy through the dynamics of colorism. One of the promotional images for an adaptation of The Cisco Kid is shown in Figure 10.4.1, with the description that reads: “The first outdoor talking feature in Old Arizona, was just a sample of the vigorous outdoor action and panorama of scenery which only the technically perfected Fox Movietone can capture on film. Here the Cisco Kid, played by Warner Baxter, attempts to outwit Serjeant Mickey Dunn, as played by Edmund Lowe. Audiences are already waiting for this one.
Since the days of Cisco, we have witnessed many changes in the representation of Latinxs, including new cultural scripts and narratives that Latinx actors and content creators have to navigate. Latina icons are highly recognized Latinas who have achieved a high-level celebrity status. The significance of these individuals for our society can be understood both in terms of their commodification of ethnic authenticity, as well as the symbolic resistance in ensuring representation while still working toward larger goals.35 For example, this is communicated through pop culture figures as diverse as like Salma Hayek, Frida Kahlo, and Jennifer Lopez, as well as characters like Dora the Explorer.
Jennifer Lopez is a recognized film sensation, earning \$13 million per movie and drawing huge crowds and audiences to her films. This puts her in a league of elite actors like Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Halle Berry, and Angela Bassett. She has navigated the public perception of her racial and ethnic identity by both emphasizing her identity as a Latina and at times, her proximity to whiteness. Her success as an entertainer in both music and film has given her the opportunity to also take control of her own image and star power, through the clothing, lingerie, and perfume industries and by starting her own production company, Nuyorican Films.36 Figure 10.4.2 shows her singing at the 59th Presidential Inauguration, signaling her esteemed place in American culture and society.
Unlike the New York-born Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek gained crossover success in American markets, after establishing her career in Mexican telenovelas. Hayek has played various leading and supporting roles in Hollywood films but has often been limited to roles that are defined by her accent and identity as a Latina.37 In response to the negative pressure she has faced in the industry, Hayek has produced her own films through the company Ventanarosa, which translates from Spanish to English as pink window. Ventanarosa has produced feature films like Frida (2002) and In the Time of Butterflies (2001) and was instrumental in adapting the Colombian novela, Yo Soy Betty La Fea (Ugly Betty) which ran on ABC for 4 seasons (2006-2010). In Figure 10.4.3, Hayek is shown at San Diego Comic Con in 2014.
An undeniable example of a Latina icon is Frida Kahlo. Her image and artistry are widely recognized in the United States and around the world. While she was an activist and artist throughout her life, her fame expanded greatly after her death, not unlike other iconic Latina figures like Evita, Selena, and Celia Cruz. Now, images of Frida and her self-portraits appear on “stationery, posters, jewelry, hair clips, autobiographies, cookbooks, biographical books, chronological art books, refrigerator magnets, painting kits, wall hangings, and wrapping paper, to mention a few of the items in bookstores and novelty stores throughout the U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain.”38 A photograph of Kahlo is shown in Figure 10.4.4.
Sidebar: Dora the Explorer
Dora the Explorer debuted with wild success on the Nickelodeon children’s television network on August 14, 2000. Dora, an animated seven-year-old Latina girl, is the main character in a bilingual cartoon. She has light brown skin, dark brown eyes, and a voice bounding with endless enthusiasm. She wears orange shorts, a pink t-shirt, and pink-and-white tennis shoes, and carries a talking backpack and a map that help guide her adventures.39 As published in the Chicago Tribune:
In its first year, ‘Dora the Explorer,’ averaged 1.1 million viewers ages 2 to 5 and 2 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Co. These days, ‘Dora’ delivers an average of 1.4 million viewers ages 2 to 5 and 2.9 million total viewers, beating out competitors ‘Curious George’ and ‘Sid the Science Kid’ on PBS and Disney's ‘Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.’ Over the years, the show has won a Peabody award for excellence, an NAACP Image award and Parents' Choice awards, among others, and has received 16 Daytime Emmy nominations,” and won 2 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Children’s Animated Program.40
Nicole Guidotti-Hernández argues that elements of Afro-Latinidad were present in an episode called “Dora, La Música” that features parranda and comparsa.41 These originate from righteously indignant Afro-Latina/o/x communities practicing self-determination by expressing oneself creatively and with music. The comparsa has a contested history because it is a distinctly Afro-Cuban practice that reflects African cultural retention and resistance to colonization.42 Comparsa music also has an oppositional quality because the European-origin majority characterized it as a barbaric African form of cultural expression located in the past. By highlighting these aspects of Latinx culture, Dora brings in age appropriate lessons that encourage cultural appreciation and knowledge.
Telenovelas, Nationalism, Gender and Sexuality
Telenovelas, sometimes just called novelas, are the most popular form of Latin American primetime television and cultural productions that can influence social life, capitalism, identity, and communicate learning moments of contemporary social problems (e.g. sexism, homophobia, domestic violence, etc.). Their plots usually center on love stories and family life and can represent political conflict, corruption, and other moral dilemmas.43 To this day, telenovelas are the most viewed television format in Mexico and across Latin America; produced by networks like Televisa, Telemundo, and TV Azteca.44 They are typically broadcasted 5 days a week, an hour per show, and can typically run for a year or more.
Telenovelas have been used to target consumers with messages intended to curb or in some way alter behavior and attitudes.45 Many telenovelas are inspired by a design by Miguel Sabido, a Mexican Telenovela writer, director and producer. He created a novela named, Simplemente María, that aired between 1969-1971. This novela was a catalyst for social change and economic production. It was found that Simplemente María contributed to an increase in Singer sewing machines and rising awareness of the working conditions of domestic workers in Latin America. Such changes in mindset yielded real changes for maids, including better treatment by employers and, in some cases, more flexible work schedules that allowed them to pursue their education in the evenings.46 Novelas are powerful storytelling platforms. Through fictional narratives, “lessons” are communicated through microcosms encoded with prosocial and antisocial behavior (e.g. villainous, innocent, professional, etc.)
Scholars credit Sabido as a pioneer of entertainment-education (E-E), which is the process of purposefully designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase audience knowledge about an educational issue, create favorable attitudes, and change overt behavior.47 Novelas like María la del Barrio, La Rosa de Guadalupe and Rebelde (RBD); are only a few that resemble this design. Novelas create and resemble Latinindades in many ways. Brazilian novelas, like O Bem-Amado (The Beloved) in 1973 by Dias Gomes, represent politics and identify new social processes and forces that shaped socioeconomic and political life in Brazil during the 1970s, including urbanization, modernization, the ‘new’ middle class, and a more assertive press.48
Traditionally understood as feminine cultural productions, telenovelas now attract audiences of all genders, ages, sexuality and social classes. With expanding audiences, we have also seen increased representation of topics related to gender diversity and sexual orientation in novelas. In many novelas, gender identity and sexuality have been understood primarily in binaristic terms in which feminine/flamboyant behavior is prescribed to cis-women and gay men, while macho/masculine behavior and caricatures are exclusive to cis-heterosexual men and masculine gay or bi men in novelas. This leads to feminine and passive gay men being the most stigmatized character in novelas.49 Tate describes further in the following quotation:
These polarized and farcical gender performances manifest themselves in the limited characterizations of male characters as either macho men or locas (a derogatory term used to denote extremely effeminate, presumably homosexual men). Consequently, for almost the entirety of the past century, the available gender narratives did not admit the existence of masculine homosexuals, nor effeminate heterosexuals, and telenovelas were no exception to this rule.50
The concepts of stereotypes and controlling images can explain how media representations exert power and influence over individuals’ identities and perceptions of others. However, greater representation and authentic storytelling can break down the barriers and dismantle controlling images that create restrictions on identity.
Footnotes
34 Mary Beltrán. “Image Analysis and Televisual Latinos.” In Race and Media: Critical Approaches, edited by Lori Kido Lopez, 27. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2020.
35 Isabel Molina Guzmán and Angharad N. Valdivia. “Brain, Brow, and Booty: Latina Iconicity in U.S. Popular Culture.” The Communication Review 7, no. 2 (April 1, 2004): 205–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420490448723.
36 Guzmán and Valdivia, “Brain, Brow, and Booty,” 209.
37 Guzmán and Valdivia, 210.
38 Guzmán and Valdivia, 210-211.
39 Nicole M Guidotti-Hernández, “Dora The Explorer, Constructing ‘LATINIDADES’ and The Politics of Global Citizenship,” Latino Studies 5, no. 2 (July 2007): 210, https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600254.
40 Yvonne Villarreal, “‘Dora’ Turns 10,” Chicagotribune.Com, August 15, 2010, sec. Tribune Newspapers, https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-xpm-2010-08-15-sc-tv-0811-dora-explorer-20100815-story.html.
41 Guidotti-Hernández, “Dora The Explorer.”
42 Guidotti-Hernández, 223.
43 Mauro Porto. “Telenovelas and Representations of National Identity in Brazil.” Media, Culture & Society 33, no. 1 (January 1, 2011): 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443710385500; Viviana Rojas. “The Gender of Latinidad : Latinas Speak About Hispanic Television.” Communication Review 7, no. 2 (June 2004): 125–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420490448688; Julee Tate. “Laughing All the Way to Tolerance? Mexican Comedic Telenovelas as Vehicles for Lessons Against Homophobia.” The Latin Americanist 58, no. 3 (2014): 51–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/tla.12036.
44 Antonio C La Pastina, “The Centrality of Telenovelas in Latin America’s Everyday Life:,” Global Media Journal 2, no. 2 (2003): 16.
45 Tate, “Laughing All the Way to Tolerance?” 51.
46 Arvind Singhal, Rafael Obregon, and Everett M. Rogers, “Reconstructing the Story of Simplemente Maria, the Most Popular Telenovela in Latin America of All Time,” Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands) 54, no. 1 (1995): 2.
47 Singhal et al., “Reconstructing the Story of Simplemente Maria.”
48 Porto. “Telenovelas and Representations of National Identity in Brazil.”
49 Tate. “Laughing All the Way to Tolerance?”
50 Julee Tate, “Redefining Mexican Masculinity in Twenty-First Century Telenovelas,” Hispanic Research Journal 14, no. 6 (December 2013): 541, https://doi.org/10.1179/1468273713Z.00000000068. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.04%3A_Television_and_Film.txt |
Cultural Influence on Politics and Society
In addition to shaping our cultural narratives, shared meanings, identities, and practices, cultural productions are also a material part of our world and activist movements for social change. There are many ways that Chicanx and Latinx communities use culture to advocate for change, like performance, theater, poetry, lectures, education, and more. As we have learned throughout this chapter, there have been many examples of how culture matters for politics. In this section, we will focus on some specifically activist forms of culture.
Artivism and Politics
Successful mobilization of social movements or movidas depend on the availability of symbolically powerful and relevant cultural schemas, also known as symbolic resource mobilization.51 These need to resonate with various audiences, including the supporters of the movement, as well as the targets. Crafting creative, compelling messages is a skill that is honed through practice and artistic expertise. Art plays a key role in activist movements by communicating demands, claims, and critiques to a range of audiences. Artivism refers to the combination of art and activism, and the ways in which art is a vehicle for advocating for social change.
The website Justseeds is an activist movement that curates and distributes art for activist groups and their allies. The site includes paid artwork that can be ordered and downloaded, which directly supports movement artists and provides opportunities to raise awareness in one’s home, workplace, or other shared location. Further, the website also offers a database of Graphics that have been licensed with Creative Commons license so that they can be freely distributed and reproduced in their original format, as long as they are not sold for money and the artist is attributed. Prominent Latina artists like Favianna Rodriguez and Melanie Cervantes contribute to the site, along with people from a range of sectors invested in racial justice, decolonization, and liberation. Providing artistic resources help movements mobilize campaigns and raise awareness about social problems. In Figure 10.5.1, it shows a graphic activist poster that emphasizes, “Brown and Proud. Todos Somos Arizona” (We are all Arizona).
Activist Spotlight: Zines
Zines are another example of pop culture used for both enjoyment and political resistance. A zine can be a physical or digital piece that typically includes images and texts. It is often created by cutting and pasting magazine items or using a digital style that mimics this aesthetic. They are also usually formatted to be printed and folded. This is to make them easy to share in discreet ways, for example by folding them up and holding them in your pocket, or tucking them into another book. The format in this instance, responds directly to the need to be able to subtly distribute information to large groups of people. For example, zines can be used in schools, workplaces, prisons, and other institutions to share grassroots information. Many groups have used and adapted zines for their own cultural context and political goals. For example: Muchacha Fanzine, Black feminist queer radical zines, and Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex.
Muralismo
A common practice of activist artwork for activism is the painting of large murals in shared public spaces. For Chicanx and Latinx communities, this is often referred to as muralismo. These murals communicate narratives, cultural pride, and a strong sense of shared space. In the context of being denied political representation, in the case of immigrants, and cultural and social representation, which impacts all Chicanx and Latinx people, artwork becomes a way of positively exercising self-determination and collective decision-making.
The roots of muralismo can be observed in the practice of mural drawing in Mexico and throughout Latin America, including the Mexican mural movement. Three prominent figures in this movement in the early 20th century were David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, sometimes referred to as “los tres grandes.” The style can be witnessed in places like San Diego’s “Chicano Park,” where dozens of large-scale murals transform a park tucked under a freeway overpass into a cultural destination and hub for families and community members. One example of the murals in Chicano Park is shown in Figure 10.5.2. This piece has the text “Nacimiento del Parque Chicano 22 abril 1970, which translates in English to “Birth of Chicano Park: April 22, 1970” and commemorates the historical significance of the space.
Over time, murals have been utilized by Chicanxs and Latinxs of varying backgrounds. In Los Angeles, Judy Baca is renowned for her mural work, including the Great Wall of Los Angeles, which showcases the Latinx experience and history in LA. Figure 10.5.3 shows Judy Baca restoring the mural in 2011, ensuring that the quality and image are maintained. In spaces where these murals have been put up, there are appreciable differences in people’s relationship to the space, including both a general sense of pride, as well as a specific improvement in the safety, upkeep, and liveability of surrounding areas. Because of these documented benefits, local agencies and government bodies have begun working directly with artists and art collectives to establish, maintain, and preserve murals and other forms of public art.
Footnote
51 Laura E Enriquez and Abigail C Saguy, “Coming out of the Shadows: Harnessing a Cultural Schema to Advance the Undocumented Immigrant Youth Movement,” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 4, no. 1 (February 2016): 107–30, https://doi.org/10.1057/ajcs.2015.6. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.05%3A_Cultural_Productions_in_Practice.txt |
Summary
In this chapter, our study of Chicanx and Latinx cultural productions offered a rich and complex framework for understanding the intersection of race, racism, and other forms of oppression with culture and media. Throughout this chapter, we have explored a range of concepts and topics, including pop culture analysis, stereotypes, encoding and decoding, controlling images, tropicalism, disidentification, nationalism, and artivism.
One of the key takeaways from our exploration of Chicanx and Latinx cultural productions is the critical importance of analyzing representation and cultural meaning-making in relation to intersecting systems of power and oppression. By examining how cultural productions operate at the intersection of race and racism with class, gender, sexuality, immigration status, ability, and Indigeneity, we can better understand how these productions both reinforce systemic violence and offer opportunities for struggle, resistance, and liberation.
Furthermore, we have observed how cultural productions have played a crucial role in the struggle for racial and social justice in Chicanx and Latinx communities, both historically and in the present day. From muralismo to artivism, from telenovelas to zines, Chicanx and Latinx cultural producers have used their creativity to challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative visions of the world. By investing in anti-racist and decolonial efforts for liberation, social justice, and equity, we can harness the power of culture to promote solidarity and transformative change.
Ancillary materials for this chapter are located in Section 11.10: Chapter 10 Resource Guide, which includes slides, media, writing and discussion prompts, and suggested assignments and activities.
Key Terms
Pop culture (or “popular culture”): Cultural practices that are produced and distributed for mass audiences
Pop cultura analysis: A framework that examines day-to-day experiences in combination with academic analysis and structured knowledge sharing. This pays close attention to the dynamics of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and ability.
Encoding: The process of constructing meaning in creating culture. This refers to the producers, writers, artists, performers, and others who showcase narratives and cultural scripts. It is the complementary process to decoding.
Decoding: The process by which people view, understand, and interpret stories. It is the complementary process to encoding.
Stereotypes: Limited representations of individuals that reduce someone to a negative association with their group status.
Controlling images: A concept that describes the ways that common narratives about Black women are used to reinforce exploitative and racist systems. These include: The Mammy, The Matriarch, The Welfare Mother, The Black Lady, and The Jezebel. For Chicanx and Latinx communities, specific stereotypes have been constructed in response to social, political, economic, and cultural systems.
Tropicalism: A negative trope that homogenizes Latinx people by focusing on a fixed set of shared traits: bright colors, rhythmic dancing, and darker skin suited to an “exotic” locale.
Latin Lover: A stereotype Latinos as aggressively sexual and exotic. The trope was developed by white actors who played Latin characters with a vague accent and no specific cultural or familial ties.
Cantina girl: A stereotype characterized by great sexual allure, teasing, and dancing. These are hallmark characteristics of this stereotype. This is also a form of sexual objectification, and the narrative of a ‘‘naughty lady of easy virtue.”
Vamp: A trope of an individual who uses their intellectual and devious sexual wiles to get what they want. This poses a threat, counterbalanced by the draw of charisma. The vamp is a psychological menace to anyone who is ill-equipped to handle them.
Self-sacrificing señorita: A woman who usually starts out good but goes bad over time. In this narrative, the woman realizes she has gone wrong and is willing to protect her love interest by placing her body between the threat intended for him, ultimately becoming a martyr.
Disidentification: The process of situating oneself within a broader cultural narrative while also existing in opposition to that narrative.
Tejano music: Sometimes called Tex-Mex, this style is known for its use of vocal melodies that mirror traditional Mexican musical styles, combined with instruments and rhythms with American and European influences.
Norteño: A style popular in northern Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States, and reflects a cultural blend of musical instruments and moving narrative ballads.
Rancheras: Songs that focus on love, beauty, and nature, as well as regional and national pride. They tend to take on a local character, with references to specific places and activities that resonate with audiences in that region, as well as form a symbolic connection to individuals who have personal or family ties to these other regions.
Corridos: Songs that use complex narrative to tell stories through song. This genre inspired American country music, which utilizes similar narrative formats and styles.
Boleros: Songs with a slow or moderate tempo and a repeating rhythm that supports a strong melody by the lead singer. These are rooted in Cuban and Spanish influences that were reinvented by Mexican composers.
Bachata: A style that grew out of the fusion of European and African influences with Indigenous Taino sounds, reflecting the rich and diverse culture of the Dominican Republic.
Cumbia: A style that comes out of Colombia and reflects the unique combination of European, African, and Indigenous influences of the Colombian peoples.
Reggaeton: A style that developed with a regional and global character. While the genre originated in Panama, it spread to Puerto Rico and rose to prominence there and brought together Afro-descendent styles from Panama, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the United States (particularly, Afro-Latinx communities in New York City).
Ballet folklórico: A nationalized version of Mexican folk dancing, which has also become popular in the United States, with local groups and schools sponsoring dance groups and holding lessons for children, adolescents, and adults.
Danza: Folk dances that communities carry on through specific dance forms and performances among Indigenous peoples.
Danza de los Viejitos (Tharep’ Hiti Huarar'i in Purépecha): A style with dancers who dress in traditional attire with masks of old men and women. The dancers use canes and play at being hunched over and feeble throughout the dance. The early origins of this dance are thought to reflect narratives about aging and humor. After European and Spanish colonization, the dance changed somewhat, and now includes elements of poking fun at elderly Spanish men who have exerted colonial power.
Nationalism: A social construction, which takes on authority and power to implement policies. While we often take borders for granted, it takes continual efforts to create and maintain a sense of national identity, which justifies and legitimates the actions of elected officials and government agencies. Nationalism exists based on the perception of the people who are part of that nation, and the symbolic connection between a seemingly unified political body.
Mariachi: Bandas (bands) that typically wear full charro/charra attire, signaling a post revolutionary Mexican aesthetic. This historical reference is important, because this signals an emphasis on the political efforts to unify the Mexican people to overthrow colonial control and re-establish a locally governed system.
Pirekua: Music that expresses the thought, feelings and pride of the P’urhépecha people from Michoácan, México, where creators (composers) and the pirericha (performers) manifest all their talent, their creativity and their most profound feelings.”
Image analysis: An approach that is complementary to a variety of research methodologies, and can illuminate a great deal about a media text’s racial politics, as well as its implied ideological messages about ethnic and racial groups and race relations.
Latina icons: Highly recognized Latinas who have achieved a high-level celebrity status. The significance of these individuals for our society can be understood both in terms of their commodification of ethnic authenticity, as well as the symbolic resistance in ensuring representation while still working toward larger goals.
Parranda: A style with a contested history because it is a distinctly Afro-Cuban practice that reflects African cultural retention and resistance to colonization.
Comparsa: Music with a quality of resistance because the European-origin majority characterized it as a barbaric African form of cultural expression located in the past.
Telenovelas (novelas): The most popular form of Latin American primetime television and cultural productions that can influence social life, capitalism, identity, and communicate learning moments of contemporary social problems (e.g. sexism, homophobia, domestic violence, etc.). Their plots usually center on love stories and family life and can represent political conflict, corruption, and other moral dilemmas. They are typically broadcasted 5 days a week, an hour per show, and can typically run for a year or more.
Artivism: The combination of art and activism, and the ways in which art is a vehicle for advocating for social change.
Zines: A physical or digital piece that typically includes images and texts. It is often created by cutting and pasting magazine items or using a digital style that mimics this aesthetic. They are also usually formatted to be printed and folded. This is to make them easy to share in discreet ways, for example by folding them up and holding them in your pocket, or tucking them into another book.
Muralismo: A practice of mural making that communicates narratives, cultural pride, and a strong sense of shared space. In the context of being denied political representation, in the case of immigrants, and cultural and social representation, which impacts all Chicanx and Latinx people, artwork becomes a way of positively exercising self-determination and collective decision-making. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/10%3A_Cultural_Productions/10.06%3A_Conclusion.txt |
Overview
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with each chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this chapter may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11: Teacher and Learner Resource Guide
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.01: Chapter 1 Resource Guide
Chapter 1 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.1.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 1 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.1.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
Note
Content in this section was adapted from “The Ongoing Struggle for Ethnic Studies” by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick in Introduction to Ethnic Studies (LibreTexts), which is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.
11.1.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 1 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Note
Content in this section was adapted from “The Ongoing Struggle for Ethnic Studies” by Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick in Introduction to Ethnic Studies (LibreTexts), which is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.
11.2.01: Slides
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.02: Chapter 2 Resource Guide
Chapter 2 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.2.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 2 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.2.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
11.2.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 2 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Two Census Questions
Students will have an opportunity to explore how they identify racially and ethnically by reviewing the two census questions as seen in Figure 2.1.2. Take a few moments to review and respond to questions 6 and 7 on the U.S. census. When you are finished, think about why you made the selections you did.
Wheel of Power/Privilege
Students will be given an opportunity to build on the “Two Census Questions” activity by applying an intersectional analysis to their own lives by considering how power structures (ideologies, discourses, institutions, systems) shape their particular subject position, access to resources, experiences, and life outcomes. An option is to have students complete this activity before reading Chapter 2: Identities and then revisit it after reading the chapter to determine how their knowledge deepened as a result of completing the reading.
1. To prepare for this activity, print copies of the “Wheel of Power/Privilege” by Sylvia Duckworth (Figure 2.1) and distribute them in class or have students in online sections download the digital version. There may be additional social identity categories not listed in the image that you may want to add or come up with additional categories with students.
2. Ask students to reflect on the ways they identify within each social identity category and circle the label closest to their identity or experience for each, understanding that the labels they use may not be provided exactly in the wheel. Students can write in another label and determine its placement. Students should also think about which of these categories are most salient to their everyday lives and highlight them. They should also think about which categories/identities are less salient and why.
3. After completing this activity, students can journal independently or form small groups to discuss where their identities lie. Where do they experience marginalization and where do they experience privilege? Which social identity intersections produce particular experiences? Consider how privilege is cemented for a select few through the creation and maintenance of hierarchical social identity categories across time and place and the ways that marginalized communities have resisted their oppressors' classifications. Students should be given an opportunity to draw from their own experiences and make personal connections to Chapter 2: Identities. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/11%3A_Teacher_and_Learner_Resource_Guide/11.01%3A_Chapter_1_Resource_Guide/11.1.01%3A_Slides.txt |
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.03: Chapter 3 Resource Guide
Chapter 3 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.3.02: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
1. Who are the historians, knowledge keepers, chismosa/o/xs, or storytellers in your local community and/or in your family? What strategies do they utilize (eg. collecting photographs, telling stories during family gatherings, sharing dichos or songs, etc)?
11.3.03: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 3 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Assignment 1 Oral History Project
This assignment option is written as a major project that takes approximately 4-5 weeks to complete. It includes additional suggested assigned readings on oral history methods and three scaffolded assignments, including the final project.
Step 1 Preparation
Read up on oral history research methods and discuss in class. The following are suggestions:
Step 2: Interview Proposal
Students will select someone to interview, schedule the interview, and submit the interview proposal assignment, which should include the following:
Step 3: Time-Subject Index, Selected Themes, and Project Proposal
After conducting their interview, students will closely analyze the recorded audio/video. This will require you to playback and review the recording at least two to four times, listening for dates, geographic locations, subjects, and themes. On a sheet of paper, notate the time in the interview a particular theme, event, and/or place was mentioned on the left margin, and to the right, write down the theme, event, and/or place, along with a brief description. This process is called time-subject indexing. Index by obvious breaks in the topic or by time (every five minutes, for example). Once you have done this for the entire interview, you will review your time-subject index and decide on the important themes, events, and/or places from the interview to focus on for your final project. This option is less time-consuming than producing a full transcript, which is an option, depending on the course and instructor’s preference. Students will submit their time-subject index (or transcript) along with a paragraph describing their selected themes, and the final project format that they think will best showcase their work. Options are provided in Step 4.
Step 4: Final Project
Possible formats include, but are not limited to the following list and specific parameters should be determined by the instructor:
Assignment 2 Chicana Por Mi Raza Digital Memory Project
There are many ways for instructors to partner with CPMR—from developing courses and assignment structures using our materials, to creating content for our public website, to undertaking a local oral history/archival collection project as part of the class. The Chicana por mi Raza Digital Collective has developed a host of teaching materials to assist educators including course syllabi, reading lists, assignment structures, and guidelines for scanning, cataloging, and working with the Medici System (our database). If you would like to use materials from our digital repository in your class, or even undertake a community history project, and are interested in working with us to make it happen, please contact the Project Director Dr. Maria Cotera at [email protected] | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/11%3A_Teacher_and_Learner_Resource_Guide/11.03%3A_Chapter_3_Resource_Guide/11.3.01%3A_Slides.txt |
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.04: Chapter 4 Resource Guide
Chapter 4 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.4.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 4 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.4.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
Supplemental Resources
You can supplement the discussion of the above prompts with specific articles on the topic, especially if these debates have happened locally in your own communities. For example, visit the websites for more information and perspective on this topic:
11.4.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 4 Assignments and Activities
The prompt on this page is an idea for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. This can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Native Land activity
For this assignment, you will learn more about a specific group of Indigenous peoples. You can visit the Native Land website to find out more about a specific location.
Take notes on the following:
For an individual assignment, you can turn in these notes. For a group assignment, you can have individuals use a shared mapping tool like Padlet or Google My Maps.
11.5.01: Slides
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.05: Chapter 5 Resource Guide
Chapter 5 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.5.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 5 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
• I Love Lupe, directed by Alma López (2009; Prod. Co), DVD.
11.5.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
11.5.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 5 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
11.6.01: Slides
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.06: Chapter 6 Resource Guide
Chapter 6 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.6.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 6 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.6.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
11.6.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 6 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Footnote
1 Gil Cuadros, City of God, (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 200).; Claudia Rodriguez, Everybody’s Bread, (San Francisco: Korima Press, 2015); Maya Chinchilla, The Cha-Cha Files: A Chapina Poetica (San Francisco: Korima Press, 2014). | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/11%3A_Teacher_and_Learner_Resource_Guide/11.04%3A_Chapter_4_Resource_Guide/11.4.01%3A_Slides.txt |
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.07: Chapter 7 Resource Guide
Chapter 7 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.7.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 7 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.7.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
Supplemental Resources
You can help guide this discussion by providing some examples of student advocacy as a jumping-off point. The websites linked in this list include just a few examples of student activism in Chicanx and Latinx social movements.
11.7.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 7 Assignments and Activities
The prompt on this page includes ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. This can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Power Map Activity
All advocacy is tailored toward a specific audience. The technique of “power mapping” can be used to identify potential viable targets for a social movement. As illustrated in Figure 11.7.1, the basic structure of power mapping is to create a chart. In this chart, the vertical axis is based on influence. At the top of the chart, you will place individuals and organizations that are the most influential with respect to your defined outcome. As you go down the chart, you will place individuals who are less influential. At the same time, the horizontal axis represents support or opposition, with the leftmost part of the chart being the most opposition, and the rightmost part of the chart being the most support.
To complete the activity, create your own power map.
1. First start by clearly defining an objective, which should be specifically defined. This might be a policy, or working to eliminate a concrete disparity, like improving high school graduation rates among Chicanxs and Latinxs, or addressing a specific health disparity within your city, county, or state.
2. Then, begin filling out the chart relative to that issue by identifying individuals and organizations and estimating their amount of influence and support to place them on the chart.
3. You can start with the folx you are most familiar with. You may want to also look up elected officials or policymakers, such as legislators, mayors, or appointed representatives. Some of these people and organizations will be listed in news articles on your topic.
4. To complete the chart, identify the four groups that you have mapped: Champions (High Influence and High Support), Supporters (Low Influence and High Support), Targets (High Influence and Low Support), Opponents (Low Influence and Low Support)
5. Finally, reflect on what you have learned from this process in a short written response (250-500 words), focusing on the question: how can the identified champions and supporters of your issue work to influence the targets and opponents? Note that successful social movements do not always win over all of their targets and opponents to become in favor of the objective. Sometimes the most effective way to meet an outcome is to move Targets from opposition to neutrality. And Opponents may continue to work against your objective, but this is not always impactful if they do not have influence. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/11%3A_Teacher_and_Learner_Resource_Guide/11.07%3A_Chapter_7_Resource_Guide/11.7.01%3A_Slides.txt |
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.08: Chapter 8 Resource Guide
Chapter 8 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.8.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 8 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.8.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
11.8.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 8 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
11.9.01: Slides
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.09: Chapter 9 Resource Guide
Chapter 9 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.9.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 9 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.9.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
To help generate ideas and creative thinking about your own local context, you may want to explore the listed sources:
11.9.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 9 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Group Blog Assignment
Demonstrate your interpretation of and engagement with a topic of your choice related to Chicanx and Latinx Health. This may be based on an activist movement, advocacy campaign, healthcare issue, illness or disease, environmental justice, or more.
Address the following general prompts:
You should use multiple sources to inform your contribution, such as written text, images, music, videos, and more.
For an individual assignment, you can complete this independently. It can also be completed as a group, either by having each student complete an individual assignment and sharing it in a group format (e.g., Canvas discussion, free blog site, online Jamboard), or by having people work in groups to formulate and execute their blog contributions.
You can specify the format or a range of options for format to make the blog post assignment more engaging. For example, instead of a traditional blog post, students can make Instagram stories or short videos.
Food Access Activity
For this assignment, you will explore the Food Access Research Atlas provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to learn more about the food access in your local areas. Follow the steps listed to complete the assignment:
Your reflection should address the following points:
11.10.01: Slides
Overview of Ancillary Materials
The materials listed in this section are supplemental for learners and teachers to engage with the chapter’s content through overview slides, media, prompts, and activities. The links in this section may include external sources that are not maintained by the authors and may include content that is not fully accessible and openly licensed. You may wish to explore different topics or search for similarly titled materials that are relevant to your own context and area.
11.10: Chapter 10 Resource Guide
Chapter 10 Slides
Slides are provided for instructors and learners to engage with summary information from each chapter. These are meant to be used, adapted, and extended to create interactive course sessions. You can access the slides for this chapter by downloading the PowerPoint file available at the following link.
11.10.02: Films Videos and Media
Chapter 10 Films, Videos, and Media
Media are available to supplement the course content in this chapter. These can be used to spur classroom discussions in-person or online, or communicate supplemental learning for depth and exploration.
11.10.03: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
Prompts for discussion and writing assignments are included to spur collective inquiry, reflection, and engagement with the chapter’s materials. You are encouraged to use these for class sessions, assignments, reflective studying, and more.
11.10.04: Assignments and Activities
Chapter 10 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
Multimedia Presentation
Research and create a visual or multimedia presentation on a particular form of Chicanx or Latinx cultural production (e.g., muralismo, telenovelas, or zines). Analyze how the production engages with themes of race, racism, and intersectionality, and evaluate its potential for promoting social justice and equity.
Group Cultural Production
Work with a group to create an original cultural production that engages with issues of race, racism, and intersectionality. This could be a film, TV show, music video, artwork, or other creative work. Use the concepts and themes covered in this chapter to guide your analysis and production.
Create a Zine on an Activist Tradition in Chicanx and Latinx Studies
In this assignment, you will create a zine that explores an activist tradition relevant to Chicanx and Latinx Studies. Your zine should use a combination of text, images, and other visual elements to convey your message and engage your audience. You may choose to focus on a particular activist or movement, or you may explore the broader historical and cultural contexts that have shaped Chicanx and Latinx activism. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al.)/11%3A_Teacher_and_Learner_Resource_Guide/11.08%3A_Chapter_8_Resource_Guide/11.8.01%3A_Slides.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. understand the difference between race and ethnicity
2. discuss the social construction of race
3. explain racial framing
4. compare intergroup relations in terms of racial-ethnic group conflict and tolerance
5. assess systemic racism and structural explanations for racial and ethnic inequality
6. evaluate the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and other social categories on systems of oppression
7. provide examples of racial-ethnic stratification and inequality
8. define majority (dominant) and minority groups (subordinate)
9. interpret social indicators and data on racial and ethnic inequality in the United States
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Achieved Status
Ascribed Status
Competition
Dominant Group
Double Consciousness
Egocentric
Ethnicity
Ethnocentrism
Fluid Competitive Race Relations
Genocide
Internal Colonialism
Intersectionality
Labels
Macro-level
Micro-level
Minority Groups
Multiculturalism
Otherness
Paternalistic Pattern
Patterns of Intergroup Relations
Pluralism
Population Transfer
Race
Racial Disparities and Inequality
Racial Formation
Rigid Competitive Pattern
Segregation
Social Status
Sociocentrism
Status Shifting
Stratification
Subordinate Group
Systemic Racism
Unequal Power
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever had your experience or story misrepresented or retold in an inaccurate way?
Has anyone ever taken something of value from you without asking or providing compensation?
The feelings and thoughts you hold about these questions are not different from other people in the United States, particularly those who were forcible driven from their homeland, smuggled into this country from another place, stripped of their identity, exploited for their resources and labor, or those who have been killed or murdered for being different. The most disturbing part of our history and the characterization of these incidences is the ongoing denial, recognition, and reparations for the people who today remain inflicted by the misrepresentation and injustice of our social structures, institutions, and ideologies. No one likes their history or experience retold through fallacies, stereotypes, or lies. No one likes their life or way of living taken from them involuntarily.
Technology and social media have made it easy to block out and change what we hear and think about each other, our experiences, and our stories. Ironically, these tools have also made it easier to share our lives and bring others into our world without time or borders.
Why is it important to share your experience or tell your story in an honest and accurate way? What is the value in sharing your experience or story?
By telling our stories and sharing our experiences, we acknowledge our existence and humanity. Because we have not retold or allowed some people to share their stories and experiences, we deprive them of this acknowledgement. We make some people less than human and justify it by keeping truths and facts hidden.
This book examines race and ethnicity as understood through our history and the experiences of major underrepresented racial groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans in the United States. We will explore a broad range of sociocultural, intellectual, and historical experiences that form the construction and intersectionality of race and ethnicity in the United States by applying macro and micro perspectives of analysis. Furthermore, we will examine the cultural and political contexts behind the systems of power, privilege, and inequality impacting Americans of color. Emphasis is placed on racial and social justice with methods for building a just and equitable society.
UNDERSTANDING RACE
There are two myths or ideas about race. The first suggests people inherit physical characteristics distinguishing race. The second insinuates that one race is superior to others or that one “pure” race exists.
Scientific research mapping of the human genome system found that humans are homogenous (Henslin, 2011). Race is truly an arbitrary label that has become part of society’s culture with no justifiable evidence to support differences in physical appearance to substantiate the idea that there are a variety of human species. Scientific data finds only one human species making up only one human race. Evidence shows physical differences in human appearance including skin color are a result of human migration patterns and adaptions to the environment (Jablonski, 2012). These data underline the fact that the concept of race is socially constructed.
Society chooses to define the basis and classification of physical characteristics. Racial terms classify and stratify people by appearance and inherently assign individuals and groups as inferior or superior in society based on their physical traits (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). This classification and social status of race and racial groups change over time and varies from one society to another as viewpoints, perspectives, and knowledge adapts and evolves. People use physical characteristics to identify, relate, and interact with one another.
In this book, we will discuss and use the terms race and racial group interchangeably. Even though the concept of race is not biologically sound, people do identify with the term and are often grouped based on the socially constructed concept of race. In reality, race and racial group classification influences people’s life experiences and choices (Farley, 2010; Winant, 1994; Taylor, 1998; Duster, 2001).
The social process of recognizing and defining racial characteristics, labels, and groups is known as racial formation (Omi & Winant, 1994). This process solidifies how race is understood and is propelled by political interests. The results directly impact the social and political consequences of people’s lives, and it is the primary reason society recognizes race as an important classification and why its definition and meaning transform over time (Farley, 2010). Powerful and influential people use race to create divisions or bring people together, whichever serves their interests.
Ethnicity refers to the cultural characteristics related to ancestry and heritage. Ethnicity describes shared culture such as group practices, values, and beliefs recognized by people in and the group itself (Griffiths et al., 2015). People who identify with an ethnic group share common cultural characteristics (i.e., nationality, history, language, religion, etc.). Ethnic groups select rituals, customs, ceremonies, and other traditions to help preserve shared heritage (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012).
Lifestyle and other identity characteristics such as geography and region influence how we adapt our ethnic behaviors to fit the context, environment, or setting in which we live. Culture is also central in determining how humans grow and develop including diet, food preferences, and cultural traditions promoting physical activities, abilities, well-being, and sport (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). A college professor of Mexican decent living in Central California will project different behaviors than someone of the same ethnic culture who is a housekeeper in Las Vegas, Nevada. Differences in profession, social class, and region will influence each person’s lifestyle, physical composition, and health though both may identify and affiliate themselves as Mexican.
The ethnicity of parents largely determines the ethnicity of offspring through socialization. Ethnicity is a social characteristic, like race, that is passed from generation to generation (Farley, 2010). For example, the California natives of the San Joaquin Valley known as Yokuts, meaning people, were divided into true tribes each with their own name, language, and territory (Tachi Yokut Tribe, 2021). Learning cultural traits and characteristics are important for developing identity and ethnic group acceptance. Cultural socialization occurs throughout one’s life course.
Not all people see themselves as belonging to an ethnic group or view ethnic heritage as important to their identity. People who do not identify with an ethnic group either have no distinct cultural background because their ancestors come from a variety of cultural groups and offspring have not maintained a specific culture, instead have a blended culture, or they lack awareness about their ethnic heritage completely (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). It may be difficult for some people to feel a sense of solidarity or association with any specific ethnic group because they do not know where their cultural practices originated and how their cultural behaviors adapted over time.
What is your ethnicity? Is your ethnic heritage very important, somewhat important, or not important in defining who you are? Why?
RACE-ETHNIC RELATIONS TODAY
At present, people of color are now more than 80% of the world’s population and becoming the demographic majority (Feagin, 2014). The U.S. population is more diverse than ever in its history, and it is projected that by the year of 2040 Whites will become the statistical minority in the United States. With these demographic changes, Americans of color will become more influential in politics, economics, and increase societal pressure to them with greater equity and justice.
Intergroup relations between racial-ethnic groups are complex. Because racial-ethnic group creation is politically motivated, people of color often experience frustration, anger, and trauma from ongoing conflict, discrimination, and inequality (Farley, 2010). Our race and ethnic heritage shapes us in many ways and fills us with pride, but it is also a source of conflict, prejudice, and hatred.
There are seven distinct patterns of intergroup relations between majority (powerful) and minority (subordinate) groups influencing not only the racial and ethnic identity of people but also the opportunities and barriers each will experience through social interactions. Maladaptive contacts and exchanges include genocide, population transfer, internal colonialism, and segregation. Genocide attempts to destroy a group of people because of their race or ethnicity. “Labeling the targeted group as inferior or even less than fully human facilitates genocide” (Henslin, 2011, p. 225). Population transfer moves or expels a minority group through direct or indirect transfer. Indirect transfer forces people to leave by making living conditions unbearable, whereas direct transfer literally expels minorities by force.
Another form of rejection by the dominant group is a type of colonialism. Internal colonialism refers to a country’s powerful dominant group exploiting the low-status, minority group for economic advantage. Internal colonialism generally accompanies segregation (Henslin, 2011). In segregation, minority groups live physically separate from the dominant group by law.
Three adaptive intergroup relations include assimilation, multiculturalism, and pluralism. The pattern of assimilation is the process by which a minority or less powerful group assumes the attitudes and language of the dominant or mainstream culture. An individual or group gives up its identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture (Griffiths et al., 2015). For example, the original language, cultures, and family ties of African Americans were destroyed through slavery, and any wealth or resources gained since have been challenged or taken through White-on-Black oppression. When minorities assimilate by force to dominant ideologies and practices, they can no longer practice their own religion, speak their own language, or follow their own customs. In permissible assimilation, minority, low-status groups adopt the dominant culture in their own way and at their own speed (Henslin, 2011).
Multiculturalism is the most accepting intergroup relationship between the powerful dominant and subordinate minority. Multiculturalism or pluralism encourages variation and diversity. Multiculturalism promotes affirmation and practice of ethnic traditions while socializing individuals into the dominant culture (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). This model works well in diverse societies comprised of a variety of cultural groups and a political system supporting freedom of expression. Pluralism is a mixture of cultures where each retains its own identity (Griffiths et al., 2015). Under pluralism, groups exist separately and equally while working together such as through economic interdependence where each group fills a different societal niche then exchanges activities or services for the sustainability and survival of all. Both the multicultural and pluralism models stress interactions and contributions to their society by all ethnic groups.
Intergroup conflict has many social and political consequences affecting the life of every American (Farley, 2010). The most unsettling aspect is the inability or unwillingness of Whites to see and understand the racist reality in the United States. Many Whites continue to deny histories of racism, believe racism is a thing of the past, and do not acknowledge contemporary racial framing and discrimination (Feagin, 2014). Whites perpetuate the ideology of “intergroup conflict and relations” to establish the perception that all racial groups have equal impact or resources. This corroborates an image of a level playing field among all racial groups rather than the reality of a White-dominated and controlled systemic structure. To give an example, for over four centuries African Americans have been subordinated and exploited for their labor. Racial oppression has reinforced anti-Black practices, political-economic power of Whites, racial and economic inequality, and racial framing to legitimize White privilege and power in economic, political, legal, educational, and other institutions (Feagin, 2014).
People of color experience the social world differently from Whites. The life chances and opportunities for Americans of color are restricted in many ways, such as, who they can marry, where they can live, what they wear or eat, who is a member of their school’s student body, what curriculum and instruction they receive, what jobs or careers they can obtain, how they pray, who they pray to, who represents their political interests, and what, if any, healthcare they receive (Feagin, 2014). The institutions and services that are readily available to Whites are not the same or always accessible for Americans of color. The few opportunities gained by some people of color because of circumstance or chance, does not mitigate the inequities and injustice most Americans of color live and experience. The White majority speaks about equality but does not practice it across racial groups. Unaddressed inequities result in continued turmoil between the majority and minority groups in the United States.
RACE-ETHNIC GROUP PERCEPTIONS
All Americans are indoctrinated in the patriotic principles of our nation’s history and the ideologies of equality and freedom; however, these ideologies as defined by the founding fathers and the United States Constitution are largely free of critical examination or criticism (Parenti, 2006). Racial framing people of color dates back to our early history of colonialism and slavery which established the foundation for White-dominated policies and institutions that today continue to legitimize and encourage racists practices. In the United States, racist thought, sentiments, and actions are structured into everyday life such that large portions of the White population do not view racists words, imagery, or commentary as serious (Feagin, 2014). Racial framing is concrete and advantageous for Whites, while it constructs obstacles and is painful for Americans of color. Everyone is directly and indirectly impacted by racial framing.
Systemic racism in our institutions by its very definition creates and maintains racial oppression. In the United States, systemic racism is the “culture.” The policies and norms created by the racist system is socially reproduced like any other form of culture. What Americans call collective culture is selective transmission of elite-dominated values (Parenti, 2006). We are socialized to understand and maintain the ideologies of our ancestors even if we are the racial-oppressed or the racial oppressors (Feagin, 2014). The culture is embedded in our systems we live in (e.g., economy, politics, education, religion, family, etc.) so it becomes unconscious in our everyday lives and practices. Not everyone is aware of or sees racism because it is a social norm.
This systemic structure of racism embodies other forms of societal differences and establishes norms within those social categories as well. This includes formal and informal norms around (dis)ability, age, gender, sexuality, social class, among others. These categories are interconnected and apply to individual and group systems of disadvantage and discrimination. The intersectionality of social categorizations creates overlapping and interdependent systems of oppression. For example, the social markers of “Black” and “female” do not exist independently in one’s life experience. It is the intersection of these categories that influences the life’s opportunities or challenges, such as Black women earning \$0.62 for every \$1.00 by men of all races (Center for American Progress, 2018; U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019).
The ongoing denial of systemic racism has resulted in racial disparities and inequality among Americans of color including voter discrimination, racial profiling and police brutality, school segregation, housing discrimination, inequity and intolerance in college and professional sports, discrimination against faculty and administrators in higher education, and pro-White favoritism in top-level employment sectors and boards of directors (Feagin, 2014). The denial of racism stems from the ideologies of our founding fathers designed during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Many convention delegates of the time were anti-democratic in their thinking fearing the “masses.” At least 40% of the delegation were slaveowners and many others were merchants, shippers, lawyers, and bankers who profited from commerce in slave-produced products or supplies (Feagin, 2014). The founding fathers were aware of how they profited from slavery, and despite this understanding would describe their own sociopolitical condition with England as “slavery by taxation without consent.” To this end, the Constitutional Convention built a new nation to protect the wealth of our founding fathers and those like them by defining rights using social labels and categories such as Americans from Africa as “slaves by natural law,” indigenous peoples as “separate nations,” or altogether excluding people, like women, by directly avoiding inclusion. These policies and ideologies have become the foundation of American tradition.
The creation of a national racial order established at the Constitutional convention has ensued severe consequences for centuries and yet remains the United States moral foundation. At no point has a new Constitution or convention been held by representatives of all people to delete the original text of racist provisions or eradicate the institutions that continue to hold Americans of color in bondage (Douglas, 1881; DuBois, 1920; Feagin, 2014). The Constitution created and maintained racial separation and oppression that has ensured White, elite men would rule for centuries. Ordinary and poor Whites, even today, accept racialized order because a White ruling class benefits White Americans and creates a positive image of Whiteness.
Most recently, social scientists, analysts, and a new generation of Americans have argued that there has been little attention on the racial histories, policies, and discrimination of people of color in the United States (Feagin, 2014). There have been a variety of amendments and resolutions by the U.S. government to acknowledge the racial injustice of our past such as the 2009 non-binding apology on the injustice of slavery and Jim Crow laws. However, these acts do not provide real commitments or congressional actions to address the long-term impacts of racial oppression or reduce contemporary racial discrimination (Feagin, 2014).
Considering the recent, high-profile incidents of police violence against African Americans, what is the likelihood of racial change in the United States? Will contemporary racial issues and social awareness change the way Americans think? According to a Pew Research Center survey by Horowitz, Parker, Brown, and Cox (2020), approximately 76% of Americans note a major or minor change in the way they think about race and racial inequality, but only 51% believe there will be major policy changes to address racial inequality. Results from the same survey found African Americans (86%), Asian Americans (56%), Latinx Americans (57%), and Whites (39%) believe when it comes to giving Black people equal rights with White people, our country has not gone far enough. Approximately 48% of these respondents say more people participating in training on diversity and inclusion would do a lot to reduce inequality.
EXPLANATIONS OF RACIAL INEQUALITIES
Social scientists use theories to study people. Theories help us examine and understand society including the social structure and social value people create and sustain to fulfill human needs. Theories provide an objective framework of analysis and evaluation for understanding the social structure including the construction of the cultural ideologies, values, and norms and their influence on thinking and behavior. Macro-level analysis studies large-scale social arrangements or constructs in the social world. The macro perspective examines how groups, organizations, networks, processes, and systems influences thoughts and actions of individuals and groups (Kennedy, Norwood, & Jendian, 2017). Micro-level analysis studies the social interactions of individuals and groups. The micro perspective observes how thinking and behavior influences the social world such as groups, organizations, networks, processes, and systems (Kennedy et al., 2017).
To understand the inequities in power and resources between racial-ethnic groups, we must understand the social, political, and economic structure of society. A macro-level perspective helps us understand the effect the social structure has on our life chances, opportunities, and challenges. Whereas a micro-level perspective focuses on interpreting individual or personal viewpoints and influences. Using only a micro-level perspective to understand racial-ethnic inequality leads to an unclear understanding of the world from singular bias perceptions and assumptions about people, social groups, and society (Carl, 2013). To study race and ethnic relations and inequality, we must analyze groups and societies not simple individuals.
Race and ethnic identity influence social status or position in society. Social status serves as a method for building and maintaining boundaries among and between people and groups. Status dictates social inclusion or exclusion resulting in stratification or hierarchy whereby a person’s position in society regulates their social participation by others. Racial-ethnic inequality is a circumstance of stratification where inequality is based on race and ethnic composition of the individual or group.
There are several structural factors that shape social stratification and intergroup relations in society. According to Farley (2010), there are seven characteristics of a society that effect majority-minority relations. The major influences include economics, politics, institutions, social and cultural characteristics, and history.
Table 1. Structural Factors of Social Position and Intergroup Relations
Structural Factor Description
Economic System Type of economy (i.e., capitalist, feudal, socialist, etc.) including methods of income and wealth distribution
Economic Production Labor, capital, goods and services to create and distribute products
Political System Type of politic structure, power relationships between groups, and degree of political freedom
Fundamental Institutions Characteristics of major institutions including family, education, and religion
Dominant Culture Controlling and imposed ideologies and value system
Cultural & Social Characteristics of Groups Customs, lifestyles, values, attitudes, aesthetics, language, education, religion, formal and informal rules, social organization, and material objects of each group
Historical association Past contact and interactions between racial-ethnic groups (i.e., voluntary or involuntary immigration, colonialism, segregation, etc.)
This material (Table 1) developed from concepts introduced by John E. Farley (2010) in Minority-Minority Relations (6th ed.) published by Prentice-Hall.
People may occupy multiple statuses in a society. At birth, people are ascribed status in alignment to their physical and mental features, race, and gender. In some societies, people may earn or achieve status from their talents, efforts, or accomplishments (Griffiths et al., 2015). Obtaining higher education or being an artistic prodigy often corresponds to high status. For example, a college degree awarded from an “Ivy League” university social weighs higher status than a degree from a public state college. Just as talented artists, musicians, and athletes receive honors, privileges, and celebrity status.
In addition, the social, political hierarchy of a society or region designates social status. Consider the social labels within class, race, ethnicity, gender, education, profession, age, and family. Labels defining a person’s characteristics serve as their position within the larger group. People in a majority or dominant group have higher status (e.g., rich, White, male, physician, etc.) than those of the minority or subordinate group (e.g., poor, Black, female, housekeeper, etc.). Overall, the location of a person on the social strata influences their social power and participation (Griswold, 2013). Individuals with inferior power have limitations to social and physical resources including lack of authority, influence over others, formidable networks, capital, and money.
Minority groups are defined as people who receive unequal treatment and discrimination based on social categories such as age, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, or socio-economic class. Minority groups are not necessarily numerical minorities (Griffith et al., 2015). For example, a large group of people may be a minority group because they lack social power. The physical and cultural traits of minority groups “are held in low esteem by the dominant or majority group which treats them unfairly” (Henslin, 2011, p. 217). The dominant group has higher power and status in society and receives greater privileges. As a result, the dominant group uses its position to discriminate against those that are different. The dominant group in the United States is represented by White, middle-class, Protestant people of northern European descent (Doane, 2005). Minority groups can garner power by expanding political boundaries or through expanded migration though both efforts do not occur with ease and require societal support from both minority and dominant group members. The loss of power among dominant groups threatens not only their authority over other groups but also the privileges and way of life established by this majority.
People sometimes engage in status shifting to garner acceptance or avoid attention. DuBois (1903) described the act of people looking through the eyes of others to measure social place or position as double consciousness. His research explored the history and cultural experiences of the American slavery and the plight of Black folk in translating thinking and behavior between racial contexts. DuBois’ research helped social scientists understand how and why people display one identity in certain settings and another in different ones. People must negotiate a social situation to decide how to project their social identity and assign a label that fits (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Status shifting is evident when people move from informal to formal contexts. Our ethnic or cultural identity and practices are very different at home than at school, work, or church. Each setting demands different aspects of who we are and our place in the social setting.
There are three major patterns of race and ethnic relations which influence the system of stratification in the United States. The paternalistic, rigid competitive, and fluid competitive intergroup relationships affect social status and life chances (Van den Berghe, 1958, 1978; Wilson, 1973, 1978; Farley, 2010). The first paternalistic pattern is ascribed at birth, based on racial composition, and determines one’s social status for life. Under this pattern, the roles and status of majority and minority groups are understood and supported through a system of “racial etiquette” with frequent contact between groups but the contact itself is unequal (Farley, 2010). In this relationship, the minority group is dependent on the majority, and there is no racial conflict or competition. Individuals who do not cooperate or break the norms are severely penalized.
The second rigid competitive pattern is also ascribed at birth, based on race. However, under this pattern majority and minority members compete in areas such as work and housing, and racial groups are segregated. As competition threatens the majority group, discrimination against the minority or subordinate group increases as well as intergroup conflict to instill power and assertiveness among the majority (Farley, 2010).
Lastly, in fluid competitive race relations, majority and minority group members are ranked on their own skills and abilities and able to pursue all in life. This pattern results in frequent interracial contact in work and business settings though groups live separately primarily among their own racial groups (Farley 2010). Nonetheless, most minorities have fewer resources to start and compete with majority group members as a result of historic racism and discrimination. The majority group dominates and controls the main systems and institutions to serve their own interests (Farley, 2010). In addition, competition and racial group conflicts increase when fewer resources such as jobs are available. Even when members of a minority group attain high status, racial stratification remains present within and outside the subordinate group.
According to Noel (1968), ethnocentrism, competition, and unequal power lead to racial-ethnic stratification. Ethnocentrism evaluates people and their culture from the perspective of one’s own cultural life. People tend to believe their life and way of living is the norm and judge others from that perspective. This attitude and mindset lend itself to categorizing people or assigning status based on the closeness and comfort to one’s own culture. The opportunity to exploit a group by another in competition over resources further creates a framework for social inequality. A competitive environment or atmosphere provides the opportunity for one group to benefit from the subordination of another (Farley, 2010). When a group is powerful enough to dominate or subordinate others, inequality further develops. A social structure of unequal power allows the control of one group over another solidifying racial-ethnic stratification.
The natural propensity of human behavior is to focus on self and those around us (Paul & Elder, 2005). However, people do not always value others as they value self. Without guidance and support to appreciate and respect all humans, people lose concern for others. For example, a stratified society fortifies an egocentric ideology to win or survive at any cost. In the plight to obtain wealth or achieve success (i.e., education, health, resources, or money, etc.), people strategize and fight for an advantage. This thinking legitimizes prejudice, self-justification, and self-deception driven by ideas such as “I’m right,” “I need to earn a living,” “I work hard,” “I deserve it,” “I’m not hurting anyone,” “they don’t matter,” or “they don’t deserve it,” “they’re worthless,” and “they don’t belong here.”
A person’s reasoning or problem-solving skills is only as strong as their experience with an issue, topic, or situation. Life experience plays a significant role in the ability to critically think about issues of race and ethnicity. If you have limited experiences, your thought processes will be limited. If you are unaware or have limited knowledge about race, ethnicity, and the social world, then much of your thinking will have a focus on self or ego which lends itself to egocentric, ethnocentric, and sociocentric attitudes and behaviors.
Assessing other people and our surroundings is necessary for interpreting and interacting in the social world. When we think of only ourselves, without regard for the feelings and desires of others, we are egocentric or self-centered. The inability to understand another person’s view or opinion may be different than your own is egocentric. This cognitive bias is inflated when we judge others using our own cultural standards.
The practice of judging others through our own cultural lens is called ethnocentrism. This practice is a cultural universal meaning the behavior is common to all known human cultures throughout the world. People everywhere think their culture is true, moral, proper, and right (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). By its very definition, ethnocentrism creates division and conflict between social groups whereby mediating differences is challenging when everyone believes they are culturally superior, and their culture should be the standard for living. People justify or validate egocentric and ethnocentric thinking and behavior by reaffirming they are simply concerned with or centered on their own social group which is sociocentrism. Overall, the ego emphasizes self and the cultural superiority of one’s social group.
REALITY OF INEQUALITY
By studying the structure of social institutions, we understand how race, ethnicity, and other social categories work as systems of power. The social world we live in is supported by ideological beliefs that make existing power structures and discrimination appear normal (Andersen & Collins, 2010). However, the social categories we use to label or identify people are socially constructed and developed through historical processes and intergroup relations. Additionally, these constructs are defined in binary terms of “either/or” (e.g., Black/White, female/male, poor/rich, gay/straight, alien/citizen, etc.) which create “otherness” stigmatizing minority or subordinate groups as out-groups by the majority or powerful (Andersen & Collins, 2010). Otherness directly relates to the advantages and disadvantages of individuals and groups based on their status or location in the stratified society. Because racial formation and racism shape everyday life, we find significant indicators of inequity for Americans of color in family income, poverty, home ownership, education level, and employment.
Table 2. Indicators of Racial-Ethnic Inequity in the United States 1
Population Income Poverty Home Ownership 2
Racial-Ethnic Group % of U.S. Population Median Family Income (\$)
% Below 100% of Poverty
% Home Ownership (2020)
African American 13.4 58,518 18.8 45.3
Asian American 5.9 112,226 7.3 60.3
Latina/o/x 18.5 60,927 15.7 50.1
Native American 1.3 54,920 3 23.0 3 54.0
White 76.3 \$89,663 7.3 71.3
1 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).
2 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey, March 9, 2021.
3 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S.
Table 3. Indicators of Racial-Ethnic Inequity in the United States 1
Years of School Completed Employment 3
Racial-Ethnic Group
% High School Diploma
% Bachelor’s Degree % Graduate Degree Employed Unemployment Rate
African American 30.5 18 9.9 57.0 7.7
Asian American 15.8 34.2 26.9 63.6 3.5
Latina/o/x 28.1 14.4 6. 5 64.3 5.1
Native American 31.5 2 10.4 2 5.7 2 53.5 8.0
White 24.3 25.6 15.7 60.0 3.9
1 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC).
2 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S.
3 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S.
In the United States, under tribal sovereignty, indigenous tribes have the inherent authority to govern themselves within the nation’s borders. The U.S. recognizes tribal nations as domestic dependent nations and reaffirms adherence to the principles of government-to-government relations (The United States Department of Justice, 2020). As a result, the U.S. Census Bureau has challenges in conducting and collecting accurate data in American Indian and Alaska Native areas as available data for Native Americans is presented in Table 2. Estimates conducted by the American Community Survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about/acs-and-census.html) are shown for indicators where current data is not available.
To help us understand the impact of systemic racism of Americans of color, let’s explore the data collected and published by the U.S. Census Bureau.
1. According to Table 2, which racial-ethnic groups have the lowest median family incomes?
2. In the same table, which groups have the highest poverty rates?
3. Which groups have the lowest homeownership rates?
4. According to Table 3, which groups complete the highest levels of education? Which groups achieve the lowest levels?
5. In the same table, which groups obtain graduate (i.e., Master’s, professional, or doctorate) degrees?
6. Which groups have the highest unemployment numbers? How does unemployment correspond to population size by racial-ethnic group?
7. Review your analysis of the data presented in Table 2 and 3. What racial-ethnic group patterns do you find?
Data and factual information provide relevant context to understanding racial-ethnic relations and inequality in our social world. We cannot develop the capacity to recognize, appreciate, and empathize with each other if we do not know all the facts of our country’s history and experiences of all people living in it. Current psychological research has found that knowledge of historical racism is related to own’s ability to understand contemporary racism (Feagin, 2014). Data and factual information are critically important to helping us make connections that lead to insights and improvements in the quality of life for all Americans and all of humanity. Everyone has an important role to play in the future of our country and our lives together.
SUMMARY
In Module 1, we explored race as a social construct and ethnicity as a matter of cultural group identity. We learned that racial formation compels how race is understood and driven by historical, social, political, and economic interests. You were asked to demonstrate greater consciousness about the significance of naming, land acknowledgement, and the value of intergroup dialogue. We also examined patterns of intergroup relations and conflict between Americans of color and the White majority. And lastly, we analyzed the racial reality of the U.S. including racial oppression, inequality, systemic racism, and White power and privilege.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Describe the terms race and ethnicity.
2. Discuss racial framing and its influence on constructing ideas and perceptions about race.
3. Explain racial-ethnic group relations in the United States. Identify maladaptive and adaptive interactions between majority and minority groups and the three major patterns of race and ethnic relations influencing the system of stratification in the United States.
4. Use data and factual information to illustrate the impact of racial framing, intersectionality, otherness, and systemic racism on racial and ethnic oppression and inequality.
5. Explain why we need to participate in open and honest conversation about race and ethnicity.
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
Brink, S. (2016). How is the world treating people with disabilities? National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/12/18/504964701/how-is-the-world-treating-people-with-disabilities
Carl, J. D. (2013). Think social problems. (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
Doane, A. W. (2016). Dominant group ethnic identity in the United States: The role of ‘hidden’ ethnicity in intergroup relations. The Sociological Quarterly, 38(3), 375-397.
Douglass, F. (1881). The color line. North American Review, 132(295).
DuBois, W.E.B. 1903. The soul of Black folk. Dover Publications.
DuBois, W.E. B. 1920. Dark water: Voices from within the veil. Washington Square Press.
Duster, T. 2001. Buried alive: The concept of race in science. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48, 3.
Farley, J. E. 2010. Majority-minority relations. (6th ed.). Prentice Hall.
Feagin, J. R. 2014. Racist America. Routledge.
Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer, J., & Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College.
Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson.
Horowitz, J. M., Parker, K., Brown, A., & Cox, K. (2020). Amid national reckoning, Americans divided on whether increased focus or race will lead to major policy change. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/10/06/amid-national-reckoning-americans-divided-on-whether-increased-focus-on-race-will-lead-to-major-policy-change/
Jablonski, N. (2012). Living color: The biological and social meaning of skin color. University of California Press.
Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.
Kottak, C. P. & Kozaitis, K. A. (2012). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the north American mainstream. (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Noel, D. L. (1968). A theory of the origin of ethnic stratification. Social Problems, 16, 157-172.
Omi, M. and Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Parenti, M. (2006). The culture struggle. Seven Stories Press.
Tachi Yokut Tribe. (2021). About. Tachi Yokut Tribe. https://www.tachi-yokut-nsn.gov/about
Taylor, R. L. (1998). On race and society. Race and Society, 1, 1-3.
U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2019. Women in the labor force: A databook. BLS Reports. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/womens-databook/2019/pdf/home.pdf
Van den Berghe, P. L. (1958). The dynamics of racial prejudice: An ideal-type dichotomy. Social Forces, 37, 138-41.
Van den Berghe, P. L. (1978). Race and racism: A comparative perspective. (2nd ed.). Wiley.
Wilson, W. J. (1973). Power, racism and privilege. Free Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions. University of Chicago Press.
Winant, H. (1994). Racial conditions: Politics, theory, comparisons. University of Minnesota Press. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/01%3A_The_Significance_of_Ethnic_Studies.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. explain the influence of culture on collective and self-identity
2. discuss how personal, social, and cultural identities shape perceptions
3. illustrate the relationship between social labels and categories on status and stratification
4. evaluate the intersectionality of race and other forms of identity
5. assess the impact of technological advances and innovation on identity
6. understand the connection between identity and the reproduction of inequality
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Adaptive Culture
Affinity Groups
Alternative Subculture
Anomie
Cancel Culture
Code-switching
Coercive Organizations
Collective Consciousness
Collective Identity
Cultural Capital
Cultural Change
Cultural Generalities
Cultural Patterns
Cultural Traits
Cultural Universal
Cybersocial Interactions
Defensive Othering
Dropping Out
Gatekeepers
Global Electronic Cultural Communities
Globality
Globalization
Group
Group Dynamics
Heterogenization
Homogenization
Hustling
Ideal Culture
Identity
Idioculture
Implicit Othering
International Culture
Intersectionality
Looking Glass Self
Maladaptive Culture
Mechanical Solidarity
Model Minority
Multiple Identities
National Culture
Normative Organizations
Oppressive Othering
Organic Solidarity
Organization
Organizational Culture
Othering
Power for Patronage
Primary Groups
Racial Trauma
Sanctions
Secondary Groups
Shared Culture
Socializing Agents
Subcultures
Symbolic Power
Transnational Communities
Transnationals
Two-ness
Utilitarian Organizations
INTRODUCTION
Socialization and culture shape who we are and how others perceive us. The history and experiences of our lives are directly related to our identity. Our personal and social identity have a major impact on the opportunities, challenges, and inequities we face in everyday life.
COLLECTIVE CULTURE
Among humans, there are universal cultural patterns or elements across groups and societies regardless of racial-ethnic composition. Cultural universals are common to all humans throughout the globe. Some cultural universals include cooking, dancing, ethics, greetings, personal names, and taboos to name a few. Can you identify at least five other cultural universals shared by all humans?
In thinking about cultural universals, you may have noted the variations or differences in the practice of these cultural patterns or elements. Even though humans share several cultural universals, the practice of culture expresses itself in a variety of ways across different social groups and institutions. When different groups identify a shared culture, we often are speaking from generalizations or general characteristics and common principles shared by humans. The description of cultural universals speaks to the generalization of culture such as in the practice of marriage. Different social groups share the institution of marriage but the process, ceremony, and legal commitments are different depending on the culture of the group or society.
Cultural generalities help us understand the similarities and connections all humans have in the way we understand and live even though we may have particular ways of applying them. Some cultural characteristics are unique to a single place, culture, group, or society. These particularities may develop or adapt from social and physical responses to time, geography, ecological changes, group member traits, and composition including power structures or other phenomena.
In further examining the cultural universal of marriage, we may find commonalities in ceremony and celebration but identify differences in the language or presentation of the marriage ceremony and the ways and methods marriage is celebrated. Even though many of us socially relate to understanding the concept of marriage and have seen depictions of it in our own families and the media, it is our differences about marriage that tend to influence our social perceptions, attitudes, and interactions with married couples. For example, interracial couples prompt social attitudes and practices including racial boundaries directly impacting racial-ethnic relations. Interracial couples, because of their racial-ethnic composition, often witness or face racialized responses from people within their own groups and others (Childs, 2005). Needless to say, interracial couples create multiracial families thus changing the racial dynamic of the family as an institution which in itself is the source of hostility for some toward interracial relationships.
Social & Cultural Bonds
By living together in society, people “learn specific ways of looking at life” (Henslin, 2011, p. 104). Through daily interactions, people construct reality. The construction of reality provides a forum for interpreting experiences in life expressed through culture.
Minimizing the experiences and contributions of African American, Asian American, Latinx American, and Native American communities in the United States communicates that their lives are insignificant to the history and culture of our country (Anderson & Collins, 2010). This ongoing practice of excluding the lives and experiences of people of color from social, political, and historical narratives legitimizes and justifies racial-ethnic conflict including the former enslavement of African Americans, genocide of Native Americans, and laws restricting refugee status to Asian Americans and Latinx American people. Omitting the work and involvement of people of color in the construction of America denies equity and inclusion “as citizens” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution while further instilling and propagating racial prejudice and discrimination against these groups.
Emile Durkheim (1893, 1960) believed social bonds hold people together. When people live in small, integrated communities that share common values and beliefs, they develop a shared or collective consciousness. Durkheim referred to this type of social integration as mechanical solidarity meaning members of the community are all working parts of the group or work in unity creating a sense of togetherness forming a collective identity. In this example, members of the community think and act alike because they have a shared culture and shared experiences from living in remote, close-knit areas.
As society evolves and communities grow, people become more specialized in the work they do. This specialization leads individuals to work independently in order to contribute to a segment or part of a larger society (Henslin, 2011). Durkheim referred to this type of social unity as organic solidarity meaning each member of the community has a specific task or place in the group in which they contribute to the overall function of the community that is spatial and culturally diverse. In this example, community members do not necessarily think or act alike but participate by fulfilling their role or tasks as part of the larger group. If members fulfill their parts, then everyone is contributing and exchanging labor or production for the community to function as a whole.
Both mechanical and organic solidarity explain how people cooperate to create and sustain social bonds relative to group size and membership even among diverse racial-ethnic groups. Each form of solidarity develops its own culture to hold society together and function. However, when society transitions from mechanical to organic solidarity, there is chaos or normlessness. Durkheim referred to this transition as social anomie meaning “without law” resulting from a lack of a firm collective consciousness. As people transition from social dependence (mechanical solidarity or collective support) to interdependence (organic solidarity or dissociation), they become isolated and alienated from one another until a redeveloped set of shared norms arises. We see examples of this transition when there are changes in social institutions such as employment, marriage, and religion. For example, transitions in employment across America have shown a lack of jobs that pay a living wage; as a result, some people become homeless or turn to criminal behavior to earn a living, both are forms of anomie, as they move from social dependence to interdependence.
Social bonds are only formed through social acceptance and appreciation. How have people of color garnered social acceptance even though their work and contributions have been historically unappreciated, ignored, and rejected by American society? Is it possible to strengthen social bonds and acceptance between people of color and White Americans when human life in America is not equally valued? What happens to society if people continue to perpetuate prejudice and discrimination based on racial-ethnic composition?
People develop an understanding about their culture, specifically their role and place in society through social interactions. Charles Horton Cooley (1902, 1964) suggested people develop self and identity through interpersonal interactions such as perceptions, expectations, and judgement of others. Cooley referred to this practice as the looking glass self. We imagine how others observe us, and we develop ourselves in response to their observations. The concept develops over three phases of interactions. First, we imagine another’s response to our behavior or appearance, then we envision their judgment, and lastly, we have an emotional response to their judgement influencing our self-image or identity (Griswold, 2013). Interpersonal interactions play a significant role in helping us create social bonds and understand our place in society.
The looking glass self reflects the accepted norms and roles for people to occupy within social contexts. For people of color, the looking glass self establishes the self-consciousness of “two-ness” or a dual identity, one accepted by the dominant group and its culture, and the other embraced by their own native or indigenous culture (DuBois, 1903). It is through this social development that people of color learn code-switching or double consciousness where they anticipate accepted norms and roles based on the social setting and power dynamics of those they will be interacting and change the way they speak, appear, behave, and express themselves. Research shows code-switching generates hostility from in-group members for “acting White,” depletes cognitive resources from performing or trying to avoid true culture, and reduces authentic self-expression (McCluney et al., 2019).
What social image do you visualize when you think of yourself as an American? What social image do people of color have to reference or emulate to develop social bonds with White Americans? What racial-ethnic behaviors, appearances, and interactions are accepted in the dominant culture? Which ones are rejected?
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.1
WHEN DID YOU BECOME BLACK?
This picture makes me smile. I love my twin brother. Through the challenges of our childhood, it was a blessing to have a twin. Our father is African-American and Italian, and our mother is Mexican. As a result, our racial identity was ambiguous.
Many times, as children, my twin brother and I would be in public together and people would comment on the disparity of our looks. As you can see by the photo, my twin brother is very fair in comparison to me. People would comment, “He is adorable with his curly hair and big eyes, and what happened to her?” To say I felt ugly is an understatement. I hated being dark.
How could a four-year-old already feel this way? Four-year-old children are the cutest and sweetest people walking the planet. I felt that way because I was constantly bombarded with the White America standard of beauty. A standard that even the Hispanic community adopted- light skin, light eyes, and blond hair, was beautiful.
As a child, I strictly identified with being Mexican as coached by my maternal grandfather and my mother. He would say in a demanding tone, “You are NOT Black, you are Hispanic. Your skin is dark, but there are lots of dark Mexicans, and your hair is not kinky, you have Mexican hair.” I would adopt this message as my own, and I would not tell people that I was African-American until I developed a deep sense of who I really was.
I left California and went to Alabama A&M University (a Historical Black College) for a year. It was the biggest culture shock of my life, in the most beautiful way. I loved the African American culture: the food, the music, the soul, the faith, and the deep sense of community. The Southern African American culture was very different than my limited experience with the African American community in California. Most of my professors were African-American and my best friend, Bonita, had a sister who is a dentist. It was stunning to see progressive, educated, faith filled, illustrious of people who embraced me as beautiful. According to their standard of beauty, I fit in. My Spanish professor, Senor Goggins, was funny, smart, world traveled, and a kind man. He was not what I was socialized to believe that African-Americans were, none of my newfound community was.
I found faith at this point in my life. The kind of faith that sees the beauty in all people. I learned how broken people are and how what you see in others reveals so much about who you are.
When I came back to California, my mother could not stand that I had a new identity that included embracing being an African American as well as a Latina. “When did you become Black?” she asked. It would take years before I could answer this question in a way that she could understand.
Today, I identify with being an African-American, Latina. I have a deep love affair with culture of all kinds. My family is a multi-racial family that embraces every aspect of who we are. We go to church on Sunday and make tamales for the holidays and gumbo for the New Year. We listen to Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Aretha Franklin.
I was recently having lunch with a group of girlfriends that I’ve been friends with for over 35 years. We were discussing what we love the most about each other. Then the question became, what physical characteristic do you like about yourself the most? My answer… “My skin.”
This story “When Did You Become Black?” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Levels of Culture
There are three recognized levels of culture in society (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Each level of culture signifies particular cultural traits and patterns within groups. International culture is one level referring to culture that transcends national boundaries. These cultural traits and patterns spread through migration, colonization, and the expansion of multinational organizations (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Some illustrations are evident in the adoption and use of technology and social media across continents. For example, computers and mobile devices allow people to live and operate across national boundaries enabling them to create and sustain an international culture around a common interest or purpose (e.g., Olympics, United Nations, etc.).
In contrast, cultural traits and patterns shared within a country are national culture. National culture is most easily recognizable in the form of symbols such as flags, logos, and colors as well as sound including national anthems and musical styles. Think about American culture, which values, beliefs, norms, and symbols are common only among people living in the United States? How is national culture developed? Which social group has the status and power to create and sustain U.S. culture? How does this group maintain its power and influence?
Subcultures, another level of culture, are subgroups of people within the same country (e.g., doctors, lawyers, teachers, athletes, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, White Americans, etc.). Subcultures have shared experiences and common cultural distinctions, but they blend into the larger society or cultural system. Subcultures have their own set of symbols, meanings, and behavioral norms, which develop by interacting with one another. Subcultures develop their own idioculture or self-culture that has significant meaning to members of the group and creates social boundaries for membership and social acceptance (Griswold, 2013). Think about social cliques whether they be categorized as jocks, nerds, hipsters, punks, or stoners. Each group has a particular subculture from the artifacts they wear to the values and beliefs they exhibit. All groups form a subculture resulting in group cohesion and shared consciousness among its members.
Groups and Organizations
The term group refers to any collection of at least two people who interact frequently and share identity traits aligned with the group (Griffiths et al., 2015). Groups play different roles in our lives. Primary groups are usually small groups characterized by face-to-face interaction, intimacy, and a strong sense of commitment. Primary groups remain with us throughout our lifetime (Henslin, 2011). Secondary groups are large and impersonal groups that form from sharing a common interest.
Different types of groups influence our interactions, identity, and social status. George Herbert Mead (1934) suggested specific expectations of influential people in a person’s life are conceptualized as “significant” others, and common social expectations by being a member of a group as termed “generalized” others. Mead’s theories explain that primary groups or significant others develop specific expectations or roles for us to learn for social acceptance. Whereas secondary groups define general expectations for acceptance. Someone who identifies as African American may be expected to acknowledge and celebrate Kwanzaa (primary group norm) and Christmas (secondary group norm).
Different types of groups influence our interactions, identity, and social status. Group dynamics focus on how groups influence individuals and how individuals affect groups. The social dynamics between individuals play a significant role in forming group solidarity. Social unity reinforces a collective identity and shared thinking among group members thereby constructing a common culture (Griswold, 2013). Commonalities of group membership are important for mobilizing individual members. When people attempt to create social change or establish a social movement group, solidarity helps facilitate motivation of individuals and framing of their actions. The sense of belonging and trust among the group makes it easier for members to align and recognize the problem, accept a possible solution, take certain actions that are congruent and complementary to the collective identity of the group (Griswold, 2013). People accept the group’s approach based on solidarity and cohesiveness that overall amplifies personal mobilization and commitment to the group and its goals.
An organization refers to a group of people with a collective goal or purpose linked to bureaucratic tendencies including a hierarchy of authority, clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonal (Giddens et al., 2013). Organizations function within existing cultures and produce their own. Formal organizations fall into three categories including normative, coercive, and utilitarian (Etzioni, 1975). People join normative or voluntary organizations based on shared interests (e.g., club or cause). Coercive organizations are groups that people are coerced or forced to join (e.g., addiction rehabilitation program or jail). People join utilitarian organizations to obtain a specific material reward (e.g., private school or college).
When we work or live in organizations, there are multiple levels of interaction that effect social unity and operations. On an individual level, people must learn and assimilate into the culture of the organization. All organizations face the problem of motivating its members to work together to achieve common goals (Griswold, 2013). Generally, in organizations small group subcultures develop with their own meaning and practices to help facilitate and safeguard members within the organizational structure. Group members will exercise force (peer pressure and incentives), actively socialize (guide feelings and actions with normative controls), and model behavior (exemplary actors and stories) to build cohesiveness (Griswold, 2013). Small groups play an integral role in managing individual members to maintain the function of the organization. Think about the school or college you attend. There are many subcultures within any educational setting and each group establishes the norms and behaviors members must follow for social acceptance. Can you identify at least two racial-ethnic subcultures on your school campus and speculate how members of these groups are pressured to fit in to the dominant culture?
On a group level, symbolic power matters in recruiting members and sustaining the culture of a group within the larger social culture (Hallet, 2003). Symbolic power is the power of constructing reality to guide people in understanding their place in the organizational hierarchy (Bourdieu, 1991). This power occurs in everyday interactions through unconscious cultural and social domination. Like in society, the dominant group of an organization influences the prevailing culture and provides its function in communications forcing all groups or subcultures to define themselves by their distance from the dominant culture (Bourdieu, 1991). The instrument of symbolic power is the instrument of domination in the organization by creating the ideological systems of its goals, purpose, and operations. Symbolic power not only governs the culture of the organization but also manages solidarity and division between groups. We see examples of symbolic power in U.S. institutions (i.e., banks, schools, prisons, military, etc.), and each has a hierarchy of authority where administrators serve as the dominate group and are responsible for the prevailing culture. Each institution socializes members according to their position within the organization to sustain the establishment and fulfill collective goals and maintain functions.
There are external factors that influence organizational culture. The context and atmosphere of a nation shapes an organization. When an organization’s culture aligns with national ideology, they can receive special attention or privileges in the way of financial incentives or policy changes (Griswold 2013). In contrast, organizations opposing national culture may face suppression, marginalization, or be denied government and economic support. Organizations must also operate across a multiplicity of cultures (Griswold, 2013). Culture differences between organizations may affect their operations and achievement of goals. To be successful, organizations must be able to operate in a variety of contexts and cultures. Griswold (2013) suggested one way to work across cultural contexts is to maintain an overarching organizational mission but be willing to adapt to insignificant or minor issues. Financial and banking institutions use this approach. Depending on the region and demographic composition, banks offer different cultural incentives for opening an account or obtaining a loan. In the state of Michigan, affluent homeowners may acquire a low interest property improvement loan, while low-income homeowners are restricted to grants for repairing, improving, or modernizing their homes to remove health and safety hazards.
Working across organizational cultures also requires some dimension of trust. Organizational leaders must model forms and symbols of trust between organizations, groups, and individuals (Mizrachi et al., 2007). This means authority figures must draw on the organization’s internal and external diversity of cultures to show its ability to adapt and work in a variety of cultural and political settings and climates. Organizations often focus on internal allegiance forgetting that shared meaning across the marketplace, sector, or industry is what moves understanding of the overall system and each organization’s place in it (Griswold, 2013). The lack of cultural coordination and understanding undermines many organizations and has significant consequences for accomplishing their goals and ability to sustain themselves.
Doing Culture
All people are cultured. You have culture. Social scientists argue all people have culture comprised of values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols or language, practices, and artifacts. This viewpoint transcends the humanities perspective that suggests someone must project refined tastes, manners, and have a good education as those exhibited by the elite class to have culture. The perspective of social scientists reinforces the ideology that culture is an integrated and patterned system and not simply desired characteristics of the ruling or dominant group.
Cultural patterns are a set of integrated traits transmitted by communication or social interactions (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). Consider the cultural patterns associated with housing. Each cultural group or society maintains a housing system comprised of particular cultural traits including kitchen, sofa, bed, toilet, etc. The cultural traits or each individual cultural item is part of the home or accepted cultural pattern for housing.
Not only do people share cultural traits, but they may also share personality traits. These traits are actions, attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., honesty, loyalty, courage, etc.). Shared personality traits develop through social interactions from core values within groups and societies (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). Core values are formally (legally or recognized) and informally (unofficial) emphasized to develop a shared meaning and social expectations. The use of positive (reward) and negative (punishment) sanctions helps in controlling desired and undesired personality traits. For example, if we want to instill courage, we might highlight people and moments depicting bravery with verbal praise or accepting awards. To prevent cowardness, we could show a deserter or run-away to depict weakness and social isolation.
Doing culture is not always an expression of ideal culture. People’s practices and behaviors do not always abide or fit into the ideal ethos we intend or expect. The Christmas holiday is one example where ideal culture does not match the real culture people live and convey. Christmas traditionally represents an annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; however, many individuals and families do not worship Christ or attend church on Christmas day but instead exchange gifts and eat meals together. The ideal or public definition of Christmas does not match the real or individual practices people express on the holiday. Throughout history, there have always been differences between what people value (ideal culture) and how they actually live their lives (real culture) regardless of racial-ethnic background.
IDENTITY FORMATION & POLITICS
Trying to figure out who you are, what you value and believe, and why you think the way you do is a lifelong process. In the first chapter of Thinking Well, Stewart E. Kelly (2000) suggests, “we all have lenses through which we view reality, and we need to know what our individual lens is composed of and how it influences our perception of reality.” Take a moment to reflect and hypothetically paint a picture of yourself with words. Try to capture the core of your being by describing who you are. Once you have formulated a description of yourself, evaluate what you wrote. Does your description focus on your personal characteristics or your socio-cultural characteristics you learned from other people in your life (i.e., family, friends, congregation, teachers, community, etc.)?
Identity, like culture itself, is a social construct. The values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, and artifacts we hold develop from the social relationships we experience throughout our lives. Not only does personal identity make us aware of who we are, but it also defines what we stand for in comparison to others. Identity is relational between individuals, groups, and society meaning through culture people are able to form social connections or refrain from them. It is real to each of us with real social consequences.
We develop our identity through the process of socialization and enculturation. Socializing agents including family, peers, school, work, and the media transmit traditions, customs, language, tools, and common experiences and knowledge. The passage of knowledge and culture from one generation to the next ensures sustainability of a particular way of life by instilling specific traits, attitudes, and characteristics of a group or society that become part of each group member’s identity.
Identity shapes our perceptions and the way we think about and categorize people. Our individual and collective views influence our thinking. Regardless of personal, cultural, or universal identity people naturally focus on traits, values, attitudes, and practices or behaviors they identify with and dismiss those they do not.
Generations have collective identity or shared experiences based on the time period the group lived. Consider the popular culture of the 1980s to today. In the 1980s, people used a landline or fixed line phone rather than a cellular phone to communicate and went to a movie theater to see a film rather than downloaded a video to a mobile device. Therefore, someone who spent his or her youth and most of their adulthood without or with limited technology may not deem it necessary to have or operate it in daily life. Whereas someone born in the 1990s or later will only know life with technology and find it a necessary part of human existence.
Each generation develops a perspective and identifies from the time and events surrounding their life. Generations experience life differently resulting from social and cultural shifts over time. The difference in life experience alters perspectives towards values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, and artifacts. Political and social events often mark an era and influence generations. The ideology of White supremacy reinforced by events of Nazi Germany and World War II during the 1930s and 1940s instilled racist beliefs in society. Many adults living at this time believed the essays of Arthur Gobineau (1853-1855) regarding the existence of biological differences between racial groups (Biddis, 1970). It was not until the 1960s and 1970s when philosophers and critical theorists studied the underlying structures in cultural products and used analytical concepts from linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology to interpret race discovering no biological or phenological variances between human groups and finding race is a social construct (Black & Solomos, 2000). Scientists found cultural likeness did not equate to biological likeness. Nonetheless, many adults living in the 1930s and 1940s held racial beliefs of White supremacy throughout their lives because of the ideologies spread and shared during their lifetime. Whereas modern science verifies the DNA of all people living today is 99.9% alike and a new generation of people are learning that there is only one human race despite the physical variations in size, shape, skin tone, and eye color (Smithsonian, 2018).
Intersectionality
As we explore the aspects of identity formation, it becomes evident that we are more than our racial-ethnic composition. By examining the influence of culture on our lives, we can understand how other identity labels or categories operate together in people’s lives and affect our values, attitudes, norms, and practices. There are many elements of our identity that work simultaneously and intersect that impact our understanding of ourselves and others as well as influence our experiences, social interactions, and relationships.
Race-ethnicity with class, gender and other identity labels or categories of sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration or refugee status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and age intersect within a social context creating stratified social arrangements and systems of power. The interconnected nature of social categories overlap and have a cumulative effect on our lives. Your identity or social location in a society can shape what you know, what others know about you, how you are treated, and how you experience life (Anderson & Collins, 2010). Social labels and categories we use to define identity such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender matter because they are and continue to be the basis for systems of power and inequality. As people are stratified into social categories along identity lines, the persistent reality of inequality is evident.
The dominant group has historically served as the gatekeeper to resources, opportunities, and knowledge in the United States. Intersectionality exists within a matrix of domination or social structure with multiple, interlocking levels of power and control that stem from race-ethnic relations, gender, class and other social categories (Anderson & Collins, 2010). Those who identify and are accepted as members of the dominant group have access and privileges associated with their power and status, whereas others do not.
Examine each of the identity labels or social categories that intersect in our lives, are you able to determine which label or identity-type is associated with dominance, power, and status? For instance, explore gender identity. Describe the power and status of those who identify as male in comparison to those who identify as female? Now, evaluate the identity label for those who are non-binary. How is power and status different for non-binary people as compared to those who identify as male or female? How is social dominance, power, and inequality apparent and understood based on gender identity? How are life experiences different based on gender identity? Now consider gender and race. How is dominance, power, and status understood and how do gender and race labels intersect to influence life experience?
Globalization and Identity
With the advancements in technology and communications, people are experiencing greater social forces in the construction of their cultural reality and identity. The boundaries of locality have expanded to global and virtual contexts that create complexities in understanding the creation, socialization, adaptation, and sustainability of culture.
Globalization is typically associated with the creation of world-spanning free markets and the global reach of capitalist systems resulting from technological advances (Back et al., 2012). However, globalization has the unintended consequences of connecting every person in the world to each other. In this era, everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life in obvious and hidden ways (Albrow, 1996).
Globalization lends itself to cultural homogenization that is the world becoming culturally similar (Back et al., 2012). However, the cultural similarities we now share center on capitalist enterprises including fashion and fast food. Social researchers also recognize patterns of cultural heterogenization where aspects of our lives are becoming more complex and differentiated resulting from globalization. Our social relationships and interactions have become unconstrained by geography (Back, et al.). People are no longer restricted to spatial locales and are able to interact beyond time and space with those sharing common culture, language, or religion (Giddens, 1990; Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). People can travel across the globe within hours but also connect with others by phone or the Internet within seconds. These advancements in technology and communications alter what people perceive as close and far away (Back et al., 2012). Our social and cultural arrangements in an era of globalization are adapting and changing the way we think and act.
Globalization also influences our identity and affinity groups. Technology allows us to eliminate communication boundaries and interact with each other on a global scale. Today people are able to form and live across national borders. Advances in transportation and communications give people the opportunity to affiliate with multiple countries as transnationals. At different times of their lives or different times of the year, people may live in two or more countries.
We are moving beyond local, state, and national identities to broader identities developing from our global interactions forming transnational communities. A key cultural development has been the construction of globality or thinking of the whole earth as one place (Beck, 2000). Social events like Earth Day and the World Cup of soccer are examples of globality. People associate and connect with each other in which they identify. Today people frame their thinking about who they are within global lenses of reference (Back et al., 2012). Even in our global and virtual interactions, people align themselves with the affinity groups relative to where they think they belong and will find acceptance. Think about your global and virtual friends and peer groups. How did you meet or connect? Why do you continue to interact? What value do you have in each other’s lives even though you do not have physical interaction?
With the world in flux from globalization and technological advances, people are developing multiple identities apparent in their local and global linkages. Identity is becoming increasingly contextual in the postmodern world where people transform and adapt depending on time and place (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Social and cultural changes now adapt in response to single events or issues. The instant response and connections to others beyond time and place immediately impacts our lives, and we have the technology to react quickly with our thoughts and actions.
People can now live within global electronic cultural communities and reject cultural meta-narratives (Griswold, 2013). Postmodern culture also blurs history by rearranging and juxtaposing unconnected signs to produce new meanings. We find references to actual events in fictional culture and fictional events in non-fictional culture (Barker & Jane, 2016). Many U.S. television dramas refer to 9/11 in episodes focusing on terrorists or terrorist activities. Additionally, U.S. social activities and fundraising events will highlight historical figures or icons. The blurring of non-fiction and fiction creates a new narrative or historical reality people begin to associate with and recognize as actual or fact.
Identity Today
All forms of media and technology influence identity including values, norms, language, and behaviors by providing information about activities and events of social significance (Griffiths et al., 2015). Media and technology socialize us to think and act within socio-cultural appropriate norms and accepted practices. Watching and listening to people act and behave through media and technology shows the influence this social institution has on things like family, peers, school, and work on teaching social norms, values, and beliefs.
Technological innovations and advancements have influenced social interactions and communication patterns in the twenty-first century creating new social constructions of reality. These changes, particularly in information technology, have led to further segmentation of society based on user-participant affinity groups including racial-ethnic groups (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). The internet and web-based applications link people together transecting local, state, and national boundaries centered on common interests. People who share interests, ideas, values, beliefs, and practices are able to connect to one another through web-based and virtual worlds. These shared interests create solidarity among user-participants while disengaging them from others with differing or opposing interests meaning racial-ethnic groups can easily develop cohesion among like members across borders and inflate antagonism for others. Cybersocial interactions have reinforced affinity groups creating attitudes and behaviors that strongly encourage tribalism or loyalty to the social group and indifference to others.
Even though there are so many media, news, and information outlets available online, they are homogenous and tell the same stories using the same sources delivering the same message (McManus, 1995). Regardless of the news or information outlets one accesses, the coverage of events is predominantly the same with differences focusing on commentary, perspective, and analysis. Shoemaker and Vos (2009) found this practice allows outlets to serve as gatekeepers by shaping stories and messages into mass media-appropriate forms and reducing them to a manageable amount for the audience. Fragmentation of stories and messages occurs solely on ideology related to events rather than actual coverage of accounts, reports, or news.
People no longer form and take on identity solely from face-to-face interactions; they also construct themselves from online communication and cybersocial interactions. Approximately 73 percent of adults engage in some sort of online social networking extending their cultural identity to virtual space and time (Pew Research Center, 2011). Technological innovations and advancements have even led some people to re-construct a new online identity different from the one they have in face-to-face contexts. Both identities and realities are real to the people who construct and create them as they are the cultural creators of their personas.
Technology like other resources in society creates inequality among social groups (Griffiths et al., 2015). People with greater access to resources have the ability to purchase and use online services and applications. Privilege access to technological innovations and advancements depend on one’s age, family, education, ethnicity, gender, profession, race, and social class (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Signs of technological stratification are visible in the increasing knowledge gap for those with less access to information technology. People with exposure to technology gain further proficiency that makes them more marketable and employable in modern society (Griffiths et al., 2015). Inflation of the knowledge gap results from the lack of technological infrastructure among races, classes, geographic areas creating a digital divide between those who have internet access and those that do not.
CULTURAL CHANGE & ADAPTATION
People biologically and culturally adapt. Cultural change or evolution is influenced directly (e.g., intentionally), indirectly (e.g., inadvertently), or by force. These changes are a response to fluctuations in the physical or social environment (Kottak and Kozaitis 2012). Social movements often start in response to shifting circumstances such as an event or issue in an effort to evoke cultural change. People will voluntarily join for collective action to either preserve or alter a cultural base or foundation.
The fight over control of a cultural base has been the central conflict among many civil and human rights movements. On a deeper level, many of these movements are about cultural rights and control over what will be the prevailing or dominant culture. For example, the cancel culture or call-out movement aims to ostracize individuals out of social and professional circles as a form of boycotting or shunning someone who has acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner. Individuals ostracized call out the expression “cancel culture” or “cancelled” to protest their free speech and censorship.
The “call-out” culture developed in 2014 as part of the #MeToo movement and gave victims of sexual abuse and harassment the ability to publicly call out their abusers and be heard particularly for sex crimes committed by powerful individuals. The Black Lives Matter movement applied the same method to call-out police who killed Black men to highlight the racism and discrimination against Black communities by law enforcement. The hashtag “#cancel” was inspired by activist Suey Park when she called out the Twitter account of The Colbert Report for a racist tweet about Asians. The use of the hashtag generated outrage and debate, and the practice became widespread on Black Twitter to stop supporting a person or work. By 2019 the phrase “cancel culture” became popular to recognize accountability for offensive conduct. Recently, political conservatives in the United States have adopted the term to deflect reactions or judgements for using politically incorrect speech.
Changes in culture are either adaptive (better suited for the environment) or maladaptive (inadequate or inappropriate for the environment). During times of distress or disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic, people made cultural changes to daily norms and practices such as wearing a mask and getting vaccinated for health, safety, and survival. The pandemic forced adaptive cultural changes in medicine (vaccines), healthcare (emergency preparedness), and online sectors and services (videoconferencing and education). However, not all cultural changes were helpful or productive such as social distancing and the lockdowns during COVID. These changes resulted in maladaptive behaviors and financial stress. Many people continue to suffer mental health and substance issues as a result of social isolation during the pandemic and the economy remains in recovery from government, business, and school closures during peak waves of illness. People adjust and learn to cope with cultural changes whether adaptive or maladaptive in an effort to soothe psychological or emotional needs.
Though technology continues to impact changes in society, culture does not always change at the same pace. There is a lag in how rapidly cultural changes occur. Generally, material culture changes before non-material culture. Contact between groups diffuses cultural change among groups, and people are usually open to adapt or try new artifacts or material possessions before modifying their values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols (i.e., verbal and non-verbal language), or practices. Influencing fashion is easier than altering people’s political or religious beliefs.
OTHERING & BELONGING
Like racial formation, identity labels and categories are socially constructed by the dominant group. Othering is the process of inventing labels and defining characteristics of people into inferior group categories (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Symbolic language is directly and indirectly used to label and categorize inferior group members who form their own collective identity of belonging.
The dominant group defines the existence of inferior groups by practicing othering in three forms. Oppressive othering occurs when the dominant group seeks advantage by defining a group as morally and/or intellectually inferior (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Race classification schemes are an example of oppressive othering by overtly or subtly asserting racial difference of non-White as a deficit. Implicit othering uses dramaturgical fronts of power where White elites or would-be elites take on or portray powerful self-images and implicitly create inferior others (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Politicians and corporate executives often engage in implicit othering by shaping their public personas and performances to show strength and masculinity. Defensive othering is practiced by individuals seeking belonging into the dominant group or by those wanting to deflect stigma experienced by the inferior or subordinate group (Schwalbe et al., 2000). This type of othering involves accepting the devalued identity imposed by the dominant group reproducing social inequality. When inferior group members seek safety or advantage by othering those within their own group, the dominant group’s claim to superiority is reinforced by their actions.
Cultural attributes within social networks build community, group loyalty, and personal and social identity. People must learn to develop the social and cultural knowledge they need to belong, garner support, and feel embraced by their community and society at large. A person’s social status or composition dictates one’s admittance into a group or society to access cultural knowledge, information, and skills.
Sociologists find cultural capital or the social assets of a person (including intellect, education, speech pattern, mannerisms, and dress) promote social mobility (Harper-Scott & Samson, 2009). People who accumulate and display the cultural knowledge of a society or the dominant group may earn social acceptance, status, and power. Bourdieau (1991) explained the accumulation and transmission of culture is a social investment from socializing agents including family, peers, and community. People learn culture and cultural characteristics and traits from one another; however, social status effects whether people share, spread, or communicate cultural knowledge to each other. A person’s social status in a group or society influences their ability to access and develop cultural capital.
Cultural capital provides people access to cultural connections such as institutions, individuals, materials, and economic resources (Kennedy, 2012). Status guides people in choosing who and when culture or cultural capital is transferable. Bourdieu (1991) believed cultural inheritance and personal biography attributes to individual success more than intelligence or talent. With status comes access to social and cultural capital that generates access to privileges and power among and between groups. Individuals with cultural capital deficits face social inequalities (Reay, 2004). If someone does not have the cultural knowledge and skills to maneuver the social world they occupy, then they will not find acceptance within a group or society to access support and resources.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.2
ONE TIME THREE EQUALS ONE
Being a person of color in particular African-American, does carry a social imbalance on the ladder to success. Educated in Middle-class, Catholic schools in the sixties and seventies for my entire first 12 years of school, I had to learn through the years that being Black meant that I was to be seen by others in ways I was unaware of, ways that signified that I was seen differently than my Caucasian counterparts. I really had no idea how true that came to be.
In 1968 I was a high school freshman at one of those aforementioned Parochial schools, and I received my first lesson in ethnic studies from a most unlikely mentor. His name was Father Kieran Cunningham, a White immigrant from Ireland. One day the two of us were out walking, and he told me of his last days in Ireland and his first moments in the airport after landing in New York. Fr. Kieran mentioned the moment he saw the first Black person in his life that first day in New York, and he related how he couldn’t keep from staring. I could only hope that the person he was eyeballing was unaware of it for both his and Father Kieran’s benefit.
I honestly wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. Then Father Kieran turned to me and said a sentence that has remained with me my entire life. “Daryl, to be a success in life you are going to have to work three times harder than the average White person, do you understand that?”
“No, I don’t understand that at all,” I thought. As far as I was concerned, why would I have to work harder than the next guy? But this very wise man was right, and time would prove him out. I have been successful professionally, but at times my expectation bar was higher than others. As a former Air Force officer, I was told by a superior that, in addition to showing leadership to all the 100-plus airmen assigned to me, I was to also show “Black leadership.” “What was the difference between that and regular leadership?” I thought.
Later on, in my early years as an elementary educator, parents removed their children from my class roster the first day of school when they found out I was Black, and told my principal to support their decision, in not very nice words of reference to me. A student teacher requested to be removed from my supervision the minute she laid eyes on me and realized I was not her race. She refused to be mentored by me. Some of my own students sent racial slurs my way when I corrected them for misbehavior. It was of course unpleasant, but I also wondered why pre-teen kids thought they had license to address their adult teacher in that manner. I was a bit naïve then, even I will admit.
And yes, Fr. Kieran was right, there were certain challenges that, as an African American I experienced that let’s face it—were due to the fact that I am African American. And it remains almost surreal to me that I first heard of this inequity not from a fellow African American, but a wise, well-meaning white immigrant from Ireland.
I don’t know if I have had to work two, three, or four times harder than Caucasians to achieve the same goal, but I will admit with some regret, that part of my success as a professional has been because I have been seen as a “specially gifted African American,” and not simply a gifted man, period. And as long as one needs to stand out from within an ethnic group, that individual will always begin from a starting point of deficit.
Do you think Fr. Kieran had a right to tell the writer what he told him? Did it help the writer, or maybe cause more harm? Do you believe that minorities really have to work harder than whites, in the same situation? Have you felt that you were seen as a “special” member of your demographic group, that deserved more than the “average” member of your group?
This story “One Times Three Equals One” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Obtaining social and cultural acceptance for people of color in the U.S. often results in mental and emotional injury from living in a system of White supremacy where historically racists ideas, norms, and practices have been passed down through generations. On a daily basis, people of color face racial bias, microaggressions, ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. This racial trauma or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS) lead to symptoms like those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as depression, anger, reoccurring thoughts related to a traumatic event, physical ailments, hypervigilance, low self-esteem, and psychological distancing from traumatic events (Mental Health America, 2021).
Ellis Cose (1993) illuminated the experiences of successful African Americans in their struggle with issues of racial fairness. His work documents the anger and pain associated with those who pursued and obtained the American dream. Regardless of how similar backgrounds and personal attributes align, Blacks and Whites live fundamentally different lives (Cose, 1993). Middle-class Blacks have been labeled a model minority or law-abiding productive citizens, but they have not garnered the same socio-economic respect and treatment as middle-class Whites. For model minorities, success does not carry the same social meaning or equal the same life experiences and opportunities as Whites.
African Americans continue to face the burdens of racial discrimination regardless of social status and wealth. The most common issues experienced by people of color in achieving social and economic success are the inability to fit in, lack of respect, low expectations, faint praise, maintaining true racial-ethnic identity, self-censorship on sensitive race topics not to upset Whites, collective guilt for lack of achievement of those within our own race, and exclusion from the dominant or ruling class group (Cose, 1993). The experiences of being a model minority show people of color must acculturate and develop cultural capital for social mobility and success but still face discrepancies in earning recognition and achievement in comparison to Whites.
There are four distinct ways inferior groups or people of color adapt to inequality. One way is trading power for patronage or simply stated accepting it for recompense. This method gains compensatory benefits from relationships with dominant group members by accepting their demeaning and disempowering practices in exchange for approval, protection, compensation, or autonomy from close supervision and control (Schwalbe et al., 2000).
People who share inferior status sometimes collaborate to create alternative subcultures outside the fringes of mainstream or dominant culture including the urban drug trade. Schwalbe et al. (2000) found alternative subcultures to be simultaneously subversive and reproductive of inequality by creating their own hierarchies, forms of power, and ways to earn a living. A problem with seeking success outside of the mainstream is the conflict generated with the dominant group making success economically, politically, and psychologically tenuous.
Some inferior group’s members adapt or survive inequality by hustling or exploiting the vulnerable such as the jobless, elderly, uneducated, and addicted (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Other people of color respond to inequality by dropping out of mainstream society such as the homeless. Research shows inferior groups and people of color undergo a variety of strategies to cope with the deprivations of othering, racial trauma, and inequality.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.3
SINGLE MOTHER GETS A BAD RAP
The role of being a single mother has moments of pride. Pride in knowing that I worked hard in providing a loving, safe, and faith filled environment for my children. It also has its moments of insecurities. Insecurities of being seen as having a life that statistically suggests that I’m broke and unhappy.
Why would I feel so insecure about this subject? I am a strong, proud, Latin/African American woman that feels confident in the roles that I embody. The uneasiness is directly related to the overwhelming feeling I get when discussions about roles of women in communities of color come up. I read data that points to single motherhood as the culprit for delinquency of children and ultimately their life of crime. Being a single mother of color often comes with treatment that is less than respectful with a stigma that pins us as “contributing to the degradation of society.”
I contribute to society. I have never been on welfare as an adult. I was not going to be a statistic, and I was going to provide the best life possible for my children. I have been gainfully employed my entire adult life and sometimes have worked two full time jobs. I am educated, pay taxes, care for my children, volunteer my time for my church, and sit on the board of a local non-profit drug treatment program, while being a single mother. I didn’t choose the life of being a single parent; somehow it feels like it chose me.
The insecurity of being a woman of color who is a single mom fueled me to lean in and make sure that my sons had a parent that was visible. There were so many times that I was dealing with coaches that did not extend the same respect and consideration to me and my child as they did to the athletes who had fathers present.
I think of the dichotomy in the way single fathers are embraced. They experience hero status when they announce that they are single dads who have primary custody of children. When asked by other parents at sporting events or performances, “You’re a single mom?” I answer, “Yes.” Then there is a drag that I feel in my chest as if though I’m a victim in some way, and my life is incomplete.
The truth is my family and I have a beautiful life. Single motherhood is not the culprit.
This story “Single Mother Gets a Bad Rap” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
SUMMARY
In Module 2, we examined the influence of culture on collective and individual identity. We learned how identity shapes our perceptions including the way we think about and label people. You were asked to consider how your identity informs your experiences, values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and connections to others. We also explored intersectionality as a source for systems of power and inequality. And lastly, we considered the impact of othering on racial trauma and the ongoing reproduction of inequality.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Discuss how culture and identify shape people’s observations and assessments about others.
2. Describe the ways intersectionality of race and other forms of identity persuade people’s perceptions, status, and access to resources in society.
3. Explain the influence of technology on collective and individual identity.
4. Analyze the impact of social labels and categories on identity, racial trauma, othering, and inequality.
5. Why might people of color keep certain aspects of their identity private? What aspects of your identity do you hide or change to fit in or be accepted by others?
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
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Back, L., Bennett, A., Edles, L. D., Gibson, M., Inglis, D., Joacobs, R., & Ian Woodward. (2012). Cultural sociology: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.
Barker, C. and Jane, E. A. (2016). Cultural studies: Theory and practice. (5th ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.
Beck, U. (2000). What is globalization? Polity Press.
Biddiss, M. D. (1970). Father of racist ideology: Social and political thought of Count Gobineau. Weybright and Talley, Inc.
Black, L. and Solomos, J. (2000). Theories of race and racism: A reader. Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Polity Press.
Childs, E. C. (2005). Navigating interracial borders: Black-White couples and their social worlds. Rutgers University Press.
Cooley, C. H. (1902, 1964). Human nature and the social order. Schocken.
Cose, E. (1993). The rage of a privileged class. HarperCollins Publishers.
DuBois, W.E.B. (1903). The soul of Black folk. Dover Publications.
Durkheim, E. (1893, 1960). The division of labor in society (G. Simpson, Trans.). Free Press.
Etzioni, A. (1975). A comparative analysis of complex organizations: On power, involvement, and their correlates. Free Press.
Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Applebaum, R. P., & Carr, D. (2013). Essentials of sociology. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer, J., and Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College.
Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
Hallet, T. (2003). Symbolic power and organizational culture. Sociological Theory, 21, 128-149.
Harper-Scott, J. P. E. & Samson, J. (2009). An introduction to music studies. Cambridge University Press.
Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson.
Kennedy, V. (2012). “The Influence of Cultural Capital on Hispanic Student College Graduation Rates.” EDD dissertation, College of Education, Argosy University.
Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.
Kottak, C. P. & Kozaitis, K. A. (2012). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the north American mainstream. (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
McCluney, C. L., Robotham, K., Lee, S., Smith, R. & Durkee, M. (2019). The Costs of Code-Switching. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-costs-of-codeswitching
McManus, J. (1995). A market-based model of news production. Communication Theory, 5, 301-338.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. University of Chicago Press.
Mizrachi, N., Drori, I. & Anspach, R. R. (2007). Repertoires of trust: The practice of trust in a multinational organization amid political conflict. American Sociological Review, 72, 143-165.
The National Academies Press. (1992). Democratization in Africa: African Views, African Voices. The National Academy of Sciences. https://www.nap.edu/read/2041/chapter/4
Pew Research Center. (2011). Demographics of Internet Users. Pew Internet and American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Trend-Data/Whos-Online.aspx
Reay, D. (2004). Education and cultural capital: The implications of changing trends in education policies. Cultural Trends, 13(2), 73-86.
Schwalbe, M., Godwin, S., Holden, D., Schrock, D., Thompson, S. & Wolkomir, M. (2000). Generic processes in the reproduction of inequality: An interactionist analysis. Social Forces, 79(2), 419-452.
Shoemaker, P. & and Vos, T. (2009). Media gatekeeping. In D. Stacks & M. Salwen (Eds.), An integrated approach to communication theory and research (pp. 75–89). Routledge.
Smithsonian Natural Museum of History. (2018). What Does It Mean to Be Human? Smithsonian Institution. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/one-species-living-worldwide | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/02%3A_Our_Power_and_Identity.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. summarize the development of indigenous peoples across the Americas during pre-colonial times
2. explain the process of European contact and colonization in North America
3. explore the process of American westward expansion
4. understand the political and legal processes that Americans utilized to control and subjugate Native Americans
5. describe aspects of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s
6. explore the issues of the late 20th and early 21st century and how they have impacted Native Americans
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
American Indian Movement
American Indian Religious Freedom Act
Americanization
Bering Strait
Blood Quantum
Cahokia
California v. Cabaz
Christopher Columbus
Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862
Dawes Act of 1887
Doctrine of Discovery
Eurocentrism
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
Indian Education Act of 1972
Indian Relocation Act
Indian Removal Act of 1830
Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934
King Phillip’s War
Long Walk
Manifest Destiny
Meriam Report
Occupation of Alcatraz
Proclamation Line of 1763
Pan-Indian
Pequot Massacre
Reconquista
Red Power movement
Sand Creek Massacre
Seven Years’ War
Trail of Tears
Worcester v. Georgia
INTRODUCTION
Native Americans are unique to the American story, for they were indigenous to these lands before they were even named the Americas. Once the “New World” was discovered, indigenous peoples had to grapple with foreigners colonizing their land. The Native Americans functioned in two different modes over the course of American history: by resistance to power and attempts to work within the framework of the U.S. government.
This is their story.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS
The peoples of the Americas arrived approximately 12,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic Age. A “small” ice age left the Bering Strait frosted over, which allowed for people to cross from the continent of Asia into modern day Alaska. Over many decades, small groups of nomadic peoples traveled long distances and spread throughout the Americas, some migrating all the way to South America.
As the decades passed, the nomadic peoples settled all throughout the lands, and began farming and sedentary living approximately 8,000 - 9,000 years ago. From there, they developed into vastly different tribal groups, some creating massive civilizations that were fairly advanced for their times. These civilizations include that of Cahokia rooted along the Mississippi river, who in the height of their power had a population of up to 30,000 and trade networks that reached modern day Mexico.
For many decades, up until the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans lived in North America in relative peace and harmony. Each tribe developed a unique society based on their surrounding terrain and climate as well as familial alliances. Conflict between tribes was typically based on border disputes, but rarely large-scale political warfare.
CONTACT AND CONFLICT WITH THE “OLD WORLD”
For centuries, Native Americans lived, cultivated, and developed the lands in the Americas. The lands would not see significant changes until European contact in the late 15th century. Most readers would attribute the first European to come in contact with indigenous peoples to be renowned explorer Christopher Columbus. This is generally true, even though Norse explorer Leif Eriksson landed in Newfoundland in the 12th century.
Columbus was one of many skilled explorers of the 15th century dared to venture out into open ocean, first making their way down the African coast, then planning to sail out further into the Atlantic. Columbus, although an Italian in origin, gained a commission from the Spanish monarchy to explore and colonize new lands. The Spanish were highly motivated by the Reconquista, the campaign to “reconquer” Spain from the Muslims that had occupied their native lands for decades. In 1492, they accomplished their Reconquista and were eager for more victories. Due to Ottoman expansion, historic routes to the east were no longer viable, and Europeans were looking for another access point to eastern spices and other exotic goods. Columbus was hired by the Spanish monarchs to find a new trade route to Asia in order to access highly coveted commodities.
When the Spanish made landfall in the Americas, not Asia as they planned, they sought to explore the Americas, searching for gold and other lucrative natural resources. Upon discovery, the indigenous peoples were dubbed “Indians,” for Columbus and his shipmates believed that they landed in the East Indies. The Spanish utilized the papal principle of the Doctrine of Discovery which sanctioned the colonization of the Americas and declared indigenous peoples’ non-Christian enemies that deserved the brutal conquest of their lands.
In Columbus’s journal, he recorded his observations of the indigenous people. He stated:
It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything…
They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion.... (Columbus, 1492)
Columbus shows an obvious superiority to the people he encountered by calling them poor, assuming they were without religion since they were not Christian, and declaring them to be of service to others like him. He shows intent to abuse and enslave, and this is the sentiment that many other Europeans would take as they began to colonize the Americas. From here on forward, Europeans set a precedence of Eurocentrism, the interpretation of non-European world civilizations in comparison to European culture. In these cases, European men like Columbus viewed the indigenous peoples as different and inferior, thus justifying abusive and malicious behavior. Spanish Conquistadors continued to explore in the Caribbean, Central, and South America, trading, warring, and colonizing regions. It was the Spanish who set the precedent to establish colonies in the New World for the sole purpose of monetary benefit to its mother country. Eventually they established very lucrative settlements with systems that forced indigenous peoples and imported African slaves to work against their will. Soon other Europeans ventured into the New World with the hopes of establishing their own profitable settlements.
ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD
English explorers intended to take the same routes into the west as the Spanish but were most successful in the settlement of North America. Two primary colonies were established in what is now the American east coast – the colonies of New England, now mainly Massachusetts, and Virginia. In each of these regions, English settlers also encountered indigenous peoples; however, the English approach was initially different than the Spanish. The English sought to forge alliances with Natives, learn the territory, and convert the Natives to Christianity. Eventually, the desire for expanding territories, along with the general beliefs of White superiority, would break down attempts of coexisting.
However, we must not assume that indigenous peoples had no agency or free will. As the English began to populate North America to form colonies that would become America itself, they encountered Natives that saw opportunities for trade with the light skinned newcomers (Lepore, 1998). Evidence shows that the weapons Europeans welded were coveted by some tribes to give them power over tribal disputes. Native Americans also traded with the English for glass beads that they considered valuable, but the English viewed as meaningless. These trinkets circulated amongst the tribes as currency.
As the English flooded into the eastern seaboard of North America, they quickly became the dominant colonial power. Settlement was difficult and intermittent conflict with Native Americans kept the English close to their fortified settlements. At times, Native Americans worked with colonists as exemplified in the story of Squanto, who was said to have been present during the first Thanksgiving feast. Squanto was a man who had already had some exposure to the English and could communicate with the colonists. This brief period of harmony would be short lived in the New World.
When the English came and settled, the fundamental changes to the land and its people were significant. First, the impact of disease has to be considered. Native Americans had no immunities to diseases that the Europeans brought with them, and their communities were tragically impacted. These diseases included smallpox, influenza, and plagues that decimated Native populations. Next, there was a culture clash that caused many problems. The English brought herding animals like cattle and sheep that were not native to the Americas and needed land to graze. These wandering animals often disrupted Native life and the forest ecosystems. Trees were also felled to create space for planting crops, sustenance for the influx of colonists in the lands. Over time, the settlers would need more and more land to spread out, and territorial lines would be both fought over and ignored. In certain areas, finite resources and trade disputes occurred, resulting in a need for revenge and retaliation.
One of the more significant was the Pequot Massacre, which occurred in May of 1637. Exhibiting the land lust of the colonists, a militia of soldiers from New England stormed into the region they referred to as Mystic and attacked the Pequots. The village was set on fire, and any Pequots attempting to escape were shot. Survivors were sold into slavery, and the whole affair was justified by the will of God, as the colonists were Christians. This was viewed as a triumph for the English, and more land was used to settle upon.
Tensions continued to mount in the New England region until all-out war broke out. The body of an Englishman named John Sassamon was found and suspicion turned quickly to the Wampanoags, the prominent tribe in the area. The Native American’s men suspected of the murder were put to trial, found guilty of the crime, and executed. The Wampanoags retaliated and killed nine English colonists. This violence would escalate into a violent and bloody conflict called King Phillip’s War. The Native American leader Metacom, known to the English as King Philip, led a coalition of Natives in the attack of several Puritan townships. Metacom had previously maintained a modicum of peace, and even small conflicts were negotiated by both parties. The execution of the three Natives proved a step too far and showed that the colonists were overstepping their boundaries. The colonists, however, viewed the Native Americans as godless savages and an impediment to English success and growth in the new world. It was widely believed that natives were inferior to Europeans and were not using the land to its full potential. With these ideas in mind, war was easy and simple. War waged for months as the English attempted to chase Metacom and their supporters in lands they did not know well. Finally, the sachem Metacom was captured and put to death. The war was over, and the English remained dominant.
One weakness in the eyes of the English was the fact that the Native Americans seemed fractured and easily manipulated. This was due to the numerous tribes that existed in North America, each with varied culture, loyalty, and territory. Although the natives might have appeared the same to the English, they were not united. These tribal differences were often exploited by the colonists, and their loyalties were traded and bought by the different groups in colonial times. This is best exemplified during the French and Indian War, sometimes also called the Seven Years’ War. In the colonies, this conflict was fought between the French and the English, each with their own Native American allies. One of the boons of this war was the area known as the “middle ground” or the Ohio River Valley territory. Again, we can observe another instance of colonists wanting to spread and continue to settle westward. The end of the war resulted in victory for the English; however, Parliament also passed the Proclamation Line of 1763, an act that prevented the colonists from settling past the territorial line along the Appalachian Mountains and the far eastern boarders of the English colonies. Essentially, the English colonists did not gain control of the Ohio Valley as they hoped. Despite the boundary set by Parliament, many colonists ignored the law. Violations were common, and even General George Washington himself crossed this territorial divide.
Throughout the colonial period into the formation of the United States, Native Americans saw their lands taken over by English settlers. Once the revolution ended and the Americans achieved freedom from the British, the Americans looked to the west to expand their territories. Some attempts of pan-Indian alliances were forged to fight against the American aggressors. The term Pan-Indian refers to a coalition of Natives from different tribes working in unity against a common enemy. These attempts were led by Native Americans such as Tecumseh during the War of 1812, who sought to use force to defend and take back their lands. Tecumseh asserted that their land once “belonged to red men” and had “since made miserable by the White people” (Tecumseh, 1810). Although Native Americans were treated as sovereign nations when signing treaties, the respect for Natives was often ignored when they were regarded as inferior and unable to maintain control of their lands. The American government repeatedly reneged on treaties, and new states formed as populations expanded. When U.S. citizenship was established, Native Americans were not extended the rights of other White Americans, not for more than 100 years later.
WESTWARD EXPANSION
Most of the 19th century was a time of great turmoil and despair for Native Americans. The U.S. government approached relations with Natives in two different ways, first removal and relocation; then land redistribution and assimilation.
Between the 1820s up through the 1880s, Native Americans were continually uprooted and relocated to reservation lands. These actions were legitimized by the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under President Andrew Jackson. This act passed with President Jackson’s approval and was later carried out under his predecessor Martin Van Buren. President Jackson claimed that Native Americans were “uncontrolled possessors” of their lands, and therefore would only be allowed to occupy lands that were given to them by their conquerors (Jackson, 1829; Richter, 2001). The act allowed for the removal of five different tribes from their ancestral lands to relocate to reservation territory in modern day Oklahoma. The former lands would later be settled by White Americans.
In a shift of tactics, instead of using force to combat the removal process, one of the five tribes, the Cherokee, sought to work within the U.S. legal system to sue for their rights to their land. This was an uphill battle, especially after Georgians discovered gold in Cherokee territory in 1829, making their territory highly coveted. After tumultuous court battles, in Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court upheld Cherokee rights to their lands. Unfortunately, even this court ruling was not enough to protect the tribes, and over the course of several years, the five tribes: Chicksaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and the Cherokee were forced from their homelands to a territory west of the Mississippi River. The removal process took several years and was later named the Trail of Tears. The reason for the name was because the relocated Natives took the forced journey on foot, many of them dying of exposure, disease, and starvation. Men, women, children, the elderly, the infirm – they were all forced to walk with their possessions, no wagons, no horses, tents, or provisions. One in three died on the journey, and they barely made it to their destination.
The interactions between the Americans and Native Americans during the 19th century were justified by a concept that was coined into words by John O’Sullivan in the 1840s – Manifest Destiny. O’Sullivan successfully illustrated a concept that was already ingrained in the minds Americans since the initial settlement of this country. Manifest destiny was the belief that Americans had a destiny, a calling that could not be changed. That destiny was to inhabit the lands of North America from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. Additionally, O’Sullivan was clear that this “destiny” was dictated by God, underpinning this concept with the most prevalent religion in America of the time, Protestant Christianity. By giving this concept a name, O’Sullivan gave Americans a justification to continue to settle and occupy all the lands in North America, continually pushing westward no matter what was in their way because it was their destiny. What he really conceptualized were the beliefs and desires of even the earliest colonists, who had journeyed west across the Atlantic Ocean so long before him. In this era, Manifest Destiny was not merely about colonial settlement, but American domination of land, resources, and societal order.
This maltreatment continued amidst the American civil war. Even as the country was torn by armed conflict, American citizens kept a steady pace on their quest for westward expansion. In what is Minnesota today, the Dakota tribes fought for their rights to remain in control of their lands in a conflict called the Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862. Because of the severe depletion of buffalo herds, which was the tribe’s main food source, the Dakota tribes resorted to farming, which was not working out well. The tribes were then forced to resort to asking the state government for aid, or buying food on credit, or else their people would starve. Local authorities refused to comply and tensions rose. A group of Dakota men killed five White settlers, and violence continued to escalate into war with the Dakotas. By the time local militias ended the violence, hundreds of Dakotas were taken prisoners and held accountable in courts of local authorities where murder, rape, and atrocities took place. Officially, 303 Dakota tribal members were sentenced to be hanged, until President Lincoln stepped in and commuted most of the sentences to 38 individuals. This was the largest mass execution by hanging in U.S. history. The remaining members of the local Dakota tribes were chased into the hills, hunted, killed, and starved out.
After the events of the Dakota Uprising, more and more violent incursions occurred. In 1864, the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes attempted to protect their lands in Colorado. However, when gold was discovered on their lands, Americans sought to gain access. The tribes sought peace negotiations, but Colorado militiamen forged a different path. In a violent attack called the Sand Creek Massacre, a White militia openly attacked the tribes at Sand Creek, killing over 200, forcing those survivors onto reservations. In 1886, former Union soldiers forced the Navajo into a similar trek as the Five Civilized Tribes in the Long Walk, wherein thousands perished on their way to reservation lands from their New Mexico homelands. Any tribal members that resisted were shot.
Driven by a so-called campaign of peace, President Ulysses Grant attempted a different approach, closing this era of removal and relocation. In a post-war effort, Grant instituted a ‘Peace Plan’ to “conquer through kindness.” This plan was called the Dawes General Allotment Act or the Dawes Act of 1887. The goal falsely presented as a plan to redistribute and protect land rights but turned out to be another process of denial of land rights. The Dawes Act revoked collective land ownership from the tribes and redistributed the land in smaller plots to individuals within the tribes. Tribal members would be given the deed to those plots of land after they had lived on that land for 25 years. Only after the 25 years of probation would the individuals receive the land titles, and some would even be granted citizenship.
This legislation had multiple issues. First, it denied the traditional communal land use that generally, Native Americans had practiced. Customarily, no individual owned land, but they utilized it as a collective unit. Second, it assumed that tribes were not capable of holding a land deed. This part of the act was intended to defend Natives from criminal land prospectors or sneaky investors, but it also assumed that tribal members were too inexperienced and unintelligent to recognize unfair deals. Next, much land was taken during the allotment era, never released by the government to Native Americans. Lastly the law withheld land titles for the span of a generation on purpose, to award the lands to the next generation of children that had most likely gone through Indian boarding schools meant to Americanize or assimilate Native American children into American culture. The last point leads to the next issue at hand – education.
Native American education in the U.S. during the 19th century was similar to other marginalized groups such as immigrant communities. For Native Americans, the outcome was much more detrimental to the culture. Education for these groups was tailored towards one goal – assimilation into American culture, also known as Americanization. This is the process of deemphasizing the original culture of a group and indoctrinating students to what was generally acceptable American culture. For example, language was a prevailing tactic to shift children towards American culture by forcing children to speak English rather than their Native language. For children of immigrants, this was problematic but practical, for they could remain bilingual, speaking one language at school and another at home. For Native Americans, this was cultural erasure, for the elder tribal members were continually being eradicated through warfare and the children were being forced to forget their native language. Through the Americanization process, the loss of Native American culture and custom was paramount. There was no home country where their languages and customs still existed because they were still in it. Their culture was just simply being erased.
The 19th century was extremely damaging to Native Americans – due to the breaking of treaties, erasure of culture, and outright genocide. The future of Native Americans was uncertain, and the next century would prove to be just as tumultuous.
THE 20TH CENTURY
In the next phase of Native American history, the government took yet another approach to relations with Native Americans. This shift was likely a response to Native participation during World War I (Treuer, 2019). First came the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which officially recognized Native Americans as citizens, even though legally, under the 14th amendment, Natives already had birthright citizenship. Next was the Meriam Report, a comprehensive evaluation of Native reservation conditions, hospitals, schools, and other agencies. The push for the report came from Native American advocates that identified the failures of Native American policies and possibilities for progress. Men such as Peter Graves and John Collier called out the policy issues of the Dawes Act as well as the denial of religious freedoms that Natives endured.
Progress during the 1930s was difficult, especially during the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Collier was able to negotiate the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, sometimes also called the Indian New Deal, because it was passed under President Roosevelt and his New Deal agenda. This act allowed for Native American lands to remain in their control and distributed amongst tribal members as well as the ability to self-govern. Although this was a step towards granting of freedoms, the IRA was problematic within Indian reservations for ambiguities.
Along with the IRA came the reintroduction of a colonial practice called blood quantum. This was known as the process of determining the fraction of Indian blood or ancestry. For instance, if one of your grandparents was full blood Choctaw, that made you ¼ Choctaw. This practice was reintroduced to verify access to tribal land ownership under the IRA. Blood quantum is still used today to determine tribal membership, although the requirements vary depending on the tribe.
Then, in 1956, the government took a different tactic in the implementation of the Indian Relocation Act. This legislation was passed to encourage young American Indians to leave reservations for urban areas to further the assimilation into American society. Financial assistance, vocational training, and other support was guaranteed for those that took up the opportunity. The result was often disastrous because the support that was guaranteed under this legislation was not consistently fulfilled. Many suffered from culture shock, homelessness, and poverty due to the failures of the policy.
While the IRA improved the lives of Native Americans to some degree, Native Americans still endured racial discrimination and hardships due to decades of mistreatment in America. The civil rights movements of the 1960s inspired many groups to push for equality and among those rose the Red Power movement. The movement was led by mostly young American Indians that sought policies to bring aid to Native American communities, maintain and protect land ownership, and reverse the termination of tribal recognition. Taking the cue of the African American protests of the time, participants of the Red Power movement engaged in non-violent protests and demonstrations to bring attention to their cause.
Additionally, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968. The supporters of this movement were largely the results of the failures of relocation. These Native Americans banned together in cities to create pan-Indian groups, this one growing into AIM. In November of 1969, AIM and other supporters carried out a 19-month long Occupation of Alcatraz. The federal facility lay dormant since 1963, and in a symbolic protest, Native American protesters made landfall on the island, claiming the land theirs for the taking, much like the European colonizers of the distant past. Occupants and supporters felt that reclaiming federal land from the government sent a clear message to the American public. For months, numerous Natives occupied the island, contacting the mainland primarily through a supply ship that would ferry people and supplies back and forth during occupation. Eventually the occupation ended due to the government forcing their removal, but the movement caught the brief attention of the media lending sympathy towards their cause. To this day, the graffiti on walls and structures painted by the occupants is still present.
By the 1970s and 80s, some real changes were on the horizon. This began with the Indian Education Act of 1972 that granted funds to increase graduation rates, curricular issues, and support services of Native Americans. These policies continued to expand, exemplified in the establishment of the first tribal college in the nation, the Navajo Community College. Some schools even began to implement lessons on Native American culture and history.
Additionally, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978 under the Carter administration. For so long, Native Americans were compelled to suppress their culture and assimilate into American society. Those that chose to hold on to religious traditions had to do so in secret (Treuer, 2019). After this act was passed, Native Americans not only practiced their beliefs in the open but were able to pass their traditions down to the youth who never experienced them.
THE RECENT PAST
Beginning in the 1980s, the pseudo-reparations that Native Americans were awarded by the government came in the form of Indian Gaming operations. In a landmark case, California v. Cabazon, the Cabazon and Morongo Mission Indians won the right to run gaming facilities on tribal lands. After this ruling, gambling operations arose in other reservation lands across the nation. The late 80s witnessed legislation to tax and regulate Indian gaming, but otherwise, these establishments allowed tribes to generate wealth for their communities. Profits and distribution of profits vary from tribe to tribe. Currently, blood quantum continues to be the defining factor of tribal membership and to be a member after the rise of Indian gaming carried much more significance.
The 21st century continued to bring more cultural awareness to Americans. The myth of Columbus and his “discovery” has been broken, and the violence and political policies of the 19th and early 20th centuries are included in the historical narrative. Indigenous Day has been added to the calendar, the rediscovery of American Indian culture continues, and stereotypes of Native Americans are disappearing from logos and mascots. However, there is still much progress to be made. Native Americans still have remarkably low degrees in higher education, and an average low median income compared to other racial and ethnic groups. COVID-19 severely impacted reservation communities. Chief Joseph, a leader of the Nez Perce once said, "Good words do not last long unless they amount to something." As Americans, it is important that we stand by the promises of the Declaration of Independence, equality, life, liberty, and happiness.
SUMMARY
Native Americans once lived relatively peaceful. Once Europeans made initial contact, they identified indigenous peoples as inferior, savage, and unworthy of the land they cultivated for countless years. Once the U.S. was established, Americans embarked on a campaign of conquest, removal, and relocation of Native Americans. After tribes were decimated by disease and war, the U.S. government shifted policies to assimilation. Now, in the modern era, Native Americans are attempting to recover their culture and heritage, still working within U.S. institutions to reclaim tribal land and wealth.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What kinds of societies existed in the Americas in pre-colonial times?
2. Describe the initial interactions between Europeans and indigenous peoples. Where they positive or negative? Who benefitted from these interactions?
3. How did American westward expansion impact Native American populations?
4. What ways did Native Americans assert their civil liberties during the civil rights protests of the 20th century?
5. How has the government sought to repair and restore relations with Native Americans in modern times?
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
Columbus, C. (1492). Journal of Christopher Columbus, 1492. The American Yawp Reader. http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-new-world/journal-of-christopher-columbus/
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Lee, J. (2014). Our fires still burn: The Native American experience viewer discussion guide. Vision Maker Media funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://visionmakermedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/edu_vdg_ofsb.pdf
Lepore, J. (1998). The name of war: King Philip’s war and the origins of American identity. Vintage.
Locke, J. & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press. http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html.
Richter, D. K. (2001). Facing east from Indian country: A native history of early America. Harvard University Press.
Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study. (10th ed). Macmillan.
Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books.
Treuer, D. (2019). The heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the present. Riverhead Books. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/03%3A_Our_Story_-_Native_Americans.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of this module, students will be able to:
1. describe the transatlantic slave trade and formation of the colonial slave system in North America
2. explore the development of the U.S. economy in terms of its reliance and use of slave labor
3. identify justification of Black slave labor from the Antebellum period to the Civil War
4. examine the effects of the Reconstruction period and the rise of the Lost Cause ideology
5. describe the 19th and 20th century development of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and racialized violence
6. explain key people and events of the civil rights movement in the 1960s
7. explore the issues and impact of the late 20th and early 21st century on African Americans
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Abolitionists
Abraham Lincoln
American Colonization Society
Bacon’s Rebellion
Booker T. Washington
Brown v. Board of Education
Civil Rights Act Of 1964
Claudette Colvin
Congress of Racial Equity (CORE)
Colonization
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Emancipation Proclamation
Executive Order 8802
Freedom Riders
Great Migration
Harlem Renaissance
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Indentured Servants
Jim Crow
John Rolfe
Juneteenth
Ku Klux Klan
Lost Cause
Lynching
Manumission
March on Washington D.C.
Massive Resistance
Minstrel Shows
National Association for The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Non-Violent Protests
Paternalism
Plessy v. Ferguson
Popular Sovereignty
Redlining
Rosa Parks
Sarah Keyes
Separate but Equal
Sit-In Protests
Slave Codes
Slave Resistance
Slavery
Stono Rebellion
Three-Fifths Clause
Transatlantic Slave Trade
Tulsa Massacre Of 1921
Underground Railroad
William Lloyd Garrison
Watts Riots Of 1965
W.E.B. Dubois
Voting Rights Act
INTRODUCTION
The history of people of African descent in this country is complex and long, dating back to the foundations of this country. For most of that history, the lives of African Americans have been wrought with oppression and racism, but despite countless barriers, have contributed so much to the nation’s history and its development.
The major events of African American history are best told in different phases – colonial America to 1877, and 1877 to present – similar to how the study of U.S. history is structured in schools. The historical narrative is also broken down into subphases, the Civil Rights era into the 1990s, then the most recent past. This is intentional, since Black history is very much American history, just as most other racial and ethnic groups.
This is their story.
COLONIAL PERIOD TO RECONSTRUCTION
Most historians begin the discussion of Black history in 1619 when the first slaves were sold in Virginia. However, it is more effective to begin this history with the moment when free people of African descent arrived in the Americas. Spanish colonizers arrived with the first free Africans in 1492. Free Blacks existed in the Americas before enslaved ones did.
In North America, the first recorded peoples of African descent arrived in Jamestown in 1619. These men and women were sold by Dutch traders as slave laborers to English settlers. Slavery, the practice of forced labor without pay, was not a practice exclusive to the New World, or even to Europeans. Slave labor had been utilized in many civilizations over the course of human history. However, the system of colonization and the trans-Atlantic trade changed the practice of slave labor for the next few centuries.
Colonial Virginia was in its early stages of development in 1619. When Virginia was settled, the colony struggled with acclimation, starvation, and population growth. But things started to take a turn for the better when John Rolfe brought tobacco planting to the colony. This crop was the colony’s saving grace, for it became the cash crop upon which to build a powerful nation. Tobacco was a difficult crop to harvest. Typically, the arduous labor required for this crop was carried out by indentured servants - poor White contract laborers who obtained their ticket to the new world by signing away 7-10 years of their life to investors in the colonies. But over time, circumstances changed, and the White laborers proved to be problematic, provoking a shift to African slave labor. The change in circumstances including general human progress towards individual freedoms and the need to fulfill goals of opportunity and land ownership that were typical of voluntary transatlantic migrants. In these early colonial times, there were no clear rules as to how to regard Black slaves, nor was the concept of race clearly defined. Generally, there was little regard for people of African descent, and Black slaves were treated as less than human.
In the early 15th century, Portuguese explorers established “slave factories”, or trading centers on the western coasts of Africa, and began exchanging goods with African leaders for slave laborers. Approximately four million Africans were transported and sold from the western coast across the Atlantic for labor, forming the transatlantic slave trade. Slave traders justified their practice of human trafficking by treating these men, women, and children not as human beings, but as chattel, mere commodities to be sold for a profit. Slave ships were outfitted to maximize profits, by chaining up the slaves laying down, side-by-side with little room to move or even breathe. When Olaudah Equiano recalled the Middle Passage, the name for the journey across the Atlantic, he recounted feeling “suffocated,” laying in “filth” and “horror” (Equiano, 1789). Many of the enslaved peoples perished during the long and arduous journey from disease, starvation, or even suicide. Tightly packed in the bowels of ships, Africans were dehumanized, fed only enough to stay alive on the journey across the Atlantic, which could take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks (Foner, 2020). Many of these individuals were sold into the Caribbean and South America, and only a small percentage would be sold into North America.
As Virginia continued to develop into a successful and lucrative colony due to tobacco, English settlers started to get restless. They wanted to continue to expand westward, but English authorities had signed treaties with nearby Native American tribes preventing them from infringing on their territory. A new settler, Nathaniel Bacon, harnessed the discontent of the White settlers to wage a rebellion against the local leadership spearheaded by William Berkeley. Bacon’s rebellion uncovered many class issues of the colony, including the discontent of poor Whites and former indentured servants. After months of protest and armed conflict, Bacon was dead, his supporters hanged, and Jamestown was burned to the ground. The groups that were the most disadvantaged after the conflict were the Native Americans, whose lands were continually taken away from them, and Black slaves, who would be utilized for labor more heavily than White European settlers, regardless of class.
While Bacon’s rebellion helped define colonial settlers need for manual labor, early slave codes were responsible for definition of people of African descent in the colonies. The earliest colonial years would experience some ambiguity between poor Whites and Black colonists – some colonists even married and had biracial children. But as concepts of race were being further defined by scholars and society in general, Virginia again was at the forefront of creating legal parameters of race relations. Virginia established the first Slave Codes, a list of laws and regulations to define punishments, legal status, and property rights regarding Black slaves. These codes were most likely created because of problems that arose due to the lack of precedence for racialized slave labor in European colonies. Most of these codes were written to regulate crime and punishments, but one very pivotal code created the basis for the institution of slavery in America for the next few hundred years.
That 1662 code stated “that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” This legal definition created the rule that made the condition of slavery one that was acquired at birth. Over the course of human history, in many of the civilizations that practiced slavery, the condition of slavery was not genetic, nor acquired at birth. Slaves were typically prisoners of war or working off debt. At this point in colonial Virginia, English colonists created a new precedent for slave laborers that would be explicitly tied to Black slave laborers. Individuals were born into slavery, and it was rare to escape slavery.
The enslaved experience also varied depending on region, period, and owner; but typically, slaves’ lives were harsh with meager living provisions and physical punishments if a slave disobeyed orders. Slaves were considered the property of slave owners, property that could be bought, sold, punished, or even killed. Colonies each had different codes and laws to dictate slaves’ lives, but there were few, if any limits to regulate the physical abuse or even murder of slaves.
The narrative of the enslaved peoples has gotten very much distorted over the course of American history. Some students wonder why they were complacent to forced labor, and for much of this nation’s history, many people believed the Blacks were simply incapable of resisting. This is simply not true.
Slave resistance sometimes occurred even aboard the dreaded slave ships. Many slaves were shipped off to the Americas because they were prisoners of tribal war conflicts in Africa. Resistance on slave trade ships proved futile, but it still occurred. Upon arrival in the Americas, many different modes of resistance were common. Some were subtle, like working slow or feigning sickness. Others were more overt like running away from their captors. See the advertisement below meant to help the slave owner “find” their runaway slave.
1769 Virginia Gazette Advertisement
Ad placed in the Virginia Gazette in 1769.
RUN away from the subscriber in Albemarle, a Mulatto slave called Sandy, about 35 years of age, his stature is rather low, inclining to corpulence, and his complexion light; he is a shoemaker by trade, in which he uses his left hand principally, can do coarse carpenters work, and is something of a horse jockey; he is greatly addicted to drink, and when drunk is insolent and disorderly, in his conversation he swears much, and in his behaviour is artful and knavish. He took with him a white horse, much scarred with traces, of which it is expected he will endeavour to dispose; he also carried his shoemakers tools, and will probably endeavour to get employment that way. Whoever conveys the said slave to me, in Albemarle, shall have 40 s. reward, if taken up within the county, 4 l. if elsewhere within the colony, and 10 l. if in any other colony, from THOMAS JEFFERSON
Running away was the most common form of resistance to slave owners, and one that they vehemently tried to fight against, whether by physically punishing slaves or creating laws to sanction that violence. The other form of resistance that was much feared by slave owners was armed rebellion. While this was not very common, when it occurred, armed rebellion was met with harsh punishments and severe consequences.
The earliest organized rebellion to take place in North America was the Stono Rebellion. During this rebellion, slaves that had military experience were able to coordinate this rebellion through their training and shared language. They killed several White colonists in the process and conspired to make their way to Spanish controlled Florida, where there were Indians who harbored escaped slaves. One important detail is that as the slave rebels were briefly free, they moved about the town by shouting, “Liberty!” Up to this point, English authorities characterized enslaved Blacks as if they were incapable of understanding concepts of freedom and liberty like those that were so popular in the age of revolution. This incident in South Carolina proved contrary to their beliefs, reinforcing fears of slave rebellion on the scale of that that had just occurred in the nearby nation of Saint Domingue, now a free Black nation known as Haiti. From that point on, slave rebellion would be the most feared circumstances that slave owners could imagine, and they would do anything in their power to stop one from occurring.
As a reaction to this rebellion, harsher codes were established, ones that would prevent a future rebellion. New slave codes were introduced such as preventing slaves from leaving the property, congregating in groups, or even learning how to read and write. All of these were established, reinforced, and adopted in similar slave-based economies in southern colonies in order to control slave populations.
For most of the colonial period, contributions of those of African descent to the historical narrative was mostly tied to slave labor. There were few outliers to the story of hardships, racial violence, and victimization. However, men like Benjamin Banneker should be highlighted. He was born free and self-educated and managed to catch the attention of Thomas Jefferson in an exchange of letters. There is also the early case of Elizabeth Key, who was born of an interracial union and sued for her freedom and inheritance from her White kin. Hers was one outlying story of success where others were not as fortunate.
Also notable are the individuals who fought in the American Revolution. After the British openly recruited Black slaves to fight for the Crown to gain their freedom, General Washington was urged to open enlistment for Black soldiers in the Continental Army. This is one instance of early American history wherein Blacks and Whites fought in integrated regiments against a common enemy. America would not see this level of integration until the Vietnam War, nearly 200 years later. These are the real stories of Americans, who impacted American history small and big ways, notable against much adversity.
After the American revolution, as the early republic of America ratified the constitution and created its foundational laws, southern lawmakers saw fit to include provisions to ensure their interests would be protected. In doing so, these lawmakers also redefined the legal parameters of Blacks in America. As a compromise to include Black slave populations in the count to determine representation in Congress, the founding fathers included the Three-Fifths Clause in the Constitution. This law determined that for every five White men, three Black men would be counted in the state’s population. Southern lawmakers advocated for this clause to ensure maximum political representation on a federal level, while still diminishing Black slaves as property, not free citizens of the country. At this point in the nation’s history, citizenship was defined as your ability to vote, which was exclusively granted in most states to only White, property-owning men.
As North America continued to be organized into states, a delicate balance was established. Agriculturally based economies of the south allowed the practice of slavery in their states, which garnered the label “slave state.” In the north, where states later focused on industrial development, mostly outlawed slavery. These states were called “free states.” The U.S. government made the choice to keep a balance of both free and slave states as they continued to expand westward, to keep a balance of different political ideologies and economic interests were represented in government.
The African American experience from colonial times to the 1850s varied depending on region, time period, and of course slave or free status. Different factors over time, including ambiguity in colonial laws and manumission – the practice of voluntarily releasing one’s slaves from ownership, led to a significant number of free slaves in America by the mid-19th century. The majority of these former enslaved resided in northern states, but there were some in the south as well. Virtually all African Americans, whether enslaved or not, suffered racial discrimination. Years and years of Eurocentrism and White supremacy created an environment of racial oppression regardless of being “free.” Despite these hardships, being a free Black person in America was certainly preferable to being enslaved.
Despite the transatlantic slave trade being closed to the U.S. in 1808, slave populations continued to grow exponentially in the south. This was largely due to the precedent of the slave code of passing the condition of slavery through the matrilineal line. As Americans continue to expand into the west, slave population did as well, continuing to labor away on plantations across the south. Initially, colonial Americans held slaves in bondage as a necessity, a labor force that aided in building wealth and stability in the country. By the 1830s, use of Black slave labor was an integral part of the economy in the U.S. Between slave traders, auctioneers, investment bankers, and the planters themselves, most parts of the U.S. economy relied on the continued use of Black slave labor.
By the early 19th century there were a variety of ways slave owners justified continuing the practice. First, slave owners used the concept of paternalism to keep the practice. This concept argued that Black slaves were simply mentally incapable of taking care of their own well-being, therefore must remain in the care of their owners, who gave themselves the role of parent or guardian to a Black slave. George Fitzhugh, a pro-slavery advocate, claimed that “slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy” (Fitzhugh, 1854). He asserted that without the efforts of slaver owners, “crime and pauperism” would increase; therefore, slave owners were also doing a service to the nation. Paternalism not only reinforced ideas of White superiority but masked the institution with the idea that slave owners were carrying out a noble service to the country.
Other justifications of continuing the use of Black slave labor included references to Biblical passages that referred to social hierarchy and obedience as well as references to ancient societies. For instance, because ancient peoples like the Romans practiced slavery, Americans remarked that they built that empire and their advancements in arts and sciences because they were not occupied with difficult labor that the slaves were doing for them.
Although there were many Americans that advocated for the continued use of slave labor, some decided that the enslaved should be set free. Abolitionists were people that believed that slavery should be legally abolished and rose out of an era of reform movements of the early 1800s. Abolitionists gained much support from the most pious individuals; many of which believed that the progression of America was inextricably tied to social reforms. Most abolitionists believed in ending the practice of slave labor altogether. However, there were some that believed in the concept of colonization. Colonization was the idea that Black slaves would be freed, but they could not remain in the U.S. In 1816, the American Colonization Society was formed to carry out this plan. A track of land called Liberia was purchased in Africa. This region would be the place that the freed slaves would be transferred to, instead of living free in America. This concept reflected the inherent racism that ran deep within American society, since even though they rejected the practice of forced labor, they still denied African Americans a place in society. Certainly, equality for Black men and women that were born in the country and participated and contributed to the nation was not an option for many Americans at this time. Although support for colonization was not widespread, there were still a few thousand Blacks that were freed and moved to Liberia under this plan.
Famous abolitionists during this period ranged from men and women, both White and Black. One of the most notable White abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison, who published an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, which communicated the ideals of emancipation and freedom to the public. Similarly, a woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe published a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a narrative based loosely on a slave’s life. Both individuals used their voices to carry a message to the American public about the moral wrongs of slavery and its continued use in the U.S.
Even more significant were the Black abolitionists voices of the time. Fredrick Douglass was perhaps one of the most notable of the time, for he was a self-educated runaway slave. A skilled orator, Douglass spoke passionately about many issues plaguing the U.S. of the time, chief of which was slavery. Most Americans would also recognize the name Harriet Tubman, for she was known not only as a runaway slave, but a woman who helped many others runaway from enslavement and hide in the North. To her own risk, Tubman made several trips back and forth over the Underground Railroad, a nickname for a series of trails and safehouses that led slaves to safety in the North. While Tubman successfully traveled from Maryland into Pennsylvania, the Underground Railroad network had routes into other areas in the North and also Canada and even Mexico.
By the 1850s, the political debate regarding the institution of slavery had affected lawmakers in significant ways. First, after the Mexican American War, the U.S. acquired a wide swath of land – land that would eventually be organized into states. The potential for additional states in the Union meant the disruption of the delicate balance of free and slave states. The debates that raged amongst lawmakers was how to determine the status of these states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 stated that any territory above the 36 30 parallel could not be designated slave states. However, some politicians argued that new territories petitioning for annexation as a state should utilize popular sovereignty for determining status. Popular sovereignty meant that the residents of a state should vote on whether the state enters the Union as ‘free’ or ‘slave.’ Again, this meant the potential disruption of balance between free and slave states, also tipping the balance of power in Congress.
Additionally, a pivotal case was tried in the courts in 1857. Dred Scott v. Sanford regarded a slave who was petitioning for his freedom. Dred Scott was a slave that was relocated with his owner to the state of Illinois, a free state. Scott believed that since he was living for several years in a free state that must mean he was no longer a slave. However, the U.S. Supreme court ruled against Scott. In his statement after the ruling, Chief Justice Taney declared that Scott was not a U.S. citizen; he was property, “not entitled as such to sue in its courts,” and that his lawsuit was invalid. Additionally, Chief Justice Taney made statements regarding the inferiority of Black slaves, and that the “negro…be reduced to slavery for his benefit....” The decision of the court determined the legality of ‘free’ and ‘slave’ state distinctions. Effectively, Taney’s statement made it unconstitutional to ban slavery in any state, inflaming the slavery debate across the country, and deepening the sectional divide of the time (Taney, 1857).
To further deepen divisions in the U.S., a presidential election was at hand in 1860. South Carolina leaders went public with statements threatening to secede from the Union if candidate Abraham Lincoln was to become president. Southern political leaders feared that if the Republican party lead by Lincoln was to gain more power, the party would threaten states’ rights to uphold the institution of slavery. Once Lincoln was elected, southern states one by one voted to secede from the Union. Only after civil war would the country become whole once again.
The American Civil War continued to stretch the limitations of race relations in America. As the Confederacy pitted itself against the Union, thousands of Americans were killed. Initially, African Americans from all over the nation were eager to join the fight. White Union soldiers joined the fight for many reasons - abolition, draft, patriotic duty and more. For Blacks, joining in the war effort meant that they were fighting for their freedom. However, for the initial years of the war, Blacks were prevented from enlistment. Only after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued were Blacks allowed to fight. Even when enlisted, these men were segregated from White soldiers, trained and led by White men, and paid less than their White counterparts at the same ranks. Contrary to popular belief, the proclamation did not free all the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved who resided in states that had seceded from the Union. There were still some slave states where slavery remained untouched. Slavery would not be officially abolished in America until the passage of the 13th amendment in 1865.
As President Lincoln promised, a “new birth of freedom” (Lincoln, 1863) was made possible after the dust settled from the Civil War. The Reconstruction era promised much hope for newly emancipated slaves. Although slavery was officially abolished in January of 1865 and war ended in April of the same year, Juneteenth – June 19, 1865, is traditionally the day that was declared Freedom Day for African Americans in the U.S. For the formally enslaved, freedom did not just mean the end of slavery, but it meant the opportunities that most did not have access to before 1865. First and foremost, Black communities wanted access to land and voting rights. Since the revolution, these have been the hallmarks of American freedom. Other freedoms came with being newly freed in the U.S. like being reunited with lost loved ones after being sold away, access to education and medical care, the ability to buy a weapon, and for some, even running for political office.
Only these freedoms were not guaranteed in the era of Reconstruction. Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments protected the rights of most African Americans, this legislation was not easily accepted by southerners who sought to maintain White supremacy. Very quickly, vigilante groups were formed to prevent Blacks from Constitutional freedoms, especially those that attempted to run for office, buy land, and even cast their votes. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan formed to enact violence and intimidation in communities that attempted to exercise their rights. Eventually, Congress issued measures to allow military occupation of former confederate states to protect Black communities. Additionally, legislation was enacted to root out and suppress KKK and other vigilante groups from operating.
Eventually, political pressures led to a compromise that ended military occupation in the south as well as drawing back on pressures to maintain peace. During the election of 1876, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes’s victory was at question due to a very narrow margin of victory. In order to secure enough support to maintain a Republican in the White House, political leaders made a compromise to secure Hayes’s victory but vowed to withdraw federal troops from southern territories. Effectively, Northerners waning interest in supporting measures of racial equality in the U.S., coupled with a danger of political power, equaled the end of Reconstruction.
1877 TO WWII
After the failures of Reconstruction, the southern leaders reasserted their White supremacy in politics and society. As the south began to industrialize, agriculture remained at the center of most state economies. Tenant farming or sharecropping was one of the ways to suppress the economic progress of southern Blacks. Banks, politicians, and others worked together to prevent Blacks from purchasing land for farming, whether it be with aggressive intimidation or simple denial of bank loans (Coates, 2017). Relegating Blacks to sharecropping kept them under the control of White landowners, while also preventing economic growth.
Other forms of oppression included voter suppression. Measures were adopted in many counties across the south to prevent African Americans from registering to vote. These measures included poll taxes and literacy tests. Most of these measures were directed solely to African American communities.
Post-Reconstruction, the so-called New South also adopted a concept called the Lost Cause. This concept rewrote the events of the Civil War for southerners, elevating and romanticizing the war to make former Confederate soldiers’ heroes to their cause – defenders of the south and states’ rights. Monuments were built to glorify southern military leaders, Confederate flags were flown on state buildings, all meant as a reminder of the glorified Confederate past. Many regarded these actions as a reinforcement of White supremacist power in the south (Kytle & Roberts, 2018). This was a reinforcement of racial hierarchy and each symbol of the Confederacy signaled fear and intimidation in the hearts and minds of African Americans for several more generations.
Additionally, in 1890, a monumental case was tried in the supreme court that would impact the south for the next few decades. This case regarded a man who was descended from both White and Black ancestry named Homer Plessy. Plessy was arrested for sitting in a rail car designated for only Whites according to the Louisiana Separate Car Act. After the case was tried in the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices ruled that the segregation law was constitutional, and from then on, the “separate but equal” clause established racial segregation laws in many southern states. This clause meant that if separate facilities for Whites and Blacks were deemed “equal,” but only designated for use by skin color, racial segregation was Constitutional. Plessy v. Ferguson became the basis for racial segregation in state institution and public places like schools, restaurants, water fountains, and more.
The Plessy verdict marked the beginning of an era known as the Jim Crow South, an era that would not end until the 1960s. Any state that adopted racial segregation laws after the Plessy verdict was considered a Jim Crow state. Jim Crow refers to a character portrayal of a Black slave from the mid-19th century. This caricature was often found in minstrel shows, racist shows that contained skits and mini plays that portrayed the Black slave as unintelligent, subservient, lazy, and almost clown like. Usually, White performers would wear blackface – painting their faces black to play these roles. These types of shows continued in popularity well into the 20th century.
Along with Jim Crow laws arose an unspoken code of racial norms that were adopted in much of the south. These racial norms stemmed from the slave to master relationship of the distant past. These societal rules dictated that African Americans should always show deference to Whites in society, regardless of age, sex, or any other differential factors. Examples of this deference would be offering a White person a seat on public transportation, moving aside to let a White person pass, or even avoiding eye contact with a White person.
Another element of White supremacy and reinforcement of power in the Jim Crow South was racialized violence in the form of lynching. Lynching was the act of carrying out extralegal punishments on individuals without fair trial. These violent, racial attacks were mostly doled out to Black men under the suspicion of violating social norms. Many of these public executions were provoked by the supposed attack or offense to a White woman. The range of violence in lynching was wide, some public hangings, others included harsh corporal punishments and torture, often committed by multiple individuals. Some lynching acts were carried out as spectacles, wherein the victim of the punishments was held until a crowd could build up in number to watch. This vigilante justice maintained the structure of White power especially in the deep south for much of the early 20th century.
Despite all the elements of subjugation that the African American communities throughout the nation endured, many notable figures prevailed in uplifting and advocating for Black civil rights. For instance, Booker T. Washington was born from slavery but still advocated for Black rights. Washington believed that African Americans should support each other in building businesses and wealth within their own communities. This would be accomplished by becoming educated, especially in a trade skill. Washington sought to work within White systems and institutions to accomplish his goals.
W.E.B. DuBois was another man who pushed the envelope further. DuBois believed in pushing against the status quo by challenging racial inequalities in America. It was DuBois that helped established the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Because of the increased racial violence and discrimination in the Jim Crow South, many African Americans fled from the deep south for larger more metropolitan cities like New York City, Detroit, and Chicago. Beginning in about 1916, this movement of African Americans was called the Great Migration. Moving out of the rural deep south not only meant distance from racial segregation laws but more job opportunities.
In New York during the 1920s, African Americans thrived during a period dubbed the Harlem Renaissance. The arts, in different forms, music, literature, poetry, and more were cultivated and explored by Black artists during this time period of explosive creativity. Jazz music as well as blue is attributed to Black communities. Notable authors like Langston Hughes and Alain Locke inspired one another as well as other writers in the community.
And although the 1920s was a thriving post-war period of culture and wealth, Black communities were never far from racial violence and oppression. In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma saw one of the most violent attacks motivated by race in the country. The Black community of Greenwood was a thriving, economically successful community. This area was known as the “Black Wall Street” due to its economic success. The Tulsa Massacre of 1921 was inspired by an alleged attack upon a White woman named Sarah Page by Dick Rowland. Rowland was taken into custody and a lynching was said to have been planned. Members of the Black community attempted to stop this lynching, and a violent altercation erupted into a riot. This riot devolved into a full-fledged massacre and destruction of Greenwood. Bands of White attackers descended into Greenwood to attack and kill Black men of the community, as well as loot and burn businesses. This attack only ended when state authorities instituted martial law. The details of this attack had been obscured over the years, mostly downplayed by White authorities. There was little to no justice served for any of the crimes committed. The number of deaths is still unknown and property damage was extensive.
Wartime, for African Americans, provided opportunities for people of color who would not normally have opportunities. Depending on the period of history, war provided Blacks the opportunity to express patriotism, earn a fair wage, or participate as an American, even when they were not granted the rights and privileges of other Americans. African Americans fought in every armed conflict in this nation’s history, beginning with the American Revolution. By WWI, Blacks continued to serve in the military, despite being paid less, being segregated from Whites, and disrespected as returning veterans.
World War II signaled a different opportunity for African Americans. As the working class was drafted into war, factories were left to hire amongst the pool of Americans that were left. This meant employment opportunities for those who did not have prior access to well-paying industrial jobs – people like women and African Americans. However, racial discrimination still provoked companies from allowing Blacks access to these jobs. Only after A. Phillip Randolph threatened a large-scale protest in Washington D.C. did President Roosevelt issue Executive order 8802. This order prohibited employers from racial discrimination when hiring employees in defense industry jobs. Although this was a wartime provision, this order opened the door for African Americans to continue their push for racial equality in the near future.
Gainful employment and better wages during and just after the war only meant incremental changes for African Americans. To uphold the status quo of White superiority, the practice of redlining became common in the U.S. Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denial of services, usually bank loans, to individuals that lived in areas deemed “hazardous” or poor. These redlined areas were usually populated with people of color. In practice, this was the prevention of allowing African Americans and other racial minorities from leaving these redlined areas, despite their financial status. This denial of opportunity was often extended to other areas such as better education and health care.
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 60S & 70S
The Cold War era is the period that further inspired African Americans to mobilize against issues of racial segregation and demand racial equality. The end of WWII left the U.S. promising to promote self-determination of politically weak nations and the protections of humanitarian rights throughout the world. But if Americans could uphold these commitments for foreigners, what about the inequities at home? African Americans and other racially minoritized groups were asking these questions, which led to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
There were many hallmarks of the African American civil rights movement, and here are just a few significant events. The first hurdle to cross for the movement was to undo the years of segregation laws that prevented African Americans from exercising their fundamental rights as citizens of this country. The monumental court case to overturn racial segregation began with children attending schools, specifically Oliver Brown and his daughter Linda. She had to walk six blocks to catch a bus to attend an all-Black school; however, a White school was located much closer to their residence. Brown and other parents formed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education to challenge segregation in schools. This case made it to the U.S. Supreme court, and the result was monumental. Brown v. Board of Education both gave momentum to the civil rights movement and took a great step forward in the fight for racial equality. In a single opinion statement given by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court overturned the “separate but equal” clause of 1890, ending racial segregation in schools. Read the monumental decision below.
Other strides were made to challenge segregation laws in Jim Crow states. To challenge segregation in public transportation, individuals like the infamous Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, and Sarah Keyes either refused to give up their seats, or remained sitting in ‘White’ sections of the bus until they were arrested. The consequential Montgomery Bus Boycott left buses in Alabama vacant for months, until racial segregation on buses was declared a violation of civil rights under the law. Later, the Freedom Riders, both Black and White members of the Congress of Racial Equity, or CORE, continued this work by checking the compliance of desegregation on buses. The activists that defied long held racial norms were met with strong opposition, often turning brutally violent. Eventually, the Interstate Commerce Commission complied with desegregation laws.
Beginning in 1960, more young organizers staged sit-in protests in restaurants and diners. Again, the sit-ins were meant to challenge segregation laws in these businesses that separated White and Black customers. Sit-in protesters would sit in ‘Whites only’ sections, attempting to be served. Again, the sit-in activists were subject to taunts, food thrown at them, and even beatings by Whites who wanted to maintain the dominant power structure. These protests began in North Carolina and later spread to other major cities.
Regarding racial protests and organizing, there were no other famous figures of the Black civil rights movements other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was key to grassroots organizing in this era, forming the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or the SCLC. King and his supporters committed to non-violent protests – civil disobedience. The strategy was to create social change by disrupting civil order but also rejecting violent acts of opposition. King staged many marches and protests using this strategy, including the famous March on Washington D.C. in August of 1963. The “I have a dream” speech has been made famous since, but in the moment, inspired many to support racial equality.
Eventually, all this organizing and demonstrating would result in legislative change. Under President Johnson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This act outlawed all discrimination in public facilities based on color, religion, sex, and national origin. Later, after further demonstrations that unraveled into violence, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, outlawing the denial of suffrage to African Americans through literacy tests, poll taxes, or any other means of disenfranchisement. Voting rights, a touchstone of American democracy and freedom, was finally within the reach of Black voters, with legislative measures to protect their rights as American citizens.
Despite these various strides forward in the civil rights movement, at every step participants were met with aggressive and oftentimes violent opposition. The Freedom Rider buses were attacked and firebombed. Marchers in Alabama were met with attack dogs, fire hoses, and arrests despite their commitment to non-violence and the presence of children. In a devasting bombing of the historic Black church, the 16th Street Baptist Church was attacked, resulting in numerous injuries and the tragic deaths of four young girls. During the efforts to integrate schools, children were met with organized opposition in the Massive Resistance movement. Southern White politicians, school boards, and White parents worked together to stop desegregation. In some cases, they even closed schools down to prevent schools from becoming integrated.
By the end of the decade, the movement became somewhat fragmented. With the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, and numerous other protests and domestic turmoil throughout the nation, the movement lost some focus. In the case of the Watts Riots of 1965, a traffic stop of a Black man devolved into days long riots in the Los Angeles area resulting in numerous deaths and millions in property damage. The end of the decade found conservative lawmakers characterizing the civil rights movement as part of a nationwide issue of unrest and the rise of criminal behavior. The push for law and order, as well as the rise of the conservative right brought the civil rights era to a definitive close with the election of Reagan in 1980.
THE RECENT PAST
In the final decades of the 20th century, African Americans continued to push against racial oppression. They continued to face issues like wage inequality, racial profiling, general racial discrimination and more. Measures like affirmative action attempted to address racial inequities but were debated and rejected.
Jesse Jackson was heralded as a symbol for change as he embarked on a Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Numerous other Black politicians entered public service offices. Of course, the most recent and notable Black politicians in American history is Barack Obama, who was voted president in 2008 and served until 2017.
Popular entertainment would also see the successes of comedians like Eddie Murphy and Whoopie Goldberg, actors like Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, musicians like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, and of course, Oprah as an arbiter of culture.
Despite these successes, the underbelly of race relations in the U.S. is exemplified in the various deaths of many Black men and some women, mostly at the hands of the police or White citizens. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile – as well as most recently Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd are just some of the names of controversial deaths in recent years. The Floyd murder at the hands of the police spurred another surge in the social movement Black Lives Matter, a movement that advocates against police brutality and racially motivated violence. In 2020, protests erupted nationwide objecting to systemic racism that permeates American society. Supporters of the movement seek to undo racial inequities in education, employment, and other walks of American life.
Although the debates for racial justice, solutions for racial inequities are still ongoing, there is much to learn and reevaluate about African American historical narratives. African American history is American history as much as any other racial and ethnic group in this country and should be recognized for the role and place they have in the nation’s history.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 4.1
A PROUD AMERICAN OR A PROUD AFRICAN AMERICAN?
That is a question for the ages. We all have an identity. The question is, is the identity framed from within, or is it assigned to us? I think about that a lot, and I believe I have come to an answer of sorts, even if not all will agree with me. As a man of color in America, I am also an American who incidentally happens to be a man of color. What’s the difference you say? Well, read on friend, then you can tell me.
I grew up in a mixed neighborhood, where all the primary races were present within a three-block radius, any direction you looked. And I attended a parochial school where less than one percent of the student body was of color. Each day I stood and proudly said the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn’t notice that my being African-American meant anything more than the student next to me being a Caucasian-American. Race was not discussed openly. In a very real sense, I was color-blind.
I was quite proud of my father who was in the Army, a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. My mother worked as a civilian contractor for the military, at one point elevating to Regional Director for the Contracting Division in Fort Lewis, Washington. I have every reason to be proud of my parents. They served the American military community very well. They served America well.
And I myself am a veteran, having served four tours as an Air Force Officer and language development instructor for military dependents.
I am happy, and to be plaintive—very proud to have served the United States of America. I stand on the shoulders of men and women of color who served, died, and survived wars spanning the past 80 years. They were often mistreated by their peers and supervisors even as they served because they were people of color. They were overlooked for military honors, they were placed on the front lines of danger in disproportionate numbers, as they were considered “expendable.” Others worked hard to qualify for high-profile military positions and after qualifying, were designated as cooks or custodians. These actions were prevalent, unfair, and a shameful stain on the proud record of service that all veterans share.
But it cannot be doubted that these minorities did serve America, regardless of how they were treated. I, for one, consider them proud Americans, period. Many will say to me, “What’s wrong with being a proud African-American?” My answer: not a thing.
But at the end of the day, I know I still salute the American flag that I served. Oh yes, I am proud to be an African-American, but that is actually saying that there is nothing at all wrong with being an African-American. My racial pride hinges on the fact that others need to be reminded that I have nothing to be ashamed of for being Black. Being Black is not a noteworthy accomplishment, it is quite simply what I was born to be. I thank the many that have fought to preserve my racial dignity, and I will never forget what they did to pave the way for my success in life.
But what I have personally accomplished in life as a military veteran, college professor, etc. is a result of living in a country that allowed me to be those things.
So, for me, I am more than content to be known as an American whom God created with African ethnicity, living in this great country called America.
What does the author mean by “American” as opposed to “African American?” Do you agree with the author’s point of view? Why or why not? Do you think the issue the author discussed is as important today as it was 20 years ago?
This story “Proud American Or A Proud African American?” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
SUMMARY
African Americans are an integral part of U.S. history, despite being enslaved, discriminated, abused, and disregarded for so long. They came to this country by use of force, and with their agricultural labor, built up American wealth and institutions. Despite the constraints of chains and physical abuse, they fought for their freedom and helped rebirth the nation with new ideas of liberty and democracy. However, again being suppressed and segregated in the 20th century, Black communities arose again to lead civil rights movements of the 1960s to redefine freedom once again. Now in the modern era, the fight for equity continues as racial minoritized groups continuously call out and dismantle systems of oppression, pushing for American progress.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did the trans-Atlantic slave system contribute to the development of colonial America?
2. How and why did Virginia shift from indentured servitude to slavery?
3. What reasons did 19th century slave owners use to justify the use of Black slave labor?
4. Why did Reconstruction end, and what effect did it have on free Black communities?
5. What are Jim Crow laws? Why were they adopted in many southern states?
6. Explain key events and figures of the civil rights movement. How did the movement develop?
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
Blight, D. W. (2001). Race and reunion: The civil war in American memory. Harvard University Press.
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Kytle, E. J. & Roberts, B. (2018). Denmark vesey’s garden: Slavery and memory in the cradle of the confederacy. The New Press.
Locke, Joseph & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press. http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html.
Ortiz, P. 2018. An African American and Latinx history of the United States. Beacon Press.
Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study. (10th ed). Macmillan.
Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/04%3A_Our_Story_-_African_Americans.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of this module, students will be able to:
1. describe the typical immigration patterns of Asians throughout U.S. history
2. identify key legislation that prevented Asians from migrating to America and accessing the naturalization process
3. explore the various forms of xenophobic behavior of Americans regarding Asian immigrants
4. explain the civil rights efforts of the Asian American communities during the 1960s and 1970s
5. assess how globalism and warfare of the 20th century impacted Asian Americans and Asian refugees in America
6. explore the issues of the late 20th and early 21st century and how they have impacted Asian Americans
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
Chinese Massacre of 1871
COVID-19
Executive Order 9066
Gold Rush
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965
Japanese Internment
Model Minority
Ozawa v. U.S. (1922)
Page Act
Pull Factor
Push Factor
Snake River Massacre
Stockton School Shooting
Thind v. U.S. (1923)
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
Vincent Chin
Yellow Power
Xenophobia
INTRODUCTION
Many Americans have little to no knowledge about the role of Asian Americans in this nation’s history. Their stories are usually left out of history books with brief mention of internment camps, WWII, and Vietnam. This oversight has occurred for two reasons. First, Asia is a vast continent that has supplied the most diverse population of American immigrants over the course of our history. To cover the history of all these immigrants would prove quite difficult in most high school or college courses. Secondly, most history books used in public schools and colleges offer little coverage of the role of Asian Americans in U.S. history. For many years, it was believed that Asian Americans had little impact in America. This is false.
From China to India to the Philippines, Asians have been migrating to the U.S. in ebbs and flows since about the 19th century. Like many other immigrant groups, specifically non-Whites, Asians were largely unaccepted and at times even met with aggression by American society. Like many non-White immigrants, Asians were used for difficult, sometime dangerous labor, but cast aside as inferior and unable to enter the fold of American society. Asian immigrants faced numerous legal obstacles from entry to the country, to access to citizenship, to general social acceptance.
When studying Asian American history, it is useful to break up the history into multiple blocks of time. Like many other diverse ethnic groups, there is not one solitary wave of immigration that occurred with Asians.
We will be focusing our study of Asian Americans in three waves: the arrival of large numbers of East Asians during the American Gold Rush, aspects of mid-20th century global conflicts, and the wave of immigration that shifted the American demographic during the mid-1960s. During each of these times, the Asians were met with much adversity, but many still managed to prosper in America despite it.
This is their story.
MID 1800S TO EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Europeans have had a long-held fascination with the far East due to medieval travelers and traders like Marco Polo. For much of the early modern period, Spanish and Portuguese sailors attempted to find new trade routes to access the highly coveted exotic goods of the east. By the mid-16th century, Spanish explorers had much contact with Asians, and even employed some from their colonizing efforts in places like the Philippines. The earliest Asian arrivals to the North America were Filipino crew amongst the Spanish ships that landed in Northern California in the year 1587 (Lee, 2015). Due to Spanish colonization of the Americas, a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino peoples migrated to South America during this era. Although Asians arrived with the Spanish, generally they were treated with much derision: paid less than Spanish sailors aboard these ships, given substandard living conditions and provisions.
By the early 19th century, a significant number of Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese, arrived in America. The motivation for migration was due to a variety of reasons, reasons that are called push and pull factors. A push factor would be something that compels an individual or group to leave a country, such as a political upheaval or armed conflict. A pull factor is a reason that would compel a person or group to enter a country, such as economic opportunity. The primary opportunity during this time for the Chinese to migrate to America was the Gold Rush.
The Gold Rush began when a new settler to California named James Marshall found a shiny substance in a riverbed in the year 1848. Thereafter, the scramble to pan and mine for gold became a global pull factor. Immigrants flocked from around the world and the U.S. to benefit from this discovery including many Chinese. Named for the year at the height of this rush, the “49ers” established towns, businesses, and laws to support this influx of people. Asian immigrants that made landfall on the west coast came in droves, but they faced obstacles linked to their countries of origin. Racial discrimination made it difficult to capitalize on the success of gold mining and panning, compared to other Americans and White immigrants.
The Chinese men who immigrated were immediately “othered” for their appearance. Many of them had a haircut called a que, which had a hairline shaved halfway up their scalps and worn in a long ponytail in the back. They wore clothes that appeared to be cotton pajamas to Americans, and they ate food with sticks (chopsticks) and strange sauces. These men were labeled “celestials” to complete their perception of strange and untrustworthiness. Lee Chew recounted the treatment of Chinese immigrants like himself, calling it “wrong and mean,” and that Chinese men were used only for “cheap labor.” Chew compared himself to other immigrants of the time like the Irish and Italians, and how the Chinese were unfairly denied citizenship or belonging as “law abiding, patriotic Americans” (Chew, 1882).
The start of the Gold Rush occurred when California was not yet annexed as a state, meaning it had no political officials, state constitution, or organized law enforcement. This was the “wild west,” and local sheriffs and deputies were often stretched thin, and law was enforced haphazardly. Venerable groups like the Chinese were offered little protection during this tenuous time, and these “celestials” were received with fear and hatred. This type of behavior is called xenophobia, a fear or hatred of foreigners. Often, this behavior erupted into violence upon the immigrant groups.
This tension would come to a head in events like the Chinese Massacre of 1871. Americans’ xenophobia led them to resort to violence to discourage the Chinese from settling permanently in America. Protests erupted in many cities to drive out these immigrants. In Los Angeles, tensions escalated into violence when Chinese men were accused to have killed two White men in the city, one of them a police officer. Chinese men were openly stalked and killed, resulting in 19 dead, and 15 later lynched by hanging.
Another instance of xenophobia were the events of the Snake River Massacre of 1887 when two small groups of Chinese men obtained mining permits in Oregon. White men conspired to attack these men, tracking them through the Oregon hills and systematically murdering them. An accurate number of the men killed is unknown since their bodies were left to the elements for an extended period and their gold stolen. The White perpetrators were brought to trial and later acquitted. This violent event was one of many that exhibits open violence against Asians with little to no consequences.
Despite having little success in gold mining, the Chinese found other ways to make a living in the U.S. In the 1860s, the Chinese found work mostly in the construction of railroads. These men did the most difficult and dangerous work, blasting rock with dynamite, clearing away the debris, shoveling and more. The achievement of the transcontinental railroad helped build the wealth of the U.S. during the 19th century, and 90 percent of its work was done by Chinese immigrants. When the railroad was completed in 1869, not one Chinese worker was present in the picture to commemorate the completion (Lee, 2015).
After much violence and conflict, Americans were ready to solidify their discrimination into legislation. Beginning in the 1860s, many laws were passed at local and state levels to prevent Asian immigrants from economic advancement. This eventually led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a piece of legislation that would prevent Chinese immigrants from entering the US for 10 years unless entering for temporary stays related to business or education. The Chinese were also banned from obtaining naturalized citizenship, a law that would be challenged later.
Perhaps even more damaging was the Page Act, passed in 1875, which banned Asian women from entering the country because they were suspected of prostitution. This act had two ramifications. First, there was the implication that Asian women were suspected of sex work or corruption of society with promiscuity. Many lawmakers and others argued frequently at the time that both Asian men and women posed a sexual danger to American society. Secondly, it was very common for men to immigrate first, then send for the rest of their families. If wives attempted to enter the country after their husbands settled in the U.S., they faced an additional obstacle of being suspected of prostitution upon entry. Therefore, families were prevented from uniting as a result of this act, and Chinese women were blanketed with the label of promiscuity and sexual deviancy.
The Asians that were already in the country were treated with hostility and suspiciousness. The first picture identification cards were carried by the Chinese to identify them as foreign. Law makers in America then wondered, where do the Chinese and other Asians “fit” in society? Should they be Americanized, assimilated, or educated?
Asian immigrants and Asian Americans tried to fit in, acclimate to American society, and “become” American in a variety of ways. Methods included learning English, changing clothing and cultural practices, marrying Americans, and more. Most importantly, Asian Americans worked within the court systems in the U.S. to assert their civil rights. The following three cases illustrate some key court battles.
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
Wong Kim Ark was an American born Chinese man. His parents were born in China, but Ark was from California. In 1894, Ark took a trip to China to visit, and when he attempted to return to his home in San Francisco, he was denied entry. Officials in California denied his citizenship because his parents were ineligible for naturalization under Chinese exclusionary policies. After Ark’s case was tried before the U.S. Supreme Court, the fourteenth amendment was upheld, granting Ark birthright citizenship as being a native-born citizen. Ark’s case was monumental and would serve as a precedent for birthright citizenship, regardless of race from that point onward.
Ozawa v. U.S. (1922)
In the year 1922, one Japanese man decided to challenge the legality of Asian immigrants being barred from the naturalization process and American definitions of race. Takao Ozawa sought to claim his rights and access to the American dream by attempting naturalization. Ozawa felt entitled to the right, mainly by the basis of his success, contributions to society, and efforts to Americanize. The most interesting argument was the color of his skin. It appeared “White” just like many other American citizens. Ozawa attempted assimilation much like Italians and Irish had in his recent past. He said, “I am not American, but at heart I am a true American.” However, the courts declared against him, and the country would not see Japanese immigrants achieve citizenship for many years after.
Thind v. U.S. (1923)
Bhagat Singh Thind was a high caste Indian man who arrived in America to attend university. He served in the U.S. army during WWI and attempted to obtain citizenship. His naturalization process was denied, on the basis of his “Hindu” status, despite the fact that he was Sikh. Thind sued, on the basis that he was, in fact, Caucasian. This logic follows the anthropological distinction that classified Thind as Caucasian, since his ancestors descended from the Caucus mountains. The court ruled against him, and his citizenship was revoked, along with other East Indians that had previously been granted citizenship.
As a result of this case, many other “non-White” persons lost their citizenship. One of those men was Vaishno Das Bagai. He escaped British tyranny in India and established a successful business in San Francisco. He received his citizenship in 1921, only later to have it revoked after the Thind ruling. Bagai took his own life in 1928 and his suicide note was published in the newspaper.
His words - “I came to America thinking, dreaming and hoping to make this land my home…But now they come to me and say, I am no longer an American citizen…Humility and insults, who is responsible for all this? Myself and the American government. I do not choose to live the life of an interned person: yes, I am in a free country and can move about where and when I wish inside the country. Is life worth living in a gilded cage?”
These three court cases prove that Asian Americans were continually denied a place in American society, despite military service, economic status, or willingness to adapt to society. This precedent continued into the later 20th century; even as American society diversified even further.
GLOBAL CONFLICTS & THE 20TH CENTURY
As the U.S. propelled into the new century, so did their involvement in global affairs. We begin at the turn of the century wherein many industrialized countries were participating in “new imperialism,” efforts of colonization and imperialism in non-White countries. The U.S. was involved in armed conflicts in the western hemisphere like the Spanish-American War which ended in 1898 with U.S. control over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Freedom fighters led by Filipino nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo rejected U.S. sovereignty having fought side by side their American allies against the Spanish. This rejection prolonged the war, now fought between the U.S. and Filipinos until 1902.
Colonization of the Philippines was characterized by President McKinley and other lawmakers as a boon to Filipinos who were believed to be too uncivilized and savage for self-rule. It was these same principles that continued to prevail foreign policy throughout most of the first half of the 20th century.
World wars during the 20th century brought Americans together with an abundance of national pride and duty to the country. At times, war also evoked feelings of anxiety and xenophobia to the nations involved in the conflict. World War II is one of those times.
Just before the winter of 1941, there were about 125,000 people of Japanese descent living in America, most of them in west coast regions. Pearl Harbor was a U.S. naval station in Hawaii that was the victim of a surprise attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. This attack resulted in mass American casualties and was too close to the mainland for officials. As a result, Americans stepped up their involvement in the war, and in February of 1942, President Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066. This order authorized the militarized internment of all “persons of Japanese ancestry” residing in the western regions of the U.S. The justification was that Americans suspected that anyone of Japanese ancestry could still have loyalties to their ethnic homelands and would practice espionage. There was little to no evidence to support this concept, nevertheless, many supported this order and about 110,000 Japanese, many of them citizens and American born, many of them children, were put into internment camps.
Forced internment caused almost \$2 billion in property loss and even more in income loss for those interned. Internment lasted until the end of the war, and some even remained in the camps post-war because they no longer had homes to return to, for they were repossessed by authorities. It was not until the 1980s when the U.S. government paid restitution to the families that were affected in the amount of \$20,000 per Japanese American families that were interned.
NEW IMMIGRANTS & EXPANSION OF DIVERSITY
The end of World War II brought the U.S. a new role on the global stage. The use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war made the U.S. the most powerful country in the world, while also causing mass death and destruction in the name of democracy. The paradox of these two concepts conveyed a conflict in American ideology.
In order to maintain the moral high ground, the U.S. passed new immigration policies in 1952, revising earlier immigration quotas of the 1920s. This act loosened some restrictions on Asian nations to immigrate to the U.S., and also made naturalization possible for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese immigrants, but only from these countries of origin.
The next decade brought milestones for racial minorities. These changes included legislation, social movements, and community activism that remade Asian Americans for the next few decades.
First, the legislation that passed broadened the definition of Asian American and dramatically diversified America. This was the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, also referred to as the Hart-Cellar Act. The act overturned previous legislation that granted entry into the country based on national origin. Instead, the act created preference for highly skilled immigrants and ones that already had family in the country. Policymakers did not anticipate the impact of this legislation. Immigration rates increased dramatically, and many of those immigrants came from Asian countries.
Next, as the Civil Rights movement propelled equality forward for African Americans, the same call for equality was inspired in many other groups. Asian Americans took to the streets just as other racially minoritized groups demanding for equality. Asian Americans like Grace Lee Boggs participated in marches for equality on behalf of African Americans, then turned to inspire Asian communities to do the same. Philip Vera Cruz was a Filipino American who was active in promote fair labor practices for farmers in California and was instrumental in Cesar Chavez’s protest movements in Delano, California. Asian Americans formed a pan-Asian coalition nationwide of Asians that would reject discriminatory labels like “Oriental” and “yellow,” and demand equality on all fronts for Asian Americans. Like many other minoritized groups, in an effort to reclaim a once derogatory term, supporters of Asian American rights claimed Yellow Power in their rhetoric.
Although the label of “Oriental” is now largely understood as inappropriate, another more nefarious label was applied to the Asian community, one that has very complex ramifications. This is the label of “model minority.” The concept of the model minority characterizes Asians as obedient, law-abiding, and submissive to authorities (Thrupkaew, 2002). It also uses three types of Asians, the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as prime examples of what a successful immigrant should be. These three groups have had their hardships but have been able to become successful in the U.S. and statistically held jobs with higher wages and did not rely on government programs. This concept created much tension between minority groups as well as within the Asian community itself.
First, the model minority paradigm was created to juxtapose the perceived success of Asians against the perceived failures of other persons of color like African Americans and Hispanic Americans who were reliant of government programs and assistance at higher rates. By upholding the Asian community as “model minorities,” the accusation on other ethnic groups was a questioning on why they also could not live up to those standards.
Secondly, the model minority term created tensions between Asian Americans. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese immigrants had a longer history of emigrating into the U.S., and as a result were second and third or more generations of wealth by this point. Additionally, by the 1950s, preference was given to highly skilled Asians who were of these three groups to enter the country, providing a solid economic foundation from the start. And lastly, these three groups reflect a clear bias of colorism, for decedents from these groups tend to be lighter complected than newer immigrants and refugees post 1965. All of these factors created tension and resentment between Asians who either benefitted from the label or were disadvantaged as a model minority.
Although the 1960s brought a push for social change in America, equality continued to be an uphill battle for Asian Americans. Further social conflicts around the globe like the Vietnam War and human rights crises brought even more Asians into the U.S., but this time as refugees. Southeast Asian groups like Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian, and Hmong immigrants came to the U.S. and were received with fear and suspicion that heightened tensions in some pockets of the nation. Waves of new immigrants typically bring fears to Americans who anticipate a strain on resources that directly affect their livelihoods. These tensions will sometimes erupt in violence as they did in two separate cases during the 1980s.
The 1980s brought an economic downturn that inflated the sense of limited community resources and employment. This anxiety is best exemplified with the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese man who lived in Detroit, Michigan. Economic strain was felt in blue collar jobs in this city, mainly the automobile industry. Chin was coming home from his bachelor party when he was beaten to death by two White men who claimed he was a “Jap” that was taking jobs away from Americans. These men plead guilty, but received no jail time, only probation with a \$3,000 fine.
In Stockton, California, at the end of the decade, 1989, another heinous act motivated by racism occurred. This Stockton school shooting marked the deadliest school shooting with the highest number of fatalities and injuries until Columbine in 1999. A White man used an AK-47 to enter Cleveland Elementary School of predominantly Asian American children and opened fire. He shot 34 people and killed 5 that were between the ages of 6 and 9. This elementary school was known to have been attended by mostly Asian students, many of them refugees from Southeast Asia. Of those children killed, all of them were Asian.
THE RECENT PAST
By the 21st century, bias and discrimination continued as a result of the historical racial discrimination of the previous decades. The model minority myth continues to be the way in which most Americans view the Asian American community. While there is some truth to the success of select Asian American groups that reside in the U.S., still many reportedly experience racial discrimination and hate crimes even to this day.
By 2020, a global pandemic made the fears and anxieties of many Americans manifest in different ways, amplified, and proliferated by the internet and social media. Known as COVID-19, the virus that is believed to have originated in China has affected the Asian American community in terrible ways. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have reported countless acts of violence against Asians every day. These acts of violence range from calling names, spitting in faces, to physical violence reigned down mostly on the elderly.
Perhaps one of the more significant acts of violence occurred in Atlanta, Georgia in 2021. This incident involved a White man entering into a spa and shooting at its occupants. Eight people were killed, six of them Asian women. The shooting was the alleged result of the shooters Christian faith at odds with his sex addiction. However, the shooting exemplified another incident of anti-Asian sentiment following the tensions of the pandemic. The incident sparked protests in multiple cities against anti-Asian violence that were being reported across the country.
In the 21st century, Asian Americans remain the most ethnically diverse, rapidly growing ethnic groups in America. The Democratic Presidential nominee campaign of Andrew Yang put a prominent Asian at the forefront of American politics. A Korean foreign language film, Parasite, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards with overwhelming praise. These are signals that Asian Americans are not only active and prominent members of society but have even more room to grow in the coming years.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 5.1
SOUTHEAST ASIAN REFUGEES
When Southeast Asian refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam started to flow into American cities starting in 1976 and into the 1980s, most Americans didn’t know who we were, much less what we had gone through before coming to the United States. In many ways, we were hoping no one would know who we were. Our neighbors thought we were Chinese or Japanese – after all, all Asians look alike to them, and so we must be the same. “Are you Chinese? Are you Japanese?” they asked. We knew English enough to know those questions were about who we were, but we shook our heads, saying, “No, no.” And perhaps we could’ve told our neighbors that we were Hmong, but it would be too difficult to explain why we came to the United States. Silence was the better choice.
Another generation had to be immersed in the English language and culture before we could tell our story. Our story of survival and resilience and collaboration with the U.S. to fight communists simply had to wait. Among first-generation SE Asian college students, we felt the need to capture our own respective lived experiences from our own lenses rather than waiting for another non-SE Asian person to give us another watered-down version of our plight. Young scholars from the Cambodian and Vietnamese communities had already documented their own refugee experiences through various publications in recent years. In my case as a first-generation Hmong college student and now a professor of political science and ethnic studies, I’m compelled to provide my own version of the Hmong plight to the U.S. and secondary migration to the Central California.
Community and social dialogues among Hmong elders revealed that the first few Hmong families to move to the Central Valley, California started in Merced in 1979. From those families, words got around to relatives across the country – wherever resettlement agencies had scattered us (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Tennessee, or Oklahoma) – that California’s Central Valley had fertile land for farming, the only method the Hmong had been familiar with in making a living. We came from the mountainous terrains in Laos but found the flat valley attractive, serving as a magnetic device that continued to pull Hmong families across the country to start their new lives in Merced and Fresno. This massive secondary migration of Hmong refugees to the Central Valley caused social workers to accuse the Hmong of taking advantage of the generous California welfare system. In 1985 the welfare dependency among the Hmong was about 75%. Our big families of 6.9 children in 1986 received more welfare cash aid than a father working \$4.25 an hour minimum wage job.
Though small in number, Southeast Asians in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam played a pivotal role in the Cold War, international political power jostling between the United States and the Soviet Union. For fifteen years from 1960 – 1975, Americans read in newspapers and saw the disaster of the Vietnam War unfolded on television. The political quagmire that engulfed Southeast Asia expanded over three presidential administrations – Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon - became a permanent scar on the American consciousness, a hefty price to pay both in human lives and money (more than 58,000 dead and over 300,000 wounded and \$168 billion - \$1 trillion in today’s money.)
In part this American foreign policy (communist containment) in Southeast Asia was the core of the United States’ response to communist expansion in Asia at large. In 1949, China turned communists with Mao Zedong’s victory over the Nationalist Chinese forces. A year later with the support of the Soviet Union and China, communist North Korea invaded democratic South Korea. The conflict ended in an armistice in 1953. In Southeast Asia, the three French colonies Cambodian, Laos, and Vietnam were vying for their respective independence from France beginning in 1945. Subsequently, Cambodia and Laos were granted independence in 1953 without military conflicts. However, France would not relinquish the same to Vietnam until it was militarily defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu by the Vietnamese nationalist Viet Minh in 1954. The United States orchestrated the Geneva Accord of 1954 to divide Vietnam into two countries – North Vietnam, communist controlled and South Vietnam, democratic. This strategy of using South Vietnam as a buffer zone to protect Thailand and Burma was part of the “domino theory” hysteria that if one country fell to communists, then the neighboring one will also fall, and then the one after.
Peace in Southeast Asia proved fragile as the power vacuum created by the departure of France resulted in the monarchies in Laos and Cambodia too unstructured to govern. Accusations of corruption and other internal conflicts ensued, creating ideological factions that could not come to political consensus. The Geneva Accord of 1962, an international agreement to establish Cambodia and Laos as neutral countries, meaning they supported neither communism nor democracy, and there were to be no foreign troops in Laos or Cambodia. But this agreement simply proved its own ineffectiveness. The regional powers like China and North Vietnam and the superpower of the Soviet Union and China never adhered to the terms. North Vietnam infiltrated to Laos and Cambodia through the Ho Chi Minh Trail that cut through eastern Laos, bordering North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Under the Kennedy administration, the CIA secretly recruited democratic leaning Hmong, Lao, and other indigenous hilltribes to fight the North Vietnamese communists on the Trail. Leading this effort was a Hmong man named Vang Pao, also known as General Vang Pao, who rose to prominence as a freedom loving fighter and staunch American ally. The primary duties of the Hmong under his command were to: 1) disrupt the flow of supplies to South Vietnam, 2) rescue downed American pilots, 3) provide strategic intelligence on enemy operations, and 4) guard satellite installations. The Hmong became the sacrificial lamb in America’s secret war to contain communists by paying with 10% of its population in Laos – 30,000 dead among 300,000.
The calamity of American foreign policy in Southeast Asia created one of the largest exoduses of refugees out of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. People who had sided with the American effort were targeted for reprisals by communist forces after the war. About 200,000 Cambodians fled the terror of their own countrymen, the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for killing over 2 million of its own population. In Laos nearly 300,000 Hmong, lowland Lao, Mien, Khmu, Lahu and other hilltribes made their own escapes to neighboring Thailand. Over a million Vietnamese fled South Vietnam to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. This tragedy of constant refugees fleeing persecution continued into the mid 2000’s, but politically speaking, people who fled Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after 1991 were no longer categorized as refugees.
This story “Southeast Asian Refugees” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
SUMMARY
Like previously covered groups, people of Asian descent have been present in the Americas since the 16th century. Peoples from Asia have typically been regarded as perpetually foreign, admired for their exoticism, but devalued as too otherworldly. Asians have struggled to be accepted amongst American society, despite their contributions of labor, military service, and wealth. Even when utilizing the justice system to assert their civil rights, Asians were met with opposition and oppression. Regardless of their rejection, Asian Americans forged a place for themselves in American society, growing in number and influence as one of the most diverse and fast-growing groups in the U.S. today.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did people of Asian descent make their way to the Americas during the colonial period?
2. How were Asians generally received during the 1800s?
3. Explain some of the ways Asians attempted to assimilate into American society?
4. What political policies of the 20th century impact Asian Americans?
5. What kinds of racial discrimination did Asian Americans endure after WWII?
6. How did Asian Americans assert their civil rights during the 1960s and 70s?
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures (1st ed.). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.
Hamilton-Merritt, J. (1993). Tragic mountains: the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos, 1942-1992. Indiana University Press.
Lee, E. (2015). The making of Asian America: A history. Simon & Schuster.
Locke, J. & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press. http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html.
Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study. (10th ed). Macmillan.
60 Minutes. (2015 August 13). Hmong Our Secret Army. [YouTube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4U2P7tsOAQ
Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/05%3A_Our_Story_-_Asian_Americans.txt |
Learning Objectives
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. explain the implications of culture on social power and hierarchies
2. summarize the mechanisms used by dominant groups to develop and sustain power
3. understand cultural hegemony
4. identify and evaluate prejudice and discrimination
5. discuss types of racism and exploitation
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Acculturation
Affective Form
Assimilation
Authoritarian personality
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Form
Color Blindness
Conative Dimension
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
Cultural Fit
Cultural Hegemony
Cultural Power
Cultural Relativism
Discrimination
Ethnocentrism
Eurocentrism
Fallacies
Ideological Racism
In-group
Individual Discrimination
Institutional Discrimination
Out-group
Overcategorize
Prejudice
Racial Prejudice
Racial Privilege
Racism
Reference Group
Scientific Racism
Social Location
Socialization
Socioeconomic Status
Stereotypes
Symbolic interactionism
White Supremacy
INTRODUCTION
By learning the history and the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans, we are better able to understand the racial formation, racial intolerance, racial and ethnic inequalities these major underrepresented groups have faced in the United States. The histories and lives of Americans of color show courageous character and acts of valor in their fight for freedom and equality as promised in the Constitution of the United States. Ancestors of these racial-ethnic groups represent agents of change and are our role models in the fight against prejudice, racism, and discrimination.
CULTURAL HIERARCHIES
All humans are comprised of the same biological structure and matter. The unique distinctions among us stem from our culture (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). The differences in our values, beliefs, norms, expressive language, practices, and artifacts are which stands us apart from one another. Being culturally unique projects exclusivity that draws attention to our variations and differences. People find cultural fit or acceptance from those who share uniqueness or the same cultural characteristics. Consequently, people may find or experience intolerance or rejection from those with different cultural traits.
Cultural distinctions make groups unique, but they also provide a social structure for creating and ranking people based on similarities or differences. A group’s size and strength influence their power over a region, area, or other groups. Cultural power lends itself to social, economic, and political power that influences people’s lives by controlling the prevailing norms or rules and making individuals adhere to the dominant group culture voluntarily or involuntarily.
Culture is not a direct reflection of the social world (Griswold, 2013). Humans frame culture to define meaning and interpret the social world around them. As a result, dominant groups are able to manipulate, reproduce, and influence culture among the masses or all Americans. Common culture found in society is actually the selective transmission of elite-dominated values (Parenti, 2006). This practice known as cultural hegemony suggests that culture is not autonomous, it is conditionally dictated, regulated, and controlled by dominant or powerful groups. The major forces shaping culture are in the power of elite-dominated interests who render limited and marginal adjustments to make culture appear changing in alignment with evolving social values (Parenti, 2006). The dominating cultural group often sets the standard for living and governs the distribution of resources.
When social groups have or are in power, they have the ability to discriminate on a large scale. A dominant group or the ruling class impart their culture in society by passing laws and informally using culture to spread it. Access to these methods allows hegemonic groups to institutionalize discrimination. This results in unjust and unequal treatment of people by society and its institutions. Those who culturally align to the ruling class fair better than those who are different.
PREJUDICE
Cultural intolerance may arise when individuals or groups confront new or differing values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, or artifacts. Think about a time when you came across someone who did not fit the cultural “norm” either expressively or behaviorally. How did the person’s presence make you feel? What type of thoughts ran through your head? Were you compelled to understand the differences between you and the other person or were you eager to dismiss, confront, or ignore the other person?
Living in a diverse society requires us to tackle our anxiety of the unknown or unfamiliar. The discomfort or cognitive dissonance we feel when we are around others who live and think differently than ourselves makes us alter our thoughts and behaviors towards acceptance or rejection of the “different” person in order to restore cognitive balance (Festinger, 1957). When people undergo culture shock or surprise from experiencing new culture or ideas, their minds undergo dissonance. Similar to a fight or flight response, we choose to learn and understand each other’s differences or mock and run away from them.
People judge and evaluate each other on a daily basis. Assessing other people and our surroundings is necessary for interpreting and interacting in the social world. Problems arise when we judge others using our own cultural standards. As discussed in Module 1, we call the practice of judging others through our own cultural lens ethnocentrism. This practice is culturally universal. People everywhere think their culture or way of life is true, moral, proper, and right (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). By its very definition, ethnocentrism creates division and conflict between social groups whereby mediating differences is challenging when everyone believes they are culturally superior, and their values, beliefs, norms, expressive language, practices, and artifacts should be the standard for living.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 7.1
NEW HOME & RACE RELATIONS
My family fled communist Laos to find safety and freedom with a kernel of hope that our life in a different country would be easier. After four years of living in a dilapidated Thailand refugee camp, fenced by barbed wire, my family resettled in the United States in 1979. Of all places, we ended up in Nashville, home to America’s country music. How heartland could one get! I get to tell friends and colleagues that my first three words of English were: Yes, No, and Hee-Haw.
All kidding aside, there were serious racial tensions between the Hmong and our Black neighbors. They had no idea who we were and vice versa. Granted, most of our Black neighbors were indifferent towards us; some were friendly and greeted us with a good morning wave; a few, however, found new opportunities to perpetrate their violence. Three Hmong families – my father’s, my cousin’s, and our brother-in-law’s – with 19 children were housed in a 4-bedroom and 1 restroom apartment. We were refugees; tight space was not a problem. Soon enough, though, we discovered we may have escaped the terror of communists, but then only to enmesh in a new terror on Wharf Avenue in Nashville’s impoverished project, a quicksand that swallowed Hmong refugees into culture shock and further made us easy crime targets.
While biking around the block, my younger brother, Pao, 9 years-old, was chased and shot on the forehead by a BB gun, nearly blinding him. The two juvenile Black boys who shot him were never brought to justice. My aunt Blong had her stack of food stamps stolen from her pocket as she was shoved to the sidewalk. Early one morning my uncle Nhia Va got robbed and stabbed in the stomach while walking to his car to go to work. He managed to run two blocks to find help at our apartment while trying to keep his intestines from slipping out more. I was ten years old; the gruesome image haunted me for years. The police had to be called more times than I can remember. My older brother, Shua, was the only person who spoke English and made all the calls to the police. One day we heard a loud bang on our door. We opened the door and found eight angry black men standing outside, yelling and demanding Shua to go outside. Who knew what would have transpired next had we not had a security door. Quickly, my brother called the police again. The men dispersed when the police came a minute later.
These incidents in turn twisted us, and we learned to hate back, wondering why Black people were so mean. We spoke ill of them and wished they didn’t exist. The racial tensions were beyond remedy. The only remedy was to move away, but we could not. We had no money, no way to search for a new place. Where it would be safe, we could not afford; where we could afford with the little government cash aid we received, there was no vacancy.
Our three congested Hmong families lived in fear and constant harassment for another eight months before our sponsor found two open apartments on 40th Avenue and a house in a quiet White neighborhood, making our relocation possible. The project on 40th Avenue felt different, though our new neighbors were also predominantly Black. We felt safe sitting outside our front door to relax. The Black kids in the neighborhood were friendly and invited my two brothers and me to play basketball and football. Sports pulled us together and made us friends. In basketball these Black friends taught us names like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and football Earl Campbell, Steve Bartkowski, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, and Joe Montana. When our family moved to Fresno a year and half later to join the growing Hmong community in Fresno, my brothers and I truly missed those three Black friends. At times we reminisced about our childhood playdays with Joe Bert, KK, and Lil. Through those friends, we learned to judge people by character, not by skin color – reversing our Wharf Avenue nightmare.
Church service was a thing our family, along with other Hmong and White American families, did on Sunday mornings. White people from the Church of Christ picked us up for service; they dropped us off. But they didn’t live near us. Occasionally they invited us to their homes across town. We saw how nice, clean, and spacious their homes were; no broken glass bottles on the street, grass cut, and trees trimmed – a drastic change from what I’ve seen at our apartment in the project. It was my first glimpse into the economic divide of a deep sociological (perhaps racial) issue beyond my comprehension.
My first introduction to college was when a church friend, Allen Burris, took us to get some tutorials from his college friends at David Lipscomb College. On a side conversation, I asked a naïve question to which I learned something new quickly, “Allen, what’s the name of the principal in your college?” “My principal is Mr. Snow,” I revealed proudly like I got points for knowing it. Allen responded, “In college we don’t have a principal, but we have a president.” I remember asking Allen further (with my broken and hesitant English) why Jimmy Carter is the president, but we have a person in the school called president, too? The conversation morphed into some additional explanation that Jimmy Carter is the president for the whole United States, but the school president is only in charge of the college. I knew then I wanted to go to college, not to become a college president but just to know things.
Fresno’s growing Hmong population provided my parents a sense of belonging - seeing relatives, speaking the same language, and living near each other in apartment clusters in SE Fresno. They felt they could be Hmong again after two years of cultural and linguistic isolation in Nashville. Other Hmong people organized cultural festivals to restage an old practice in a new country, for example, the Hmong New Year celebration became the premier event to attend. This multifaceted social event attracted friends and relatives from all over the country to meet in Fresno. Young single people had the opportunity to find a spouse, fulfilling booth vendors and organizers’ dreams of cash operating schemes. My sisters who were barely in their mid-teens were pressured to get married. Some conversations among the elderly women – my mother included - were about how to marry off their daughters before they became “old maids.” Occasionally the conversation drifted off to complain about the inconsistent welfare amount they received from social services. Both issues horrified and embarrassed me profoundly. I only wish my sisters were directed towards going to college instead of early marriage; I wish my parents had education and held jobs, so we didn’t have to rely on welfare. I vowed never to succumb to the social backwardness of my culture because being Hmong meant uneducated and dependent on welfare.
This story “New Home & Race Relations” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
The U.S. cultural lens is a product of the country’s founding fathers and early settlers. European culture and history became the widely accepted view during the colonialization of what we call “America.” Eurocentrism is a worldview centered on Western civilization derived from the culture and history of Western Europe and the early colonizers. As the country was conquered and a government established, native peoples and immigrants (voluntary and involuntary) were pressured to assimilate and acculturate to European way of life. Through assimilation, minority groups were forced to assume and absorb the majority (dominant group) culture. Acculturation occurred as minority groups adapted to the dominant culture while maintaining some cultural uniqueness such as language, traditions, and dietary customs. Eurocentric ideals continue to be instilled in America today through socialization of children and youth, and the assimilation and acculturation of new immigrants.
Eurocentric ideals promote racial-ethnic group dominance of Whites. White supremacy is the belief that White people are a superior race and must dominate society to the exclusion or detriment of other racial-ethnic groups. As we have learned, the concept of race is socially constructed. Scientists working on the human genome project showed there is no “race” gene (Anderson & Collins, 2010). The meaning of race stems from social, historical, and political contexts which nonetheless makes race meaningful and real in our experiences. Racial framing and classification reflect prevailing or dominant group views and reinforces the ideological belief that racial categories and grouping is natural or the norm though scientific evidence suggests the contrary. Racial categories are the basis for allocating resources and framing political issues and conflicts (Anderson & Collins, 2010). For example, the Holocaust was a result of the social construction of “Jew” as a race in Nazi Germany. Still today White supremacist groups and White racism typify the “Jewish” racial category even for people who are seen and live in our society as “White” (Ferber, 1999).
In contrast to ethnocentric and Eurocentric beliefs and ideas, cultural relativism insinuates judging a culture by the standards of another is objectionable, unpleasant, and offensive. It seems reasonable to evaluate a person’s values, beliefs, and practices from their own cultural standards rather than be judged against the criteria of another (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Learning to receive cultural differences from a place of empathy and understanding serves as a foundation for living together despite variances. Like many aspects of human civilization, culture is not absolute but relative suggesting values, beliefs, and practices are only standards of living as long as people accept and live by them (Boas, 1887). Developing knowledge about cultures and cultural groups different from our own allows us to view and evaluate others from their cultural lens and life experience.
Sometimes people act on ethnocentric thinking and feel justified disregarding cultural relativism. Overcoming negative attitudes about people who are culturally different from us is challenging when we believe our culture and thinking are justified. Consider the social issue of infanticide or the killing of unwanted children after birth. The historical practice in some societies occurred in times of famine or hardship when resources were scarce to keep non-productive humans alive. Many people find infanticide a human rights violation regardless of a person’s cultural traditions and beliefs and think the practice should stop. People often feel justified condemning the practice of infanticide and the people who believe and practice the tradition.
Prejudice is an attitude of thoughts and feelings directed at someone from prejudging or making negative assumptions. Negative attitudes about another’s culture are a form of prejudice or bias. Prejudice is a learned behavior. Prejudicial attitudes can lead to discriminatory acts and behaviors. Prejudicial attitudes and beliefs stem from overcategorizing, stereotypes, and fallacies about people. We are prejudice when we overcategorize people by exaggerating a group’s belief system, associating the belief with a certain type of people, and defining the belief and type of people in a positive or negative way to justify a favorable or unfavorable prejudice (Farley, 2010). Stereotypes are oversimplified ideas about groups of people we believe to be true (Griffiths et al., 2015). By stereotyping people, we infer all members of a group have the same characteristics or abilities. Fallacies are errors in our reasoning that undermine logical thinking. Fallacies are classified as illegitimate arguments (inconsistent or inappropriate), irrelevant facts, or unsubstantiated information (Lau & Chan, 2021).
Prejudice occurs in the mind as we process information about people. Our attitudes and beliefs of others reflect what we think about their characteristics or abilities. There are three ideological dimensions of prejudicial thinking: cognitive, affective, and conative (Farley, 2010). A cognitive form of prejudice depicts the beliefs we think are true about others. Affective forms of prejudice indicate our likes and dislikes of others. Lastly, the conative dimension signifies the behavior we are likely to display towards others as a result of our prejudice. For example, thinking the practice of infanticide should stop (cognitive) and those who practice it malevolent (affective) is prejudicial. Trying to stop the practice (conative) with force is discriminatory. There are times in the case of human rights issues like this where the fine line between criticizing with action (ethnocentrism) and understanding with empathy (cultural relativism) are clear. However, knowing the appropriate context when to judge or be open-minded is not always evident. Do we allow men to treat women as subordinates if their religion or faith justifies it? Do we allow people to sacrifice puppies for religious or spiritual purposes? Do we stop children who do not receive vaccinations from attending school? All of these issues stem from cultural differences and distinguishing the appropriate response is not always easy to identify.
Because prejudice is associated with the mind and one’s thinking, it is important to understand its causes. Social scientists have found three general theories on why people are prejudice. The first perspective explains that some people have an authoritarian personality that is prone to prejudice in order to fulfill their own personality needs (Adorno et al., 1950; Freud 1930, 1962). This theory suggests prejudice is produced by a particular personality pattern or type. The term “authoritarian” was given to this theory to illuminate that people with this personality pattern or type are likely to support authoritarian political movements promoting and supporting prejudice such as White supremacy. According to Brown (1965) the basic characteristics associated with an authoritarian personality are: 1) adherence to conventional values, 2) uncritical acceptance of authority, 3) aggressive towards others who do not conform to authority or the norms, 4) oppose and reject self-analysis, 5) superstitious and stereotypical in thinking, 6) concerned with power and being tough, 7) display destructive and cynical ideas, 8) view the world as wild and dangerous, and 9) overly concerned with sex crimes and people living wild sex lives. An authoritarian personality results in scapegoating or displacing aggression and projecting emotions or traits a person does not like about one’s self and attributing them to others. Examples include blaming others for personal failures or a violent person suspecting others as being harmful.
Several theorists have discovered specific personality patterns and traits associated with prejudice. Ehrlich (1973) found insecure and people lacking self-esteem are often prejudiced. They are unable to accept negative aspects of their personalities (Farley, 2010). Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) showed prejudiced subjects were highly concerned about their social status and came from strict homes. Hamilton (1981) uncovered the need to see the world in oversimplified terms was linked to prejudice. Whereby, Fishbein (1996) showed the need to deny one’s own shortcomings was linked to prejudicial thinking. Furthermore, Duckitt (2001) linked the need to obey and respect authority reflected the need for personal control and security. Lastly, Altemeyer (1998) coined the term “social dominance orientation” to describe the belief in the importance of social hierarchy or belief that some people are better than others. The result of this research on personality and prejudice shows that when people feel there is a threat to their social stability or cohesion, the effects of authoritarianism on personal and social prejudice are greater (Feldman, 2003).
The second perspective suggests people learn or are socialized to be prejudiced. Socialization occurs throughout the course of life. Learning the cultural traits and characteristics at certain stages of life is important in developing self-identity and group acceptance. Parents and peers with whom a child feels close identification are especially strong influencers (Kasser et al., 2002; Bandura & Walters, 1963; Allport, 1954). People learn prejudice through socialization reinforcing implicit bias and racist ideologies such as “White is normal.”
Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) is a form of symbolic interactionism examining micro-level interactions of thinking and behavior. Interactionists consider how people interpret meaning and symbols to understand and navigate the social world. Individuals create social reality through verbal and non-verbal interactions. These interactions form thoughts and behaviors in response to others influencing motivation and decision-making. Hearing or reading a word in a language one understands develops a mental image and comprehension about information shared or communicated such as the media message of “the crack mother icon” which is most commonly visualized as a single mother of color on drugs with multiple children receiving welfare or government assistance.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 7.2
THAT IS NOT AN ALTERCATION
Winston is a delightful soul. He is one of my three sons and his smile tells it all. He lives life out loud, is solid in who he is, and has a bright future. He was about 5’11 in junior high, which makes him look older, and is an exceptional athlete. He looks predominately African American although he comes from a multi-racial background as you can see in this photo from his 8th grade graduation.
When he was in junior high school, I received a call from the Dean at the school he attended. The Dean announced who he was and stated, “Winston has been in an altercation, you need to come to the school.” My first thoughts are, “Winston in a fight? He has never been in a fight. He is a highly competitive athlete who I have seen shoved on a court by an opponent, and he shrugs it off and keeps moving. Fighting is not him. Either way, I raced to the school.
When I arrive, my Winston is in the office and visibly annoyed that I have shown up. He is shaking his head and tells me this is being blown out of proportion. The Dean tells me that he has video footage of the altercation, but first he wants Winston to tell me what happened. He tells Winston with an emphatic tone, “Tell your mother what happened.” Winston says, “We were play fighting on the bus.” The Dean states again in an emphatic tone, “Winston, I have video footage of what happened, tell your mother the truth.” Winston insists, “We were playing on the bus mom.” At this point I am annoyed because I raced over from work, now I simply want to see this video.
The video rolls and I see a bus full of rambunctious middle schoolers. The bus driver is visibly agitated at all of the energy behind him. Finally, the scene of the “altercation.” Winston is sitting across from one of his friends on the bus, an Asian Indian friend. His friend has a ball in his hand and Winston placed his hand underneath his friend’s hand and slaps up causing the ball to drop on the floor. His friend stands up and punches Winston in the arm a few times, and Winston starts laughing with him about the matter with his body in a defensive mode saying, “Ok, Ok, I’m sorry dude.” End of altercation.
In the most diplomatic way possible, I shared with this Dean how I felt that the language he used to describe what happened was overzealous at best. I asked him "Where is Winston's friend who punched him?" He stated that he was in the lobby of the administration building. I asked, “Are they ok with each other?” The Dean said, “Yes.” I said, okay, I need to get back to work.
I wondered if the Dean, being a White man, working at a mainly White school, made his perspective “whitewashed” to the ways boys’ banter. I was most concerned because the language he used could have caused Winston to be suspended from school. He insisted that Winston be sent home for the day as a result. I advocated for him to stay in school as he did nothing wrong from what I observed. As a matter of fact, he was punched several times. I also stated that the lack of mediation for these types of interactions at school is a problem and as administrators, there is an expectation that they would try to mitigate situations like this.
I would have many more stories like this where people would see him as a “Big Black Boy,” and use loaded words to describe him or a situation involving him. The implicit bias of his size and color would be quelled once people got to know him and realize what a sweet and respectful young man he is. It was and still is heart wrenching as a mother to remind him to not forget where he is and who he is around.
I wondered what would have happened to Winston along the way if he did not have a parent that was advocating for him and teaching him how to navigate through a world as a “Big Black Boy.” I would often pray that instead of seeing altercations, or threats, they would see what I see. I see a young man who embraces the person he was created to be.
This story “That Is Not an Altercation” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Implicit bias or unconscious prejudice reinforced through socialization (e.g., societal messages) frames positive words and images for in-group members who share interests and identity and negative ones for out-groups. An in-group is a group toward which one feels particular loyalty and respect. The traits of in-groups are virtues, whereas traits of out-groups are vices (Henslin, 2011). An out-group is a group toward which one feels antagonism and contempt. Consider members of a team or club, people on the same team will develop an in-group admiration and acceptance while viewing members of the opposing team or club as members of their out-group.
Socialization protects and shelters in-group members with ideologies that instill unconscious prejudice and animosity toward or competition with out-groups. As in-group members are socialized they receive selective exposure and modeling to reinforce group homogenity (similarity) and cohesiveness (belonging). Agents of socialization including family and peers reward behavior and attitudes that conform to group norms and punish those that do not (Farley, 2010). Children growing up in prejudicial environments are likely to express prejudice towards out-groups and internalize prejudicial beliefs and attitudes which lays the foundation for similar ideas and thinking in adulthood.
Asch (1956) discovered people conform to gain acceptance and learn the rules or norms by watching and mimicking reference group members. Reference groups are also influential groups in someone’s life. A reference group provides a standard for judging one’s own attitudes or behaviors within a social setting or context (Henslin, 2011). People use reference groups as a method for self-evaluation and social location or status. People commonly use reference groups by watching and emulating the interactions and practices of others so, they fit in and garner acceptance by their associated in-group. Bonilla-Silva & Embrick (2007) learned that studying neighborhoods where people grow up around White-centered life socializes them to a life centered on Whites.
The third perspective suggests a correlation between socioeconomic status and prejudice. Socioeconomic status (SES) is an individual’s social position or class (Conerly, Holmes, and Tamang, 2021). Marx & Engels (1967) suggested there is a social class division between the capitalists who control the means of production and the workers. In 1985, Erik Wright interjected that people could occupy contradictory class positions throughout their lifetime. People who have occupied various class positions (e.g., bookkeeper to manager to chief operating officer) relate to the experiences of others in those positions, and as a result, may feel internal conflict in handling situations between positions or favoring one over another. Late in the twentieth century, Dennis Gilbert & Joseph Kahl (1992) updated the three-component theoretical perspective (class, status, and power) of Max Weber (1922, 1978) by developing a six-tier model portraying the United States class structure including underclass, working-poor, working, lower middle, upper middle, and capitalists. The social class model depicts the distribution of property, prestige, and power among society based on income and education.
Each class lifestyle requires a certain level of wealth in order to acquire the material necessities and comforts of life (Henslin, 2011). The correlation between the standard of living and quality of life or life chances (i.e., opportunities and barriers) influences one’s ability to afford food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, other basic needs, and luxury items. A person’s standards of living including income, employment, class, and housing effects their cultural identity.
Social class serves as a marker or indication of resources. These markers are noticeable in the behaviors, customs, and norms of each stratified group (Carl, 2013). People living in impoverished communities have different cultural norms and practices compared to those with middle incomes or families of wealth. For example, the urban poor often sleep on cardboard boxes on the ground or on sidewalks and feed themselves by begging, scavenging, and raiding garbage (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Middle income and wealth families tend to sleep in housing structures and nourish themselves with food from supermarkets or restaurants.
Language and fashion also vary among these classes because of educational attainment, employment, and income. People will use language like “White trash” or “welfare mom” to marginalize people in the lower class and use distinguished labels to identify the upper class such as “noble” and “elite.” Sometimes people often engage in conspicuous consumption or purchase and use certain products (e.g., buy a luxury car or jewelry) to make a social statement about their status (Henslin, 2011). Nonetheless, the experience of poor people is very different in comparison to others in the upper and middle classes and the lives of people within each social class may vary based on intersectionality or their position within other social categories including age, (dis)ability, gender, race, region, and religion.
Socioeconomic status influences the social position and life experiences of people. The social structure plays an integral role in the social location (i.e., place or position) people occupy in society. Your social location is a result of cultural values and norms from the time period and place in which you live. Culture affects personal and social development, including the way people will think or behave, including ideas and feelings of prejudice.
Social location influences how people perceive and understand the world in which we live. People have a difficult time being objective in all contexts because of their social location within cultural controls and standards derived from values and norms. Objective conditions exist without bias because they are measurable and quantifiable (Carl, 2013). Subjective concerns rely on judgments rather than external facts. Personal feelings and opinions from a person’s social location drive subjective perspectives and concerns about others and the world.
Socioeconomic status and other characteristics pertaining to race, age, gender, and education also influence the location people occupy at any given time. Specifically, Farley (2010) found education reduces prejudice. Sniderman & Piazza (1993) concluded educated people were more comfortable with abstract ideas and engaged in complex thinking or thoughtful reflection. Other researchers showed prejudice is reinforced by teaching ideologies of dominant groups both formally in the classroom and informally through other agents of socialization such as family and peers (Jackman and Muha, 1984; Schaefer, 1996). Bonilla-Silva & Forman (2000) discovered educated people hide their prejudices to avoid being perceived as bad and project an image of being color-blind. Reaffirming research by Picca & Feagin (2007) showed educated Whites only express racist views in Whites-only settings.
The reality of an insecure social position feeds prejudicial thinking and behavior. Working class prejudice arises from whites competing with people of color (Ransford, 1972). Competition creates a social environment of threats and enemies between racial-ethnic groups. The Klu Klux Klan (KKK) draws its most support from working-class and poor Whites (Farely, 2010). As the United States diversifies and the minority population increases, people of color further become a perceived threat to White’s socioeconomic opportunities and power (King & Weiner ,2007; Pederson, 1996; Quillian, 1996).
RACISM & EXPLOITATION
Race reflects a social stigma or marker of superiority (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Racism is an attitude, ideology, behavior, or social arrangement (e.g., institution) that benefits and supports a particular race or ethnic group (i.e., dominant or powerful) over another (minority). Racism is projected by people in different forms such as racial prejudice, ideological racism, scientific racism, individual discrimination, and institutional discrimination.
Racial prejudice is the fundamental attitude that favors one racial-ethnic group over another, lending it to cause unequal treatment on the basis of race (Farley, 2010). Prejudicial attitudes derive from people’s thinking and can be overt or subtle. Overt prejudice manifests into direct dislike or disdain of a particular racial-ethnic group or its members with the belief that they are inferior. Subtle prejudice occurs through the recognition that a particular racial-ethnic group causes their own problems or is the root of social problems.
Ideological racism is the belief that some people are biologically, intellectually, and culturally inferior to others (Farley, 2010). This ideology views racial-ethnic groups as superior or inferior to one another. Racist ideology has been substantiated by early publications of scientific theory forming racist bias in research called scientific racism. Consider, social Darwinism which argued “survival of the fittest” creating the socially accepted belief that people with wealth and power are the “most fit.” This ideology was adopted in colonial America to warrant the domination and support the colonization of the native peoples of Africa, the Americas, and Asia by White Europeans (Farley, 2010). The use of scientific theory to justify a racial superiority and inferiority rationalized for many the idea of a “natural law” advertently served dominant group interests. However, thorough scientific analysis does not substantiate or validate the biological, intellectual, cultural superiority of any racial-ethnic group (UNESCO, 2021: Montagu, 1964). True science has discredited the existence of racial superiority, defines race as a social construct and confirms that race is not sound on a biological basis. Therefore, ideological and scientific racism are accepted by those who want to rationalize their domination of other groups or legitimize their superiority.
Discrimination is an action of unfair treatment against someone based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, religion, etc. When discrimination centers on race, it is racism. There are two types of racial discrimination: individual and institutional. Individual discrimination is “unfair treatment directed against someone” (Henslin, 2011, p. 218). Whereas institutional discrimination is negative systemic treatment of individuals by society through education, government, economy, health care, etc. According to Perry (2000), when people focus on racial-ethnic differences, they engage in the process of identity formation through structural and institutional norms. As a result, racial-ethnic identity conforms to normative perceptions people have of race and ethnicity reinforcing the structural order without challenging the socio-cultural arrangement of society. Maintaining racial-ethnic norms reinforces differences, creates tension, and disputes between racial-ethnic groups sustaining the status quo and reasserting the dominant groups position and hierarchy in society.
Upon the establishment of the United States, White legislators and leaders limited the roles of racial-ethnic minorities and made them subordinate to those of White Europeans (Konradi & Schmidt 2004). This structure systematically created governmental and social disadvantages for minority groups and people of color. It has taken over 200 years to ensure civil rights and equal treatment of all people in the United States; however, discriminatory practices continue because of policies, precedents, and practices historically embedded in U.S. institutions and individuals behaving from ideas of racial stereotypes. Think about the differences people have in employment qualifications, compensation, obtaining home loans, getting into college, toxic waste dumping. What racial and ethnic stereotypes persist about different racial and ethnic groups in these areas of life?
Whites in the United States rarely experience racial discrimination making them unaware of the importance of race in their own and others’ thinking as compared to Americans of color or ethnic minorities (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). Some Whites argue racial discrimination is outdated and feel uncomfortable with the blame, guilt, and accountability of individual acts and institutional discrimination. These ideas and feelings have prompted many White Americans to protest Critical Race Theory in schools.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a socio-intellectual movement of civil rights scholars and activists who challenge approaches to racial justice in U.S. laws. A key concept of CRT is intersectionality and how forms of inequality and identity are affected by race, class, gender, and disability. CRT emphasizes critical thinking about race, views race as a social construct, uses storytelling to explore lived experiences, and argues the idea of race advances the interests of Whites at the expense of people of color. CRT challenges the idea that U.S. law is neutral and color-blind. The movement began in the 1960s, but in 2020 became the focus of U.S. conservative lawmakers to ban and restrict the instruction of CRT and anti-racism education in primary and secondary schools in response to White grievance, guilt, and shame. Those opposed to CRT have misrepresented its principles and significance. CRT has not been part of the U.S. primary and secondary school curriculum. Its study and writings have historically been examined in higher education. Banning or restricting the work of CRT silences discussions about the history of race, racism, equality, and social justice.
By redirecting attention or ignoring race, White people believe they are practicing racial equality by being color blind, and it will eliminate racist atmospheres (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). They do not realize the experience of not “seeing” race itself is racial privilege. Research shows the distribution of resources and opportunities are not equal among racial and ethnic categories, and White groups do better than other groups and Blacks are predominantly among the underclass (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). Regardless of social perception, in reality, there are institutional and cultural differences in government, education, criminal justice, and media and racial-ethnic minorities received subordinate roles and treatment in society.
SUMMARY
In Module 7, we examined socio-cultural hierarchies and power in the United States. We learned the dominating cultural group sets the standard for living and governs resources. Next, we explored the causes and types of prejudice. You were asked to recognize and think about your implicit bias. We also discovered the origins and promotion of Eurocentric thinking and behavior as a mechanism to promote racial-ethnic group dominance of Whites. And lastly, we considered how racism is projected by people in different forms including racial prejudice, ideological racism, scientific racism, individual discrimination, and institutional discrimination.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Discuss how culture influences social power and hierarchies in the United States.
2. Explain how cultural hegemony affects race and ethnic relations.
3. Analyze the causes and types of prejudice in society. Include your understanding or interpretation about why prejudice exists.
4. Assess the possible motivations behind racist ideologies.
5. Examine how racist ideas make it possible to maintain racist policies.
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
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Bonilla-Silva, E. & Embrick, D. G. (2007). Every place has a ghetto: The significance of Whites’ social and residential segregation. Symbolic Interaction, 30, 323-345.
Bonilla-Silva, E. & Forman, T. A. (2000). “I’m not a racist, but: Mapping White college students’ racial ideology in the U.S.A.” Discourse and Society, 11, 51-86.
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Carl, J. D. (2013). Think social problems. (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
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Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer, J., and Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College.
Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
Hamilton, D. L. (1981). Cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behavior Hillsdale. Erlbaum.
Hamilton-Merritt, J. (1993). Tragic mountains: the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos, 1942-1992. Indiana University Press.
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Learning Objectives
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. evaluate responses and strategies to coping with subordinate or minority status
2. explain racial and social justice practices and social movements
3. explain the importance of race and ethnicity in the creation of cultural expressions, social developments, progress, and change
4. summarize the process for creating cultural awareness and building cultural intelligence
5. demonstrate methods and approaches for working with others in a culturally diverse society
6. describe and apply anti-racist and anti-colonial practices
KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS
Acceptance
Adaptive Responses
Alternative Movements
Anti-Racist & Anti-Colonial Tools
Approaches to Reducing Prejudice
Assertiveness
Assimilation
Avoidance
Change Agents
Change-Oriented Responses
Conflict Prevention Strategies
Conflict Reduction Techniques
Conflict Resolution
Conspiracy of Silence
Contact Hypothesis
Cooperativeness
Cross-cultural Conflict
Cultural Bias
Cultural Intelligence
Cultural Realities
Displaced Aggression
Dynamics of Power
Education
Experiential Exercise
Global Consciousness
Individual & Group Therapy
Interpersonal Conflict
Persuasive Communication
Race-Based Traumatic Stress
Reform Movements
Reframing
Religious or Redemptive Movements
Resistance Movements
Resocializaton
Revolutionary Movements
Social Movement
Socio-Cultural Lenses
Toxic Stress
Truthfulness
Types of Ignorance
INTRODUCTION
The fight for equality and humanitarian treatment in the United States has been difficult and often absent for racial-ethnic groups throughout our history. Today, many Americans remain blind or apathetic in acknowledging and correcting the transgressions of our past. Fulfilling the promises created by the founders of this nation is attainable and may be realized if people act, hold each other accountable, and live by the words pledge and vowed in the Constitution by its citizenry.
RACIAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE
At the beginning of our story, we asked if someone had ever misrepresented or taken advantage of you. We asked these questions to invoke an emotional frame of reference for you to begin to empathize and develop understanding about the impact of the United States and its history on people of color. It is difficult to comprehend another person’s pain, particularly if we have never experienced it ourselves, so we began with generalizations to help you build a mental bridge about the feelings that are invoked when you have been wronged or treated unfairly by others.
Racism and discrimination inflate race-based traumatic stress. Stress is a physiological and cognitive reaction to situations of perceived threats or challenges (Resler, 2019). Day-to-day stress is tolerable with coping skills and supportive relationships; however, exposure to adverse experiences over a long period of time can become harmful and toxic. Individuals experience toxic stress when they must maintain a level of hyper-vigilance to unpredictable or dangerous environments. Being a racial minority leads to greater stress because of the prevalence of systemic racism and racial discrimination (Resler, 2019). Racial minorities are in a constant state of red alert from having to anticipate racial events and interactions and being cognitively aware of how to respond appropriately for survival. Racial trauma can result in psychological affliction, behavioral exhaustion, and physiological distress (Comas-Diaz and Jacobsen, 2001).
When we are confronted by pain or trauma inflicted by others, we either develop adaptive strategies or change-oriented strategies to cope. Depending on the social conditions, our responses to such social and psychological distress vary. Minority groups, as a whole, function the same way by adapting to or changing the status quo.
There are four common adaptive responses to subordinate or minority status: acceptance, displaced aggression, avoidance, and assimilation (Farley, 2010). Each adaptive response consents to having unequal status and attempts to adjust or live within the social system. Acceptance involves the greatest degree of giving into a subordinate position. Some minorities accept inferior status because they are convinced the ideology of the dominant group is superior, others believe they cannot change their situation and become apathetic, and several pretend to accept their status by playing on dominant group prejudices such as acting dumb to fool the majority and navigate social contexts (Farley, 2010).
Displaced aggression is another adaptive response to subordinate status. In social systems where people are powerless, frustration and hopelessness are directed towards each other rather than the dominant group. Because minorities are oppressed by the dominant group and the power structure does not permit a mechanism for them to retaliate or strike back, they displace their emotions and aggression onto each other (Farley, 2010). Examples are seen in communities of color where minority group members commit violent acts on one another. In a state of displaced aggression, it is common for minorities to scapegoat or blame each other for their lack of power and lower status. Fighting each other releases the pain of being powerless while also inflating the misnomer of having more power than their minority group counterparts.
Another common method for adapting to subordinate status is avoidance. Some minority group members avoid contact with the dominant group to cope with the state of being powerless. By avoiding contact with the dominant group, minorities are able to forget or ignore their subordinate status (Farley, 2010). As a way of avoiding their inferior reality, other minority group members attempt to escape by using drugs and alcohol.
Lastly, assimilation is a way minority group members adapt to subordinate status. Assimilation necessitates minority group members to become part of or accepted by the majority or dominant group. This response relies heavily on socially and culturally transforming one’s position or role in society (Farley, 2010). To become part of the majority group or be accepted by the group, minorities must pass or fit into the dominant white culture. In an effort to assimilate, minority group members practice code switching where they alternate between their native or indigenous self into an assimilated and acculturated self.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.1
THE BLUE MORNINGS
As a child, one of my earliest memories was of the “blue mornings.” That time before the sun rises when the night is almost gone. When I was about six-years-old, I used to wake up afraid because my three other siblings and I were in a strange place, waiting for my mom to come home from wherever she was. I worried about her never coming back.
My childhood had many blue mornings of fear and sadness. My grandmother was from Mexico, and she embodied everything that a Mexican grandmother could be. She died around this time, and suddenly, my 26-year-old mother, who was addicted to heroin, and had four children that she was not used to taking care of, was now motherless, and we were motherless as well as my grandmother had become our mother.
On the next blue morning I remember, my mother was arrested, and we had to go live in a foster home with relatives. I woke up to a year of blue mornings without her because she was in prison for a year. I worried about her and wondered whether she was safe. I was so excited to get mail from her which usually had beautiful drawings.
When she was released from prison, it seemed like we were all going to be together, and we were for about a year. She and my stepfather were both on parole, and we had parole agents visiting our home. That “family chapter” would come to a screeching halt when my stepfather was shot and killed in front of our home later that summer. We moved immediately to stay with my grandfather for a few weeks.
My mother found a boyfriend soon after and left us to move to Los Angeles with him. These blue mornings were packed with fear. We went back to a foster home to live with relatives until she got a place and could come and get us. She eventually did, about two years later, and we lived with her for a few months.
We came home from school one day, while living in Los Angeles, to a packed-up home. My mother announced that we were leaving to go back to Fresno. We were on a Greyhound bus headed back to Fresno to live in a migrant camp for a few weeks, then back to the foster home. These blue mornings were ones of exhaustion. We stayed there for two years until we got to high school.
Throughout the blue mornings of moving, grief, loss, trauma, fear, abandonment, and more loss, God was there. Even if we were the poorest people I knew, even if we moved every school year, even if my mother was lost and was not paying attention to God…he was paying attention to us, we were protected.
The most profound blue morning was a blessing that came at age 21. I committed to a life of faith that included forgiveness and hope for a future. My blue mornings were times that I prayed and spent time with God in the process of building a different life. This helped me develop a life that was not defined by my upbringing, but instead, redefined. I realized the gift of being born in a country where I had resources and the ability to get educated as a woman of color. Refined in the understanding that I was given many tools to help me step up and out of this life. I also recognized that not everyone is given the same. Because of those blessings, I did well in school and ultimately became a parole agent myself. I recently retired from that career after 25 years and am now a professor of Criminal Justice at a local junior college. God did that. There were so many jobs I was not qualified for, so many instances when the answer should have been no, but it was yes.
In the thousands of blue mornings that I spent with Him…He healed me…He helped me…He restored me…He defined me.
He transformed the blue mornings from a time of sadness trauma to a time of gratitude and hope. Now, the blue mornings are a time that I walk and take in the new day with so much hope. They are the times that I pray and cry out in appreciation for what I get to wake up to every day. The blue mornings no longer represent fear, trauma, loss, and rejection, but represent my special time with God. The time that he reminds me, it’s always bluest before daybreak. It is the best time.
This story “The Blue Mornings” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Rather than adapt or accept subordinate status, some minority groups focus on change-oriented responses. Change-oriented responses focus on altering majority-minority relations and transforming the role of the minority group in the social structure and system (Farley, 2010). The goal is to increase the political, social, and economic power of the group while preserving its culture. Change-oriented responses are realized and implemented through social movements. A social movement is an organized effort to bring about social change. Social movements can develop on the local, national, or global level (Conerly, Holmes, & Tamang, 2021).
David Aberle (1966) observed and categorized six types of social movements. The first are reform movements which concentrate on modifying a part of social structure or system. Black Lives Matter is a reform movement motivated to stop police brutality by pressuring elected officials and law enforcement agencies to change policing practices. The second are revolutionary movements that center on changing society. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s worked to gain equality rights under the law for Black Americans in the United States. Religious or redemptive movements converge to provoke spiritual growth or change in people. American Indian Residential Schools of the mid-17th through early 21st centuries forced Native American children to give up their culture, language, and religion in an effort to assimilate them into Euro-American ideologies and beliefs. Alternative movements focus on self-improvement both in transforming personal beliefs and behaviors. Anti-Racist practices and support for Critical Race Theory are spreading throughout the United States specifically among White Americans. This alternative movement is grounded in the premise that race is socially constructed and used to oppress and exploit people of color in the United States. Finally, resistance movements strive for preventing change to existing social structures or systems. White supremacy groups involving the American Front, Klu Klux Klan, Proud Boys, and Christian Identity are participating in resistance movements throughout the United States. In California alone, there 72 active white nationalist hate groups supporting resistance (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2020).
Awareness leads people to start a social movement for change or resistance. An effective social movement must have an organized course of action to achieve a goal, a method to create interest or promote the movement, a message to communicate the significance for change or resistance, and a large number of unified and committed people supporting the cause. Social movements develop and evolve in five stages: (1) initial unrest and agitation, (2) mobilization, (3) organization, (4) institutionalization, and (5) organizational decline and possible resurgence (Henslin, 2011). The longevity of a social movement and its effectiveness strongly depend on the ability to maintain involvement of a large group of people over time.
Other social and environmental factors influence the effectiveness of a social movement to create or resist change. The physical environment affects the development of organizations including social movements. People organize their activities and way of life relative to weather conditions. A second factor of success is the political organization or structure of a society (i.e., democratic, authoritarian, etc.). Political authorities have the power to mobilize a community and political agencies can strongly affect the course of development and action in a society. Culture is another stimulating factor of efficacy. Social change requires transformation of social and cultural institutions religion, communication systems, and leadership. If society is not prepared for change, then it will resist so a social movement’s success depends on the cultural climate of the community. Lastly, the mass media serves as a gatekeeper for social change by either spreading information supporting or contradicting a movement’s message (Henslin, 2011). If social movements are unable to reach a large number of people, they cannot form an organized course of action.
REDUCING PREJUDICE
In Module 6, we examined three types of prejudice: cognitive (formulated by beliefs), affective (framed by disdain), and conative (expressed through discrimination). These and other forms of prejudice develop from a multitude of causes including personality, socialization, and historically fixed foundations in our social structure and institutions (Farley, 2010). Because the causes of prejudice are diverse and multi-dimensional, identifying a single solution to reduce societal bigotry is impossible.
The best approaches to reducing prejudice vary by person and context. For some, education and contact with minorities may improve understanding and compassion. Others may need a change in their social setting or environment to escape conformity and the peer pressure of intolerance. Certain people might require therapy to address the underlining personality issues causing narrow-minded thinking and behavior (Smith, 2006).
There are five major approaches to reducing prejudice. Each approach must be geared to a specific individual or situation. The effectiveness of each approach will depend on the techniques practiced and the type and causes of prejudice being addressed.
Stiff and Mongeau (2003) found persuasive communication such as written, oral, audiovisual, and other forms of communication effectively influence people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. If persuasive communication is directly aimed at reducing prejudice, then results reduce prejudicial thinking and behavior. Change occurs when the following conditions are present (Flowerman, 1947; Hovland et al., 1953; McGuire, 1968, Farley, 2010). First, the audience or receiver must be attentive, and the communication or message must be heard. This condition is challenging to overcome because many people have learned to avoid or ignore persuasive communications including advertising, political messages, and propaganda. Second, the audience or receiver must understand or comprehend the communication that prejudice is immoral and harmful. Third, the communication must be received in a positive way or through a positive experience to reinforce discontinuing prejudice as a good idea. Lastly, the audience or receiver must internalize and retain the message to eliminate prejudice. According to Triandis (1971), these conditions are met when those delivering the communication are credible and respected, the content and dissemination of the message are conveyed appropriately at the right time, place, and setting, and the characteristics of the audience are open to the idea of reducing prejudice because prejudice has no psychological or emotional function for them. Therefore, persuasive communication is most effective for people who are unprejudiced or least prejudiced.
Education is an enlightening experience focused on human development. Learning either formally in school or informally enhances growth, development, and understanding by such activities as reading, viewing, and reflection. Education facilitates learning by teaching information including rights, duties, and moral obligations of humanity. Schooling and instruction about intergroup relations helps people breakdown stereotypes and reduces prejudice through simulation and experiential exercises (Lewin, 1948; Fineberg, 1949; Farley, 2010). For example, role-playing activities help students view situations from another person’s perspective, building empathy and understanding about the injustices and inequalities some people confront or face.
Intergroup learning occurs best with impartial teachers, the inclusion of minority role models, non-discriminatory practices, and curriculum free of stereotypical portrayals of minorities (Lessing and Clarke, 1976; Farley, 2010). Dovidio and Gaertner (1999) found educational programs are effective in reducing prejudice when they provide wide-ranging information about minority groups and their members. Some common techniques that address prejudice are teaching facts about race and ethnic relations, imparting tolerance, interactive activities that replicate experiences and evoke real world situations, and intergroup contact.
The contact hypothesis suggests intergroup contact reduces prejudice by exposing people to minority group members. Intergroup contact allows people to discover the inaccuracies or errors in their thinking and understanding about others. Pettigrew (1998) found intergroup contact reduces prejudice by learning about the out-group and in-group, liking people in the out-group, and altering behavior.
Integrated social settings help people see that their stereotypes or fears about out-groups are unfounded (Farley, 2010). Intergroup contact is most effective in reducing prejudice when people involved share similar status and power, and no one can exercise dominance or authority over another. Additionally, contact should be noncompetitive and nonthreatening while inspiring interdependence and cooperation. It is important for contact to go beyond the superficial and work towards effectively changing the attitude regardless of situation or setting (Hewstone, Rubin, and Willis, 2002). When participants engage in intergroup contact, they develop appreciation for each other by listening and learning from each other, engage oneself to speak freely and discuss tough issues or subjects with others, critically self-reflect about power and privilege differences group members experiences, and build alliances to reduce intergroup inequalities (Nagda, 2006).
For some people, prejudice serves as a way to handle personal feelings of insecurity or low self-esteem (Farley, 2010). Individual and group therapy is the best approach to resolve personality problems leading to prejudice. Individual therapy centers on discovering unaddressed psychological issues of prejudice; however, group therapy is the most commonly used to reduce prejudice because it takes less time to create change in more people (Allport, 1954; Smith, 2006; Farley, 2010). Cognitive-behavioral therapy changes personality patterns to reduce prejudice. Rational-emotive therapy helps people develop social relationships by reducing anger and hostility. Researchers have found these forms of therapy include methods that work towards increasing self-acceptance decrease prejudice (Grossarth-Maticek, Eysenck, and Vetter, 1998; Ellis, 1992; Fishbein, 1996; Farley, 2010).
As mentioned previously, experiential exercises including simulation activities are helpful in reducing prejudice. Experiential exercises, like the Privilege and Life Chances activity in Module 7, provide an opportunity for a learner to be exposed to a new condition or a wrong behavior (Armstrong, 1977). To reduce prejudice, these exercises are designed to simulate discrimination to inform people about the irrationality, psychological effects, and emotional consequences of prejudice and discrimination. This approach is often combined with others including education, intergroup contact, and therapy.
Experiential exercises are most effective with thorough discussion, debriefing, and reflection (Fishbein, 1996). Facilitation of the structured exercise centers the learner’s experience and ways to bring about change. This approach is valuable for reducing affective prejudice such as liking or disliking, reducing implicit bias, and encouraging people to take change-oriented action to address intergroup conflict and inequality (Lopez, Gurin, and Nagda, 1998; Farley, 210).
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.2
MY TURN, WHY ENDING RACIAL PREJUDICE IS NOT A HOPELESS CAUSE
I am an African-American man who has never really understood how a person is wired to have prejudicial feelings toward someone simply because of color. I wasn’t brought up that way, and I’ve never bought into the idea that history or tradition is an excuse to behave that way.
Maybe it is because I was raised in a fairly sheltered environment growing up as an African-American child of the 60s; I somehow escaped having the “N” word tossed my way all the way through seventh grade. Maybe I owe it to my private Catholic school education, which kept me effectively cloistered from severe racial slurring incidents.
Don’t get me wrong, I was well aware that I was Black, and I instinctively sensed that there were parts of my hometown that I needed to avoid, on account that I didn’t look like others from those parts. So, I did. And before seventh grade was over, I transferred to a new school where I was very harshly introduced to the ‘N’ word and was reminded of it many times thereafter.
It seems we all cope with racial prejudice in our own way. Some of us deal with it politically, some spiritually, and others rather ignore it as something that hopefully “other people” will have to deal with, but certainly not “me.”
Some people retaliate against racial slurs with violence as it seems the only way to show both the offender and onlookers that the offense is intolerable and will not be tolerated, period. But what if the bigot is bigger and stronger than the subject of the bigotry? Then “whipping his a--” may not be an option to solve the issue. And no, putting a bullet between the offender’s eyes is not the answer either! It just doesn’t seem logical to serve a life sentence behind bars when you were the offended person to begin with.
Since my name is Daryl, not Dwayne Johnson, nor am I interested in shooting anyone, my way of dealing with this issue of race is to write about it, and hopefully you, will see that this racial prejudice business should be just as intolerable for anyone else as for me.
Truthfully, I don’t know if racial prejudice will ever totally be resolved. But I do know that it can be much reduced if the following things occur with increasing frequency:
1. Racial slurs of any kind, against any race, or even within the same race should never occur, ever at any time. The idea of Blacks using the “N” word ourselves was apparently meant to diffuse the power of said word, but it was an ineffective strategy. It served only to confirm for many that we have a less than lofty view of ourselves ironically - for using the same word meant to offend us. As a former U.S. Air Force officer, I remember an occasion when I was stationed at a new base. Shortly after my arrival, one of my young black subordinates said to me “Hey, N______, it’s about time you showed up.” That did not occur again of course but looking back I can only roll my eyes in bewilderment and wonder. If Caucasians called each other “Honkeys,” it would seem no less absurd to me.
1. We need to minimize telling racial jokes either openly or behind the backs of the race being joked about. This is a big one, and not an easy one for some people to let go of. But when everyone agrees that racial “jokes” are neither funny nor in good taste, we’ll take a big step toward racial harmony. When minorities are defended when no minority is present in the room, then a big step will have been taken toward cultural sensitivity. But as long as the practice of ethnic “jokes” continues, there will always be a secret discontent between races, each one secretly wondering if the other can really be trusted to have mutual respect behind closed doors.
1. Schools need to continue taking active steps to promote diversity instruction that teaches accurate history about human trafficking and slavery that occurred over the years, and how that behavior led to where we stand now. There isn’t a single race, not one, that has not made grievous errors historically when it comes to treatment of even its own.
1. Finally, we need honest, open discussions where young people feel safe sharing their thoughts regarding aspects of other cultures that they don’t understand, including differing facial features, skin color, language, personal expression, dress and music. But it can’t simply end there. The resultant bridging should be an understanding that different races celebrate and appreciate each other’s differences, not simply their own.
To close, this is not intended to be “Solving Racial Prejudice for Dummies,” nor “The End of Racial Prejudice 101”. And Heaven knows the four areas noted above will not be easy for some of us to do. And I know that some individuals will stubbornly put their foot down and refuse to budge because staying separate from people different from them is more comfortable for them, and it seems to make more sense to them. But in the long run, is it really better, or does it just seem to be?
Racial prejudice won’t end by attrition alone - maintaining a laissez-faire approach to this social problem, in essence waiting until all bigoted people somehow change or die, one by one. If that’s the case, I need to be cryogenically put to sleep for several hundred years. When I wake up, no doubt some of them will still be here waiting for me.
At the end of the day, it’s safe to say that many people of all races are simply weary of racial separatism, and long for a nation where there is a widespread commonality in being just fine with the fact that we are all different. I hope this affirms for many that there is truly hope that one day we will all - or at least most of us, bond together in unity. Our country is worth it.
This story “My Turn” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
BUILDING COMMUNITY
Racial equity requires change agents or people who are willing to initiate and manage struggles over injustice, inclusion, and unequal relations of power. Building an equitable society involves altering our social arrangements and behaviors (Bruhn and Rebach, 2007). Transforming society away from prejudice and discrimination means constructing a new social structure where all people have equal rights, liberties, and status.
Meaningful social change starts with each of us. Ending racial prejudice and inequality is everyone’s responsibility. Ivey-Colson and Turner (2020) and the UOTeaching Community (2020) offer some anti-racist and anti-colonial tools from the works of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Dr. Robin DiAngelo, Dr. Leilani Sabzalian, Dr. Gloria Jean Watkins (Bell Hooks), and other academic experts. These tools require daily practice to counter racial prejudice and discrimination, systemic racism, and oppression of minority racial and ethnic groups. The following tools serve as a model to 1) inform people about lesser-known facts, 2) confront and address past shame, anger, and blame, and 3) develop empathy (Ivey-Colson and Turner, 2020).
Table 4. Anti-Racist & Anti-Colonial Practices
Education Enact cultural and linguistic dexterity by harvesting knowledge and facts about racial-ethnic minorities
Mindful awareness Be present in the daily practice of being anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-oppressive
Courage Show compassion and vulnerability even when it’s uncomfortable
Individuality Acknowledge the quality and character of an individual rather than perpetuate myths and stereotypes
Humankind Recognize and value the diverse range of human experiences that exists in each of our lives and act as all humans are worthy of compassion or benevolence
Anti-colonial literacy Cultivate egalitarian partnerships and sharing with tribal nations to enhance indigenous education and survivance
Anti-racist work Act and express anti-racists ideas
Equality Engage in treating all humans as equals and promote equity
Empathy Share, think, and care about others
Allyship Take risks and share your privilege to support marginalized groups and people of color
Love Spread love and healing over fear and oppression - Mix care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust as well as honest and open communication
Source: Adapted from Ivey-Colson, K. & Turner, L. (2020). 10 keys to everyday anti-racism. Greater Good Magazine. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/ten_keys_to_everyday_anti_racism
and UOTeaching Community. (2020). Anticolonial pedagogy. University of Oregon. https://blogs.uoregon.edu/uoteachingcommunity/about/anti-oppressive-pedagogy-study-circle/anticolonialism-pedagogy/
Cultural Intelligence
In a racial-ethnic diverse society, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to interact effectively with others. Our ability to communicate and interact with each other plays an integral role in the successful development of our relationships for personal and social prosperity. Building cultural intelligence requires active awareness of self, others, and context (Bucher, 2008). Self-awareness requires an understanding of our personal identity including intrinsic or extrinsic bias we have about others and social categories of people. Cultural background greatly influences perception and understanding, and how we identify ourselves reflects on how we communicate and get along with others. It is easier to adjust and change our interactions if we are able to recognize our own uniqueness, broaden our percepts, and respect others (Bucher, 2008). We must be aware of our identity including any multiple or changing identities we take on in different contexts as well as those we keep hidden or hide to avoid marginalization or recognition.
Active awareness of others requires us to use new socio-cultural lenses. We must learn to recognize and appreciate commonalities in our lives and cultures not just differences. This practice develops understanding of each other’s divergent needs, values, behaviors, interactions, and approach to teamwork (Bucher, 2008). Understanding others involves evaluating assumptions and truths. Our personal socio-cultural lens filters our perceptions of others and conditions us to view the world and others in one way blinding us from what we have to offer or how we complement each other (Bucher, 2008). Active awareness of others broadens one’s perspective to see the world and others through a different lens and understand diverse viewpoints that ultimately helps us interact and work together effectively.
Today’s workplace requires us to have a global consciousness that encompasses awareness, understanding, and skills to work with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures (Bucher, 2008). Working with diverse racial-ethnic groups involves us learning about others to manage complex and uncertain social situations and contexts. What may be socially or culturally appropriate in one setting may not apply in another. This means we must develop an understanding of not only differences and similarities, but those of social and cultural significance as well to identify which interactions fit certain situations or settings.
As we come into contact with racial-ethnic diverse people, one of our greatest challenges will be managing cross-cultural conflict. When people have opposing values, beliefs, norms, or practices, they tend to create a mindset of division or the “us vs. them” perspective. This act of loyalty to one side or another displays tribalism and creates an ethnocentric and scapegoating environment where people judge and blame each other for any issues or problems. Everyone attaches some importance to what one values and believes. As a result, people from different cultures might attach greater or lesser importance to family and work. If people are arguing over the roles and commitment of women and men in the family and workplace, their personal values and beliefs are likely to influence their willingness to compromise or listen to one another. Learning to manage conflict among people from different cultural backgrounds increases our ability to build trust, respect all parties, deal with people’s behaviors, and assess success (Bucher, 2008). How we deal with conflict influences productive or destructive results for others and ourselves.
Self-assessment is key to managing cross-cultural conflicts. Having everyone involved in the conflict assess “self” first and recognize their cultural realities of personal history and experience will help individuals see where they may clash or conflict with others. If someone comes from the perspective of white men should lead, their interactions with others will display women and people of color in low regard or subordinate positions to white men. Recognizing our cultural reality will help us identify how we might be stereotyping and treating others and give us cause to adapt and avoid conflict with those with differing realities.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.3
RELIGIOUS & CULTURAL CONFLICTS
The cultural pressure from relatives in Fresno made my father return to his shaman practice. He never really fit in the church to begin with. While in Nashville, he attended church services with us children to “make the church like us.” The church donated clothing, sofas, kitchen items, and sometimes food to our family. He probably felt the need to reciprocate by attending church service. In retrospect, I remember him always being very respectful of all the church services. He sat in church quietly, but he would tell us children afterwards not to take church seriously.
Our family’s church attendance subsequently led to my conversion to Christianity at the tender age of 13, fascinated by concepts of the soul and immortality over sexual curiosity. With the Bible as my guiding principles, I devoted my teen years to serving God and intended on becoming a minister. This mission was short lived when I entered my second year in college at UC Berkeley. As I watched my father lay dying in his hospital bed, I discovered the limitations and hypocrisy of the church. I saw the cultural divide of Hmong clan structure and church practice. Relatives came to visit my father with reverence, telling him what he had meant to them. The church just wanted to know if my father would repent before he died. The cross-cultural misunderstandings, religious conflicts, and differences of being Hmong and American were beyond fixing.
Nevertheless, shortly before my father died, he and I were able to reconcile on the purpose of religion in human life. He was a highly consulted shaman; I was a “prodigal son” so to speak, having returned from a “Jesus freak” journey. There were six of us sons, but I knew he wanted all of us to master a Hmong cultural practice rather than ministering for the Christians. He also noticed I had left the church in disappointment, confusion, and sharp spiritual pain. When a spiritual core is absent – whether it’s taken away or one chose to do away with it (as in my case) – life can seem gloomy, meaningless, void, and even suicidal. For me, an identity crisis ensued from this divergence from Christianity – a mental breakdown that sent me into a spiritual whirlwind of what seemed incurable by man or God. I found a little solace reading “Why I Am Not A Christian,” and “A Freeman’s Worship” by Bertrand Russell. My grades suffered, but I may have begun to find myself.
The Hmong community in the Central Valley has had its share of issues in relations with American mainstream. Some of these challenges included educational gaps, income, racism, domestic violence, social justice, and religious and cross-cultural conflicts. While these issues had been worked on and some progress had been made, they remain critical points to our community as we continue to define our culture, identity, and relations with others racial groups.
This story “Religious & Cultural Conflicts” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0
Some form of cultural bias is evident in everyone (Bucher, 2008). Whether you have preferences based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, region, social class or all social categories, they affect your thoughts and interactions with others. Many people believe women are nurturers and responsible for child rearing, so some do not support men receiving custody of the children when there is a divorce in the family. Bias serves as the foundation for stereotyping and prejudice (Bucher, 2008). Many of the ideas we have about others are ingrained, and we have to unlearn what we know to reduce or manage bias. Removing bias perspectives requires resocialization through an ongoing conscious effort in recognizing our bias then making a diligent effort to learn about others to dispel fiction from fact. Dealing with bias commands personal growth and the biggest obstacles are our fears and complacency to change.
Additionally, power structures and stratification emerge in cross-cultural conflicts. The dynamics of power impact each of us (Bucher, 2008). Our assumptions and interactions with each other are a result of our position and power in a particular context or setting. The social roles and categories we each fall into effect how and when we respond to each other. A Hispanic, female, college professor has the position and authority to speak and control conflict of students in her classroom but may have to show deference and humility when conflict arises at a faculty meeting she attends. The professor’s position in society is contextual and, in some situations, she has the privileges of power, but in others, she may be marginalized or disregarded.
Power affects how others view, relate, and interact with us (Bucher, 2008). Power comes with the ability to change, and when you have power, you are able to invoke change. For example, the White racial majority in the United States holds more economic, political, and social power than other groups in the nation. The dominant group’s power in the United States allows the group to define social and cultural norms as well as condemn or contest opposing views and perspectives. This group has consistently argued the reality of “reverse racism” even though racism is the practice of the dominant race benefitting off the oppression of others. Because the dominant group has felt prejudice and discrimination by others, they want to control the narrative and use their power to create a reality that further benefits their race by calling thoughts and actions against the group as “reverse racism.”
However, when you are powerless, you may not have or be given the opportunity to participate or have a voice. Think about when you are communicating with someone who has more power than you. What do your tone, word choice, and body language project? Now imagine you are the person in a position of power. What privilege does your position give you because of your race, ethnicity, age, gender, or other social category? Power implies authority, respect, significance, and value. Those of us who do not have a social position of power in a time of conflict may feel and receive treatment that reinforces our lack of authority, disrespect, insignificance, and devaluation. Therefore, power reinforces social exclusion of some inflating cross-cultural conflict (Ryle, 2008). We must assess our social and cultural power as well as those of others we interact with to develop an inclusive environment that builds on respect and understanding to deal with conflicts more effectively.
Communication is essential when confronted with cross-cultural conflict (Bucher, 2008). Conflicts escalate from our inability to express our cultural realities or interact appropriately in diverse racial-ethnic settings. In order to relate to each other with empathy and understanding, we must learn to employ use of positive words, phrases, and body language. Rather than engaging in negative words to take sides (e.g., “Tell your side of the problem” or “How did that effect you?”), use positive words that describe an experience or feeling. Use open-ended questions that focus on the situation or concern (e.g., “Could you explain to be sure everyone understands?” or “Explain how this is important and what needs to be different”) in your communications with others (Ryle, 2008). In addition, our body language expresses our emotions and feelings to others. People are able to recognize sadness, fear, and disgust through the expressions and movements we make. It is important to project expressions, postures, and positions that are open and inviting even when we feel different or uncomfortable around others. Remember, words and body language have meaning and set the tone or atmosphere in our interactions with others. The words and physical expressions we choose either inflate or deescalate cross-cultural conflicts.
The act of reframing or rephrasing communications is also helpful in managing conflicts between diverse people. Reframing requires active listening skills and patience to translate negative and value-laden statements into neutral statements that focus on the actual issue or concern. This form of transformative mediation integrates neutral language that focuses on changing the message delivery, syntax or working, meaning, and context or situation to resolve destructive conflict. For example, reframe “That’s a stupid idea” to “I hear you would like to consider all possible options.” Conversely, reframe a direct verbal attack, “She lied! Why do you want to be friends with her?” to “I’m hearing that confidentiality and trust are important to you.” There are four steps to reframing: 1) actively listen to the statement; 2) identify the feelings, message, and interests in communications; 3) remove toxic language; and 4) re-state the issue or concern (Ryle, 2008). These tips for resolving conflict help us hear and identify the underlying interests and cultural realities.
Conflict Resolution Strategies & Practices
Interpersonal conflict involves situations when a person or group blocks expectations, ideas, or goals of another person or group. Conflict develops when people or groups desire different outcomes, opinions, offend one another, or simply do not get along (Black, et al., 2019). People tend to assume conflict is bad and must be eradicated. However, a moderate amount of conflict can be helpful in some cases. For example, conflict can lead people to discover new ideas and new ways of identifying solutions to problems or conditions and is often the very mechanism to inspire innovation and change. It can also facilitate motivation among groups, communities, and organizations to excel and push themselves in order to meet outcomes and objectives (Black et al., 2019). According to Coser (1956), conflict is likely to have stabilizing and unifying functions for a relationship in its pursuit for resolution. People and social systems readjust their structures to eliminate dissatisfaction to re-establish unity.
The appropriate conflict resolution approach depends on the situation and the goals of the people involved. According to Thomas (1977), each faction or party involved in the conflict must decide the extent to which it is interested in satisfying its own concerns categorized as assertiveness and satisfying their opponent’s concerns known as cooperativeness (Black et al., 2019). Assertiveness can range on a continuum from assertive to unassertive, and cooperativeness can range on a continuum from uncooperative to cooperative. Once the people involved in the conflict have determined their level of assertiveness and cooperativeness, a resolution strategy emerges.
In the conflict resolution process, competing individuals or groups determine the extent to which a satisfactory resolution or outcome might be achieved. If someone does not feel satisfied or feels only partially satisfied with a resolution, discontent can lead to future conflict. An unresolved conflict can easily set the stage for a second confrontational episode (Black et al., 2019).
Anti-racist allies can use several techniques to help prevent or reduce conflict. Actions directed at conflict prevention are often easier to implement than those directed at reducing conflict (Black et al., 2019). Common conflict prevention strategies include emphasizing collaborative goals, constructing structured tasks, facilitating intergroup communications, and avoiding win-lose situations. Focusing on collaborative goals and objectives prevents goal conflict (Black et al., 2019). Emphasis on primary goals help clients and community members see the big picture and work together. This approach separates people from the problem by maintaining focus on shared interests (Fisher and Ury, 1981). The overarching goal is to work together to address the structure of the overarching social concern or issue.
Table 5. Five Modes of Resolving Conflict
Conflict-Handling Modes Appropriate Situations
Competing
(Assertive-Uncooperative)
1. When quick, decisive action is vital—e.g., emergencies
2. On important issues where unpopular actions need implementing—e.g., cost cutting, enforcing unpopular rules, discipline
3. On issues vital to company welfare when you know you’re right
4. Against people who take advantage of noncompetitive behavior
Collaborating
(Assertive-Cooperative)
1. When trying to find an integrative solution when both sets of concerns are too important to be compromised
2. When your objective is to learn
3. When merging insights from people with different perspectives
4. When gaining commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus
5. When working through feelings that interfered with a relationship
Compromising
1. When goals are important but not worth the effort or potential disruption of more assertive modes
2. When opponents with equal power are committed to mutual goals
3. When attempting to achieve temporary settlements to complex issues
4. When arriving at expedient solutions under time pressure
5. As a backup when collaboration or competition is unsuccessful
Avoiding
(Unassertive-Uncooperative)
1. When an issue is trivial or when more important issues are pressing
2. When you perceive no chance of satisfying your concerns
3. When potential disruption outweighs the benefits of resolution
4. When letting people cool down and regain perspective
5. When gathering information supersedes immediate decision
6. When others can resolve the conflict more effectively
7. When issues seem tangential or symptomatic of other issues
Accommodating
(Unassertive-Cooperative)
1. When you find you are wrong—to allow a better position to be heard, to learn, and to show your reasonableness
2. When issues are more important to others than yourself—to satisfy others and maintain cooperation
3. When building social credits for later issues
4. When minimizing loss when you are outmatched and losing
5. When harmony and stability are especially important
6. When allowing subordinates to develop by learning from mistakes
Source: Adapted from Thomas, Kenneth W. 1977. “Toward Multidimensional Values in Teaching: The Example of Conflict Behaviors.” Academy of Management Review 2:487.
Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
When collaborative partners clearly define, understand, and accept tasks and activities aimed at shared goals, conflict is less likely to occur (Black et al., 2019). Conflict is most likely to occur when there is uncertainty and ambiguity in the roles and tasks of groups and community members. Dialogue and information sharing among collaborative partners is imperative and eliminates conflict. Understanding others’ thinking is helpful in collaborative problem solving. Through dialogue, people are better able to develop empathy, avoid speculation or misinterpreting intentions, and escape blaming others for situations and problems which leads to defensive behavior and counter attacks (Fisher and Ury, 1981). Sharing information about the state, progress, and setbacks helps eliminate conflict or suspicions about problems or issues when they arise.
As groups and community partners become familiar with each other, trust and teamwork develop. Giving people time to interact and get to know each other helps foster and build effective working relationships (Fisher and Ury, 1981). It is important for collaborative members to think of themselves as partners in a side-by-side effort to be effective in their anti-racist work and accomplish shared goals. Avoiding win-lose situations among collaborative partners also weakens the potential for conflict (Black et al., 2019). Rewards and solutions must focus on shared benefits resulting in win-win scenarios.
Conflict can have a negative impact on teams or collaborative work groups and individuals in achieving their goals and solving social issues. People cannot always avoid or protect themselves or others from conflict when working collaboratively. However, there are actions everyone can take to reduce or solve dysfunctional conflict.
When conflict arises, you may employ two general approaches by either targeting changes in attitudes and/or behaviors. Changes in attitudes result in fundamental changes in how groups get along, whereas changes in behavior reduce open conflict but not internal perceptions maintaining separation between groups (Black et at., 2019). There are several ways to help reduce conflict between groups and individuals that either address attitudinal and/or behavioral changes. The nine conflict reduction techniques in Table 6 operate on a continuum, ranging from approaches that concentrate on changing behaviors at the top of the scale to tactics that focus on changing attitudes on the bottom of the scale.
Table 6. Conflict Reduction Techniques
Technique Description Target of Change
Physical separation Separate conflicting groups when collaboration or interaction is not needed for completing tasks and activities Behavior
Use rules Introduce specific rules, regulations, and procedures that impose particular processes, approaches, and methods for working together Behavior
Limit intergroup interactions Limit interactions to issues involving common goals Behavior
Use diplomats Identify individuals who will be responsible for maintaining boundaries between groups or individuals through diplomacy Behavior
Confrontation and negotiation Bring conflicting parties together to discuss areas of disagreement and identify win-win solutions for all Attitude and behavior
Third-party consultation Bring in outside practitioners or consultants to speak more directly to the issues from a neutral or outsider vantage point to help facilitate a resolution Attitude and behavior
Rotation of members Rotate individuals from one group to another to help understand frame of reference, values, and attitudes of others Attitude and behavior
Identify interdependent tasks and common goals Establish goals that require groups and individuals to work together Attitude and behavior
Use of intergroup training Long-term, ongoing training aimed at helping groups develop methods for working together Attitude and behavior
Source: Adapted from Black, J. Stewart, David S. Bright, Donald G. Gardner, Eva Hartmann, Jason Lambert, Laura M. Leduc, Joy Leopold, James S. O’Rourke, Jon L. Pierce, Richard M. Steers, Siri Terjesen, and Joseph Weiss. 2019. Organizational Behavior. Houston, TX: OpenStax College.
Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Truth Telling & Social Discourse
An unequal part of systems of power is the way discourse operates. Social justice advocates and allies become attuned to bias and exclusion for the stand they take towards speaking the truth about White authority and privilege (Burbules, 2018). In the face of truth, the dominant group creates a context that shields any claims of scrutiny upon Whites and reinforces the unquestionable naturalness or normality of their status and power.
Truthfulness involves accuracy aiming at the facts and sincerity to speak about reality with honest motives in the truth we speak (Williams, 2002). There are many aspects to contemplate in truth telling including awareness of context, history, personal experiences, equity, and justice in the United States. The implication and responsibility for Whites in a racist society centers on the framework of truthfulness; however, various degrees of ignorance about racial-ethnic minorities is problematic making the idea of “truth” relative in the eyes of Whites. Burbules (2018) identified five types of ignorance that influence the racial-ethnic empathy of Whites.
Table 7. Types of Ignorance
Type Characteristics
Forgivable Could not expect to know
Lethargic A lack of effort to find out
Apathetic Should have made the effort to find out
Willful Refuse to acknowledge
Suppressed or unconscious Unable or unwilling to fully acknowledge though aware
Source: Adapted from Burbules, N. C. (2018). The role of truth in social justice education . . . and elsewhere. Philosophy of Education Society.
The conspiracy of silence has long been the tactic used by the White race to outwardly ignore the mistreatment and injustices bestowed on people of color in the United States (Zerubavel, 2006). Silence is practiced by never publicly discussing or mentioning open secrets such as the sexual assaults and exploitations of slaves by masters in the antebellum South. White conspirators become silent witnesses by keeping the uncomfortable truth hidden in plain sight and perpetuating a sociology of denial including the murder, torture, rape, theft, and other inhumane and unlawful treat to people of color by Whites in the United States (Krugman, 2002).
According to Zerubavel (2006), denial arises from a need to avoid discomfort and pain. To avoid psychological distress, people may choose to block disturbing information from consciousness. The psychological feelings of fear and embarrassment also reinforce denial. It is challenging for some people to talk about issues or conditions that frighten or shame them. The conspiracy of silence has allowed Whites to actively avoid and deliberately refrain from noticing and refusing to acknowledge their presence in the oppression of indigenous and people of color in the United States (Zerubavel, 2006).
Both normative pressure and political constraint maintain conspiracies of silence among the dominant group. The power and status of Whites imparts their control on the scope of attention on racial-ethnic group relations through formal censorship to informal distraction tactics using formal agenda-setting procedures and informal codes of silence (Zerubavel, 2006). As the demographic changes in the United States, it threatens the power, privilege, and status of the White race, pain, fear, and embarrassment grow among the dominant group. The White race is now faced with shifts in society and culture, and the need to reconcile White thought, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors with racial-ethnic minority groups is overdue.
SUMMARY
In Module 8, we examined the impact of racism and discrimination on race-based trauma and stress. We learned about the diverse coping mechanisms people of color develop including the adaptive and change-oriented strategies they utilize. You were asked to explore the Native American experience in the United States, and to think about anti-racist and anti-colonial practices to improve your relationships with diverse groups and people. We also explored the five major approaches to reducing prejudice. And lastly, we reviewed the strategies and methods for building community and making connections with diverse populations.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the strategies people of color use to cope with their subordinate or minority status.
2. Describe anti-racist, anti-colonial practices, ways to reduce prejudice in our society.
3. Illustrate ways to resolve and reduce cross-cultural conflict.
4. Reflecting on the history and experiences of major underrepresented racial groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans, explain the significance of race and ethnicity on the development and progress of the United States.
TO MY FUTURE SELF
From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?
REFERENCES
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Black, J. S., Bright, D. S., Gardner, D. G., Hartmann, E., Lambert, J., Leduc, L. M., Leopold, J., O’Rourke, J. S., Pierce, J. L., Steers, R. M., Terjesen, S., & Weiss, J. (2019). Organizational behavior. OpenStax College.
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Bucher, R. D. (2008). Building cultural intelligence (CQ): 9 megaskills. Prentice Hall.
Burbules, N. C. (2018). The role of truth in social justice education . . . and elsewhere. Philosophy of Education Society.
Comas-Diaz, L. & Jacobsen, F. (2001). Ethnocultural allodynia. Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 10(4), 246-252.
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Dovidio, J. F. & Gaertner, J. D. (1999). Reducing prejudice: Combatting intergroup biases. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(4), 101-105.
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Hamilton-Merritt, J. (1993). Tragic mountains: the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos, 1942-1992. Indiana University Press.
Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson.
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Krugman, P. (2000, December). Gotta have faith. New York Times, A35.
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Resler, M. (2019). Systems of trauma: Racial trauma. Family & Children’s Trust Fund of Virginia. https://www.fact.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Racial-Trauma-Issue-Brief.pdf
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Williams, B. (2002). Truth and truthfulness: An essay in genealogy. Princeton University Press, 246.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. (2006). The elephant in the room: Silence and denial in everyday life. Oxford University Press. | textbooks/socialsci/Ethnic_Studies/Our_Lives_-_An_Ethnic_Studies_Primer_(Capozzi_Cha_and_Johnson)/8%3A_Our_Way_Forward.txt |
Thumbnail: Pussy Hats (CC BY-NC-ND; Nicola Osborne via flickr)
01: An Introduction to Women Gender Sexuality Studies - Grounding Theoretical Frameworks and Concepts
There was a time when it seemed all knowledge was produced by, about, and for men. This was true from the physical and social sciences to the canons of music and literature. Looking from the angle of mainstream education, studies, textbooks, and masterpieces were almost all authored by white men. It was not uncommon for college students to complete entire courses reading only the work of white men in their fields.
Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is an interdisciplinary field that challenges the androcentric production of knowledge. Androcentrism is the privileging of male- and masculine-centered ways of understanding the world.
Alison Bechdel, a lesbian feminist comics artist, described what has come to be known as “the Bechdel Test,” which demonstrates the androcentric perspective of a majority of feature-length films. Films only pass the Bechdel Test if they 1) Feature two women characters, 2) Those two women characters talk to each other, and 3) They talk to each other about something other than a man. Many people might be surprised to learn that a majority of films do not pass this test! This demonstrates how androcentrism is pervasive in the film industry and results in male-centered films.
A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/introwgss/?p=22
Feminist frequency. (2009, December 7). The bechdel test for women in movies. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s .
Feminist scholars argue that the common assumption that knowledge is produced by rational, impartial (male) scientists often obscures the ways that scientists create knowledge through gendered, raced, classed, and sexualized cultural perspectives (e.g., Scott 1991). Feminist scholars include biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, chemists, engineers, economists and researchers from just about any identifiable department at a university. Disciplinary diversity among scholars in this field facilitates communication across the disciplinary boundaries within the academy to more fully understand the social world. This text offers a general introduction to the field of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies. As all authors of this textbook are trained both as sociologists and interdisciplinary feminist scholars, we situate our framework, which is heavily shaped by a sociological lens, within larger interdisciplinary feminist debates. We highlight some of the key areas in the field rather than comprehensively covering every topic.
The Women’s Liberation Movement and Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th Century called attention to these conditions and aimed to address these absences in knowledge. Beginning in the 1970s, universities across the United States instituted Women’s and Ethnic Studies departments (African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Latin American Studies, Native American Studies, etc.) in response to student protests and larger social movements. These departments reclaimed buried histories and centered the knowledge production of marginalized groups. As white, middle-class, heterosexual women had the greatest access to education and participation in Women’s Studies, early incarnations of the field stressed their experiences and perspectives. In subsequent decades, studies and contributions of women of color, immigrant women, women from the global south, poor and working class women, and lesbian and queer women became integral to Women’s Studies. More recently, analyses of disability, sexualities, masculinities, religion, science, gender diversity, incarceration, indigeneity, and settler colonialism have become centered in the field. As a result of this opening of the field to incorporate a wider range of experiences and objects of analysis, many Women’s Studies department are now re-naming themselves “Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies” departments.
Feminist scholars recognize the inextricable connection between the notions of gender and sexuality in U.S. society, not only for women but also for men and people of all genders, across a broad expanse of topics. In an introductory course, you can expect to learn about the impact of stringent beauty standards produced in media and advertising, why childrearing by women may not be as natural as we think, the history of the gendered division of labor and its continuing impact on the economic lives of men and women, the unique health issues addressed by advocates of reproductive justice, the connections between women working in factories in the global south and women consuming goods in the United States, how sexual double-standards harm us all, the historical context for feminist movements and where they are today, and much more.
More than a series of topics, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies offers a way of seeing the world differently. Scholars in this field make connections across institutional contexts (work, family, media, law, the state), value the knowledge that comes from lived experiences, and attend to, rather than ignore, marginalized identities and groups. Thanks to the important critiques of transnational, post-colonial, queer, trans and feminists of color, most contemporary WGSS scholars strive to see the world through the lens of intersectionality. That is, they see systems of oppression working in concert rather than separately. For instance, the way sexism is experienced depends not only on a person’s gender but also on how the person experiences racism, economic inequality, ageism, and other forms of marginalization within particular historical and cultural contexts.
Intersectionality can be challenging to understand. This video explains the intersectionality framework using the example of gender-specific and race-specific anti-discrimination policies that failed to protect Black women.
Can you think of some other contexts in which people who are marginalized in multiple ways might be left out?
What are some things you can do to include them?
A Vimeo element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/introwgss/?p=22
Peter Hopkins, Newcastle University. (2018, April 22). What is intersectionality?. Retrieved from vimeo.com/263719865. Used with permission.
By recognizing the complexity of the social world, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies advocates for social change and provides insight into how this can be accomplished. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.01%3A_Critical_.txt |
You may have heard the phrase “the personal is political” at some point in your life. This phrase, popularized by feminists in the 1960s, highlights the ways in which our personal experiences are shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces within the context of history, institutions, and culture. Socially-lived theorizing means creating feminist theories and knowledge from the actual day-to-day experiences of groups of people who have traditionally been excluded from the production of academic knowledge. A key element to feminist analysis is a commitment to the creation of knowledge grounded in the experiences of people belonging to marginalized groups, including for example, women, people of color, people in the Global South, immigrants, indigenous people, gay, lesbian, queer, and trans people, poor and working-class people, and disabled people.
Feminist theorists and activists argue for theorizing beginning from the experiences of the marginalized because people with less power and resources often experience the effects of oppressive social systems in ways that members of dominant groups do not. From the “bottom” of a social system, participants have knowledge of the power holders of that system as well as their own experiences, while the reverse is rarely true. Therefore, their experiences allow for a more complete knowledge of the workings of systems of power. For example, a story of the development of industry in the 19th century told from the perspective of the owners of factories would emphasize capital accumulation and industrial progress. However, the development of industry in the 19th century for immigrant workers meant working sixteen-hour days to feed themselves and their families and fighting for employer recognition of trade unions so that they could secure decent wages and the eight-hour work day. Depending on which point-of-view you begin with, you will have very different theories of how industrial capitalism developed, and how it works today.
Feminism is not a single school of thought but encompasses diverse theories and analytical perspectives—such as socialist feminist theories, radical sex feminist theories, black feminist theories, queer feminist theories , transfeminist theories, feminist disability theories, and intersectional feminist theories.
In the video below, “Barbie explains feminist theories,” Cristen, of “Ask Cristen,” defines feminisms generally as a project that works for the “political, social, and economic equality of the sexes,” and suggests that different types of feminist propose different sources of gender inequality and solutions. Cristen (with Barbie’s help) identifies and defines 11 different types of feminism and the solutions they propose:
• Liberal feminism
• Marxist feminism
• Radical feminism
• Anti-porn feminism
• Sex positive feminism
• Separatist feminism
• Cultural feminism
• Womanism (intersectional feminism)
• Postcolonial feminism
• Ecofeminism
• Girlie feminism
What types of feminism do Cristen and Barbie leave out of this list? Do you agree with how they characterize these types of feminism? Which issues across these feminisms do you think are most important?
A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/introwgss/?p=24
Stuff Mom Never Told You – HowStuffWorks. (2016, March 3). Barbie Explains Feminist Theories | Radical, Liberal, Black, etc. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3D_C-Nes60.
The common thread in all these feminist theories is the belief that knowledge is shaped by the political and social context in which it is made (Scott 1991). Acknowledging that all knowledge is constructed by individuals inhabiting particular social locations, feminist theorists argue that reflexivity—understanding how one’s social position influences the ways that they understand the world—is of utmost necessity when creating theory and knowledge. As people occupy particular social locations in terms of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, and ability, these multiple identities in combination all at the same time shape their social experiences. At certain times, specific dimensions of their identities may be more salient than at others, but at no time is anyone without multiple identities. Thus, categories of identity are intersectional, influencing the experiences that individuals have and the ways they see and understand the world around them.
In the United States, we often are taught to think that people are self-activating, self-actualizing individuals. We repeatedly hear that everyone is unique and that everyone has an equal chance to make something of themselves. While feminists also believe that people have agency—or the ability to influence the direction of their lives—they also argue that an individual’s agency is limited or enhanced by their social position. A powerful way to understand oneself and one’s multiple identities is to situate one’s experiences within multiple levels of analysis—micro (individual), meso- (group), macro- (structural), and global. These levels of analysis offer different analytical approaches to understanding a social phenomenon. Connecting personal experiences to larger, structural forces of race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and ability allows for a more powerful understanding of how our own lives are shaped by forces greater than ourselves, and how we might work to change these larger forces of inequality. Like a microscope that is initially set on a view of the most minute parts of a cell, moving back to see the whole of the cell, and then pulling one’s eye away from the microscope to see the whole of the organism, these levels of analysis allow us to situate day-to-day experiences and phenomena within broader, structural processes that shape whole populations. The micro level is that which we, as individuals, live everyday—interacting with other people on the street, in the classroom, or while we are at a party or a social gathering. Therefore, the micro-level is the level of analysis focused on individuals’ experiences. The meso level of analysis moves the microscope back, seeing how groups, communities and organizations structure social life. A meso level-analysis might look at how churches shape gender expectations for women, how schools teach students to become girls and boys, or how workplace policies make gender transition and recognition either easier or harder for trans and gender nonconforming workers. The macro level consists of government policies, programs, and institutions, as well as ideologies and categories of identity. In this way, the macro level involves national power structures as well as cultural ideas about different groups of people according to race, class, gender, and sexuality spread through various national institutions, such as media, education and policy. Finally, the global level of analysis includes transnational production, trade, and migration, global capitalism, and transnational trade and law bodies (such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization)—larger transnational forces that bear upon our personal lives but that we often ignore or fail to see.
How Macro Structures Impact People: Maquiladoras
Applying multiple levels of analysis, let’s look at the experiences of a Latina working in a maquiladora, a factory on the border of the US and Mexico. These factories were built to take advantage of the difference in the price of labor in these two countries. At the micro level, we can see the worker’s daily struggles to feed herself and her family. We can see how exhausted she is from working every day for more than eight hours and then coming home to care for herself and her family. Perhaps we could examine how she has developed a persistent cough or skin problems from working with the chemicals in the factory and using water contaminated with run-off from the factory she lives near. On the meso-level, we can see how the community that she lives within has been transformed by the maquiladora, and how other women in her community face similar financial, health, and environmental problems. We may also see how these women are organizing together to attempt to form a union that can press for higher wages and benefits. Moving to the macro and global levels, we can situate these experiences within the Mexican government’s participation within global and regional trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Act (CAFTA) and their negative effects on environmental regulations and labor laws, as well as the effects of global capitalist restructuring that has shifted production from North America and Europe to Central and South America and Asia. For further discussion, see the textbook section on globalization.
Recognizing how forces greater than ourselves operate in shaping the successes and failures we typically attribute to individual decisions allows us see how inequalities are patterned by race, class, gender, and sexuality—not just by individual decisions. Approaching these issues through multiple levels of analysis—at the micro, meso, and macro/global levels—gives a more integrative and complete understanding of both personal experience and the ways in which macro structures affect the people who live within them. Through looking at labor in a maquiladora through multiple levels of analysis we are able to connect what are experienced at the micro level as personal problems to macro economic, cultural, and social problems. This not only gives us the ability to develop socially-lived theory, but also allows us to organize with other people who feel similar effects from the same economic, cultural, and social problems in order to challenge and change these problems. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.02%3A_Theorizin.txt |
Language is political, hotly contested, always evolving, and deeply personal to each person who chooses the terms with which to identify themselves. To demonstrate respect and awareness of these complexities, it is important to be attentive to language and to honor and use individuals’ self-referential terms (Farinas and Farinas 2015). Below are some common identity terms and their meanings. This discussion is not meant to be definitive or prescriptive but rather aims to highlight the stakes of language and the debates and context surrounding these terms, and to assist in understanding terms that frequently come up in classroom discussions. While there are no strict rules about “correct” or “incorrect” language, these terms reflect much more than personal preferences. They reflect individual and collective histories, ongoing scholarly debates, and current politics.
“People of color” vs. “Colored people”
People of color is a contemporary term used mainly in the United States to refer to all individuals who are non-white (Safire 1988). It is a political, coalitional term, as it encompasses common experiences of racism. People of color is abbreviated as POC. Black or African American are commonly the preferred terms for most individuals of African descent today. These are widely used terms, though sometimes they obscure the specificity of individuals’ histories. Other preferred terms are African diasporic or African descent, to refer, for example, to people who trace their lineage to Africa but migrated through Latin America and the Caribbean. Colored people is an antiquated term used before the civil rights movement in the United States and the United Kingdom to refer pejoratively to individuals of African descent. The term is now taken as a slur, as it represents a time when many forms of institutional racism during the Jim Crow era were legal.
“Disabled people” vs. “People with disabilities”
Some people prefer person-first phrasing, while others prefer identity-first phrasing. People-first language linguistically puts the person before their impairment (physical, sensory or mental difference). Example: “a woman with a vision impairment.” This terminology encourages nondisabled people to think of those with disabilities as people (Logsdon 2016). The acronym PWD stands for “people with disabilities.” Although it aims to humanize, people-first language has been critiqued for aiming to create distance from the impairment, which can be understood as devaluing the impairment. Those who prefer identity-first language often emphasize embracing their impairment as an integral, important, valued aspect of themselves, which they do not want to distance themselves from. Example: “a disabled person.” Using this language points to how society disables individuals (Liebowitz 2015). Many terms in common use have ableist meanings, such as evaluative expressions like “lame,” “retarded,” “crippled,” and “crazy.” It is important to avoid using these terms. Although in the case of disability, both people-first and disability-first phrasing are currently in use, as mentioned above, this is not the case when it comes to race.
“Transgender,” vs. “Transgendered,” “Trans,” “Trans*,” “Non-binary,” “Genderqueer,” “Genderfluid,” “Agender,” “Transsexual,” “Cisgender,” “Cis”
Transgender generally refers to individuals who identify as a gender not assigned to them at birth. The term is used as an adjective (i.e., “a transgender woman,” not “a transgender”), however some individuals describe themselves by using transgender as a noun. The term transgendered is not preferred because it emphasizes ascription and undermines self-definition. Trans is an abbreviated term and individuals appear to use it self-referentially these days more often than transgender. Transition is both internal and social. Some individuals who transition do not experience a change in their gender identity since they have always identified in the way that they do. Trans* is an all-inclusive umbrella term which encompasses all nonnormative gender identities (Tompkins 2014). Non-binary and genderqueer refer to gender identities beyond binary identifications of man or woman. The term genderqueer became popularized within queer and trans communities in the 1990s and 2000s, and the term non-binary became popularized in the 2010s (Roxie 2011). Agender, meaning “without gender,” can describe people who do not have a gender identity, while others identify as non-binary or gender neutral, have an undefinable identity, or feel indifferent about gender (Brooks 2014). Genderfluid people experience shifts between gender identities. The term transsexual is a medicalized term, and indicates a binary understanding of gender and an individual’s identification with the “opposite” gender from the gender assigned to them at birth. Cisgender or cis refers to individuals who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Some people prefer the term non-trans. Additional gender identity terms exist; these are just a few basic and commonly used terms. Again, the emphasis of these terms is on viewing individuals as they view themselves and using their self-designated names and pronouns.
“Queer,” “Bisexual,” “Pansexual,” “Polyamorous,” “Asexual,”
Queer as an identity term refers to a non-categorical sexual identity; it is also used as a catch-all term for all LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) individuals. The term was historically used in a derogatory way, but was reclaimed as a self-referential term in the 1990s United States. Although many individuals identify as queer today, some still feel personally insulted by it and disapprove of its use. Bisexual is typically defined as a sexual orientation marked by attraction to either men or women. This has been problematized as a binary approach to sexuality, which excludes individuals who do not identify as men or women. Pansexual is a sexual identity marked by sexual attraction to people of any gender or sexuality. Polyamorous (poly, for short) or non-monogamous relationships are open or non-exclusive; individuals may have multiple consensual and individually-negotiated sexual and/or romantic relationships at once (Klesse 2006). Asexual is an identity marked by a lack of or rare sexual attraction, or low or absent interest in sexual activity, abbreviated to “ace” (Decker 2014). Asexuals distinguish between sexual and romantic attraction, delineating various sub-identities included under an ace umbrella. In several later sections of this book, we discuss the terms heteronormativity,homonormativity, and homonationalism; these terms are not self-referential identity descriptors but are used to describe how sexuality is constructed in society and the politics around such constructions.
“Latino,” “Latin American,” “Latina,” “Latino/a,” “Latin@,” “Latinx,” “Chicano,” “Xicano,” “Chicana,” “Chicano/a,” “Chican@,” “Chicanx,” “Mexican American,” “Hispanic”
Latino is a term used to describe people of Latin American origin or descent in the United States, while Latin American describes people in Latin America. Latino can refer specifically to a man of Latin American origin or descent; Latina refers specifically to a woman of Latin American origin or descent. The terms Latino/a and Latin@ include both the –o and –a endings to avoid the sexist use of “Latino” to refer to all individuals. Chicano, Chicano/a, and Chican@ similarly describe people of Mexican origin or descent in the United States, and may be used interchangeably with Mexican American, Xicano or Xicano/a. However, as Chicano has the connotation of being politically active in working to end oppression of Mexican Americans, and is associated with the Chicano literary and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, people may prefer the use of either Chicano or Mexican American, depending on their political orientation. Xicano is a shortened form of Mexicano, from the Nahuatl name for the indigenous Mexica Aztec Empire. Some individuals prefer the Xicano spelling to emphasize their indigenous ancestry (Revilla 2004). Latinx and Chicanx avoid either the –a or the –o gendered endings to explicitly include individuals of all genders (Ramirez and Blay 2017). Hispanic refers to the people and nations with a historical link to Spain and to people of country heritage who speak the Spanish language. Although many people can be considered both Latinx and Hispanic, Brazilians, for example, are Latin American but neither Hispanic nor Latino, while Spaniards are Hispanic but not Latino. Preferred terms vary regionally and politically; these terms came into use in the context of the Anglophone-dominated United States.
“Indigenous,” “First Nations,” “Indian,” “Native,” “Native American,” “American Indian,” “Aboriginal”
Indigenous refers to descendants of the original inhabitants of an area, in contrast to those that have settled, occupied or colonized the area (Turner 2006). Terms vary by specificity; for example, in Australia, individuals are Aboriginal, while those in Canada are First Nations. “Aboriginal” is sometimes used in the Canadian context, too, though more commonly in settler-government documents, not so much as a term of self-definition. In the United States, individuals may refer to themselves as Indian, American Indian, Native, or Native American, or, perhaps more commonly, they may refer to their specific tribes or nations. Because of the history of the term, “Indian,” like other reclaimed terms, outsiders should be very careful in using it.
“Global South,” “Global North,” “Third world,” “First world,” “Developing country,” “Developed country”
Global South and Global North refer to socioeconomic and political divides. Areas of the Global South, which are typically socioeconomically and politically disadvantaged are Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia, and the Middle East. Generally, Global North areas, including the United States, Canada, Western Europe and parts of East Asia, are typically socioeconomically and politically advantaged. Terms like Third world, First world, Developing country, and Developed country have been problematized for their hierarchical meanings, where areas with more resources and political power are valued over those with less resources and less power (Silver 2015). Although the terms Global South and Global North carry the same problematic connotations, these tend to be the preferred terms today. In addition, although the term Third world has been problematized, some people do not see Third world as a negative term and use it self-referentially. Also, Third world was historically used as an oppositional and coalitional term for nations and groups who were non-aligned with either the capitalist First world and communist Second world especially during the Cold War. For example, those who participated in the Third World Liberation Strike at San Francisco State University from 1968 to 1969 used the term to express solidarity and to establish Black Studies and the Ethnic Studies College (Springer 2008). We use certain terms, like Global North/South, throughout the book, with the understanding that there are problematic aspects of these usages.
“Transnational,” “Diasporic,” “Global,” “Globalization”
Transnational has been variously defined. Transnational describes migration and the transcendence of borders, signals the diminishing relevance of the nation-state in the current iteration of globalization, is used interchangeably with diasporic (any reference to materials from a region outside its current location), designates a form of neocolonialism (e.g., transnational capital) and signals the NGOization of social movements. For Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (2001), the terms “transnational women’s movements” or “global women’s movements” are used to refer to U.N. conferences on women, global feminism as a policy and activist arena, and human rights initiatives that enact new forms of governmentality. Chandra Mohanty (2003) has argued that transnational feminist scholarship and social movements critique and mobilize against globalization, capitalism, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and non-national institutions like the World Trade Organization. In this sense, transnational refers to “cross-national solidarity” in feminist organizing. Grewal and Caplan (2001) have observed that transnational feminist inquiry also examines how these movements have been tied to colonial processes and imperialism, as national and international histories shape transnational social movements. In feminist politics and studies, the term transnational is used much more than “international,” which has been critiqued because it centers the nation-state. Whereas transnational can also take seriously the role of the state it does not assume that the state is the most relevant actor in global processes. Although all of these are technically global processes, the term “global” is oftentimes seen as abstract. It appeals to the notion of “global sisterhood,” which is often suspect because of the assumption of commonalities among women that often times do not exist. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.03%3A_Identity_.txt |
A social structure is a set of long-lasting social relationships, practices and institutions that can be difficult to see at work in our daily lives. They are intangible social relations, but work much in the same way as structures we can see: buildings and skeletal systems are two examples. The human body is structured by bones; that is to say that the rest of our bodies’ organs and vessels are where they are because bones provide the structure upon which these other things can reside. Structures limit possibility, but they are not fundamentally unchangeable. For instance, our bones may deteriorate over time, suffer acute injuries, or be affected by disease, but they never spontaneously change location or disappear into thin air. Such is the way with social structures.
The elements of a social structure, the parts of social life that direct possible actions, are the institutions of society. These will be addressed in more detail later, but for now social institutions may be understood to include: the government, work, education, family, law, media, and medicine, among others. To say these institutions direct, or structure, possible social action, means that within the confines of these spaces there are rules, norms, and procedures that limit what actions are possible. For instance, family is a concept near and dear to most, but historically and culturally family forms have been highly specified, that is structured. According to Dorothy Smith (1993), the standard North American family (or, SNAF) includes two heterosexually-married parents and one or more biologically-related children. It also includes a division of labor in which the husband/father earns a larger income and the wife/mother takes responsibility for most of the care-taking and childrearing. Although families vary in all sorts of ways, this is the norm to which they are most often compared. Thus, while we may consider our pets, friends, and lovers as family, the state, the legal system, and the media do not affirm these possibilities in the way they affirm the SNAF. In turn, when most people think of who is in their family, the normative notion of parents and children structures who they consider.
Overlaying these social structures are structures of power. By power we mean two things: 1) access to and through the various social institutions mentioned above, and 2) processes of privileging, normalizing, and valuing certain identities over others. This definition of power highlights the structural, institutional nature of power, while also highlighting the ways in which culture works in the creation and privileging of certain categories of people. Power in American society is organized along the axes of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age, nation, and religious identities. Some identities are more highly valued, or more normalized, than others—typically because they are contrasted to identities thought to be less valuable or less “normal.” Thus, identities are not only descriptors of individuals, but grant a certain amount of collective access to the institutions of social life. This is not to say, for instance, that all white people are alike and wield the same amount of power over all people of color. It does mean that white, middle-class women as a group tend to hold more social power than middle-class women of color. This is where the concept of intersectionality is key. All individuals have multiple aspects of identity, and simultaneously experience some privileges due to their socially valued identity statuses and disadvantages due to their devalued identity statuses. Thus a white, heterosexual middle-class woman may be disadvantaged compared to a white middle-class man, but she may experience advantages in different contexts in relation to a black, heterosexual middle-class woman, or a white, heterosexual working-class man, or a white lesbian upper-class woman.
At the higher level of social structure, we can see that some people have greater access to resources and institutionalized power across the board than do others. Sexism is the term we use for discrimination and blocked access women face. Genderism describes discrimination and blocked access that transgender people face. Racism describes discrimination and blocked access on the basis of race, which is based on socially-constructed meanings rather than biological differences. Classism describes discrimination on the basis of social class, or blocked access to material wealth and social status. Ableism describes discrimination on the basis of physical, mental, or emotional impairment or blocked access to the fulfillment of needs and in particular, full participation in social life. These “-isms” reflect dominant cultural notions that women, trans people, people of color, poor people, and disabled people are inferior to men, non-trans people, white people, middle- and upper-class people, and non-disabled people. Yet, the “-isms” are greater than individuals’ prejudice against women, trans people, people of color, the poor, and disabled people. For instance, in the founding of the United States the institutions of social life, including work, law, education, and the like, were built to benefit wealthy, white men since at the time these were, by law, the only real “citizens” of the country. Although these institutions have significantly changed over time in response to social movements and more progressive cultural shifts, their sexist, genderist, racist, classist, and ableist structures continue to persist in different forms today. Similar-sounding to “-isms,” the language of “-ization,” such as in “racialization” is used to highlight the formation or processes by which these forms of difference have been given meaning and power (Omi and Winant 1986). (See further discussion on this process in the section below on social construction).
Just like the human body’s skeletal structure, social structures are not immutable, or completely resistant to change. Social movements mobilized on the basis of identities have fought for increased equality and changed the structures of society, in the US and abroad, over time. However, these struggles do not change society overnight; some struggles last decades, centuries, or remain always unfinished. The structures and institutions of social life change slowly, but they can and do change based on the concerted efforts of individuals, social movements and social institutions. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.04%3A_Conceptua.txt |
Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge that holds that characteristics typically thought to be immutable and solely biological—such as gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality—are products of human definition and interpretation shaped by cultural and historical contexts (Subramaniam 2010). As such, social constructionism highlights the ways in which cultural categories—like “men,” “women,” “black,” “white”—are concepts created, changed, and reproduced through historical processes within institutions and culture. We do not mean to say that bodily variation among individuals does not exist, but that we construct categories based on certain bodily features, we attach meanings to these categories, and then we place people into the categories by considering their bodies or bodily aspects. For example, by the one-drop rule (see also page 35), regardless of their appearance, individuals with any African ancestor are considered black. In contrast, racial conceptualization and thus racial categories are different in Brazil, where many individuals with African ancestry are considered to be white. This shows how identity categories are not based on strict biological characteristics, but on the social perceptions and meanings that are assumed. Categories are not “natural” or fixed and the boundaries around them are always shifting—they are contested and redefined in different historical periods and across different societies. Therefore , the social constructionist perspective is concerned with the meaning created through defining and categorizing groups of people, experience, and reality in cultural contexts.
The Social Construction of Heterosexuality
What does it mean to be “heterosexual” in contemporary US society? Did it mean the same thing in the late 19th century? As historian of human sexuality Jonathon Ned Katz shows in The Invention of Heterosexuality (1999), the word “heterosexual” was originally coined by Dr. James Kiernan in 1892, but its meaning and usage differed drastically from contemporary understandings of the term. Kiernan thought of “hetero-sexuals” as not defined by their attraction to the opposite sex, but by their “inclinations to both sexes.” Furthermore, Kiernan thought of the heterosexual as someone who “betrayed inclinations to ‘abnormal methods of gratification’” (Katz 1995). In other words, heterosexuals were those who were attracted to both sexes and engaged in sex for pleasure, not for reproduction. Katz further points out that this definition of the heterosexual lasted within middle-class cultures in the United States until the 1920s, and then went through various radical reformulations up to the current usage.
Looking at this historical example makes visible the process of the social construction of heterosexuality. First of all, the example shows how social construction occurs within institutions—in this case, a medical doctor created a new category to describe a particular type of sexuality, based on existing medical knowledge at the time. “Hetero-sexuality” was initially a medical term that defined a deviant type of sexuality. Second, by seeing how Kiernan—and middle class culture, more broadly—defined “hetero-sexuality” in the 19th century, it is possible to see how drastically the meanings of the concept have changed over time. Typically, in the United States in contemporary usage, “heterosexuality” is thought to mean “normal” or “good”—it is usually the invisible term defined by what is thought to be its opposite, homosexuality. However, in its initial usage, “hetero-sexuality” was thought to counter the norm of reproductive sexuality and be, therefore, deviant. This gets to the third aspect of social constructionism. That is, cultural and historical contexts shape our definition and understanding of concepts. In this case, the norm of reproductive sexuality—having sex not for pleasure, but to have children—defines what types of sexuality are regarded as “normal” or “deviant.” Fourth, this case illustrates how categorization shapes human experience, behavior, and interpretation of reality. To be a “heterosexual” in middle class culture in the US in the early 1900s was not something desirable to be—it was not an identity that most people would have wanted to inhabit. The very definition of “hetero-sexual” as deviant, because it violated reproductive sexuality, defined “proper” sexual behavior as that which was reproductive and not pleasure-centered.
Social constructionist approaches to understanding the world challenge the essentialist or biological determinist understandings that typically underpin the “common sense” ways in which we think about race, gender, and sexuality. Essentialism is the idea that the characteristics of persons or groups are significantly influenced by biological factors, and are therefore largely similar in all human cultures and historical periods. A key assumption of essentialism is that “a given truth is a necessary natural part of the individual and object in question” (Gordon and Abbott 2002). In other words, an essentialist understanding of sexuality would argue that not only do all people have a sexual orientation, but that an individual’s sexual orientation does not vary across time or place. In this example, “sexual orientation” is a given “truth” to individuals—it is thought to be inherent, biologically determined, and essential to their being.
Essentialism typically relies on a biological determinist theory of identity. Biological determinism can be defined as a general theory, which holds that a group’s biological or genetic makeup shapes its social, political, and economic destiny (Subramaniam 2014). For example, “sex” is typically thought to be a biological “fact,” where bodies are classified into two categories, male and female. Bodies in these categories are assumed to have “sex”-distinct chromosomes, reproductive systems, hormones, and sex characteristics. However, “sex” has been defined in many different ways, depending on the context within which it is defined. For example, feminist law professor Julie Greenberg (2002) writes that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, “when reproductive function was considered one of a woman’s essential characteristics, the medical community decided that the presence or absence of ovaries was the ultimate criterion of sex” (Greenberg 2002: 113). Thus, sexual difference was produced through the heteronormative assumption that women are defined by their ability to have children. Instead of assigning sex based on the presence or absence of ovaries, medical practitioners in the contemporary US typically assign sex based on the appearance of genitalia.
Differential definitions of sex point to two other primary aspects of the social construction of reality. First, it makes apparent how even the things commonly thought to be “natural” or “essential” in the world are socially constructed. Understandings of “nature” change through history and across place according to systems of human knowledge. Second, the social construction of difference occurs within relations of power and privilege. Sociologist Abby Ferber (2009) argues that these two aspects of the social construction of difference cannot be separated, but must be understood together. Discussing the construction of racial difference, she argues that inequality and oppression actually produce ideas of essential racial difference. Therefore, racial categories that are thought to be “natural” or “essential” are created within the context of racialized power relations—in the case of African-Americans, that includes slavery, laws regulating interracial sexual relationships, lynching, and white supremacist discourse. Social constructionist analyses seek to better understand the processes through which racialized, gendered, or sexualized differentiations occur, in order to untangle the power relations within them.
Notions of disability are similarly socially constructed within the context of ableist power relations. The medical model of disability frames body and mind differences and perceived challenges as flaws that need fixing at the individual level. The social model of disability shifts the focus to the disabling aspects of society for individuals with impairments (physical, sensory or mental differences), where the society disables those with impairments (Shakespeare 2006). Disability, then, refers to a form of oppression where individuals understood as having impairments are imagined to be inferior to those without impairments, and impairments are devalued and unwanted. This perspective manifests in structural arrangements that limit access for those with impairments. A critical disability perspective critiques the idea that nondisability is natural and normal—an ableist sentiment, which frames the person rather than the society as the problem.
What are the implications of a social constructionist approach to understanding the world? Because social constructionist analyses examine categories of difference as fluid, dynamic, and changing according to historical and geographical context, a social constructionist perspective suggests that existing inequalities are neither inevitable nor immutable. This perspective is especially useful for the activist and emancipatory aims of feminist movements and theories. By centering the processes through which inequality and power relations produce racialized, sexualized, and gendered difference, social constructionist analyses challenge the pathologization of minorities who have been thought to be essentially or inherently inferior to privileged groups. Additionally, social constructionist analyses destabilize the categories that organize people into hierarchically ordered groups through uncovering the historical, cultural, and/or institutional origins of the groups under study. In this way, social constructionist analyses challenge the categorical underpinnings of inequalities by revealing their production and reproduction through unequal systems of knowledge and power. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.05%3A_Social_Co.txt |
Articulated by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991), the concept of intersectionality identifies a mode of analysis integral to women, gender, sexuality studies. Within intersectional frameworks, race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and other aspects of identity are considered mutually constitutive; that is, people experience these multiple aspects of identity simultaneously and the meanings of different aspects of identity are shaped by one another. In other words, notions of gender and the way a person’s gender is interpreted by others are always impacted by notions of race and the way that person’s race is interpreted. For example, a person is never received as just a woman, but how that person is racialized impacts how the person is received as a woman. So, notions of blackness, brownness, and whiteness always influence gendered experience, and there is no experience of gender that is outside of an experience of race. In addition to race, gendered experience is also shaped by age, sexuality, class, and ability; likewise, the experience of race is impacted by gender, age, class, sexuality, and ability.
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Understanding intersectionality requires a particular way of thinking. It is different than how many people imagine identities operate. An intersectional analysis of identity is distinct from single-determinant identity models and additive models of identity. A single determinant model of identity presumes that one aspect of identity, say, gender, dictates one’s access to or disenfranchisement from power. An example of this idea is the concept of “global sisterhood,” or the idea that all women across the globe share some basic common political interests, concerns, and needs (Morgan 1996). If women in different locations did share common interests, it would make sense for them to unite on the basis of gender to fight for social changes on a global scale. Unfortunately, if the analysis of social problems stops at gender, what is missed is an attention to how various cultural contexts shaped by race, religion, and access to resources may actually place some women’s needs at cross-purposes to other women’s needs. Therefore, this approach obscures the fact that women in different social and geographic locations face different problems. Although many white, middle-class women activists of the mid-20th century US fought for freedom to work and legal parity with men, this was not the major problem for women of color or working-class white women who had already been actively participating in the US labor market as domestic workers, factory workers, and slave laborers since early US colonial settlement. Campaigns for women’s equal legal rights and access to the labor market at the international level are shaped by the experience and concerns of white American women, while women of the global south, in particular, may have more pressing concerns: access to clean water, access to adequate health care, and safety from the physical and psychological harms of living in tyrannical, war-torn, or economically impoverished nations.
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In contrast to the single-determinant identity model, the additive model of identity simply adds together privileged and disadvantaged identities for a slightly more complex picture. For instance, a Black man may experience some advantages based on his gender, but has limited access to power based on his race. This kind of analysis is exemplified in how race and gender wage gaps are portrayed in statistical studies and popular news reports. Below, you can see a median wage gap table from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research compiled in 2009. In reading the table, it can be seen that the gender wage gap is such that in 2009, overall, women earned 77% of what men did in the US. The table breaks down the information further to show that earnings varied not only by gender but by race as well. Thus, Hispanic or Latino women earned only 52.9% of what white men did while white women made 75%. This is certainly more descriptive than a single gender wage gap figure or a single race wage gap figure. The table is useful at pointing to potential structural explanations that may make earnings differ between groups. For instance, looking at the chart, you may immediately wonder why these gaps exist; is it a general difference of education levels, occupations, regions of residence or skill levels between groups, or is it something else, such as discrimination in hiring and promotion? What it is not useful for is predicting people’s incomes by plugging in their gender plus their race, even though it may be our instinct to do so. Individual experiences differ vastly and for a variety of reasons; there are outliers in every group. Most importantly, even if this chart helps in understanding structural reasons why incomes differ, it doesn’t provide all the answers.
Table 1: Average Annual Earnings for Year-Round Full-Time Workers age 15 Years and Older by Race and Ethnicity, 2015
Racial/Ethnic Background* Men (\$) Women (\$) Women’s Earnings as % of White Male Earnings
All Racial/Ethnic Groups 51,212 40,742
White 57,204 43,063 75.3%
Black 41,094 36,212 63.3%
Asian American 61,672 48,313 84.5%
Hispanic or Latino 35,673 31,109 54.4%
*White alone, not Hispanic; Black alone or in combination (may include Hispanic); Asian American alone or in combination (may include Hispanic); and Hispanic/Latina/o (may be of any race).
Source: Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Compilation of U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. 2016. “Historical Income Tables: Table P-38. Full-Time, Year Round Workers by Median Earnings and Sex: 1987 to 2015. <www.census.gov/data/tables/t...me-people.html>
The additive model does not take into account how our shared cultural ideas of gender are racialized and our ideas of race are gendered and that these ideas structure access to resources and power—material, political, interpersonal. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (2005) has developed a strong intersectional framework through her discussion of race, gender, and sexuality in her historical analysis of representations of Black sexuality in the US. Hill Collins shows how contemporary white American culture exoticizes Black men and women and she points to a history of enslavement and treatment as chattel as the origin and motivator for the use of these images. In order to justify slavery, African-Americans were thought of and treated as less than human. Sexual reproduction was often forced among slaves for the financial benefit of plantation owners, but owners reframed this coercion and rape as evidence of the “natural” and uncontrollable sexuality of people from the African continent. Images of Black men and women were not completely the same, as Black men were constructed as hypersexual “bucks” with little interest in continued relationships whereas Black women were framed as hypersexual “Jezebels” that became the “matriarchs” of their families. Again, it is important to note how the context, where enslaved families were often forcefully dismantled, is often left unacknowledged and contemporary racialized constructions are assumed and framed as individual choices or traits. It is shockingly easy to see how these images are still present in contemporary media, culture, and politics, for instance, in discussions of American welfare programs. This analysis reveals how race, gender, and sexuality intersect. We cannot simply pull these identities apart because they are interconnected and mutually enforcing.
Although the framework of intersectional has contributed important insights to feminist analyses, there are problems. Intersectionality refers to the mutually co-constitutive nature of multiple aspects of identity, yet in practice this term is typically used to signify the specific difference of “women of color,” which effectively produces women of color (and in particular, Black women) as Other and again centers white women (Puar 2012). In addition, the framework of intersectionality was created in the context of the United States; therefore, the use of the framework reproduces the United States as the dominant site of feminist inquiry and women’s studies’ Euro-American bias (Puar 2012). Another failing of intersectionality is its premise of fixed categories of identity, where descriptors like race, gender, class, and sexuality are assumed to be stable. In contrast, the notion of assemblage considers categories events, actions, and encounters between bodies, rather than simply attributes (Puar 2012). Assemblage refers to a collage or collection of things, or the act of assembling. An assemblage perspective emphasizes how relations, patterns, and connections between concepts give concepts meaning (Puar 2012). Although assemblage has been framed against intersectionality, identity categories’ mutual co-constitution is accounted for in both intersectionality and assemblage.
“Gender” is too often used simply and erroneously to mean “white women,” while “race” too often connotes “Black men.” An intersectional perspective examines how identities are related to each other in our own experiences and how the social structures of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability intersect for everyone. As opposed to single-determinant and additive models of identity, an intersectional approach develops a more sophisticated understanding of the world and how individuals in differently situated social groups experience differential access to both material and symbolic resources. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.06%3A_Intersect.txt |
Brooks, Katherine. 2014. “Profound Portraits Of Young Agender Individuals Challenge The Male/Female Identity.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/chloe-aftel-agender_n_5433867.html. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299.
Decker, Julie Sondra. 2014. The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality. Carrel Books.
Farinas, Caley and Creigh Farinas. 2015. 5 Reasons Why We Police Disabled People’s Language (And Why We Need to Stop)” Everyday Feminism Magazine. http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/policing-disabled-peoples-identity/. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Ferber, A. 2009. “Keeping Sex in Bounds: Sexuality and the (De)Construction of Race and Gender.” Pp. 136-142 in Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics, edited by Abby L. Ferber, Kimberly Holcomb and Tre Wentling. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gordon, L. E. and S. A. Abbott. 2002 “A Social Constructionist Essential Guide to Sex.” In Robert Heasley and Betsy Crane, Eds., Sexual Lives: Theories and Realities of Human Sexualities. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Greenberg, J. 2002. “Definitional Dilemmas: Male or Female? Black or White? The Law’s Failure, to Recognize Intersexuals and Multiracials.” Pp.102-126 in Gender Nonconformity, Race and Sexuality: Charting the Connections, edited by T. Lester. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Grewal, Inderpal and Caren Kaplan. 2001. “Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality,” GLQ 7(4): 663-679.
Hesse-Biber, S.N. and D. Leckenby. 2004. “How Feminists Practice Social Research.” Pp. 209-226 in Feminist Perspectives on Social Research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2005. Black Sexual Politics: African-Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research Compilation of U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. 2016. “Historical Income Tables: Table P-38. Full-Time, Year Round Workers by Median Earnings and Sex: 1987 to 2015. www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/incomepoverty/historical-income-people.html. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Katz, J. N. 1995. The Invention of Heterosexuality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Klesse, Christian. 2006. “Polyamory and its ‘others’: Contesting the terms of non- monogamy.” Sexualities, 9(5): 565-583.
Liebowitz, Cara. 2015. “I am Disabled: On Identity-First Versus People-First Language.” The Body is Not an Apology. https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/i-am-disabled-on-identity-first-versus-people-first-language/. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Logsdon, Ann. 2016. “Use Person First Language to Describe People With Disabilities.” Very Well. https://www.verywell.com/focus-on-the-person-first-is-good-etiquette-2161897. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Mohanty, Chandra. 2003. “’Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity Through Anticapitalist Struggles,” Signs 28(2): 499-535.
Morgan, Robin. 1996. “Introduction – Planetary Feminism: The Politics of the 21st Century.” Pp. 1-37 in Sisterhood is Global: The International Women’s Movement Anthology, edited by Morgan. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY.
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1986. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. Psychology Press.
Puar, Jasbir K. 2012. “’I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess’: Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage Theory.” PhiloSOPHIA, 2(1): 49-66.
Ramirez, Tanisha Love and Zeba Blay. 2017. “Why People Are Using the Term ‘Latinx.’” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-people-are-using-the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Revilla, Anita Tijerina. 2004. “Muxerista Pedagogy: Raza Womyn Teaching Social Justice Through Student Activism.” The High School Journal, 87(4): 87-88.
Roxie, Marilyn. 2011. “Genderqueer and Nonbinary Identities.” http://genderqueerid.com/gqhistory. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Safire, William. 1988. “On Language; People of Color.” The New York Times Magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/20/magazine/on-language-people-of-color.html. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Shakespeare, Tom. 2006. “The Social Model of Disability.” In The Disability Studies Reader, ed. Lennard Davis (New York: Routledge, 2d ed.), 197–204.
Silver, Marc. 2015. “If You Shouldn’t Call It The Third World, What Should You Call It?” Goats and Soda, New England Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Smith, Dorothy. 1993. “The Standard North American Family: SNAF as an Ideological Code.” Journal of Family Issues 14 (1): 50-65.
Subramaniam, Banu. 2014. Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Tompkins, Avery. 2014. “Asterisk.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 1(1-2): 26-27.
Turner, Dale Antony. 2006. This is not a peace pipe: Towards a critical indigenous philosophy. University of Toronto Press. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/01%3A_An_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_-_Grounding_Theoretical_Frameworks_and_Concepts/1.07%3A_Reference.txt |
Thumbnail: Nekima Levy-Pounds at Black Lives Matter march, April 2015. (CC BY 2.0; Fibonacci Blue via Wikipedia).
02: Challenging Binary Systems and Constructions of Difference
Black and white. Masculine and feminine. Rich and poor. Straight and gay. Able-bodied and disabled. Binaries are social constructs composed of two parts that are framed as absolute and unchanging opposites. Binary systems reflect the integration of these oppositional ideas into our culture. This results in an exaggeration of differences between social groups until they seem to have nothing in common. An example of this is the phrase “men are from Mars, women are from Venus.” Ideas of men and women being complete opposites invite simplistic comparisons that rely on stereotypes: men are practical, women are emotional; men are strong, women are weak; men lead, women support. Binary notions mask the complicated realities and variety in the realm of social identity. They also erase the existence of individuals, such as multiracial or mixed-race people and people with non-binary gender identities, who may identify with neither of the assumed categories or with multiple categories. We know very well that men have emotions and that women have physical strength, but a binary perspective of gender prefigures men and women to have nothing in common. They are defined against each other; men are defined, in part, as “not women” and women as “not men.” Thus, our understandings of men are influenced by our understandings of women. Rather than seeing aspects of identity like race, gender, class, ability, and sexuality as containing only two dichotomous, opposing categories, conceptualizing multiple various identities allows us to examine how men and women, Black and white, etc., may not be so completely different after all, and how varied and complex identities and lives can be.
2.02: Gender and Sex Transgender and Intersex
A binary gender perspective assumes that only men and women exist, obscuring gender diversity and erasing the existence of people who do not identify as men or women. A gendered assumption in our culture is that someone assigned female at birth will identify as a woman and that all women were assigned female at birth. While this is true for cisgender (or “cis”) individuals—people who identify in accordance with their gender assignment—it is not the case for everyone. Some people assigned male at birth identify as women, some people assigned female identify as men, and some people identify as neither women nor men. This illustrates the difference between, gender assignment, which doctors place on infants (and fetuses) based on the appearance of genitalia, and gender identity, which one discerns about oneself. The existence of transgender people, or individuals who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, challenges the very idea of a single sex/gender identity. For example, trans women, women whose bodies were assigned male and who identify as women, show us that not all women are born with female-assigned bodies. The fact that trans people exist contests the biological determinist argument that biological sex predicts gender identity. Transgender people may or may not have surgeries or hormone therapies to change their physical bodies, but in many cases they experience a change in their social gender identities. Some people who do not identify as men or women may identify as non-binary, gender fluid, or genderqueer, for example. Some may use gender-neutral pronouns, such as ze/hir or they/them, rather than the gendered pronouns she/her or he/his. As pronouns and gender identities are not visible on the body, trans communities have created procedures for communicating gender pronouns, which consists of verbally asking and stating one’s pronouns (Nordmarken, 2013).
The existence of sex variations fundamentally challenges the notion of a binary biological sex. Intersex describes variation in sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals. The bodies of individuals with sex characteristics variations do not fit typical definitions of what is culturally considered “male” or “female.” “Intersex,” like “female” and “male,” is a socially constructed category that humans have created to label bodies that they view as different from those they would classify as distinctly “female” or “male.” The term basically marks existing biological variation among bodies; bodies are not essentially intersex—we just call them intersex. The term is slightly misleading because it may suggest that people have complete sets of what would be called “male” and “female” reproductive systems, but those kinds of human bodies do not actually exist; “intersex” really just refers to biological variation. The term “hermaphrodite” is therefore inappropriate for referring to intersex, and it also is derogatory. There are a number of specific biological sex variations. For example, having one Y and more than one X chromosome is called Kleinfelter Syndrome.
Does the presence of more than one X mean that the XXY person is female? Does the presence of a Y mean that the XXY person is male? These individuals are neither clearly chromosomally male or female; they are chromosomally intersexed. Some people have genitalia that others consider ambiguous. This is not as uncommon as you might think. The Intersex Society of North America estimated that some 1.5% of people have sex variations—that is 2,000 births a year. So, why is this knowledge not commonly known? Many individuals born with genitalia not easily classified as “male” or “female” are subject to genital surgeries during infancy, childhood, and/or adulthood which aim to change this visible ambiguity. Surgeons reduce the size of the genitals of female-assigned infants they want to make look more typically “female” and less “masculine”; in infants with genital appendages smaller than 2.5 centimeters they reduce the size and assign them female (Dreger 1998). In each instance, surgeons literally construct and reconstruct individuals’ bodies to fit into the dominant, binary sex/gender system. While parents and doctors justify this practice as in “the best interest of the child,” many people experience these surgeries and their social treatment as traumatic, as they are typically performed without patients’ knowledge of their sex variation or consent. Individuals often discover their chromosomal makeup, surgical records, and/or intersex status in their medical records as adults, after years of physicians hiding this information from them. The surgeries do not necessarily make bodies appear “natural,” due to scar tissue and at times, disfigurement and/or medical problems and chronic infection. The surgeries can also result in psychological distress. In addition, many of these surgeries involve sterilization, which can be understood as part of eugenics projects, which aim to eliminate intersex people. Therefore, a great deal of shame, secrecy, and betrayal surround the surgeries. Intersex activists began organizing in North America in the 1990s to stop these nonconsensual surgical practices and to fight for patient-centered intersex health care. Broader international efforts emerged next, and Europe has seen more success than the first wave of mobilizations. In 2008, Christiane Völling of Germany was the first person in the world to successfully sue the surgeon who removed her internal reproductive organs without her knowledge or consent (International Commission of Jurists, 2008). In 2015, Malta became the first country to implement a law to make these kinds of surgeries illegal and protect people with sex variations as well as gender variations (Cabral & Eisfeld, 2015). Accord Alliance is the most prominent intersex focused organization in the U.S.; they offer information and recommendations to physicians and families, but they focus primarily on improving standards of care rather than advocating for legal change. Due to the efforts of intersex activists, the practice of performing surgeries on children is becoming less common in favor of waiting and allowing children to make their own decisions about their bodies. However, there is little research on how regularly nonconsensual surgeries are still performed in the U.S., and as Accord Alliance’s standards of care have yet to be fully implemented by a single institution, we can expect that the surgeries are still being performed.
The concepts of “transgender” and “intersex” are easy to confuse, but these terms refer to very different identities. To review, transgender people experience a social process of gender change, while intersex people have biological characteristics that do not fit with the dominant sex/gender system. One term refers to social gender (transgender) and one term refers to biological sex (intersex). While transgender people challenge our binary (man/woman) ideas of gender, intersex people challenge our binary (male/female) ideas of biological sex. Gender theorists, such as Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin, have challenged the very notion that there is an underlying “sex” to a person, arguing that sex, too, is socially constructed. This is revealed in different definitions of “sex” throughout history in law and medicine—is sex composed of genitalia? Is it just genetic make-up? A combination of the two? Various social institutions, such as courts, have not come to a consistent or conclusive way to define sex, and the term “sex” has been differentially defined throughout the history of law in the United States. In this way, we can understand the biological designations of “male” and “female” as social constructions that reinforce the binary construction of men and women. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/02%3A_Challenging_Binary_Systems_and_Constructions_of_Difference/2.01%3A_Introduction-_Binary_Systems.txt |
As discussed in the section on social construction, heterosexuality is no more and no less natural than gay sexuality or bisexuality, for instance. As was shown, people—particularly sexologists and medical doctors—defined heterosexuality and its boundaries. This definition of the parameters of heterosexuality is an expression of power that constructs what types of sexuality are considered “normal” and which types of sexuality are considered “deviant.” Situated, cultural norms define what is considered “natural.” Defining sexual desire and relations between women and men as acceptable and normal means defining all sexual desire and expression outside that parameter as deviant. However, even within sexual relations between men and women, gendered cultural norms associated with heterosexuality dictate what is “normal” or “deviant.” As a quick thought exercise, think of some words for women who have many sexual partners and then, do the same for men who have many sexual partners; the results will be quite different. So, within the field of sexuality we can see power in relations along lines of gender and sexual orientation (and race, class, age, and ability as well).
Adrienne Rich (1980) called heterosexuality “compulsory,” meaning that in our culture all people are assumed to be heterosexual and society is full of both formal and informal enforcements that encourage heterosexuality and penalize sexual variation. Compulsory heterosexuality plays an important role in reproducing inequality in the lives of sexual minorities. Just look at laws; in a few states, such as Indiana, joint adoptions are illegal for gay men and lesbians (Lambda Legal). Gay men and lesbians have lost custody battles over children due to homophobia—the fear, hatred, or prejudice against gay people (Pershing, 1994). Media depictions of gay men and lesbians are few and often negatively stereotyped. There are few “out” gay athletes in the top three men’s professional sports—basketball, baseball, and football—despite the fact that, statistically, there are very likely to be many (Zirin, 2010). Many religious groups openly exclude and discriminate against gay men and lesbians. Additionally, heteronormativity structures the everyday, taken-for-granted ways in which heterosexuality is privileged and normalized. For instance, sociologist Karen Martin studied what parents say to their children about sexuality and reproduction, and found that with children as young as three and five years old, parents routinely assumed their children were heterosexual, told them they would get (heterosexually) married, and interpreted cross-gender interactions between children as “signs” of heterosexuality (Martin 2009). In this kind of socialization is an additional element of normative sexuality—the idea of compulsory monogamy, where exclusive romantic and sexual relationships and marriage are expected and valued over other kinds of relationships (Willey 2016). Therefore, heteronormativity surrounds us at a very young age, teaching us that there are only two genders and that we are or should desire and partner with one person of the opposite gender, who we will marry.
Just like gender, sexuality is neither binary nor fixed. There are straight people and gay people, but people are also bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, queer, and heteroflexible, to name a few additional sexual identities. Also, sexual attraction, sexual relations and relationships, and sexual identity can shift over a person’s lifetime. As there are more than two genders,,there are more than two kinds of people to be attracted to and individuals can be attracted to and can relate sexually to multiple people of different genders at once!
Another common misconception is that not all transgender people are sexually queer. This belief may stem from the “LGBT” acronym that lists transgender people along with lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. A trans man who previously identified as a lesbian may still be attracted to women and may identify as straight, or may identify as queer. Another trans man may be attracted to other men and identify as gay or queer. This multiplicity suggests that the culturally dominant binary model fails to accurately encapsulate the wide variety of sexual and gender lived experiences.
2.04: Masculinities
Another concept that troubles the gender binary is the idea of multiple masculinities (Connell, 2005). Connell suggests that there is more than one kind of masculinity and what is considered “masculine” differs by race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. For example, being knowledgeable about computers might be understood as masculine because it can help a person accumulate income and wealth, and we consider wealth to be masculine. However, computer knowledge only translates into “masculinity” for certain men. While an Asian-American, middle-class man might get a boost in “masculinity points” (as it were) for his high-paying job with computers, the same might not be true for a working-class white man whose white-collar desk job may be seen as a weakness to his masculinity by other working-class men. Expectations for masculinity differ by age; what it means to be a man at 19 is very different than what it means to be a man at 70. Therefore, masculinity intersects with other identities and expectations change accordingly.
Judith (Jack) Halberstam used the concept of female masculinity to describe the ways female-assigned people may accomplish masculinity (2005). Halberstam defines masculinity as the connection between maleness and power, which female-assigned people access through drag-king performances, butch identity (where female-assigned people appear and act masculine and may or may not identify as women), or trans identity. Separating masculinity from male-assigned bodies illustrates how performative it is, such that masculinity is accomplished in interactions and not ordained by nature. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/02%3A_Challenging_Binary_Systems_and_Constructions_of_Difference/2.03%3A_Sexualities.txt |
“Concepts of race did not exist prior to racism. Instead, it is inequality and oppression that have produced the idea of essential racial differences” (Ferber, 2009: 176).
In the context of the United States, there is a binary understanding of race as either Black[1] or white. This is not to say that only two races are recognized, just to say that these are the constructed “oppositional poles” of race. What do we mean by race? What does Abby Ferber in the quote above mean by race? More than just descriptive of skin color or physical attributes, in biologized constructions of race, race determines intelligence, sexuality, strength, motivation, and “culture.” These ideas are not only held by self-proclaimed racists, but are woven into the fabric of American society in social institutions. For instance, prior to the 20th Century, people were considered to be legally “Black” if they had any African ancestors. This was known as the one-drop rule, which held that if you had even one drop of African “blood,” you would have been considered Black. The same did not apply to white “blood”—rather, whiteness was defined by its purity. Even today, these ideas continue to exist. People with one Black and one white parent (for instance, President Barack Obama) are considered Black, and someone with one Asian parent and one white parent is usually considered Asian.
Many cultural ideas of racial difference were justified by the use of science. White scientists of the early 19th Century set out to “prove” Black racial inferiority by studying biological difference. Most notable were studies that suggested African American skulls had a smaller cranial capacity, contained smaller brains, and, thus, less intelligence. Later studies revealed both biased methodological practices by scientists and findings that brain size did not actually predict intelligence. The practice of using science in an attempt to support ideas of racial superiority and inferiority is known as scientific racism.
“Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857)” by Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon is in the Public Domain, CC0
Traces of scientific racism are evident in more recent “studies” of Black Americans. These studies and their applications often are often shaped by ideas about African Americans from the era of chattel slavery in the Americas. For instance, the Moynihan Report, also known as “The Negro Family: A Case for National Action” (1965) was an infamous document that claimed the non-nuclear family structure found among poor and working-class African American populations, characterized by an absent father and matriarchal mother, would hinder the entire race’s economic and social progress. While the actual argument was much more nuanced, politicians picked up on this report to propose an essentialist argument about race and the “culture of poverty.” They played upon stereotypes from the era of African-American slavery that justified treating Black Americans as less than human. One of these stereotypes is the assumption that Black men and women are hypersexual; these images have been best analyzed by Patricia Hill Collins (2004) in her work on “controlling images” of African Americans— images such as the “Jezebel” image of Black women and the “Buck” image of Black men discussed earlier. Slave owners were financially invested in the reproduction of slave children since children born of mothers in bondage would also become the property of owners, so much so that they did not wait for women to get pregnant of their own accord but institutionalized practices of rape against slave women to get them pregnant (Collins, 2004). It was not a crime to rape a slave—and this kind of rape was not seen as rape—since slaves were seen as property. But, since many people recognized African American slaves as human beings, they had to be framed as fundamentally different in other ways to justify enslavement. The notion that Black people are “naturally” more sexual and that Black women were therefore “unrapable” (Collins 2004) served this purpose. Black men were framed as hypersexual “Bucks” uninterested in monogamy and family; this idea justified splitting up slave families and using Black men to impregnate Black women. The underlying perspectives in the Moynihan Report—that Black families are composed of overbearing (in both senses of the word: over-birthing and over-controlling) mothers and disinterested fathers and that if only they could form more stable nuclear families and mirror the white middle-class they would be lifted from poverty—reflect assumptions of natural difference found in the ideology supporting American slavery. The structural causes of racialized economic inequality— particularly, the undue impoverishment of Blacks and the undue enrichment of whites during slavery and decades of unequal laws and blocked access to employment opportunities (Feagin 2006)—are ignored in this line of argument in order to claim fundamental biological differences in the realms of gender, sexuality and family or racial “culture.” Furthermore, this line of thinking disparages alternative family forms as dysfunctional rather than recognizing them as adaptations that enabled survival in difficult and even intolerable conditions.
Of course, there are other racial groups recognized within the United States, but the Black/white binary is the predominant racial binary system at play in the American context. We can see that this Black/white binary exists and is socially constructed if we consider the case of the 19th Century Irish immigrant. When they first arrived, Irish immigrants were “blackened” in the popular press and the white, Anglo-Saxon imagination (Roediger 1991). Cartoon depictions of Irish immigrants gave them dark skin and exaggerated facial features like big lips and pronounced brows. They were depicted and thought to be lazy, ignorant, and alcoholic nonwhite “others” for decades.
An illustration from the H. Strickland Constable’s Ireland from One or Two Neglected Points of View shows an alleged similarity between “Irish Iberian” and “Negro” features in contrast to the higher “Anglo-Teutonic.” The accompanying caption reads:
“The Iberians are believed to have been originally an African race, who thousands of years ago spread themselves through Spain over Western Europe. Their remains are found in the barrows, or burying places, in sundry parts of these countries. The skulls are of low prognathous type. They came to Ireland and mixed with the natives of the South and West, who themselves are supposed to have been of low type and descendants of savages of the Stone Age, who, in consequence of isolation from the rest of the world, had never been out-competed in the healthy struggle of life, and thus made way, according to the laws of nature, for superior races.”
Over time, Irish immigrants and their children and grandchildren assimilated into the category of “white” by strategically distancing themselves from Black Americans and other non-whites in labor disputes and participating in white supremacist racial practices and ideologies. In this way, the Irish in America became white. A similar process took place for Italian-Americans, and, later, Jewish American immigrants from multiple European countries after the Second World War. Similar to Irish Americans, both groups became white after first being seen as non-white. These cases show how socially constructed race is and how this labeling process still operates today. For instance, are Asian-Americans, considered the “model minority,” the next group to be integrated into the white category, or will they continue to be regarded as foreign threats? Only time will tell.
1. Here, we capitalize Black and not white in recognition of Black as a reclaimed, and empowering, identity. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/02%3A_Challenging_Binary_Systems_and_Constructions_of_Difference/2.05%3A_Race.txt |
Socio-economic class differences are particularly hidden in the US context. Part of this can be explained by the ideology of the American Dream. According to a popular belief in meritocracy, anyone who works hard enough will succeed, and those who do not succeed must not have worked hard enough. There is a logical error in this form of reasoning, which does not explain the following two scenarios: What about people who do not work very hard at all and still succeed? What about those who work exceptionally hard and never succeed? Part of this, of course, is about how we define success. Succeeding at the American Dream means something akin to having a great job, making a lot of money, and owning a car, a house, and all the most-recent gadgets. These are markers of material, that is, economic, wealth. Wealth is not only captured in personal income, but other assets as well (house, car, stocks, inheritances), not all of which are necessarily earned by hard work alone, but can come from inheritance, marriage, or luck.
Though rich/poor may be the binary associated with class, most people in the US context (no matter how much wealth they have) consider themselves “middle-class.” (Pew Research Center, 2010). The label “middle-class” represents more than what people have in their bank accounts—it reflects a political ideology. When politicians run for election or argue over legislation they often employ the term “middle-class” to stand in for “average,” “tax-paying,” “morally upstanding” constituents and argue for their collective voice and prosperity. Rhetorically, the “middle class” is not compared to the super rich (since, in the US, you can never be too rich or too thin), but rather the poor. So, when people talk about the middle class they are also often implying that they are NOT those “deviant,” “tax-swindling,” “immoral,” poor people. This may seem harsh, but this is truly how the poor are represented in news media (Mantsios, 2007). If this still seems far-fetched, just replace with phrase “the poor” with “welfare recipients.” Welfare recipients are often faceless but framed as undeserving of assistance since they are assumed to be cheating the system, addicted to alcohol or drugs, and have only themselves to blame for their poverty (Mantsios, 2007). Welfare recipients are the implied counterparts to the middle-class everymen that populate political speeches and radio rants. Thus, in the United States, socioeconomic class has been constructed as a binary between the middle-class and the poor.
Furthermore, these class-based categories also carry racial and sexual meanings, as the “welfare queen” stereotype conjures images of poor, black, sexually-promiscuous women, contrary to the fact that white women as a group are the largest recipients of welfare. Fred Block and colleagues (2006) discuss how these stereotypes about the poor are written into American poverty policies. For instance, in 1996, President Bill Clinton passed the Personal Responsibility/Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which fundamentally rewrote prior US welfare policy. This act limits lifetime receipt of welfare to a maximum of 60 months, or 5 years, and requires that able-bodied recipients work or job-train for low-skill jobs while receiving checks. Under PRWORA, recent immigrants cannot receive welfare for their first five years of legal residence, and undocumented immigrants can never receive welfare benefits (Block et al. 2006). These restrictions are based on the assumption that welfare recipients are ultimately cheating the American taxpayer and looking for a free ride. In spite of these changes, most people still believe that being on government assistance means a lifetime of free money. Media contempt for welfare recipients is accomplished by not humanizing the experience of poverty. People experiencing poverty can face tough choices; for instance, working more hours or getting a slightly better paying job can cause one to fail the “means test” (an income level above which people are ineligible for welfare benefits) for food stamps or Medicaid. The poor are increasingly forced to decide between paying for rent versus food and other bills, as the cost of living has risen dramatically in the past few decades while working-class wages have not risen comparably.
The SPENT game captures and humanizes this process of making tough decisions on a tight budget. Try it out and see how you fare: http://playspent.org/.
However, class issues are not only about income differences. Cultural capital is a term coined by the late sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) to address non-monetary class differences such as tastes in food and music or knowledge of high culture. Bourdieu explained that even when a formerly poor individual experiences economic mobility and becomes middle-class, there are still markers of her former status in the way she carries herself and the things she knows. We see many examples of this in popular films. When someone goes from rags to riches, they often use the wrong utensils at a dinner party, call something by the wrong name, cannot tell the difference between a Chardonnay and a Merlot (wines ), or spend their money in a showy way. Thus, someone can have high cultural capital and not be wealthy, or have low cultural capital and be a millionaire. For instance, in the popular (and very campy) movie Showgirls (Verhoeven, 1995), the main character, Nomi Malone, goes from homeless and unemployed to a well paid Las Vegas showgirl at record speed. Along the way, she buys an expensive Versace dress and brags about it. Unfortunately, she reveals her lack of cultural capital, and thus her former status as poor, by mispronouncing the brand (saying ‘Verse-ACE’ instead of ‘Vers-a-Chee’) and is humiliated by some rather mean bystanders. In sum, the concept of cultural capital highlights the ways in which social class is not just about wealth and income, but that social classes develop class cultures.
“Pouring wine into a decanter” by Agne27 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/02%3A_Challenging_Binary_Systems_and_Constructions_of_Difference/2.06%3A_Class.txt |
Through all these examples, we hope to show that binary ways of understanding human differences are insufficient for understanding the complexities of human culture. Binary ways of thinking assume that there are only two categories of gender, race, and class identities among others, and that these two categories are complete opposites. Just as men are defined as “not women” in a binary system, straight people are defined as “not gay,” white people are defined as “not Black,” and middle-class people are defined as “not poor.” Oppositional, binary thinking works strategically such that the dominant groups in society are associated with more valued traits, while the subordinate groups, defined as their opposites, are always associated with less valued traits. Thus, the poles in a binary system define each other and only make sense in the presence of their opposites. Masculinity only has meaning as the opposite of femininity. In reality, identities and lives are complex and multi-faceted. For one, all categories of identity are more richly expressed and understood as matrices of difference. More than that, all of us have multiple aspects of identity that we experience simultaneously and that are mutually constitutive. Our experience of gender is always shaped by our race, class, and other identities. Our experience of race is particular to our gender, class, and other identities as well. This is why taking an intersectional approach to understanding identity gives us a more complex understanding of social reality. Each of our social locations is impacted by the intersection of several facets of identity in a way that should give us pause when we encounter blanket statements like “all men are ______” or “all Latinas are _____” or “all lesbians are____.” The social world is complex, and rather than reducing human difference to simple binaries, we must embrace the world as it is and acknowledge the complexity.
2.08: The SexGenderSexuality System
The phrase “sex/gender system,” or “sex/gender/sexuality system” was coined by Gayle Rubin (1984) to describe, “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity.” That is, Rubin proposed that the links between biological sex, social gender, and sexual attraction are products of culture. Gender is, in this case, “the social product” that we attach to notions of biological sex. In our heteronormative culture, everyone is assumed to be heterosexual (attracted to men if you are a woman; attracted to women if you are a man) until stated otherwise. People make assumptions about how others should act in social life, and to whom they should be attracted, based on their perceptions of outward bodily appearance, which is assumed to represent biological sex characteristics (chromosomes, hormones, secondary sex characteristics and genitalia). Rubin questioned the biological determinist argument that suggested all people assigned female at birth will identify as women and be attracted to men. According to a biological determinist view, where “biology is destiny,” this is the way nature intended. However, this view fails to account for human intervention. As human beings, we have an impact on the social arrangements of society. Social constructionists believe that many things we typically leave unquestioned as conventional ways of life actually reflect historically- and culturally-rooted power relationships between groups of people, which are reproduced in part through socialization processes, where we learn conventional ways of thinking and behaving from our families and communities. Just because female-assigned people bear children does not necessarily mean that they are always by definition the best caretakers of those children or that they have “natural instincts” that male-assigned people lack.
For instance, the arrangement of women caring for children has a historical legacy (which we will discuss more in the section on gendered labor markets). We see not only mothers but other women too caring for children: daycare workers, nannies, elementary school teachers, and babysitters. What these jobs have in common is that they are all very female-dominated occupations AND that this work is economically undervalued. These people do not get paid very well. One study found that, in New York City, parking lot attendants, on average, make more money than childcare workers (Clawson and Gerstel, 2002). Because “mothering” is not seen as work, but as a woman’s “natural” behavior, she is not compensated in a way that reflects how difficult the work is. If you have ever babysat for a full day, go ahead and multiply that by eighteen years and then try to make the argument that it is not work. Men can do this work just as well as women, but there are no similar cultural dictates that say they should. On top of that, some suggest that if paid caretakers were mostly men, then they would make much more money. In fact, men working in female-dominated occupations actually earn more and gain promotions faster than women. This phenomenon is referred to as the glass escalator. This example illustrates how, as social constructionist Abby Ferber (2009) argues, social systems produce differences between men and women, and not the reverse.
2.09: References- Unit II
Accord Alliance. http://www.accordalliance.org/about-accord-alliance/our-mission/. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Block, Fred, Anna C. Korteweg, Kerry Woodward, Zach Schiller, and Imrul Mazid. 2006. “The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy.” Contexts 5(2): 14-20.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cabral, Mauro & Justus Eisfeld. 2015. “Making depathologization a matter of law. A comment from GATE on the Maltese Act on Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics.” http://wp.me/p1djE5-9K. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Clawson, Dan and Naomi Gerstel. 2002. “Caring for Young Children: What the US Can Learn from Some European Examples.” Contexts, 1(4): 28-35.
Connell, RW. 2005. Masculinities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Dreger, Alice. 1998. “Ambiguous Sex’—or Ambivalent Medicine?” The Hastings Center Report 28(3): 24-25.
Feagin, Joe. 2006. Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. New York: Routledge.
Ferber, Abby. 2009. “Keeping Sex in Bounds: Sexuality and the (De) Construction of Race and Gender.” In Gender, Sex, & Sexuality: An Anthology by A. Ferber, K. Holcomb, and T. Wentling (Eds.) New York: Oxford University Press. 136-141.
Halberstam, Judith. 1998. Female Masculinity. Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2005. Black Sexual Politics: African-Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.
International Commission of Jurists. 2008. “In re Völling, Regional Court Cologne, Germany (6 February 2008).” https://www.icj.org/sogicasebook/in-re-volling-regional-court-cologne-germany-6-february-2008/. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Intersex Society of North America. http://www.isna.org. Accessed 04 April, 2011.
Lambda Legal. http://www.lambdalegal.org/states-regions/indiana. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Mantsios, Gregory. 2007. “Media Magic: Making Class Invisible.” In Race, Class, & Gender: An Anthology, Sixth Edition by M.L. Anderson and P. Hill Collins. Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth. 384-392.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. 1965. “The Negro Family: A Case for National Action.”
Nordmarken, Sonny. 2013. “Disrupting Gendering: How Trans and Gender Variant People Interrupt and Transfigure the Gender Accomplishment Process.” Conference Presentation, Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.
Pershing, Stephen B. 1994. “Entreat me not to leave thee: Bottoms v. Bottoms and the custody rights of gay and lesbian parents.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 3(1): 289-325.
Pew Research Center. 2010. www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/22/what-does-middle-class-meantoday/who-should-be-the-judge-of-middle-class. Accessed 30 March, 2017.
Rich, Adrienne. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5(4): 631-660.
Roediger, David R. 1991. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York: Verso.
Rubin, Gayle. 1984. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex.” In Pleasure and Danger by C. Vance (Ed.). New York: Routledge.
Verhoeven, Paul (Dir.) 1995. Showgirls. Carolco Pictures. [Film]
Willey, Angela. 2016. Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology. Durham: Duke University Press.
Zirin, Dave (Dir.). 2010. Not Just a Game: Power, Politics, and American Sports. MediaEducation Foundation. [Film] | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/02%3A_Challenging_Binary_Systems_and_Constructions_of_Difference/2.07%3A_Alternatives_to_Binary_Systems.txt |
Thumbnail: Women's March - Washington DC 2017. (CC BY 2.0 Generic; S Pakhrin via Wikipedia)
03: Institutions Culture and Structures
Thus far, we have been concerned with feminist theories and perspectives that seek to understand how difference is constructed through structures of power, how inequalities are produced and reproduced through socially constructed binaries, and how the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect. At this juncture, we can ask: where do these processes occur? How do they not only get produced, but how are they re-produced through daily activities in institutions? In the following section, we identify, historicize, and analyze several of the key institutions that structure our lives, including the family, media, medicine, law and the prison system. We use the struggle to end violence against women as a case to show how multiple institutions intersect and overlap in ways that both limit and enable action. First, we provide a theoretical overview of institutions, culture, and structures.
To answer these questions we need to look at the institutions within which we spend a large part of our lives interacting with others. An institution is a “social order or pattern that has attained a certain state or property…and [owes] [its] survival to relatively self-activating social processes” (Jepperson 1991: 145). In other words, institutions are enduring, historical facets of social life that shape our behavior. Examples of institutions include the family, marriage, media, medicine, law, education, the state, and work. These institutions can be said to structure thought and behavior, in that they prescribe rules for interaction and inclusion/exclusion and norms for behavior, parcel out resources between groups, and often times rely on formal regulations (including laws, policies, and contracts). In almost every facet of our day-to-day experience we operate within institutions—often within multiple institutions at once—without noticing their influence on our lives. As a result, we can conceive of institutions—primarily the family, schools, religious institutions, media, and peer groups—as primary agents of socialization (Kimmel 2007). These are primary agents of socialization in that we are born into them, shaped by their expectations, norms, and rules, and as we grow older we often operate in the same institutions and teach these expectations, norms, and rules to younger generations.
“Law Image” by Succo is in the Public Domain, CC0
Institutions are primary sites for the reproduction of gendered, classed, racialized, ableized, and sexualized inequalities. Everyone does not have access to the same institutions—the same schools, the same hospitals, marriage, etc.,—because often times these institutions differentiate between and differentially reward people based on categories of gender, class, race, ability, and sexuality. For example, think of the city or town you grew up in. There may have been different schools located in different areas of the city, in neighborhoods that differed in the class and race composition of the people living in those neighborhoods. Perhaps there was a school located in a predominantly white, middle-class neighborhood and another school located in a neighborhood of predominantly working-class people of color. Perhaps there were also private schools that required high tuition rates. Due to the fact that schools in most states are funded based on the tax base of the school district they are in, schools located in different neighborhoods will have different amounts of resources—books, computers, the ability to pay teachers and staff, etc. Those students who live in the middle-class school district will benefit from a well-funded public school, while students who live in the working-class school district will be disadvantaged from the lower amount of funding of their school district. Meanwhile, students who attend the prestigious private school will most likely already be economically privileged and will further benefit from a well-funded school that surrounds them with students with similar class backgrounds and expectations. These students will most likely benefit from a curriculum of college preparatory classes, while students in public schools are less likely to be enrolled in college prep classes—limiting their ability to get into college. Therefore, the same race and class inequalities that limited access to the middle-class, predominantly white neighborhood school will give those privileged students greater chances to enter college and maintain their privileged status. In this way, race and class privileges (and disadvantages) get reproduced through institutions.
Institutions shape, and are shaped by, culture. Culture is a system of symbols, values, practices, and interests of a group of people.[1] Culture is shot through with ideology, which can be understood to be the ideas, attitudes, and values of the dominant culture. It is important to note that “dominant culture” does not describe the most numerous group within society. “Dominant culture” typically describes a relatively small social group that has a disproportionate amount of power. An example of a dominant culture would be the numerically small white minority in South Africa during apartheid. More recently, the Occupy Movement has critiqued the ways in which the “1%” exerts a disproportionate amount of control and power as the dominant culture in the United States.
“Day 3 Occupy Wall Street 2011 Shankbone 5” by David Shankbone is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Mainstream institutions often privilege and reward the dominant culture. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) argues that institutions value certain types of culture and reward people who have those types of culture. As we discussed in the previous chapter, different social classes have different types of cultural capital—assets that are not necessarily economic, but promote social mobility. For example, students who attend public schools in middle-class districts or private schools often have access to more language courses, arts courses, and extracurricular activities—skills, knowledge, and experiences that colleges value greatly in their admission decisions. Schools in less economically privileged districts often have fewer of these options.
In this way, culture is not an even playing field, and not everyone has equal access to defining what types of symbols, meanings, values, and practices are valued by institutions. Those groups of people with greater access to mainstream institutions—those who have been born into wealth, white, men, able-bodied, heterosexual—have a greater ability to define what types of culture will be valued by institutions, and often have access to the cultural capital that mainstream institutions value.
The interaction between culture and institutions creates social structures. Social structures are composed of 1) socially constructed ideas, principles, and categories and 2) institutions that distribute material resources to stratified groups based on socially constructed ideas, principles, and categories. Additionally, 3) they shape—or structure—experience, identity, and practice. Social structures are relational, in that they function to stratify groups based on the categories that underlie those groups—allocating both symbolic and material benefits and resources unequally among those groups. “Symbolic resources” are the nonmaterial rewards that accrue to privileged groups. An example would be the way in which employers often assume that employees who are fathers are more responsible, mature, and hardworking, and deserve more pay as opposed to their childless peers or to working mothers (Hodges and Budig 2010). In this example, the sex/gender/sexuality system is a structure through which employers—as gatekeepers of advancement through institutions of work—privilege heterosexual fatherhood. The effect of this is the reproduction of the symbolic privileging of heterosexual masculinity, and the unequal allocation of material resources (salary and wage raises, advancement opportunities) to married men with children. Unmarried men without children do not receive the same symbolic and material rewards nor do married women with children. In this sense, structures limit access to opportunities: educational opportunities, employment opportunities, and opportunities to move up in social class standing.
While there may be a tendency to think of “structures” as unchangeable and monolithic entities, our definition of structure does not make such an assumption. In our definition, social structures are made possible by their reliance on socially constructed categories—that is, categories that change through time and place. Furthermore, while social structures can be said to structure experience and identity, people are not passive observers or dupes—as the history of labor struggles, struggles for self-determination in former colonies, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements have shown, people fight back against the institutions and dominant cultural ideas and categories that have been used to oppress them. Even though socially constructed categories have typically been used to stratify groups of people, those same groups of people may base an activist struggle out of that identity, transforming the very meanings of that identity in the process. For instance, the phrases “Black power” and “gay power” were created by Black and gay liberationists in the late 1960s to claim and re-frame identities that had been disparaged by the dominant culture and various mainstream institutions. This history of resistance within the crux of overarching structures of power shows that people have agency to make choices and take action. In other words, while structures limit opportunities and reproduce inequalities, groups of people who have been systemically denied access to mainstream institutions can and have exerted their will to change those institutions. Therefore, structure and agency should not be viewed as two diametrically opposed forces, but as two constantly interacting forces that shape each other.
1. In this definition we are combining Kirk and Okazawa-Rey’s (2004) definition of culture with Sewell’s (1992) definition of culture. ↵ | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.01%3A_Introduction-_Institutions_Cultures_and_Structures.txt |
There is a multiplicity of family forms in the United States and throughout the world. When we try to define the word “family” we realize just how slippery of a concept it is. Does family mean those who are blood related? This definition of family excludes stepparents and adopted children from a definition of those in one’s family. It also denies the existence of fictive kin, or non-blood related people that one considers to be part of one’s family. Does family mean a nuclear family (composed of legally-married parents and their children ), as it so often is thought to in the contemporary United States? This excludes extended kin—or family members such as uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, nephews, and nieces. It also excludes single parents, the unmarried, and those couples who do not have children. Or does family denote a common household characterized by economic cooperation? This definition would exclude those who consider each other family but cannot or do not live in the same household, often times for economic reasons—for example, South or Central American parents leaving their country of origin to make wages in the United States and send them back to their families—or because of incarceration.
“An estimated 809,800 prisoners of the 1,518,535 held in the nation’s prisons at midyear 2007 were parents of children under age 18. Parents held in the nation’s prisons — 52 percent of state inmates and 63 percent of federal inmates — reported having an estimated 1,706,600 minor children, accounting for 2.3 percent of the U.S. resident population under age 18.” (Sabol and West 2010)
All of these definitions would also deny the importance and existence of what Kath Weston (1991) has labeled “chosen families,” or how queers, gay men, and lesbians who are ostracized from their families of origin form kinship ties with close friends. The diversity of family formations across time and place suggests that the definition of a “…universal ‘family’ hides historical change as it sets in place or reproduces an ideology of ‘the family’ that obscures the diversity and reality of family experience in any place and time” (Gerstel 2003: 231). What is the dominant ideology of “family” in the United States? How did the family formation that this dominant ideology rests upon come to be the normative model of “family?”
“Family Ideal” by bykst is in the Public Domain, CC0
The dominant ideology of what constitutes a “family” in the United States recognizes a very class- and race-specific type of gendered family formation. This family formation has been labeled the Standard North American Family (SNAF) (Smith 1993). Smith (1993) defines the SNAF as:
…a conception of the family as a legally married couple sharing a household. The adult male is in paid employment; his earnings provide the economic basis of the family-household. The adult female may also earn an income, but her primary responsibility is to the care of the husband, household, and children. Adult male and female may be parents (in whatever legal sense) of children also resident in the household (Smith 1993: 52).
It is important to note that the majority of families in the United States do not fit this ideological family formation. Judith Stacey (1998) calls these multiple and numerous differences in the ways in which people structure their families, post-modern families.
When we put the SNAF into a historical perspective, we are able to see how this dominant family formation is neither natural nor outside of politics and processes of race, class, and gender inequality. Historians Nancy Cott (2000) and Stephanie Coontz (2005) have written about the history of the SNAF. The SNAF originated in the 19th century with the separation between work and family, which was occasioned by the rise of industrial capitalism. Previous to an industrial economy based on the creation of commodities in urban factories, the family was primarily an agricultural work unit—there was no separation between work and home. With the rise of industrial capitalism, in working class families and families of color (who had been denied access to union jobs or were still enslaved, maintaining their poverty or working-class status) the majority of family members—including children and women—worked in factories.
Middle-class families who had inherited property and wealth—the vast majority of whom were white—did not need all the members of their families to work. They were able to pay for their homes, hire house servants, maids (who were primarily African American, working-class women) and tutors, and send their children to private educational institutions with the salary of the breadwinning father. Thus, the gendereddivision of labor—wherein women perform unpaid care-work within the home and men are salaried or wage-earning breadwinners—that is often assumed to be a natural, given way of family life originated due to relatively recent economic changes that privileged middle-class, white families.
This false split between the publicly-oriented, working father and the privately-oriented domestic mother produced the ideologies of separate spheres and the cult of domesticity. The ideology of separate spheres held that women and men were distinctly different creatures, with different natures and therefore suited for different activities. Masculinity was equated with breadwinning, and femininity was equated with homemaking.
This work by ArtsyBee is in the Public Domain, CC0
Correspondingly, the cult of domesticity was an ideology about white womanhood that held that white women were asexual, pure, moral beings properly located in the private sphere of the household. Importantly, this ideology was applied to all women as a measure of womanhood. The effects of this ideology were to systematically deny working-class white women and women of color access to the category of “women,” because these women had to work and earn wages to support their families. Furthermore, during this period, coverture laws defined white women who were married to be legally defined as the property of their husband. Upon marriage, women’s legal personhood was dissolved into that of the husband. They could not own property, sign or make legal documents, and any wages they made had to be turned over to their husbands. Thus, even though they did not have to work in factories or the fields of plantations, white middle-class women were systematically denied rights and personhood under coverture. In this way, white middle-class women had a degree of material wealth and symbolic status as pure, moral beings, but at the cost of submission to their husbands and lack of legal personhood. White working-class women and women of color had access to the public sphere in ways white middle-class women did not, but they also had to work in poorly paid jobs and were thought to be less than true women because of this.
The historical, dominant ideology of the SNAF is reinforced by present day law and social policy. For example, when gay men and lesbians have children they often rely on adoption or assisted reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilization or surrogacy (where a woman is contracted to carry a child to term for someone else), among other methods. Since laws in most states assume that blood-ties between mother and child supersede non-biological family relations, gay men and lesbians who seek to have children and families face barriers to this. The conventional assumptions of the SNAF are embodied in law, and in this case, do not match with the realities of groups of people who depart from the ideology of the SNAF.
Social policies often assume that the SNAF is not only a superior family structure, but that its promotion is a substitute for policies that would seek to reduce poverty. For instance, both the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have promoted marriage and the nuclear family as poverty reduction policy. These programs have targeted poor families of color, in particular. In The Healthy Marriages Initiative of 2004, President Bush pledged \$1.5 billion to programs aimed at “Marriage education, marriage skills training, public advertising campaigns, high school education on the value of marriage and marriage mentoring programs…activities promoting fatherhood, such as counseling, mentoring, marriage education, enhancing relationship skills, parenting, and activities to foster economic stability” (US Department of Health and Human Services 2009). Such policies ignore the historical, structural sources of racialized poverty and blame the victims of systemic classism and racism. As the history of the SNAF shows, the normative family model is based on a white middle-class model—one that a majority of families in the US do not fit or necessarily want to fit. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.02%3A_The_Family.txt |
Take a minute to think about how much media you are exposed to in one day—from watching television and movies, to cruising the Internet, reading newspapers, books, and magazines, listening to music and watching music videos, or playing video games. The majority of this media is produced by corporations, and infused with advertisements.
According to a Nielson Company—a marketing corporation that collects statistics on media usage—report, the average American “18-34 spent two hours and 45 minutes daily watching live TV in the 4th Quarter of 2015, and one hour and 23 minutes using TV-connected devices—a total of four hours and 8 minutes using a TV set for any purpose” (Nielson Company, 201). The pervasiveness of media in culture begs a number of questions: what are the effects of such an overwhelming amount of exposure to media that is often saturated with advertisements? How do media construct or perpetuate gendered, sexualized, classed, ableized, and racialized differences and inequalities? What is the relationship between media and consumers, and how do consumers interact with media?
Media expert and sociologist Michael Kimmel (2003) argues that the media are a primary institution of socialization that not only reflects, but creates culture. Media representation is a key domain for identity formation and the creation of gendered and sexualized difference. For example, think back to Disney movies you were probably shown as a child. The plots of these movies typically feature a dominant young man—a prince, a colonial ship captain, a soldier—who is romantically interested in a young woman—both are always assumed to be heterosexual—who at first resists the advances of the young man, but eventually falls in love with him and marries him. These Disney movies teach children a great deal about gender and sexuality; specifically, they teach children to value hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a specific type of culturally-valued masculinity tied to marriage and heterosexuality and patriarchal authority in the family and workplace, and maintains its privileged position through subordinating other less dominant forms of masculinity (i.e., dominance over men of lower socioeconomic classes or gay men). Emphasized femininity, meanwhile, refers to a compliance with the normative ideal of femininity, as it is oriented to serving the interests of men (Connell 1987).
What do Disney movies have to do with how people actually live their lives? It is because they are fictional and do not have to be verified by reality, and they are so pervasive in our culture and shown to us at such a young age that they may shape our gendered and sexualized selves in ways that we do not even realize. How many times have you heard people say that they want a “fairy tale wedding,” or heard the media refer to a celebrity wedding as a “fairy tale wedding?” This is one example of how media reproduces dominant ideologies—the ideas, attitudes, and values of the dominant culture—about gender and sexuality.
Media also reproduce racialized and gendered normative standards in the form of beauty ideals for both women and men. As Jean Kilbourne’s video series Killing Us Softly illustrates, representations of women in advertising, film, and magazines often rely on the objectification of women—cutting apart their bodies with the camera frame and re-crafting their bodies through digital manipulation in order to create feminized bodies with characteristics that are largely unattainable by the majority of the population. Kilbourne shows how advertising often values the body types and features of white women—having petite figures and European facial features—while often exoticizing women of color by putting them in “nature” scenes and animal-print clothing that are intended to recall a pre-civilizational past. The effect of this is to cast women of color as animalistic, savage creatures—a practice that has historically been used in political cartoons and depictions of people of color to legitimate their subjugation as less than human. In addition, media depict the world from a masculine point of view, representing women as sex objects. This kind of framing, what Laura Mulvey called the male gaze, encourages men viewers to see women as objects and encourages women to see themselves as objects of men’s desire; the male gaze is thus a heterosexual male gaze. These are just a couple of examples of how media simultaneously reflect and construct differences in power between social groups in society through representing those groups.
Another way in which media reflect and simultaneously produce power differences between social groups is through symbolic annihilation. Symbolic annihilation refers to how social groups that lack power in society are rendered absent, condemned, or trivialized through mass media representations that simultaneously reinforce dominant ideologies and the privilege of dominant groups. For example, as we argued earlier, gay and lesbian, as well as transgender and disabled characters in mass media are often few and when they are present they are typically stereotyped and misrepresented. Trans women characters portrayed through the cisgender heterosexual male gaze are often used as plot twists or objects of ridicule for comedic effect, and are often represented as “actually men” who deceive men in order to “trap” them into having sex with them; these representations function to justify and normalize portrayals of disgust in response to them and violence against them. These kinds of portrayals of trans women as “evil deceivers” and “pretenders” have been used in court cases to pardon perpetrators who have murdered trans women (Bettcher 2007).
A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/introwgss/?p=74
This video discusses dehumanizing representations of trans women.
Rantasmo. (2014, July 16).“It’s a Trap!”: Depictions of Trans Deception. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q78qaT8JZ_A.
While Jean Kilbourne’s insights illustrate how beauty ideals produce damaging effects on women and girls, her model of how consumers relate to media constructs media consumers as passively accepting everything they see in advertising and electronic and print media. As Michael Kimmel (2003) argues, “The question is never whether or not the media do such and such, but rather how the media and its consumers interact to create the varying meanings that derive from our interactions with those media” (Kimmel 2003: 238). No advertisement, movie, or any form of media has an inherent, intended meaning that passes directly from the producer of that media to the consumer of it, but consumers interact with, critique, and sometimes reject the intended messages of media. In this way, the meanings of media develop through the interaction between the media product and the consumers who are interacting with it. Furthermore, media consumers can blur the distinction between producer and consumer through creating their own media in the form of videos, music, pamphlets, ‘zines, and other forms of cultural production. Therefore, while media certainly often reproduce dominant ideologies and normative standards, media consumers from different standpoints can and do modify and reject the intended meanings of media. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.03%3A_Media.txt |
We often think of medicine and medical knowledge as objective, neutral, and vitally important to our well being the well being of and society. There is no doubt that medicine has produced life-saving technologies, treatments, and vaccines. However, medicine is not a neutral field that exists independent of the cultures and societies within which it is created. Medicine relies on the medical model, which contains a number of assumptions. First, it assumes that the body is governed by laws and processes independent of culture, social life and institutions. Second, it assumes that physicians are those qualified to evaluate and define the body’s health or pathology and treat it as they see necessary. In sum, the medical model is a medical-biological understanding of the body, which constructs the systems, pathologies, or indicators of health of the body as independent of culture, ideology, economy, and the state. Feminist and critical theorists have critiqued this understanding of the body, showing both how doctors and medicine medicalize bodies in particular ways according to gender ideologies. Furthermore, feminists have argued that we need to pay attention to how race, gender, and class inequalities shape the health outcomes of differently situated groups in society.
Medical sociologist Peter Conrad (2007) defines medicalization as the process whereby human problems “become defined and treated as medical problems, usually in terms of illness and disorders” which are then managed and treated by health professionals. Medicalization constructs medical problems, which are codified in policy by governing bodies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, that recommend treatment. For example, two different diagnostic categories for the experience of low sexual desire—one for men (Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder), and one for women (Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder)—newly appeared in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Low sexual desire does not threaten a person’s health, but these categories treat low sexual desire as a problem and construct the experience as essentially distinct for women than for men. A number of the members of the work groups that created diagnostic categories in the DSM-5 had conflicting interests, such as ties to pharmaceutical companies (Welch et al., 2013). This diagnostic category followed the development and marketing of the first product to treat “female sexual dysfunction”—called EROS—by Urometrics, a pharmaceutical company. The Food and Drug Administration defines “female sexual dysfunction” as “decreased sexual desire, decreased sexual arousal, pain during intercourse, or inability to climax” (Shah 2003). This pathologization of decreased sexual arousal emerged in a specific social context in which Pfizer’s \$1.3 billion profit windfall from Viagra in 2000 spurred pharmaceutical companies to develop an equivalent product to market to women, and a diagnostic category emerged next to encourage prescriptions and sales of the drug.
“This work” by Yoshikia2001 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
In this example, heterosexual women’s sexuality becomes medicalized to serve various interests other than their own health and pleasure. Feminists have been critiquing the ways in which women’s sexual needs and desires are often subordinated to men’s sexual needs and desires for decades—diagnosing the problem as stemming from exhaustion from both paid work and unpaid housework, as well as inattentive male partners. Urometrics and the doctors who developed EROS, in contrast, diagnose the problem as stemming from female bodily dysfunction. Instead of addressing the deeper social and cultural reasons for why heterosexual women may not be fulfilled sexually, EROS offers a commodified, FDA-approved, medically indicated treatment for a medically-defined “bodily dysfunction.” Relatedly, gender nonconformity transgender identity has been medicalized for the past several decades. The current diagnostic category in the DSM-5 is called “Gender Dysphoria.”
Medicalization is an aspect of bio-power. Bio-power, according to philosopher Michel Foucault (1979) refers to the practices of modern states to regulate their subjects through technologies of power. Foucault argued that in complex modern societies populations will not tolerate totalitarian uses of state power. Therefore, modern states must find less overt ways to control their populations, such as collecting data on the health, reproductive capacities, and sexual behaviors of their populations for the purpose of state regulation and intervention. For example, historian Laura Briggs shows how in the United States colonial occupation of Puerto Rico in the early 20th century, public health officials treated the problem of venereal disease as a problem of overpopulation and sexual immorality, and sought to institute eugenics policies (discussed below) to limit Puerto Rican women’s ability to reproduce. Importantly, Foucault argued that medical knowledge, combined with modern states’ collection of data on their populations, created new norms of health which populations internalize. Thus, the intended effect of bio-power is that people regulate themselves according to norms proliferated by medical knowledge and the state.
As we have argued before, not all women’s health and sexuality has been medicalized in the same ways, or with the same effects. Class and race differences and inequalities have made poor or working-class white women and women of color, along with people with disabilities, the targets of public health campaigns to regulate their sexuality and reproduction. Such was the case with the example of the United States’ use of bio-power in Puerto Rico above. In that example, working-class and poor Puerto Rican women’s sexuality and reproduction became medicalized in ways that wealthy Puerto Ricans’ and white women’s sexuality and reproduction were not.
The eugenics movement began in the late 19th century, but has had far-reaching impacts around the world. Eugenics is a medical/scientific ideology and social movement that takes the root of social and psychological problems (poverty, mental illness, etc.) to be the genetic make-up or heredity of specific groups within the population, and as a result, seeks to eliminate those groups through sterilization or genocide. Eugenics takes biological determinism and bio-power to their furthest logical conclusions. Eugenicists believe that selective breeding of those groups that they construct as “inherently superior”—nondisabled, heterosexual, white, middle-class, Northern and Western Europeans—is a rational-scientific answer to “solve” social problems. The most obvious and well-known example of eugenics in practice is the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, but what many people do not know is that eugenics-based sterilization was enforced by law in the United States for much of the 20th Century. In 1907, the world’s first first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law was passed in Indiana, followed by 30 states soon after (Lombardo, 2011). The Nazi government widely cited a report that praised the results of sterilization in California as evidence that extensive sterilization programs are feasible and humane (Miller, 2009). Between 1907 and 1963, over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States (Lombardo, 2011). The eugenics movement also took shape in immigration policies in the United States into the first half of the 20th Century (Allen, 1996). Eugenics projects are still in effect today. Sterilization is still coerced or forced on women and girls, and especially disabled women and girls, in a number of countries (Guterman, 2011). Women in California prisons have continued to be forcibly sterilized, as recently as 2010 (Campos, 2013). In addition, as of April 2017, 20 countries in Europe require sterilization in order for trans people to obtain legal gender recognition (Transgender Europe, 2017).
In addition to overt genocidal projects, social relations within conditions of inequality increasingly expose stigmatized groups to environmental and health hazards at rates higher than privileged groups, affecting birth and health outcomes. For example, according to the National Association of City and County Health Officials, in the United States, the wealthier a person is, the lower their risk of disease, cancer, infant death, and diabetes (NACCHO, 2008). However, two physicians who study premature birth—Richard David and James Collins—found that African Americans who were middle-class or upper-class did not experience the same lower risks for premature birth as their white peers. They attempted to find out if there was a “premature birth gene” specific to African Americans, through comparing newborns among African American women, white women, and African women. They found that African women and white American women had similar pregnancy outcomes, but African American women were still 3 times more likely to have premature births than both these groups—suggesting that there is no genetic basis for difference between pregnancy outcomes for white and black women. Therefore, David and Collins explain the pregnancy gap by arguing that African Americans, regardless of social class, experience significant amounts of stress due to their daily experiences with racism in the United States. For African Americans—particularly African American women—who are middle-class or upper-class, the necessity of being on the ball constantly and performing at the highest caliber at all times, in order to refute racist stereotypes, results in a continuous, accumulating amount of stress which translates into higher risk for negative health outcomes (Unnatural Causes, 2008). Such findings suggest that intersecting race, class, and gender inequalities have real impacts on the health outcomes of differently situated groups in society.
Recognition of the effects of social inequalities on women’s health motivates the activism of the reproductive justice movement . A reproductive justice framework for understanding the politics of health and reproduction highlights race, class, and gender inequalities and how these inequalities constrain the abilities of women to control their lives. It centers the necessary social and cultural conditions for poor women and women of color to be able to make choices, including equal wages for equal work, employment, affordable housing, healthcare, and lives free from violence. The reproductive justice movement was born out of the tensions between white, middle-class feminist activists and women of color activists in feminist movements. White, middle-class feminist activists framed their argument for abortion under a reproductive rights framework that relied on a language of “choice,”—an individualizing way of talking about reproductive politics that overlooked the ways that poverty, race, laws and medical authorities imposed control over many women’s reproductive lives.
Following the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973 (the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion), the burgeoning conservative movement of the mid to late 1970s succeeded in getting the Hyde Amendment passed. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds—specifically Medicaid—from being used to fund abortions. This Amendment disproportionately affects poor women, who are disproportionately women of color. One would think that the National Organization of Women (NOW) would have rallied to block or reverse the Hyde Amendment, but they did not. This led women of color activists to critique the reproductive rights framework, arguing that this framework reflects the interests and experiences of white, middle-class feminists and ignores the broader racial and class inequalities that limit the abilities of women to actually make choices about reproduction and family.
The reproductive justice movement challenges the individualizing and depoliticizing tendencies of the medicalization of women’s bodies by arguing that social inequalities limit choice and expose differently situated female-bodied people to illness and disease depending on their social location within multiple axes of identity. As such, it shows how health and illness are deeply social and not solely determined by biology or genetics. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.04%3A_Medicine_Health_and_Reproductive_Justice.txt |
In high school civics and social science classes, students are often taught that the United States is a democratic nation-state because the government is composed of three separate branches—the Executive, the Judicial, and Legislative branches—that work to check and balance each other. Students are told that anyone can run for office and that people’s votes determine the direction of the nation. However, as economist Joseph Stiglitz (2011) points out, the fact that the majority of US senators, representatives in the House of Representatives, and Executive-branch policy makers originate from the wealthiest 1% of the society should give one pause to rethink this conventional narrative.
We take a more critical view of the state than that of high school civics textbooks. We understand the State to be an array of legislation, policies, governmental bodies, and military- and prison-industrial complexes. We also observe that the line between civil society and the state is more fluid than solid—citizens and groups of citizens often take extra-judicial actions that bolster the power of the state, even if they are not officially agents of the state. This definition offers a more expansive understanding of the ways in which government, civil society, and the global economy function together in ways that often reflect the interests of domestic and global elites and international corporations. In the following pages, we highlight ways that the state—in its various dimensions—plays a central role in maintaining and reproducing inequalities.
State power is powerfully illustrated by Neighborhood Watch Groups and the killing of Trayvon Martin. Additionally, lynchings of Black Americans serve as potent examples of citizens exercising racialized violence to bolster racial segregation.
The state plays a significant role in reinforcing gender stratification and racism through legislation and policies that influence numerous institutions, including education, social welfare programming, health and medicine, and the family. A primary example of this is the prison system and the “War on Drugs” begun in the 1980s by the Reagan Administration. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were over 2.1 million people incarcerated in the United States at the end of 2015 (Kaeble and Glaze, 2016). Furthermore, over 6.7 million were either on probation, on parole, or in jail or prison. This means that roughly 2.7% of the adult population of the United States was somehow under surveillance by the US criminal justice system. Indeed, the United States has the highest number of people incarcerated than any other country on the face of the globe. These rates of incarceration are largely the result of the “War on Drugs,” which criminalized drug use and distribution.
A significant aspect of the “War on Drugs” was the establishment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws that send non-violent drug offenders to prison, rather than enrolling them in treatment programs. The “War on Drugs” has disproportionately targeted people of color. Seventy percent of inmates in the United States are non-white—a figure that surpasses the percentage of non-whites in US society, which is approximately 23%, according to the 2015 US census. That means that non-white prisoners are far over-represented in the US criminal justice system. While the incarceration of women, in general, for drug-related offenses has skyrocketed 888% between 1986 and 1999, women of color have been arrested at rates far higher than white women, even though they use drugs at a rate equal to or lower than white women (ACLU 2004). Furthermore, according to Bureau of Justice statistics from 2007, nearly two-thirds of US women prisoners had children under 18 years of age (Glaze and Maruschak, 2010). Before incarceration, disproportionately, these women were the primary caregivers to their children and other family members. Thus, the impact on children, families, and communities is substantial when women are imprisoned. Finally, inmates often engage in prison labor for less than minimum wage. Corporations contract prison labor that produces millions of dollars in profit. Therefore, the incarceration of millions of people artificially deflates the unemployment rate (something politicians benefit from) and creates a cheap labor force that generates millions of dollars in profit for private corporations. How do we make sense of this? What does this say about the state of democracy in the United States?
Feminist activist and academic Angela Davis argues that we can conceptualize the prison system and its linkages to corporate production as the prison-industrial complex. In the book Are Prisons Obsolete?, Davis (2003) argues that more and more prisons were built in the 1980s in order to concentrate and manage those marked as “human surplus” by the capitalist system. She sees a historical connection between the system of slavery, and the enslavement of African Americans until the 19th century, and the creation of a prison-industrial complex that not only attempts to criminalize and manage Black, Latino, Native American, and poor bodies, but also attempts to extract profit from them (through prison labor that creates profit for corporations). Thus, the prison-industrial complex is a largely unseen (quite literally: most prisons are located in isolated areas) mechanism through which people of color are marginalized in US society. Similarly, in The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that mass incarceration has created and maintains a “racial caste system.” She emphasizes how mass incarceration debilitates individuals and communities through stigma, job discrimination, and the loss of ability to vote in many states. Similarly, sociologist Loic Waquant (2010) argues that mass incarceration within the criminal justice system functions as an increasingly powerful system of racial control.
In light of the prison-industrial system and its racialized and gendered effects, how far has the US really come in terms of racial and gender equality? Here, we point to the difference between de jure laws and de facto realities. De jure refer to existing laws and de facto refers to on-the-ground realities. While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally required an end to de jure segregation, or segregation enforcible by law, in education, voting, and the workplace, de facto racial inequality still exists. We can see clearly, just looking at incarceration statistics, that even though explicit racial discrimination is illegal, state policies such as the War on Drugs still have the effect of disproportionately imprisoning people of color. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.05%3A_The_State_Law_and_the_Prison_System.txt |
Thus far we have illustrated some ways in which social institutions overlap with and reinforce one another. In this section, we use the case of the struggle to end violence against women as an example of the ways in which the family, media, medicine, and law and the prison system facilitate gendered violence and violence against women. The term gendered violence highlights not only the manner in which transgender people, gay men, and women often experience violence, but also how violence takes place more broadly within the context of a society that is characterized by a sex/gender/sexuality system that disparages femininity, sexual minorities, and gender minorities. Hussein Balhan’s (1985) definition of violence emphasizes the structural and systematic nature of violence: “Violence is not an isolated physical act or a discrete random event. It is a relation, process, and condition determining, exploiting, and curtailing the well-being of the survivor…Violence occurs not only between individuals, but also between groups and societies…Any relation, process, or condition imposed by someone that injures the health and well-being of others is by definition violent.” As Kirk and Okazawa-Rey (2004) point out, this definition not only includes sexual assault and domestic violence between individuals, but also includes macro-level processes of inequality and violence, such as “colonization, poverty, racism, lack of access to education, health care, and negative media representations” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 2004: 258). Importantly, Bulhan (1985) refers to people who have experienced violence as “survivors” rather than “victims.” The difference between the two words is significant, in that the construction of people who have experienced violence as “victims” maintains and reinforces their subordinate position, while “survivors” emphasizes the agency and self-determination of people who have experienced violence. Thus, we wish to underscore not only that sexual and intimate partner violence is systematic, but that women and men have organized to combat sexual and domestic violence, and that women and survivors of sexual and domestic violence have agency and exercise that agency.
Whereas our culture figures the home and family as a “haven in a heartless world,” the family and home are common contexts for emotional and physical violence. As we pointed out in the section concerning families, the notion of the normative family—with the concomitant gender roles we connote with the SNAF—as a privatized sphere, is an ideological construction that often hides inequalities that exist within families. Intimate partner violence refers to emotional and physical violence by one partner against another and includes “current and former spouses, girlfriends, and boyfriends” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 2004). Intimate partner violence occurs in queer as well as heterosexual relationships, but this violence is quite clearly gendered in heterosexual relationships. The US Department of Justice reported that 37% of women who visited emergency rooms for injuries from others were injured by male intimate partners. Additionally, researchers of sexual violence have found that one in five high school girls surveyed reported that she had been physically or sexually abused. The majority of these incidents occurred at home and happened more than once (Commonwealth Fund 1997). It is important to note that these statistics only include those who actually sought medical care (in the case of the first statistic) and/or reported an injury from a male intimate partner. As a result, this number may grossly under-represent the actual number of women injured by intimate partners. Until the 1970s in the United States, most states did not consider rape between spouses—or marital rape—a crime. This was a legacy of coverture laws that existed until the 19th century, wherein women were thought to be the property of their husbands, lacking any legal rights to personhood. Thus, the legal history of marriage has played a part in constructing marital rape as somehow less damaging and violent than stranger rape. Additionally, the de-valuation of women’s labor, and the fact that women are, on average, paid 77% of what men receive for the same work, reinforce women’s dependence on partners for survival, even if these partners are abusive.
The history of institutionalized racism within police departments and law may make women within communities of color less likely to report intimate partner violence or sexual violence. Women may not report abuse from partners who are people of color because they do not want to expose their partners to the criminal justice system, which—as the earlier section on the state, prison, and law discusses—has disproportionately locked up people of color. Furthermore, past experiences with abusive police officers, police brutality, or police indifference to calls for help may make many women of color reticent to involve the police in cases of violence. Similarly, women who are undocumented immigrants and living within the United States may not report sexual or intimate partner violence for fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sending them or their partner back to their country of origin.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other medical professionals have crafted several “syndromes” used to describe the effects of violence against women. While they have brought attention to the problem and the need for treatment programs, these approaches to violence against women tend to individualize, depoliticize, and medicalize gendered violence and often pathologize the survivor, rather than identify the cultural conditions that compel abusers to abuse others. Battered Women’s Syndrome (BTS), put forward by psychologist Lenore Walker, describes a woman who “learns helplessness” and returns to her abuser because he (in this theory, only men are abusers and only women are survivors) lures her back with promises not to harm her again, yet continues to abuse her. Another “syndrome” is Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS), which describes the “irrational” behaviors of women who have been raped—behaviors that include “…not reporting a rape for days or even months, not remember parts of the assault, appearing too calm, or expressing anger at their treatment by police, hospital staff, or the legal system” (Kirk and Okazawa 2004: 265). Both of these descriptions of the impacts of violence have successfully been used in court to prosecute perpetrators, but they also construct survivors as passive, damaged victims who engage in “irrational” behavior. Activists who combat gendered violence and violence against women have argued that people who experience sexual violence are in fact not passive victims, but active agents who have the ability to organize and participate in anti-violence activism and organizations, as well as to hold their assailant responsible for their actions.
This unit has attempted to show how institutions are not merely benign, apolitical facets of our lives, but active agents in our socialization, laden with ideology and power. They produce and reproduce inequalities. Furthermore, as illustrated in the last section on gendered violence, institutions often overlap and reinforce one another. This is because institutions are deeply social entities—even though we may think of them as unaffected by society and culture. They exist in the same cultural-historical periods and are created through the same structures of thought of that period. However, due to the inordinate power of institutions and those at their heads—doctors, scientists, policy makers, experts, etc.—the ideas of those in power within institutions are often the reigning ideas of an era. In this way, institutions have an ideological facet—they are not only shaped by a particular cultural-historical period, but also society is shaped and impacted by their interests, as well. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/03%3A_Institutions_Culture_and_Structures/3.06%3A_Intersecting_Institutions_Case_Study-_The_Struggle_to_End_Gendered_Viol.txt |
Allen, G. 1997. “The social and economic origins of genetic determinism: A case history of the American Eugenics Movement, 1900-1940 and its lessons for today.” Genetica. 99: 77-89.
American Civil Liberties Union. 2004. “Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policies on Women and Families.” Accessed 1 April, 2017. http://www.aclu.org/files/images/ass...e431_23513.pdf
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Publishing.
Bettcher, Talia. 2007. “Evil Deceivers and Make‐Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion.” Hypatia 22 (3): 43-65.
Bourdieu, P. 1979.. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Richard Nice (tr.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bulhan, H. Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression. New York: University Press of Boston, 1985.
California Newsreel. 2008. Unnatural Causes…Is Inequality Making us Sick? Vital Pictures, Inc.
Campos, Paul. 2013. “Eugenics are Alive and Well in the United States.” Time. http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/10/eugenics-are-alive-and-well-in-the-united-states/. Accessed 31 March, 2017.
Commonwealth Fund. 1997. The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the health of adolescent girls: Highlights and Methodology. New York, NY: The Commonwealth Fund.
Connell. R.W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Conrad, P. 2007. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorder. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Davis, A. 2003 Are Prisons Obsolete? Open Media.
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality: Volume I: The Will to Knowledge. New York, NY: Random House, Inc.
Gerstel, N. 2003. “Family” in The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, edited by W. Outhwaite. Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.
Glaze, Lauren E. and Laura M. Maruschak. 2010. “Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Parents in Prison and their Minor children.” US Department of Justice. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf. Accessed 1 April, 2017.
Guterman, Lydia. 2011. “The Global Problem of Forced Sterilization.” Open Society Foundations. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/global-problem-forced-sterilization. Accessed 31 March, 2017.
Jepperson, R. 1991. “Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism.” Pp. 143–163 in The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, edited by W. W. Powell, DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kaeble, Danielle and Lauren Glaze. 2016. “Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015.” Bureau of Justice Statistics. US Department of Justice. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus15.pdf. Accessed 1 April, 2017.
Kimmel, M. 2003. “The Gendered Media”,in The Gendered Society, 2nd Edition, edited by Michael Kimmel. Oxford University Press.
Kilbourne, Jean. 2010. Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women.
Kirk, G. and M. Okazawa-Rey. 2004. “Glossary of Terms in Common Use” in Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, 5th Edition, edited by Gwen Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
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Lombardo, Paul. 2011. A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
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Shah, S. 2003. “The Orgasm Industry: Drug Companies Search for a Female Viagra”, Pp 328-331 in Sexual Lives: A Reader on the Theories and Realities of Human Sexualities, Edited by Robert Heasley and Betsy Crane. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
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Thumbnail: Baiga women and children in protest walk, India. (Public Domain; Ekta Parishad via Wikipedia).
04: Gender and Work in the Global Economy
Work is an arena in which gendered processes intersect with multiple social inequalities to influence what jobs people have, how they experience those jobs, and whether those jobs provide them with secure, fulfilling and upwardly mobile careers, or relegate them to insecure, dead-end, dangerous, or even degrading labor. In the US, hard work is supposed to lead to a whole host of social and material rewards (i.e., respect, power, a house, a car, a yacht). The context surrounding hard work, for instance whether that work is paid or unpaid, compensated at a minimum wage or six-figure salary, is gendered in deep and complex ways. As we mentioned previously, childcare is hard work that is often underpaid or not paid at all and is most often done by women. Furthermore, even if women do not perform most of this work themselves, certain career trajectories are forced on them, and they are placed in lower paying and less prestigious “mommy tracks” whether or not they choose this themselves. We can also see institutionalized labor inequalities at the global scale by looking at who cares for North American children when middle-class mothers take on full-time jobs and hire nannies, typically immigrant women from Eastern Europe and the Global South, to care for their children.
4.02: Gender and Work in the US
Now, more than ever, women in the US are participating in the labor force in full-time, year-round positions.[1] This was not always the case. Changes in the economy (namely, the decline of men’s wages), an increase in single-mothers, and education and job opportunities and cultural shifts created by feminist movement politics from the 1960s and 1970s have fueled the increase in women’s labor force participation. Dual-earner homes are much more common than the breadwinner-homemaker model popularized in the 1950s, in which women stayed home and did unpaid labor (such as laundry, cooking, childcare, cleaning) while men participated in the paid labor force in jobs that would earn them enough money to support a spouse and children. It turns out this popular American fantasy, often spoken of in political “family values” rhetoric, was only ever a reality for some white, middle-class people, and, for most contemporary households, is now completely out of reach.
Though men and women are participating in the labor force, higher education, and paid work in near-equal numbers, a wage gap between men and women workers remains. On average, women workers make 77% of what men make. This gap persists even when controlling for educational differences, full-time work versus part-time work, and year-round versus seasonal occupational statuses. Thus, women with similar educational backgrounds who work the same number of hours per year as their male counterparts are making 23% less than similarly situated men. So, how can this gap be explained? Researchers put forth four possible explanations of the gender wage gap: 1) discrimination; 2) occupational segregation; 3) devalued work; and 4) inherent work-family conflicts.
Most people believe discrimination in hiring is a thing of the past. Since the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed it has been illegal to discriminate in hiring based on race or gender. However, although companies can no longer say “men only” in their hiring advertisements, they can make efforts to recruit men, such as circulating job ads in men’s social networks and choosing men to interview from the applicant pool. The same companies can also have non-accommodating family-leave provisions that may discourage women, who they assume are disproportionately more likely to be primary caregivers, from applying. In addition, discrimination cases are very difficult to prosecute legally since no government agency monitors general trends and practices, and so individuals must complain about and prove specific instances of discrimination in specific job settings. Hiring discrimination in particular is extremely difficult to prove in a courtroom, and can thus persist largely unchecked. In addition, even when they are hired, women working in male-dominated fields often run into a glass ceiling, in that they face difficulties in being promoted to higher-level positions in the organization. One example of the glass ceiling and gender discrimination is the class action lawsuit between Wal-Mart and its female managerial staff. Although Wal-Mart has hired some women in managerial positions across the country, they also have informal policies, at the national level, of promoting men faster and paying them at a different wage scale. While only six women at Wal-Mart initiated the suit, the number of women that would be affected in this case numbered over 1.5 million. Wal-Mart fought this legal battle over the course of ten years (2001-2011). The case was finally decided in June 2011 when the US Supreme Court sided with the defendant, Wal-Mart, citing the difficulty of considering all women workers in Wal-Mart’s retail empire as a coherent “class.” They agreed that discrimination against individuals was present, but the fact that it could not be proven that women, as a class, were discriminated against by the Wal-Mart corporation kept them from being found guilty (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, et al., 2011). Although Wal-Mart did nothing to curb its male managers who were clearly and consistently hiring and promoting men over women, this neglect was not enough to convict Wal-Mart of class-action discrimination. In this example, it becomes apparent that while gender discrimination is illegal it can still happen in patterned and widespread ways. Additionally, there are a series of factors that make it hard to prosecute gender discrimination.
Occupational segregation describes a split labor market in which one group is far more likely to do certain types of work than other groups. Gendered occupational sex segregation describes situations in which women are more likely to do certain jobs and men others. The jobs women are more likely to work in have been dubbed “pink-collar” jobs. While “white collar” describes well-paying managerial work and “blue collar” describes manual labor predominantly done by men with a full range of income levels depending on skill, “pink collar” describes mostly low-wage, female-dominated positions that involve services and, often, emotional labor. The term emotional labor, developed by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild (1983), is used to describe work in which, as part of their job, employees must control and manage their emotions. For instance, a waitress risks being fired by confronting rude and harassing customers with anger; she must both control her own emotions and help to quell the emotions of angry customers in order to keep her job. Any service-based work that involves interacting with customers (from psychiatrists to food service cashiers) also involves emotional labor. The top three “pink-collar” occupations dominated by women workers—secretaries, teachers, and nurses—all involve exceptional amounts of emotional labor.
“An Austrian Airlines flight attendant serving refreshments to passengers” by Austrian Airlines is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Feminized work, or work thought to be “women’s work” is not only underpaid, it is also socially undervalued, or taken to be worth less than work thought to be “men’s work.” Care work is an area of the service economy that is feminized, involves intense emotional labor, and is consistently undervalued. Caretakers of children and the elderly are predominantly women. Economist Nancy Folbre (2001) has argued that care work is undervalued both because women are more likely to do it and because it is considered to be natural for women to know how to care. Women have traditionally done care work in the home, raising children and caring for sick and dying relatives, usually for free. Perhaps this is because women bear children and are stereotyped as naturally more emotionally sensitive than men.
Some feel it is wrong to ever pay for these services and that they should be done altruistically even by non-family members. Women are stereotyped as having natural caring instincts, and, if these instincts come naturally, there is no reason to pay well (or pay at all) for this work. In reality, care work requires learned skills like any other type of work. What is interesting is that when men participate in this work, and other pink-collar jobs, they actually tend to be paid better and to advance to higher-level positions faster than comparable women. This phenomenon, in contrast to the glass ceiling, is known as the glass escalator (Williams, 1992). However, Adia Harvey Wingfield (2009) has applied an intersectional analysis to the glass escalator concept and found that men of color do not benefit from this system to the extent that white men do.
“This work” by mimikama is in the Public Domain, CC0
Finally, the fourth explanation for the gender wage gap has to do with the conflict between work and family that women are more likely to have to negotiate than men. For instance, women are much more likely to interrupt their career trajectories to take time off to care for children. This is not an inherent consequence of childbearing. Many countries offer women (and sometimes men) workers paid leave time and the ability to return to their jobs with the same salaries and benefits as when they left them. In contrast, the strongest legal policy protecting people’s jobs in the case of extended leave to care for the sick or elderly, or take personal time for pregnancy and childcare in the United States is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1996. Under this act, most employers are obligated to allow their workers to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave. Unfortunately, few people can afford to be away from their jobs for so long without a paycheck and this policy remains underutilized. Additionally, only about half of the US work force is eligible for leave under FMLA, because the act only applies to workers who are employed by companies that have more than 50 employees. On top of that, many employers are unaware of this act or do not inform their workers that they can take this time off. Thus, women are more likely to quit full-time jobs and take on part-time jobs while their children are young. Quitting and rejoining the labor force typically means starting at the bottom in terms of pay and status at a new company, and this negatively impacts women’s overall earnings even when they return to full-time work.
1. Much of the material in this chapter was adapted from a classroom guest lecture by Dale Melcher, given on October 26, 2009. ↵ | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/04%3A_Gender_and_Work_in_the_Global_Economy/4.01%3A_Introduction-_Gender_and_Work_in_the_Global_Economy.txt |
There are many ways that nations and national policies are gendered. In this section we will focus on the U.S. welfare state. Here, we do not cover everything pertaining to the welfare state; we clarify debates and provide examples. Welfare does not only come in its most-recognized form (monthly income assistance), but also includes subsidized health insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) and childcare, social security, and food subsidies like food stamps. In addition, the U.S. government pays subsidies to corporations, which is called corporate welfare. Most individuals who receive welfare are stigmatized and construed as undeserving, while the corporations that receive subsidies are seen as entitled to these. The distribution of welfare in the US is a gendered process in which women, especially mothers, are much more likely to receive assistance than men. Since, at the national level, women earn less money than men do and often take time away from the labor force, it is more difficult to maintain a single-parent household on one woman’s income than on one man’s income. This is even more difficult for women who are working class or poor whose work may not even pay enough to stay well fed and cared for without additional support from family, friends, or the state.
The Personal Responsibility/Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 effectively dismantled US welfare policy. As we mentioned previously, the act limits lifetime receipt of welfare to a maximum of 60 months. In addition, the act includes some gender-specific clauses to address the political issue of mothers on welfare. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich infamously suggested that children of welfare mothers should be put into orphanages rather than be raised by the women who birthed them. An incarnation of this sentiment made its way into PRWORA through an optional state-level clause that would bar mothers who were already on welfare rolls from getting additional money to support any new children (Hays, 2001). This clause, also known as the “family cap provision,” effectively punishes children for being born and plays into the demeaning and erroneous stereotype that women on welfare have children in order to get more money from the state. Feminist political scientist Gwendolyn Mink argues that welfare reform targets poor single mothers and families of color and contributes to the devaluing of unpaid care-giving work. According to Mink (2009), through welfare reform, poor single mothers became:
…a separate caste, subject to a separate system of law. Poor single mothers are the only people in America forced by law to work outside the home. They are the only people in America whose decision to bear children are punished by the government…And they are the only mothers in America compelled by law to make room for biological fathers in their families (Mink 2009: 540).
This example illustrates how state policies devalue the traditionally gendered care work that women disproportionately perform, target poor women of color as subjects to be regulated, and reinforce heteronormative breadwinner-homemaker gender roles.
In addition, welfare is linked to state policies governing marriage and family life. For example, the Bush Administration’s Healthy Marriages Initiative, which promoted marriage by providing government funding, assumed that marriage reduces poverty. It is true that two incomes are often better than one. However, not all mothers are heterosexual, or want to be married to the father of their children, or even married at all. More than that, marriage is no guarantee of financial security, especially people living in impoverished communities where they would likely marry other impoverished people. Most people marry within their current economic class (Gerstel and Sarkisian 2006). Gingrich and others especially hoped that women would marry the fathers of their children without recognizing that many women are victims of intimate partner violence. Finally, we are also living in a period in which most marriages end in divorce. It is clear that this initiative was more about promoting a political ideology than actually attempting to remedy the social problem of poverty.
Discourses about welfare mothers invoke images that are gendered, classed, racialized, and sexualized. This phrase speaks to race and sexuality issues as well as gender and class issues. The notions that women on welfare breed children uncontrollably, never marry, and do not know who fathered their children are contemporary incarnations of the Jezebel controlling image of Black women as sexually promiscuous that originated during American slavery (Collins, 2005). This image obscures the fact that during slavery and after emancipation, white men systematically raped Black women. Although most people receiving welfare supports are white, and, in particular, most single mothers receiving welfare are also white, welfare receipt is racialized such that the only images of welfare we seem to see are single mothers of color. As we mentioned before, “the poor” are often framed as amoral, unfamiliar, and un-American. If instead the receipt of welfare was not stigmatized, but was recognized as something that families, friends, and neighbors received in various phases of their lives, these stereotypes would lose traction.
For instance, the mother of one of the authors of this text receives social security for disability checks, yet is staunchly anti-welfare. This contradiction is sustained by the idea that members of the white middle class do not receive welfare even when they do receive various forms of government support.
Women disproportionately number among those in poverty around the world. The term feminization of poverty describes the trend in the US and across the globe in which more and more women live in impoverished conditions, despite the fact that many are working. Women’s unequal access to resources and the disproportionate responsibility for unpaid work placed on them set up a situation in which women can either be supported by a breadwinner or struggle to make ends meet. The global economic crisis and long-standing unequal economic relationships between the Global North—a term that refers to the world’s wealthier countries—and the Global South—a term that refers to the world’s poorer countries—have made sustainable breadwinning wages, even among men, hard to attain. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/04%3A_Gender_and_Work_in_the_Global_Economy/4.03%3A_Gender_and_the_US_Welfare_State.txt |
Globalization is an oft-cited term that can usefully serve as shorthand. However, this shorthand runs the risk of lumping together a broad range of complex economic, political, and cultural phenomena. Globalization describes both the benefits and costs of living in a globally connected world. The Internet was once heralded as the great equalizer in global communications. Certainly, we are now accustomed to getting news from across the globe from a variety of perspectives. Activists in other countries, like Egypt and Iran, have famously used social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to report what is happening from the ground, in the absence of formal news sources. Egyptian activists also utilized these social networking websites to coordinate demonstrations and marches, leading to the Egyptian government to shut down the Internet for several days during the “Arab Spring” uprisings in early 2011. Globalization makes it possible for social change activists in different countries to communicate with each other, and for people, information, and products to cross borders, with benefits for some and costs to others. It allows for Massachusetts residents to have fresh fruit in winter, but lowers the wages of agricultural workers who gather the fruit in tropical countries, supports repressive government policies in those countries, and increases the carbon footprint of producing and distributing food. Globalized contexts can lead social movements and state, development and conservation agencies to influence each other. For example, Colombian activists’ use of neoliberal development discourses both legitimized the presence of state, development and conservation agencies and influenced these agencies’ visions and plans (Asher 2009). As such, globalization is not uniformly good or bad, but has costs and benefits that are experienced differently depending on one’s social location.
Nations of the world are linked in trade relationships. The US depends on resources and capabilities of other nations to the extent that our economy relies on imports (e.g., oil, cars, food, manufactured goods). So, how is it that the US economy is still largely profitable? Factories in the US producing manufactured goods did not simply close down in the face of competition; multinational corporations—corporations that exist across several political borders—made concerted efforts to increase their profits (Kirk & Okizawa-Rey 2007). One way to massively increase profits is to pay workers less in wages and benefits. In the US, labor laws and union contracts protect workers from working extensive hours at a single job, guarantee safe working environments, and set a minimum wage. Thus, American workers are expensive to corporations. This is why companies based in the US outsource production to the nations of the Global South where workers’ rights are less protected and workers make less money for their labor. One consequence of outsourcing is the development of sweatshops (known as maquiladoras when based in Mexico in particular) in which workers work long hours for little pay and are restricted from eating or using the restroom while at work (Kirk & Okizawa-Rey 2007). These workers seldom purchase the goods they assist in producing, often because they could not afford them, and because the global factories in which they work ship goods to be sold in wealthier countries of the Global North. These factories predominantly employ young, unmarried women workers in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean because they are considered the most docile and obedient groups of workers; that is, corporations consider them less likely to make demands of employers or to unionize (Kirk & Okizawa-Rey 2007).
Rather than a nation’s workers producing goods, selling those goods back to its people, and keeping profits within the nation’s borders, multinational corporations participate in global commodity chains. As Cynthia Enloe’s (2008) article “The Globetrotting Sneaker” makes clear, globalization makes it possible for a shoe corporation based in Country A to extract resources from Country B, produce goods in Country C, sell those goods in Countries D, E, and F, and deposit waste in the landfills of Country G. Meanwhile, the profits from this production and sales of goods return largely to the corporation, while little goes into the economies of the participating nations (Enloe 2008). Companies like Nike, Adidas, and Reebok were initially attracted by military regimes in South Korea in the 1980s that quashed labor unions. Once the workers in South Korea organized successfully, factories moved to Indonesia (Enloe 2008). This process of moving to remaining areas of cheap labor before workers organize is known as the race to the bottom logic of global factory production.
With the increasing globalization of the economy international institutions have been created. The purpose of these international institutions is, ostensibly, to monitor abuses and assist in the development of less developed nations through loans from more developed nations. The World Bank provides monetary support for large, capital-intensive projects such as the construction of roads and dams. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides loans and facilitates international trade relationships particularly through structural adjustment programs (SAP). Essentially, in a SAP, a country of the Global North lends money to another country in the Global South in exchange for resources. For instance, the US may lend money to Chile to assist with the growth and harvesting of grapes and production of wine. In exchange, the US would acquire grapes and wine from Chile at a discounted rate, and have control in how Chile spends the money, while Chile repays the initial loan. The problem with this is that, in many cases, the lending process is circular such that the country accepting the loan remains constantly indebted to the initial lending nation. For example, a nation may produce most of its crop to export elsewhere and be unable to feed its own people and therefore require additional loans. Consequences of SAPs are devalued currency, privatized industries, cut social programs and government subsidies, and increasing taxes to fund the development of infrastructure.
Free trade describes a set of institutions, policies, and ideologies, in which the governmental restrictions and regulations are minimal, allowing corporate bodies to engage in cross-border enterprises to maximize profit. One institution that was created to foster free trade is the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international unelected body whose mission is to challenge restraints on free trade. Some countries limit pollution levels in industry; the WTO considers any limits on production as barriers to free trade. They operate on the theory that unfettered, free market capitalism is the best way to generate profits. It may be more profitable to pay people minimally and circumvent environmental regulations, but proponents of free trade do not factor in the human costs to health, safety, and happiness—costs that cannot be put into dollars and cents. One such free trade agreement is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994. NAFTA is an agreement between Canada, the US, and Mexico to promote the unregulated movement of jobs and products. The biggest result of this legislation is the mass relocation of factories from the US to Mexico in the form of maquiladoras that supply goods at low prices back to US consumers, resulting in a loss of around 500,000 union jobs in North America (Zinn 2003). The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) of 2002 expands NAFTA to include the entire Western hemisphere—except Cuba, due to trade sanctions against its communist government. At the time of this writing, the impact of these free trade agreements is a hotly contested political issue. Some people have argued that it resulted in unionized, higher paying jobs, while others have argued that even with many negative impacts, overall access to jobs, products, and resources has yielded many improvements. In the face of moves to promote free trade, fair trade movements that support safe working conditions and sustainable wages have also cropped up, especially in the coffee and chocolate industries.
The current global economic system is guided by an ideology of neoliberalism. In the contemporary U.S. context, the term “liberal” is identified with the American Democratic Party, but in terms of political theory, the term liberalism refers to restrictions on state power to prevent government infringement on individual rights (Grewal and Kaplan 1994), which transcend party affiliations. Economic liberalism, the belief that markets work best without any governmental regulation or interference, describes the free trade economic policies we discussed above, and should not be confused with the liberalism associated with the Democratic Party. Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy, where capitalism’s profit motive is applied to social policies and programs (like welfare and taxation), cutting them to increase profits. A crucial project of neoliberalism is the downsizing of the public sphere and social welfare programs that unions and racial justice activists have fought for since the early 20th Century. Feminist historian Lisa Duggan (2003) argues that neoliberalism is more than just the privatization of the economy, but is an ideology that holds that once marginalized groups (LGBTQ people, people of color, the working-class) have access to mainstream institutions (like marriage and service in the military) and consumption in the free market, they have reached equality with their privileged peers (straight people, white people, the middle- and upper-classes). Neoliberal ideology therefore assumes that our society has reached a post-civil rights period where social movements that seek to fundamentally alter mainstream institutions and build up social welfare programs are obsolete. However, as this textbook has shown, mainstream institutions and structures of power often reproduce inequalities. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/04%3A_Gender_and_Work_in_the_Global_Economy/4.04%3A_Transnational_Production_and_Globalization.txt |
The structure of the global economy affects people differently not only by the economic situations of the nations in which they live, but also by gender and race. Predatory trade relationships between countries roughly reproduce the political situation of colonization in many nations of the Global South. This has led many to characterize neoliberal economic policies as a form of neocolonialism, or modern day colonization characterized by exploitation of a nation’s resources and people. Colonialism and neocolonialism are concepts that draw attention to the racialized global inequalities between white, affluent people of the Global North—historical colonizers—and people of color of the Global South—the historically colonized. Postcolonial theory emerged out of critiques of colonialism, empire, enslavement, and neocolonial racist-economic oppression more generally, which were advanced by scholars in the Asian and Middle Eastern diasporas. Postcolonial scholars primarily unpack and critique colonial discourses, depictions of colonized Others, and European scholars’ biased representations of those they colonized, which they figure as knowledge (for example, see Said 1995 and Spivak 1988). Decoloniality theoretical approaches, emerging chiefly in Latin America, illuminated how colonization invented the concepts of “the colonized,” “modernity” and “coloniality,” and disrupted the social arrangements, lives, gender relations, and understandings it invaded, imposing on the colonized European racialized conceptualizations of male and female (Quijano 2007; Lugones 2007).
Women of color of the Global South are disproportionately impacted by global economic policies. Not only are women in Asian and Latin American countries much more likely to work in low-wage factory jobs than men, women are also much more mobile in terms of immigration (Pessar 2005). Women have more labor-based mobility for low-income factory work in other countries as well as in domestic and sex work markets. When women immigrate to other nations they often sacrifice care of and contact with their own children in order to earn money caring for wealthier people’s children as domestic workers; this situation is known as transnational motherhood (Parreñas 2001). Domestic work and sex work are two sectors of the service economy in which women immigrants participate. Immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, have few options in terms of earning money, and economic circumstances are such that undocumented immigrants can make more money within illegal and unregulated markets in nations of the Global North, rather than regulated markets of the formal economy. Thus, it is not uncommon for women immigrants to participate in informal economies such as domestic work or sex work that employers and clients do not report in their taxes.
Women immigrants also participate in other parts of the service economy of the Global North. Miliann Kang (2010) has studied immigrant women who participate in beauty service work, particularly nail salons. This type of work does not require high amounts of skill or experience and can support women for whom English is a second language or those who may be undocumented. Like any service job, work in nail salons involves emotional labor. While clients may see the technician in the beauty salon as their confidant (like Queen Latifa’s character in Beauty Shop), their relationship is primarily an unequal labor relationship in which one party is paid not only for the service they perform but also for their friendly personalities and listening skills. Kang (2010) refers to this type of labor involving both emotional and physical labor as body labor. To engage in both emotional and physical labor at work is exhausting. In addition, workers in nail and hair salons work with harsh chemicals that are ultimately toxic to their health and make them more susceptible to cancer than the general population.
Not only do gendered, racialized, and sexualized differences exist in the US domestic labor market, leading to differences in work and pay, these differences also characterize the globalized labor market. Trade relationships between countries and the ideology of neoliberalism that governs them have profound effects on the quality of life of people all over the world. Women bear the brunt of changes to the global marketplace as factory workers in some countries and domestic, sex, and beauty service workers in others. Fortunately, fair trade and anti-sweatshop movements as well as indigenous, decolonial, feminist and labor movements are fighting to change these conditions for the better in the face of well-funded and powerful multinational corporations and global trade organizations.
4.06: References- Unit IV
Asher, Kiran. 2009. Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands. Durham: Duke University Press.
Duggan, Lisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Enloe, Cynthia. 2008. “The Globetrotting Sneaker.” In Women, Culture, and Society: A Reader, Fifth Edition by B.J. Balliet (Ed.). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt Pub Co. Pp. 276-280.
Folbre, Nancy. 2001. The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values. NY: The New Press.
Grewal, Inderpal, and Caren Kaplan. 1994. Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hays, Sharon. 2003. Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. NY: Oxford University Press.
Harvey Wingfield, Adia. 2009. “Racializing the Glass Escalator: Reconsidering Men’s Experiences with Women’s Work.” Gender& Society 23(1): 5-26.
Hill Collins, Patricia. 2005. Black Sexual Politics: African-Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. 2001. Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kang, Miliann. 2010. The Managed Hand: Race, Gender, and the Body in Beauty Service Work. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kirk, Gwyn and Margo Okazawa-Rey. 2007. “Living in a Global Economy.” In Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, Fourth Edition. NY: McGraw-Hill. Pp. 387-398.
Lugones, María. 2007. “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System.” Hypatia 22(1): 186–209.
Mink, Gwendolyn. 2004. “Violating Women: Rights Abuses in the Welfare Police State.” Pp 350-358 in Women’s Lives, Multicultural Perspectives, Edited by Kirk, G. and M. Okazawa-Rey. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2001. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Quijano, Aníbal. 2007. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies 21(2): 168–178.
Said, Edward. 1995. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, et al. 2011. Decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. June 20, 2011. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf.
Williams, Christine L. 1992. “The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the Female Professions.” Social Problems 39(3): 253-267.
Zinn, Howard. 2003. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York, NY: HarperCollins. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/04%3A_Gender_and_Work_in_the_Global_Economy/4.05%3A_Racialized_Gendered_and_Sexualized_Labor_in_the_Global_Economy.txt |
Thumbnail: “Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King jr. (ca. 1955)” by National Archives and Records Administration Records of the U.S. Information Agency Record Group 306. (Public Domain).
05: Historical and Contemporary Feminist Social Movements
“History is also everybody talking at once, multiple rhythms being played simultaneously. The events and people we write about did not occur in isolation but in dialogue with a myriad of other people and events. In fact, at any given moment millions of people are all talking at once. As historians we try to isolate one conversation and to explore it, but the trick is then how to put that conversation in a context which makes evident its dialogue with so many others—how to make this one lyric stand alone and at the same time be in connection with all the other lyrics being sung.”
—Elsa Barkley Brown, “’What has happened here,’” pp. 297-298.
Feminist historian Elsa Barkley Brown reminds us that social movements and identities are not separate from each other, as we often imagine they are in contemporary society. She argues that we must have a relational understanding of social movements and identities within and between social movements—an understanding of the ways in which privilege and oppression are linked and how the stories of people of color and feminists fighting for justice have been historically linked through overlapping and sometimes conflicting social movements. In this chapter, we use a relational lens to discuss and make sense of feminist movements, beginning in the 19th Century up to the present time. Although we use the terms “first wave,” “second wave,” and “third wave,” characterizing feminist resistance in these “waves” is problematic, as it figures distinct “waves” of activism as prioritizing distinct issues in each time period, obscuring histories of feminist organizing in locations and around issues not discussed in the dominant “waves” narratives. Indeed, these “waves” are not mutually exclusive or totally separate from each other. In fact, they inform each other, not only in the way that contemporary feminist work has in many ways been made possible by earlier feminist activism, but also in the way that contemporary feminist activism informs the way we think of past feminist activism and feminisms. Nonetheless, understanding that the “wave” language has historical meaning, we use it throughout this section. Relatedly, although a focus on prominent leaders and events can obscure the many people and actions involved in everyday resistance and community organizing, we focus on the most well known figures, political events, and social movements, understanding that doing so advances one particular lens of history.
Additionally, feminist movements have generated, made possible, and nurtured feminist theories and feminist academic knowledge. In this way, feminist movements are fantastic examples of praxis—that is, they use critical reflection about the world to change it. It is because of various social movements—feminist activism, workers’ activism, and civil rights activism throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries—that “feminist history” is a viable field of study today. Feminist history is part of a larger historical project that draws on the experiences of traditionally ignored and disempowered groups (e.g., factory workers, immigrants, people of color, lesbians) to re-think and challenge the histories that have been traditionally written from the experiences and points of view of the powerful (e.g., colonizers, representatives of the state, the wealthy)—the histories we typically learn in high school textbooks. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/05%3A_Historical_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Social_Movements/5.01%3A_Introduction-_Feminist_Movements.txt |
What has come to be called the first wave of the feminist movement began in the mid 19th century and lasted until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote. White middle-class first wave feminists in the 19th century to early 20th century, such as suffragist leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, primarily focused on women’s suffrage (the right to vote), striking down coverture laws, and gaining access to education and employment. These goals are famously enshrined in the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, which is the resulting document of the first women’s rights convention in the United States in 1848.
Demanding women’s enfranchisement, the abolition of coverture, and access to employment and education were quite radical demands at the time. These demands confronted the ideology of the cult of true womanhood, summarized in four key tenets—piety, purity, submission and domesticity—which held that white women were rightfully and naturally located in the private sphere of the household and not fit for public, political participation or labor in the waged economy. However, this emphasis on confronting the ideology of the cult of true womanhood was shaped by the white middle-class standpoint of the leaders of the movement. As we discussed in Chapter 3, the cult of true womanhood was an ideology of white womanhood that systematically denied black and working-class women access to the category of “women,” because working-class and black women, by necessity, had to labor outside of the home.
The white middle-class leadership of the first wave movement shaped the priorities of the movement, often excluding the concerns and participation of working-class women and women of color. For example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) in order to break from other suffragists who supported the passage of the 15th Amendment, which would give African American men the right to vote before women. Stanton and Anthony privileged white women’s rights instead of creating solidarities across race and class groups. Accordingly, they saw women’s suffrage as the central goal of the women’s rights movement. For example, in the first issue of her newspaper, The Revolution, Susan B. Anthony wrote, “We shall show that the ballot will secure for woman equal place and equal wages in the world of work; that it will open to her the schools, colleges, professions, and all the opportunities and advantages of life; that in her hand it will be a moral power to stay the tide of crime and misery on every side” (cited by Davis 1981: 73). Meanwhile, working-class women and women of color knew that mere access to voting did not overturn class and race inequalities. As feminist activist and scholar Angela Davis (1981) writes, working-class women “…were seldom moved by the suffragists’ promise that the vote would permit them to become equal to their men—their exploited, suffering men” (Davis 1981: 74-5). Furthermore, the largest suffrage organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)—a descendent of the National Women Suffrage Association—barred the participation of Black women suffragists in its organization.
Although the first wave movement was largely defined and led by middle class white women, there was significant overlap between it and the abolitionist movement—which sought to end slavery—and the racial justice movement following the end of the Civil War. Historian Nancy Cott (2000) argues that, in some ways, both movements were largely about having self-ownership and control over one’s body. For slaves, that meant the freedom from lifelong, unpaid, forced labor, as well as freedom from the sexual assault that many enslaved Black women suffered from their masters. For married white women, it meant recognition as people in the face of the law and the ability to refuse their husbands’ sexual advances. White middle-class abolitionists often made analogies between slavery and marriage, as abolitionist Antoinette Brown wrote in 1853 that, “The wife owes service and labor to her husband as much and as absolutely as the slave does to his master” (Brown, cited. in Cott 2000: 64). This analogy between marriage and slavery had historical resonance at the time, but it problematically conflated the unique experience of the racialized oppression of slavery that African American women faced with a very different type of oppression that white women faced under coverture. This illustrates quite well Angela Davis’ (1983) argument that while white women abolitionists and feminists of the time made important contributions to anti-slavery campaigns, they often failed to understand the uniqueness and severity of slave women’s lives and the complex system of chattel slavery.
Black activists, writers, newspaper publishers, and academics moved between the racial justice and feminist movements, arguing for inclusion in the first wave feminist movement and condemning slavery and Jim Crow laws that maintained racial segregation. Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, which has been attributed to the Akron Women’s Convention in 1851, captured this contentious linkage between the first wave women’s movement and the abolitionist movement well. In her speech, she critiqued the exclusion of black women from the women’s movement while simultaneously condemning the injustices of slavery:
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!….I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Feminist historian Nell Painter (1996) has questioned the validity of this representation of the speech, arguing that white suffragists dramatically changed its content and title. This illustrates that certain social actors with power can construct the story and possibly misrepresent actors with less power and social movements.
Despite their marginalization, Black women emerged as passionate and powerful leaders. Ida B. Wells , a particularly influential activist who participated in the movement for women’s suffrage, was a founding member of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a journalist, and the author of numerous pamphlets and articles exposing the violent lynching of thousands of African Americans in the Reconstruction period (the period following the Civil War). Wells argued that lynching in the Reconstruction Period was a systematic attempt to maintain racial inequality, despite the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 (which held that African Americans were citizens and could not be discriminated against based on their race) (Wells 1893). Additionally, thousands of African American women were members of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, which was pro-suffrage, but did not receive recognition from the predominantly middle-class, white National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
The passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 provided a test for the argument that the granting of women’s right to vote would give them unfettered access to the institutions they had been denied from, as well as equality with men. Quite plainly, this argument was proven wrong, as had been the case with the passage of the 18th Amendment followed by a period of backlash. The formal legal endorsement of the doctrine of “separate but equal” with Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the complex of Jim Crow laws in states across the country, and the unchecked violence of the Ku Klux Klan, prevented Black women and men from access to voting, education, employment, and public facilities. While equal rights existed in the abstract realm of the law under the 18th and 19th amendments, the on-the-ground reality of continued racial and gender inequality was quite different. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/05%3A_Historical_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Social_Movements/5.02%3A_19th_Century_Feminist_Movements.txt |
Social movements are not static entities; they change according to movement gains or losses, and these gains or losses are often quite dependent on the political and social contexts they take place within. Following women’s suffrage in 1920, feminist activists channeled their energy into institutionalized legal and political channels for effecting changes in labor laws and attacking discrimination against women in the workplace. The Women’s Bureau—a federal agency created to craft policy according to women workers’ needs—was established in 1920, and the YWCA, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW) lobbied government officials to pass legislation that would legally prohibit discrimination against women in the workplace.
These organizations, however, did not necessarily agree on what equality looked like and how that would be achieved. For example, the BPW supported the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which they argued would effectively end employment discrimination against women. Meanwhile, the Women’s Bureau and the YWCA opposed the ERA, arguing that it would damage the gains that organized labor had made already. The disagreement clearly brought into relief the competing agendas of defining working women first and foremost as women (who are also workers), versus defining working women first and foremost as workers (who are also women). Nearly a century after suffrage, the ERA has yet to be passed, and debate about its desirability even within the feminist movement continues.
While millions of women were already working in the United States at the beginning of World War II, labor shortages during World War II allowed millions of women to move into higher-paying factory jobs that had previously been occupied by men. Simultaneously, nearly 125,000 African American men fought in segregated units in World War II, often being sent on the front guard of the most dangerous missions (Zinn 2003). Japanese Americans whose families were interned also fought in the segregated units that had the war’s highest casualty rates (Odo 2017; Takaki 2001). Following the end of the war, both the women who had worked in high-paying jobs in factories and the African American men who had fought in the war returned to a society that was still deeply segregated, and they were expected to return to their previous subordinate positions. Despite the conservative political climate of the 1950s, civil rights organizers began to challenge both the de jure segregation of Jim Crow laws and the de facto segregation experienced by African Americans on a daily basis. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954, which made “separate but equal” educational facilities illegal, provided an essential legal basis for activism against the institutionalized racism of Jim Crow laws. Eventually, the Black Freedom Movement, also known now as the civil rights movement would fundamentally change US society and inspire the second wave feminist movement and the radical political movements of the New Left (e.g., gay liberationism, black nationalism, socialist and anarchist activism, the environmentalist movement) in the late 1960s.
Although the stories and lives of the leaders of the civil rights movement are centered in popular representations, this grassroots mass movement was composed of working class African American men and women, white and African American students, and clergy that utilized the tactics of non-violent direct action (e.g., sit-ins, marches, and vigils) to demand full legal equality for African Americans in US society. For example, Rosa Parks—famous for refusing to give up her seat at the front of a Montgomery bus to a white passenger in December, 1955 and beginning the Montgomery Bus Boycottwas not acting as an isolated, frustrated woman when she refused to give up her seat at the front of the bus (as the typical narrative goes). According to feminist historians Ellen Debois and Lynn Dumenil (2005), Parks “had been active in the local NAACP for fifteen years, and her decision to make this stand against segregation was part of a lifelong commitment to racial justice. For some time NAACP leaders had wanted to find a good test case to challenge Montgomery’s bus segregation in courts” (Debois and Dumenil, 2005: 576). Furthermore, the bus boycott that ensued after Parks’ arrest and lasted for 381 days, until its success, was an organized political action involving both working-class African American and white women activists. The working-class Black women who relied on public transportation to go to their jobs as domestic servants in white households refused to use the bus system, and either walked to work or relied on rides to work from a carpool organized by women activists. Furthermore, the Women’s Political Caucus of Montgomery distributed fliers promoting the boycott and had provided the groundwork and planning to execute the boycott before it began.
Additionally, the sit-in movement was sparked by the Greensboro sit-ins, when four African American students in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat at and refused to leave a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth’s store in February of 1960. The number of students participating in the sit-ins increased as the days and weeks went on, and the sit-ins began to receive national media attention. Networks of student activists began sharing the successes of the tactic of the nonviolent sit-in, and began doing sit-ins in their own cities and towns around the country throughout the early 1960s.
“Ella Baker” by The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is licensed under CC BY 3.0
Importantly, the sit-in movement led to the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), initiated by Ella Baker shortly after the first sit-in strikes in Greensboro. The student activists of SNCC took part in the Freedom Rides of 1961, with African American and white men and women participants, and sought to challenge the Jim Crow laws of the south, which the Interstate Commerce Commission had ruled to be unconstitutional. The freedom riders experienced brutal mob violence in Birmingham and were jailed, but the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and SNCC kept sending riders to fill the jails of Birmingham. SNCC also participated in Freedom Summer in 1964, which was a campaign that brought mostly white students from the north down to the south to support the work of Black southern civil rights activists for voting rights for African Americans. Once again, Freedom Summer activists faced mob violence, but succeeded in bringing national attention to southern states’ foot-dragging in terms of allowing African Americans the legal rights they had won through activism and grassroots organizing.
SNCC’s non-hierarchical structure gave women chances to participate in the civil rights movement in ways previously blocked to them. However, the deeply embedded sexism of the surrounding culture still seeped into civil rights organizations, including SNCC. Although women played pivotal roles as organizers and activists throughout the civil rights movement, men occupied the majority of formal leadership roles in the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), the NAACP, and CORE. Working with SNCC, Black women activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash became noted activists and leaders within the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Despite this, women within SNCC were often expected to do “women’s work” (i.e., housework and secretarial work). White women SNCC activists Casey Hayden and Mary King critiqued this reproduction of gendered roles within the movement and called for dialogue about sexism within the civil rights movement in a memo that circulated through SNCC in 1965, titled “Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo.” The memo became an influential document for the birth of the second wave feminist movement, a movement focused generally on fighting patriarchal structures of power, and specifically on combating occupational sex segregation in employment and fighting for reproductive rights for women. However, this was not the only source of second wave feminism, and white women were not the only women spearheading feminist movements. As historian Becky Thompson (2002) argues, in the mid and late 1960s, Latina women, African American women, and Asian American women were developing multiracial feminist organizations that would become important players within the U.S. second wave feminist movement.
In many ways, the second wave feminist movement was influenced and facilitated by the activist tools provided by the civil rights movement. Drawing on the stories of women who participated in the civil rights movement, historians Ellen Debois and Lynn Dumenil (2005) argue that women’s participation in the civil rights movement allowed them to challenge gender norms that held that women belonged in the private sphere, and not in politics or activism. Not only did many women who were involved in the civil rights movement become activists in the second wave feminist movement, they also employed tactics that the civil rights movement had used, including marches and non-violent direct action. Additionally, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—a major legal victory for the civil rights movement—not only prohibited employment discrimination based on race, but Title VII of the Act also prohibited sex discrimination. When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)—the federal agency created to enforce Title VII—largely ignored women’s complaints of employment discrimination, 15 women and one man organized to form the National Organization of Women (NOW), which was modeled after the NAACP. NOW focused its attention and organizing on passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), fighting sex discrimination in education, and defending Roe v. Wade—the Supreme Court decision of 1973 that struck down state laws that prohibited abortion within the first three months of pregnancy.
“bell hooks” by Cmongirl is in the Public Domain, CC0
Although the second wave feminist movement challenged gendered inequalities and brought women’s issues to the forefront of national politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, the movement also reproduced race and sex inequalities. Black women writers and activists such as Alice Walker, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins developed Black feminist thought as a critique of the ways in which second wave feminists often ignored racism and class oppression and how they uniquely impact women and men of color and working-class people. One of the first formal Black feminist organizations was the Combahee River Collective, formed in 1974. Black feminist bell hooks (1984) argued that feminism cannot just be a fight to make women equal with men, because such a fight does not acknowledge that all men are not equal in a capitalist, racist, and homophobic society. Thus, hooks and other Black feminists argued that sexism cannot be separated from racism, classism and homophobia, and that these systems of domination overlap and reinforce each other. Therefore, she argued, you cannot fight sexism without fighting racism, classism, and homophobia. Importantly, black feminism argues that an intersectional perspective that makes visible and critiques multiple sources of oppression and inequality also inspires coalitional activism that brings people together across race, class, gender, and sexual identity lines. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/05%3A_Historical_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Social_Movements/5.03%3A_Early_to_Late_20th_Century_Feminist_Movements.txt |
“We are living in a world for which old forms of activism are not enough and today’s activism is about creating coalitions between communities.”
—Angela Davis, cited by Hernandez and Rehman in Colonize This!
Third wave feminism is, in many ways, a hybrid creature. It is influenced by second wave feminism, Black feminisms, transnational feminisms, Global South feminisms, and queer feminism. This hybridity of third wave activism comes directly out of the experiences of feminists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries who have grown up in a world that supposedly does not need social movements because “equal rights” for racial minorities, sexual minorities, and women have been guaranteed by law in most countries. The gap between law and reality—between the abstract proclamations of states and concrete lived experience—however, reveals the necessity of both old and new forms of activism. In a country where white women are paid only 75.3% of what white men are paid for the same labor (Institute for Women’s Policy Research 2016), where police violence in black communities occurs at much higher rates than in other communities, where 58% of transgender people surveyed experienced mistreatment from police officers in the past year (James et. al 2016), where 40% of homeless youth organizations’ clientele are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (Durso and Gates 2012), where people of color—on average—make less income and have considerably lower amounts of wealth than white people, and where the military is the most funded institution by the government, feminists have increasingly realized that a coalitional politics that organizes with other groups based on their shared (but differing) experiences of oppression, rather than their specific identity, is absolutely necessary. Thus, Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (1997) argue that a crucial goal for the third wave is “the development of modes of thinking that can come to terms with the multiple, constantly shifting bases of oppression in relation to the multiple, interpenetrating axes of identity, and the creation of a coalitional politics based on these understandings” (Heywood and Drake 1997: 3).
The ACT UP demonstrations at NIH included various groups from different parts of the United States. This photograph shows the Shreveport, Louisiana ACT UP group at the NIH. “ACT UP Demonstration at NIH” by NIH History Office is in the Public Domain, CC0
In the 1980s and 1990s, third wave feminists took up activism in a number of forms. Beginning in the mid 1980s, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) began organizing to press an unwilling US government and medical establishment to develop affordable drugs for people with HIV/AIDS. In the latter part of the 1980s, a more radical subset of individuals began to articulate a queer politics, explicitly reclaiming a derogatory term often used against gay men and lesbians, and distancing themselves from the gay and lesbian rights movement, which they felt mainly reflected the interests of white, middle-class gay men and lesbians. As discussed at the beginning of this text, queer also described anti-categorical sexualities. The queer turn sought to develop more radical political perspectives and more inclusive sexual cultures and communities, which aimed to welcome and support transgender and gender non-conforming people and people of color. This was motivated by an intersectional critique of the existing hierarchies within sexual liberation movements, which marginalized individuals within already sexually marginalized groups. In this vein, Lisa Duggan (2002) coined the term homonormativity, which describes the normalization and depoliticization of gay men and lesbians through their assimilation into capitalist economic systems and domesticity—individuals who were previously constructed as “other.” These individuals thus gained entrance into social life at the expense and continued marginalization of queers who were non-white, disabled, trans, single or non-monogamous, middle-class, or non-western. Critiques of homonormativity were also critiques of gay identity politics, which left out concerns of many gay individuals who were marginalized within gay groups. Akin to homonormativity, Jasbir Puar coined the term homonationalism, which describes the white nationalism taken up by queers, which sustains racist and xenophobic discourses by constructing immigrants, especially Muslims, as homophobic (Puar 2007). Identity politics refers to organizing politically around the experiences and needs of people who share a particular identity. The move from political association with others who share a particular identity to political association with those who have differing identities, but share similar, but differing experiences of oppression (coalitional politics), can be said to be a defining characteristic of the third wave.
Another defining characteristic of the third wave is the development of new tactics to politicize feminist issues and demands. For instance, ACT UP began to use powerful street theater that brought the death and suffering of people with HIV/AIDS to the streets and to the politicians and pharmaceutical companies that did not seem to care that thousands and thousands of people were dying. They staged die-ins , inflated massive condoms, and occupied politicians’ and pharmaceutical executives’ offices. Their confrontational tactics would be emulated and picked up by anti-globalization activists and the radical Left throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Queer Nation was formed in 1990 by ACT UP activists, and used the tactics developed by ACT UP in order to challenge homophobic violence and heterosexism in mainstream US society.
A mass “die-in” on the lawn of Bldg. 1 closed the demonstration as ranks of uniformed officers, some on horseback, protected NIH headquarters during the “Storm the NIH” demonstration on May 21, 1990. “ACT UP Demonstration on the lawn of Building 1” by NIH History Office is in the Public Domain, CC0
Around the same time as ACT UP was beginning to organize in the mid-1980s, sex-positive feminism came into currency among feminist activists and theorists. Amidst what is known now as the “Feminist Sex Wars” of the 1980s, sex-positive feminists argued that sexual liberation, within a sex-positive culture that values consent between partners, would liberate not only women, but also men. Drawing from a social constructionist perspective, sex-positive feminists such as cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin (1984) argued that no sexual act has an inherent meaning, and that not all sex, or all representations of sex, were inherently degrading to women. In fact, they argued, sexual politics and sexual liberation are key sites of struggle for white women, women of color, gay men, lesbians, queers, and transgender people—groups of people who have historically been stigmatized for their sexual identities or sexual practices. Therefore, a key aspect of queer and feminist subcultures is to create sex-positive spaces and communities that not only valorize sexualities that are often stigmatized in the broader culture, but also place sexual consent at the center of sex-positive spaces and communities. Part of this project of creating sex-positive, feminist and queer spaces is creating media messaging that attempts to both consolidate feminist communities and create knowledge from and for oppressed groups.
In a media-savvy generation, it is not surprising that cultural production is a main avenue of activism taken by contemporary activists. Although some commentators have deemed the third wave to be “post-feminist” or “not feminist” because it often does not utilize the activist forms (e.g., marches, vigils, and policy change) of the second wave movement (Sommers, 1994), the creation of alternative forms of culture in the face of a massive corporate media industry can be understood as quite political. For example, the Riot Grrrl movement, based in the Pacific Northwest of the US in the early 1990s, consisted of do-it-yourself bands predominantly composed of women, the creation of independent record labels, feminist ‘zines, and art. Their lyrics often addressed gendered sexual violence, sexual liberationism, heteronormativity, gender normativity, police brutality, and war. Feminist news websites and magazines have also become important sources of feminist analysis on current events and issues. Magazines such as Bitch and Ms., as well as online blog collectives such as Feministing and the Feminist Wire function as alternative sources of feminist knowledge production. If we consider the creation of lives on our own terms and the struggle for autonomy as fundamental feminist acts of resistance, then creating alternative culture on our own terms should be considered a feminist act of resistance as well.
As we have mentioned earlier, feminist activism and theorizing by people outside the US context has broadened the feminist frameworks for analysis and action. In a world characterized by global capitalism, transnational immigration, and a history of colonialism that has still has effects today, transnational feminism is a body of theory and activism that highlights the connections between sexism, racism, classism, and imperialism. In “Under Western Eyes,” an article by transnational feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1991), Mohanty critiques the way in which much feminist activism and theory has been created from a white, North American standpoint that has often exoticized “3rd world” women or ignored the needs and political situations of women in the Global South. Transnational feminists argue that Western feminist projects to “save” women in another region do not actually liberate these women, since this approach constructs the women as passive victims devoid of agency to save themselves. These “saving” projects are especially problematic when they are accompanied by Western military intervention. For instance, in the war on Afghanistan, begun shortly after 9/11 in 2001, U.S. military leaders and George Bush often claimed to be waging the war to “save” Afghani women from their patriarchal and domineering men. This crucially ignores the role of the West—and the US in particular—in supporting Islamic fundamentalist regimes in the 1980s. Furthermore, it positions women in Afghanistan as passive victims in need of Western intervention—in a way strikingly similar to the victimizing rhetoric often used to talk about “victims” of gendered violence (discussed in an earlier section). Therefore, transnational feminists challenge the notion—held by many feminists in the West—that any area of the world is inherently more patriarchal or sexist than the West because of its culture or religion through arguing that we need to understand how Western imperialism, global capitalism, militarism, sexism, and racism have created conditions of inequality for women around the world.
In conclusion, third wave feminism is a vibrant mix of differing activist and theoretical traditions. Third wave feminism’s insistence on grappling with multiple points-of-view, as well as its persistent refusal to be pinned down as representing just one group of people or one perspective, may be its greatest strong point. Similar to how queer activists and theorists have insisted that “queer” is and should be open-ended and never set to mean one thing, third wave feminism’s complexity, nuance, and adaptability become assets in a world marked by rapidly shifting political situations. The third wave’s insistence on coalitional politics as an alternative to identity-based politics is a crucial project in a world that is marked by fluid, multiple, overlapping inequalities.
In conclusion, this unit has developed a relational analysis of feminist social movements, from the first wave to the third wave, while understanding the limitations of categorizing resistance efforts within an oversimplified framework of three distinct “waves.” With such a relational lens, we are better situated to understand how the tactics and activities of one social movement can influence others. This lens also facilitates an understanding of how racialized, gendered, and classed exclusions and privileges lead to the splintering of social movements and social movement organizations. This type of intersectional analysis is at the heart not only of feminist activism but of feminist scholarship. The vibrancy and longevity of feminist movements might even be attributed to this intersectional reflexivity—or, the critique of race, class, and gender dynamics in feminist movements. The emphasis on coalitional politics and making connections between several movements is another crucial contribution of feminist activism and scholarship. In the 21st century, feminist movements confront an array of structures of power: global capitalism, the prison system, war, racism, ableism, heterosexism, and transphobia, among others. What kind of world do we wish to create and live in? What alliances and coalitions will be necessary to challenge these structures of power? How do feminists, queers, people of color, trans people, disabled people, and working-class people go about challenging these structures of power? These are among some of the questions that feminist activists are grappling with now, and their actions point toward a deepening commitment to an intersectional politics of social justice and praxis. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/05%3A_Historical_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Social_Movements/5.04%3A_Third_Wave_and_Queer_Feminist_Movements.txt |
Barkley Brown, E. 1997. “What has happened here’: The Politics of Difference in Women’s History and Feminist Politics,” Pp. 272-287 in The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, edited by Linda Nocholson. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cott, N. 2000. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Davis, Angela. 1983. Women, Race, Class. New York, NY: Random House.
— 1981. “Working Women, Black Women and the History of the Suffrage Movement,” Pp. 73-78 in A Transdisciplinary Introduction to Women’s Studies, edited by Avakian, A. and A. Deschamps. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
Debois, E. and L. Dumenil. 2005. Through Women’s Eyes: An American History With Documents. St. Martin Press.
Duggan, Lisa. 2002. “The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism.” Pp. 175-194 in Materializing Democracy, edited by R. Castronovo and D. Nelson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Durso, L.E., & Gates, G.J. 2012. “Serving Our Youth: Findings from a National Survey of Service Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth who are Homeless or At Risk of Becoming Homeless.” Los Angeles: The Williams Institute with True Colors Fund and The Palette Fund.
Hayden, C. and M. King. 1965. “Sex and Caste: A Kind of Memo.” Available at: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/sexcaste.html. Accessed 3 May, 2011.
Hernandez, D. and B. Rehman. 2002. Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. New York, NY: Seal Press.
Heywood, L. and J. Drake. 1997. Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
hooks, bell. 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, second ed. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. 2016. “Compilation of U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey. Historical Income Tables: Table P-38. Full-Time, Year Round Workers by Median Earnings and Sex: 1987 to 2015.” Available at: www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/incomepoverty/historical-income-people.html. Accessed 8 June, 2017.
James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Rankin, S., Keisling, M., Mottet, L., & Ana , M. 2016. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1991. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”. In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Odo, Franklin. 2017. “How a Segregated Regiment of Japanese Americans Became One of WWII’s Most Decorated.” New America. Available at: https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/edition-150/how-segregated-regiment-japanese-americans-became-one-wwiis-most-decorated/. Accessed 15 May, 2017.
Painter, Nell. 1996. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. New York: W.W. Norton.
Puar, Jasbir. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rubin, G. 1984. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in Carole Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sommers, Christina Hoff. 1994. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Doubleday.
Takaki, Ronald. 2001. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II. Back Bay Books.
Thompson, Becky. 2002. “Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism,” Feminist Studies 28(2): 337-360.
Truth, Sojourner. 1851. “Ain’t I a Woman?” Available at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html. Accessed 3 May, 2011.
Wells, Ida B. 1893. “Lynch Law.” Available at: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/wellslynchlaw.html. Accesssed 15 May, 2017.
Zinn, H. 2003. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York, NY: HarperCollins. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Book%3A_Introduction_to_Women_Gender_Sexuality_Studies_(Kang_Lessard_and_Heston)/05%3A_Historical_and_Contemporary_Feminist_Social_Movements/5.05%3A_References-_Unit_V.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Distinguish among the concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality.
• Articulate how gender is shaped by culture.
• Identify examples of nonbinary gender expressions.
• Discuss how gender is relational and the importance of understanding masculinity in relation to other gender expressions.
In this textbook we will explore the meanings and experiences of sex and gender from a global perspective. Let’s start by posing a basic question: why learn about sex and gender globally? Don’t we all know what it means to be a man or a woman? While the answer to that question may seem obvious, in fact, when we learn about gender and sexuality cross-culturally, it becomes clear that these are extremely complicated concepts. Ideas about gender and sexuality differ tremendously across different cultures. To make sense of this complexity, this chapter will introduce some key ideas, such as sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender ideologies, and masculinity.
WHAT IS CULTURE AND WHY ANTHROPOLOGY?
Given the fact that we want to learn more about sex and gender from a global perspective, the next question we might ask ourselves is: how will we learn more? We could learn more by reading the literature of different peoples, in different languages, to better understand how they tell stories about their lives and the ways in which people become men, women, or something more in their own cultures. Alternatively, we could take a legal approach and search historical records to learn how laws determined proper gender and sexual behaviors and how people were punished for particular crimes relating to sex and gender. For example, in the United States there have been laws against cross-dressing (men wearing women’s clothing, and vice versa), or miscegenation (interracial marriage, or interracial sex). Another option, and the one that we have chosen for this book, is to employ the discipline of cultural anthropology to help us learn about sex and gender from a global perspective.
For anthropologists, culture is defined as “a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways” (Nelson 2020). These beliefs, traditions, and customs, transmitted through learning, guide the behavior of a people as well as how they think about the world and perceive others. Anthropologists seek to understand the internal logic of a culture and why things that may seem “strange” or “exotic” to us make sense to the people of another culture. As such, anthropology is fundamentally comparative. That is, anthropologists seek to describe, analyze, interpret, and explain social and cultural differences and similarities. In doing so, we often turn a critical eye on our own practices and beliefs to understand them in a different way. We often learn and become more conscious of our own culture when we experience or study other cultures. Thus, North Americans traveling in China or in Europe often become more aware of their own “Americanness”—they become aware of aspects of their own culture and lifestyle that they often took for granted. These cultural characteristics stand out in sharp relief against their experiences in a foreign country.
What is Anthropology?
In the most general terms, anthropology refers to the study of humans. It is a holistic field of study that focuses on the wide breadth of what makes us human: from human societies and cultures to past human lifeways, human language and evolution, and even nonhuman primates. In the United States, anthropology is divided into four subfields: cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Applied anthropology uses the methods and knowledge of these subfields to solve real-world problems faced by different societies and cultures.
Anthropologists are not the only scholars to focus on the human condition. Biologists, sociologists, psychologists, and others also examine human nature and societies. However, anthropologists uniquely draw on four key approaches to their research: holism, comparison, dynamism, and fieldwork. For a more detailed introduction to anthropology, see chapter 1, “Introduction to Anthropology” in Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology: http://perspectives.americananthro.org/.
Definition: holistic/holism
the idea that the parts of a system interconnect and interact to make up the whole.
What Is Culture?
Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds groups of people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways. Additionally:
1. Humans are born with the capacity to learn the culture of any social group. We learn culture both directly and indirectly.
2. Culture changes in response to both internal and external factors.
3. Humans are not bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not and sometimes change it.
4. Culture is symbolic; individuals create and share the meanings of symbols within their group or society.
5. The degree to which humans rely on culture distinguishes us from other animals and shapes our evolution.
6. Human culture and biology are interrelated: our biology, growth, and development are impacted by culture.
We will be reading chapters created by cultural anthropologists who have conducted extensive fieldwork or ethnography in the country and culture they are writing about. The term ethnography refers both to the books written by anthropologists and to their research processes or fieldwork. So cultural anthropologists gather information through long-term fieldwork by participating in a particular culture over time. Fieldwork is primarily a qualitative research method and involves living among the people you are studying. Over time anthropologists collect information or data about a particular group of people through formal and informal interviews and observations they record in field notes.
Definition: ethnography
the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.
Participant observation is the term for the characteristic methodology of ethnographic research. It literally means being simultaneously a participant in and an observer of the culture you are studying. That is why anthropologists usually live with the people they are studying for at least a year and often longer. Originally, anthropologists studied small-scale societies in remote parts of the world, such as hunter-gatherer groups in Africa or Indigenous groups in Latin America. Now anthropologists study all types of cultures: Western and non-Western, urban and rural, industrialized and agricultural. Even the cultures of corporations are now within the domain of anthropology. While early anthropologists attempted to describe and understand the entire culture they studied, now most ethnographies (the books that cultural anthropologists write) focus on a specific aspect of culture such as economics, politics, or religion—or in the case of our readings, gender and sexuality.
Throughout this book we will be exploring a lot of practices that some of us may find “strange” or “unnatural.” It is essential that we try to approach these subjects as anthropologists would. That is, to understand these practices from what the famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski called, “the native’s point of view.” In other words, our goal is to try to learn about and understand the perspective of the people who engage in these particular practices and beliefs. Anthropologists call this type of approach cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the position that the values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect, and it is a core value of anthropology. Cultural relativism is a particularly useful perspective in anthropology because without understanding a culture from an insider’s perspective, we can never fully understand how and why people do what they do. In essence, without cultural relativism, an accurate study of humanity is not possible.
cultural relativism:
the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture and not our own.
In contrast to cultural relativism, ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to view one’s own culture as the best and to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one’s own standards. All cultures tend to be ethnocentric, so it is not only Western, industrialized cultures that think their way of living is the best. In this course, we will all have to work hard to try to put aside our ethnocentrism as we explore meanings and practices of sex and gender across other cultures.
Definition: ethnocentric/ethnocentrism:
the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as the yardstick by which to measure all other cultures.
Definition: sex
refers to male and female identity based on internal and external sex organs and chromosomes. While male and female are the most common biologic sexes, a percentage of the human population is intersex with ambiguous or mixed biological sex characteristics.
Check out the video titled “Anthropology Syllabus,” by the anthropologist Michael Wesch from Kansas State University. In the video, Dr. Wesch introduces the syllabus he has created for an Introduction to Anthropology course. In it, he describes the nine big ideas of anthropology; they make up the outline of the syllabus he has created. It’s a great introduction to anthropology, to the ideas of cultural construction, and to the assumptions we all carry within us that create ethnocentrism. The video is a testament to how important it is for us to understand how we—humans—make the world we live in.
WHAT IS SEX?
In general in the United States today, people often use the terms sex and gender interchangeably. This is incorrect and leads to a lot of confusion. So first we will define these concepts (and other related ones) so that the terms used in this text are clear.
Definition: gender
the set of culturally and historically invented beliefs and expectations about gender that one learns and performs. Gender is an “identity” one can choose in some societies, but there is pressure in all societies to conform to expected gender roles and identities.
In the United States, as in other parts of the world, sex is generally understood to be the biological component that marks people as either male or female. Many believe that sex is a fixed characteristic that is determined at birth and can always be easily defined and determined. One way people define sex is by examining the genitalia of a person. For instance, expectant parents often use ultrasounds to get an educated guess of the sex of their baby before it is born (see figure 1.1). Chromosomes provide more definitive evidence, as fetuses or infants typically exhibit an XX or XY chromosomal combination. However, it is important to understand that there are more genetic combinations possible than simply XX or XY, and sometimes genitals are not clearly defined at birth. Intersex people (once referred to by the derogatory term hermaphrodites) may display ambiguous genitalia or possess a different chromosomal combination, such as XXY. Intersex people have been born in all societies throughout time. It is estimated that approximately 1.7 percent of the world population is intersex (Fausto-Sterling 2000).
In some societies, intersex people are revered as sacred and take on special roles in the community. In others, such as the United States, they have historically been seen as “deviant” and are often surgically “assigned” a sex shortly after birth. However, starting in the 1990s in the United States this practice has been increasingly challenged. Many parents now refrain from assigning a sex to intersex children at birth, allowing the child to later determine their own sex and gender identities instead.
Another way that people determine sex is by studying hormone levels and traits that develop in puberty. Sex-linked hormones such as testosterone and estrogen are excreted by both men and women and are responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics such as height, muscle mass, and body fat distribution. However these characteristics are not always clearly defined. For instance, many biologically “normal” women have higher muscle mass than some men and many biologically “normal” men are shorter than some women. And while it is generally understood that men excrete more testosterone than women and women more estrogen, recent research is changing our understanding of human hormone physiology. For instance, some studies have shown that the levels of testosterone can rise in women as a result of wielding power in social situations, regardless of whether it is done in stereotypically masculine or feminine ways (van Anders 2015). Thus it’s becoming clear that testosterone and estrogen are not biologically fixed but that gender socialization may affect their excretion by encouraging or discouraging people toward behaviors that can modify their physiology.
There are also conditions in which a person’s sex can change throughout their lives. For instance there are documented cases including the Guevedoce of the Dominican Republic in which some children (about 1 percent of the population) look like girls at birth, with no testes and what appears to be a vagina. They are subsequently socialized as girls during childhood. However, during puberty, when hormone levels rise, they begin to grow a penis, their testicles descend, they develop a “masculine” physique, and they are frequently then seen as male (Imperato-McGinley 1975). In sum, while sex may refer to biology, it is not easily defined by the binary opposition between “male” and “female.” There are actually additional complexities to consider.
For more information on intersexuality, do some research on the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) and the Accord Alliance.
WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
As we have discussed, sex refers to the biological basis (male/female/intersex) for gender (man/woman/trans/third gender). Just as gender is not inextricably linked to sex, sexuality is experienced independently of both. In short, sexuality refers to “what we find erotic and how we take pleasure in our bodies” (Stryker 2008, 33). Like gender, sexuality and sexual practices vary from culture to culture and across time and so must also be considered socially constructed.
Definition: transgender
a category for people who transition from one sex to another, either male-to-female or female-to-male.
Sexual orientation refers to the ways in which we seek out erotic pleasure or how our sexuality is “oriented” toward particular types of people. Thus, heterosexuality refers to an orientation toward pleasure that takes place between men and women, while homosexuality refers to erotic pleasure between men or between women. Bisexuality refers to an orientation that includes both men and women, while asexuality refers to the absence of a desire or sexual orientation toward other people. However, this is not to say that these are the only ways people experience sexuality. In fact, the concept of humans as either “heterosexual” or “homosexual” is a culturally and historically specific invention that is increasingly being challenged in the United States and elsewhere. Indeed, humans show a great deal of flexibility and variability in their sexual orientations and practices. Rather than being simply natural, human sexuality is one of the most culturally significant, regulated, and symbolic of all human capacities.
WHAT IS GENDER?
While sex refers to one’s biology (male, female, intersex), gender refers to a person’s internal identity as “masculine,” “feminine,” or some combination thereof. Gender is also something that is publicly expressed and shaped by culturally acceptable ways of being “male” or “female.” People tend to internalize and naturalize these expectations in ways that make gender categories seem “natural” and normal. In fact, the ways that people, things, actions, places, spaces, etc. are gendered sometimes seem invisible to people, even though they are central to the ways that society is organized.
For instance, consider the following thought experiment. Think about the ways that your day is organized by your gender. Consider, first, how you woke up this morning and started your day. What was the pattern of your bedsheets and the color of your toothbrush? Do these reveal something about your gender identity? What do the bottles of shampoo and body soap you used in the shower look like? What does your deodorant smell like? Do these reflect your gender? What style of clothing did you choose to wear today? Did you apply any skin treatments or makeup? Did you apply a perfume/cologne? What does the scent say about your gender? Once you left your home, how did you move your body and walk and talk to others? What was the tone of your voice like, and what were the choices of words you spoke? What do these actions say about your gender? Do they conform with societal expectations, or do they defy them in some ways? Do you think conforming to or defying these expectations make your life easier or more difficult?
As you can see, gender is a pervasive social category that impacts people’s lives in multiple and intimate ways. Studies of gender teach us that the categories of “man” and “woman,” which we often think of as being “natural” categories, are in fact cultural constructs. That is, they are ways of being, doing, and even performing one’s identity that are shaped by a particular culture and often based on the biological labels assigned to us. As children, we begin to learn gender ideologies from the moment we are born, and a small blue or pink hat is placed on our head. As babies, our gender label can impact the way our caregivers interact with us. As we grow, we learn the “correct” and “normal” ways to behave based on the category we are assigned to (“boy” or “girl”) and then the toys we are given, the advertisements we see, the activities we engage in, and so on (see figure 1.2).
Definition: gender ideology
a complex set of beliefs about gender and gendered capacities, propensities, roles, identities, and socially expected behaviors and interactions that apply to males, females, and other gender categories. Gender ideology can differ across cultures and is acquired through enculturation.
EXPLORE: Watch this video (https://vimeo.com/209451071) by Anne Fausto-Sterling, which elaborates on how gender is formed in childhood and how it can change throughout one’s life.
We readily accept that clothing, language, and music are cultural—invented, created, and alterable—but often find it difficult to accept that gender is not natural but deeply embedded in and shaped by culture (see figure 1.3). We struggle with the idea that the division of humans into only two categories, “male” and “female,” is not universal, that “male” and “female” are cultural concepts that take different forms and have different meanings cross-culturally. For anthropologists, the comparative method—contrasting certain cultural elements cross-culturally—helps us see how categories like “male” and “female” are not universal but are cultural constructions.
Part of the difficulty of seeing gender as a cultural construct is that gender also has a biological component, unlike other types of cultural inventions such as a sewing machine, cell phone, or poem. We do have bodies, and there are some male-female differences, including in reproductive capacities and roles (albeit far fewer than we have been taught). Similarly, sexuality, sexual desires, and responses are partially rooted in natural human capacities. However, in many ways, sexuality and gender are like food. We have a biologically rooted need to eat to survive, and we have the capacity to enjoy eating. What constitutes “food,” what is “delicious” or “repulsive,” and the contexts and meanings that surround food and human eating—those are cultural. Many potentially edible items are not “food” (for example, rats, bumblebees, and cats in the United States), and the concept of “food” itself is embedded in elaborate conventions about eating: how, when, with whom, where, with “utensils,” for what purposes? In short, gender and sexuality, like eating, have biological components. But cultures over time have built complex edifices around them, creating systems of meaning that often barely resemble what is natural and innate. We experience gender and sexuality largely through the prism of the culture or cultures to which we have been exposed and in which we have been raised.
In this book we are asking you to reflect deeply on the ways in which what we have been taught to think of as natural—that is, our sex, gender, and sexuality—is, in fact, deeply embedded in and shaped by our culture. We challenge you to explore exactly which, if any, aspects of our gender and our sexuality are totally natural. One powerful aspect of culture, and one reason cultural norms feel so natural, is that we learn culture the way we learn our native language: without formal instruction, in social contexts, unconsciously picking it up from others around us. Soon, it becomes deeply embedded in our brains. We no longer think consciously about the meaning of the sounds we hear when someone says “hello” unless we do not speak English. Nor is it difficult to “tell the time” on a “clock” even though “time” and “clocks” are complex cultural inventions. These norms seem “natural” to us, and when we go against the norms we are often considered “deviant.” These sociocultural norms are continually being reinforced and reinvented as people resist or enforce them. This is what we mean when we refer to social constructionism. The same principles apply to gender and sexuality. We learn very early (by at least age three) about the categories of gender in our culture—that individuals are either “male” or “female” and that elaborate beliefs, behaviors, and meanings are associated with each gender. We can think of this complex set of ideas as a gender ideology or a cultural model of gender. Looking at humans and human cultures cross-culturally we can observe incredible variations and diversity that exist in terms of sex and gender. This diversity, along with changing attitudes toward sex and gender, provides evidence to support social constructionist perspectives.
EXPLORE: Take a look at Dr. Wesch’s video on “The Matrix & the Social Construction of Reality” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rukdvq8v8So). In it, he tries to teach and learn from his young son about social constructionism.
GENDER IDEOLOGIES
Words can reveal cultural beliefs. A good example is the term “sex.” In the past, sex referred both to sexuality and to someone’s biological sex: male or female. Today, although sex still refers to sexuality, “gender” now means not only the categories of male and female but also other gender possibilities. Why has this occurred? The change in terminology reflects profound alterations in gender ideology in the United States (and elsewhere). Gender ideology refers to the collective set of beliefs about the appropriate roles, rights, and responsibilities of men and women in society. Throughout this book you will read about various historical constructions of gender ideologies in different parts of the world. In particular, you will explore how the systems of colonialism profoundly shaped gender ideologies in places like Latin America and South Asia and how these gender ideologies continue to change.
In the past, influenced by Judeo-Christian religion and nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific beliefs, biology (and reproductive capacity) was literally considered to be destiny. Males and females—at least “normal” males and females—were thought to be born with different intellectual, physical, and moral capacities, preferences, tastes, personalities, and predispositions for violence and suffering. Ironically, many cultures, including European Christianity in the Middle Ages, viewed women as having a strong, often “insatiable” sexual “drive” and capacity. But by the nineteenth century, women and their sexuality were largely defined in reproductive terms, as in their capacity to “carry a man’s child.” Even late twentieth-century human sexuality texts often referred only to “reproductive systems,” to genitals as “reproductive” organs, and excluded the “clitoris” and other female organs of sexual pleasure that had no reproductive function. For women, the primary (if not sole) legitimate purpose of sexuality was reproduction.
Nineteenth- and mid-twentieth-century European and US gender ideologies linked sexuality and gender in other ways. Sexual preference—the sex to whom one was attracted—was “naturally” heterosexual, at least among “normal” humans, and “normal,” according to mid-twentieth-century Freudian-influenced psychology, was defined largely by whether one adhered to conventional gender roles for males and females. So, appropriately, “masculine” men were “naturally” attracted to “feminine” women and vice versa. Homosexuality, too, was depicted not just as a sexual preference but as gender-inappropriate role behavior, including things like gestures, cadence of speech and style of clothing. This is apparent in old stereotypes of gay men as “effeminate” (acting like a female, wearing “female” fabrics such as silk or colors such as pink, and participating in “feminine” professions like ballet) and of lesbian women as “butch” (cropped hair, riding motorcycles, wearing leather—prototypical masculinity). Once again, separate phenomena—sexual preference and gender role performance—were conflated because of beliefs that rooted both in biology. “Abnormality” in one sphere (sexual preference) was linked to “abnormality” in the other sphere (gendered capacities and preferences).
In short, the gender and sexual ideologies were based on biological determinism. According to this theory, males and females were supposedly born fundamentally different reproductively and in other major capacities. They were therefore believed to be “naturally” (biologically) capable of different activities and were sexually attracted to each other, although women’s sexual “drive” was not very well developed relative to men’s and was reproductively oriented.
Definition: biological determinism
the scientifically unsupported view that biological differences (rather than culture) between males and females lead to fundamentally different capacities, preferences, and gendered behaviors.
REJECTING BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
Decades of research on gender and sexuality, including by feminist anthropologists, have challenged these old theories, particularly biological determinism. We now understand that cultures, not nature, create the gender ideologies that go along with being born male, female, or intersex, and the ideologies vary widely, cross-culturally. What is considered “man’s work” in some societies, such as carrying heavy loads or farming, can be “woman’s work” in others. What is “masculine” and “feminine” varies: pink and blue, for example, are culturally invented gender-color linkages, and skirts and “make-up” can be worn by men, indeed by “warriors” (see figure 1.4).
Margaret Mead was among the first anthropologists to explore the social construction of gender cross-culturally in the 1930s. She traveled to New Guinea and studied among three cultural groups, the Arapesh, the Mundugumor and Tchambuli, documenting gender expressions and personalities, describing her findings in Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935). She found that each society had different gender ideologies, and all were significantly distinct from those in the United States at that time. For instance, among the Arapesh both men and women had similar temperaments. They were gentle, cooperative, and sensitive to the needs of others. Men as well as women were intimately involved with parenting and childcare, including infant care. Among the Mundugumor, similar to the Araphesh, both men and women had similar characteristics. However the Mundugamor, by contrast, tended to be aggressive, insecure, selfish, individualistic, violent, and lacking in self-control. The Tchambuli differed from these cultural patterns in that both male and female temperaments were distinct from each other. While they were structurally a patriarchal society, the women tended to be more dominant, impersonal, efficient, and managerial. They often had the last word in economic decisions and asserted their dominant position frequently and in a variety of ways (Mead 1935, 252). Men were typically less responsible, less forceful, more interested in artistic sensibilities and more emotionally dependent.
Mead’s work provided strong evidence against some early twentieth-century anthropology claims positing that specific gender roles and male dominance were part of our evolutionary heritage and fixed characteristics of human biology. This gender ideology argued that males evolved to be food providers—stronger, more aggressive, more effective leaders with cooperative and bonding capacities, planning skills, and technological inventiveness (toolmaking, for example). By contrast, females were never supposed to acquire those capacities because they were burdened by their reproductive roles—pregnancy, giving birth, lactation, and childcare—and thus became dependent on males for food and protection. These gender ideologies were persistent and persuasive; indeed, in many societies today, men are portrayed as active, dominant leaders, and women are viewed as passive, subordinate followers. Similar stories are invoked today for everything from some men’s love of hunting to why men dominate “technical” fields, accumulate tools, have extramarital affairs, or commit the vast majority of homicides.
Strength and toughness remain defining characteristics of masculinity in the United States and other countries. However, decades of research have altered our views of human sex and gender and our evolutionary past. As a way to understand the ways humans evolved, many biological anthropologists look to nonhuman primates for insight, as we share a common ancestor that is more recent than other animals. For many years primatologists believed that nonhuman primates live exclusively in male-centered, male-dominated groups and that females are passive. These assumptions were used to claim that this structure in humans is biologically predestined and based on our evolutionary origins. However, more recent research has shown that, in fact, this does not accurately describe our closest primate relatives: gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
The stereotypes came from 1960s research on ground-dwelling savannah baboons. It suggested they are organized socially by a stable male-dominant hierarchy. The “core” of the group was established through force and regulated sexual access to females, providing internal and external defense of the “troop” in a supposedly hostile savannah environment. Females were thought to lack hierarchies or coalitions, were passive, and were part of dominant male “harems.” This understanding changed with more nuanced research. Critics first argued that baboons, as monkeys rather than apes,1 were too far removed from humans evolutionarily to tell us much about early human social organization. Then, further research on baboons living in other environments by primatologists such as Thelma Rowell discovered that those baboons are neither male focused nor male dominated. Instead, the stable group core is matrifocal—a mother and her offspring constituted the central and enduring ties. Her research also illustrated that males do not control females’ sexuality. Quite the contrary, in fact: females mate freely and frequently, choosing males of all ages, sometimes establishing special relationships—“friends with favors.” Dominance, while infrequent, is not based simply on size or strength; it is learned, situational, and often stress-induced. And like other primates, both male and female baboons use sophisticated strategies, dubbed “primate politics,” to predict and manipulate the intricate social networks in which they live. Rowell also restudied the savannah baboons. Even they do not fit the baboon “stereotype,” she found that their groups are loosely structured with no specialized stable male-leadership coalitions and are sociable, matrifocal, and infant-centered much like Rhesus monkeys. Females actively initiate sexual encounters with a variety of male partners. When attacked by predators or frightened by some other major threat, males, rather than “defending the troop,” typically flee first, leaving the infant-carrying females to follow behind.
Definition: matrifocal
groups of related females (e.g., mother, her sisters, their offspring) form the core of the family and constitute the family’s most central and enduring social and emotional ties.
Research among primates as well as other lines of research are helping us better understand the complex relationship between behavior and biology among male and female primates, including humans. Ongoing research in a variety of disciplines shows that the biological differences between men and women are less pronounced than we believed previously. For instance, research on human parental care has shown that when caring for infants, men excrete equal amounts of hormones oxytocin and prolactin as women do when they go through childbirth and lactation (Gordon 2010). These hormones play an important role in bonding with infants and encourage positive care behaviors, demonstrating that, biologically, men can be equally sensitive to the needs of infants as women.
Like many other primates, humans show a degree of sexual dimorphism, or differences in stature, musculature, and skeletal robustness between males and females, although much less than other primates (see figure 1.5). Yet there is also a lot of variability among males and females. For instance, some females are taller than some males, and some males have more body fat than some females. Research on cross-cultural gender norms, human biology, primatology among others, demonstrates that these differences do not dictate behaviors nor predict abilities in individuals. The relationship between human biology and behavior is much more complex than we ever knew and strongly influenced by culture. In anthropology, looking at the ways in which our biology influences our culture—and how our culture influences our biology—is called the “biocultural” approach and is an exciting and growing area of research.
BEYOND THE BINARY
As you have seen, anthropologists love to shake up notions of what is “natural” and “normal.” One common assumption is that all cultures divide human beings into a binary or dualistic model of gender. However, in some cultures gender is more fluid and flexible, allowing individuals born as one biological sex to assume another gender or creating more than two genders from which individuals can select.
Some examples of nonbinary cultures come from precontact Native America. Anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict long ago identified a fairly widespread phenomenon of so-called Two-Spirit people, individuals who did not comfortably conform to the gender roles and gender ideology normally associated with their biological sex. Among the precontact Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, which was a relatively gender-egalitarian horticultural society, for example, individuals could choose an alternative role of “not-men” or “not-women.” A Two-Spirit Zuni man would do the work and wear clothing normally associated with females, having shown a preference for female-identified activities and symbols at an early age. In some cases, he would eventually marry a man (see figure 1.6). Early European ethnocentric reports often described it as a form of homosexuality. Anthropologists suggested more complex motivations, including dreams of selection by spirits, individual psychologies, biological characteristics, and negative aspects of male roles (e.g., warfare). Most significantly, these alternative gender roles were acceptable, publicly recognized, and sometimes venerated. For example, a Kutenai woman known to have lived in 1811 was originally married to a French-Canadian man but then returned to the Kutenai and assumed a male gender role, changing her name to Kauxuma nupika (Gone-to-the-Spirits), becoming a spiritual prophet, and eventually marrying a woman.
Definition: Two-Spirit
A Native American term referring to individuals who combined gendered activities of both men, giving them a unique status. They were considered neither men nor women but were seen as a distinct, alternative third gender.
Burrnesha, or “sworn virgins” in Albania are another example of a third gender. In traditionally patriarchal parts of Albanian society, gender roles are strict and place substantial limitations on women. Sworn virgins are women who renounce sexual relations completely to become honorary men, taking on the role of the man in their household and community; they dress, act, and are treated as men (enjoying the relative freedoms of men as well) (see figure 1.7). Another, more well-known example of a nonbinary gender system is found among the Hijra in India, who are discussed in greater detail in chapter 5 of this book (see figure 1.9). Often referred to as a third gender, these individuals are usually biologically male but adopt female clothing, gestures, and names; eschew sexual desire and sexual activity; and go through religious rituals that give them certain divine powers, including blessing or cursing couples’ fertility and performing at weddings and births. Hijra may undergo voluntary surgical removal of genitals through a nirvan or rebirth operation. Some hijra are males born with ambiguous external genitals, such as a particularly small penis or testicles that did not fully descend.
Definition: third gender
a gender identity that exists in nonbinary gender systems offering one or more gender roles separate from male or female.
As we have discussed in the section “What Is Sex?,” research has shown that individuals with ambiguous genitals, sometimes called “intersex,” are surprisingly common, as are those whose internal gender identity does not conform to their socially recognized gender or sex. So what are cultures to do when faced with an infant or child who cannot easily be “sexed”? Some cultures, including in the United States, used to force children into one of the two binary categories, even if it required surgery or hormone therapy. But in other places, such as India and among the Isthmus Zapotec in southern Oaxaca, Mexico, they have instead created a third gender category that has an institutional identity and role to perform in society (Mirande 2015) (see figure 1.8).
These cross-cultural examples demonstrate that the traditional rigid binary gender model in the United States is neither universal nor necessary. While all cultures recognize at least two biological sexes, usually based on genitals visible at birth (and have created at least two gender roles), many cultures go beyond the binary model, offering a third or fourth (or more) gender categories. Other cultures allow individuals to adopt, without sanctions, a gender role that is not congruent with their biological sex. In short, biology need not be destiny when it comes to gender roles, as we are increasingly discovering in the United States. Or, as Anne Fausto-Sterling asserts, “Sex and gender are best conceptualized as points in a multidimensional space” (Fausto-Sterling 2000). Indeed, research is increasingly pointing to considerable flexibility in gender and sex throughout human cultures.
Menstrual Equity
Ambivalence and even fear of female sexuality, or negative associations with female bodily fluids, such as menstrual blood, are widespread in the world’s major religions. Orthodox Jewish women are not supposed to sleep in the same bed as their husbands when menstruating. In Kypseli, Greece, people believe that menstruating women can cause wine to go bad. In some Catholic Portuguese villages, menstruating women are restricted from preparing fresh pork sausages and from being in the room where the sausages are made as their presence is believed to cause the pork to spoil. Contact with these women also supposedly wilts plants and causes inexplicable movements of objects. Orthodox forms of Hinduism prohibit menstruating women from activities such as cooking and attending temples. These traditions are being challenged. A 2016 British Broadcasting Company (BBC) television program, for example, described “Happy to Bleed,” a movement in India to change negative attitudes about menstruation and eliminate the ban on menstruating-age women entering the famous Sabriamala Temple in Kerala. Activists around the world have launched social movements and other projects to make menstruation less taboo and make feminine hygiene products more easily accessible. The film Period End of Sentence, which won the 2018 Oscar for Best Documentary, illustrates one example of such an effort in India. The profile that follows describes another important project to further menstrual equity in Zimbabwe.
For more information on the menstrual equity movement, visit The Pad Project: https://thepadproject.org/
PROFILE: SAVE THE GIRL CHILD MOVEMENT
Nolwazi Ncube, University of Cape Town
Save the Girl Child Movement (SGCM; https://www.savethegirlchildmovement.org/) with its flagship program, “Save the Girl-with-a-Vision” (SGV) was founded by Nolwazi Ncube, a Zimbabwean menstrual activist. Girls in Zimbabwe are said to miss as many as 528 days across the full span of their school-going years. SGV is a rural development program in the Umzingwane District of Zimbabwe, which was established to combat this problem and improve educational outcomes for adolescent girls. SGV is a multipronged program providing: (1) sanitary wear relief, (2) mentorship, and (3) financial support. SGV beneficiaries or “Saved Girls” receive free sanitary wear from the time they enter into the program until they have finished school. We have chosen to focus our activities in the Umzingwane district, which lies in the underserved and historically underdeveloped area of Matabeleland South Province; however, SGV also makes donations to other communities in need outside of Umzingwane, since the need for sanitary wear is a nationwide issue. There is an uneven division of the burden of domestic labor that falls more heavily on the shoulders of girls than boys. Cultural practice dictates that disposable sanitary wear is not meant to be disposed of along with household trash. As a result, girls must go into the field or forest and make a fire to burn and dispose of it. SGV focuses mostly on the provision of reusable pads for rural girls as it is their expressed preference, since disposable sanitary wear comes with its own encumbrances that add to the burden of labor they already participate in.
The high school completion rate for girls in the catchment area is very low, as they are faced with many different challenges that impact their educational outcomes. In order to assist with this, the SGV program has developed a set of criteria for prioritizing its most needy girls who are at high risk of dropping out of school. It considers factors such as orphanhood, family income, and stability of family structure. SGV also has a “buy-a-bike” initiative whereby sponsors can purchase a bike for a girl and to make the distance to the nearest secondary schools more manageable. Save the Girl Child Movement is supported by a small donor called the Geddes Foundation in Cyprus; donations can also be made on this web link: geddesfoundation.com/save-the-girl/.
Each year to raise menstrual education and hygiene awareness and mobilize funds for program activities, Save the Girl Child Movement launches its annual Let’s Get Padded Up #LGPU campaign (www.gofundme.com/lets-get-padded-up-campaign) with the tagline “Every girl needs pads. PERIOD.” Let’s Get Padded Up fundraisers are organized in conjunction with strategic partners—with special mention to the Rotaract Club of Harare West, the Rotary Club of Harare West, and the Rotaract Club of Borrowdale Brooke. Rotaract clubs are the youth program for Rotary International for young adults up to age thirty. With the help of these clubs, the 2018 Let’s Get Padded Up campaign met its target and was able to obtain a donation of five hundred sanitary hygiene kits from Days for Girls, a nonprofit organization in Australia that sews washable sanitary wear.
MASCULINITY
Contributing Author: Melanie Medeiros, SUNY Geneseo
Students in gender studies and anthropology courses on gender are often surprised to find that they will be learning about men as well as women. Early women’s studies initially employed what has been called an “add women and stir” approach, which led to examinations of gender as a social construct and of women’s issues in contemporary society. In the 1990s women’s studies expanded to become gender studies, incorporating the study of other genders, sexuality, and issues of gender and social justice. Gender was recognized as being fundamentally relational: femaleness is linked to maleness, femininity to masculinity. One outgrowth of that work is the field of “masculinity studies.” The interdisciplinary study of men and masculinities dates back to the 1970s and consists of a wide field of methodological approaches and thematic foci. As the field has evolved, so have scholars’ approaches to defining masculinity. Essentialist definitions of masculinity identify certain characteristics, such as physical strength or a short temper, as intrinsically masculine and argue that masculinity is something physically or psychologically inherent in cisgender men (hereafter referred to simply as “men”)—that results in these characteristics, irrespective of social or cultural influences. Gender scholars since the 1970s have refuted essentialist notions that there are biological underpinnings to gender norms, roles, and identities that make gender universal (Fausto-Sterling 2013 [2000]). However, studies of masculinity do tend to define masculinity based on the mainstream idea of a gender binary that includes the categories of “men” and “women,” which leads to a relational definition of “masculinity” that describes it as being in contrast to “femininity,” emphasizing the perceived differences between genders, as well as within gender categories (Connell 2016; Gutmann 1997). Therefore the notion of masculinity and the study of it is more common in societies that emphasize a distinct gender binary, such as in Europe and North America since the nineteenth century (Connell 2016). In the 1990s scholarship shifted from the term masculinity (singular) toward the concept of masculinities (Connell 2005 [1995]), which acknowledges that there are many forms of masculinity and that there is gender stratification among men—not just between men and women. Conventionally, “masculinity” is an ideal of what society expects men to be and how to act, while the acknowledgment of multiple “masculinities” recognizes that there are men who may or may not aspire to or fulfill local expectations of masculine performance (Connell 2016). Connell (2016) argues, “Rather than attempting to define masculinity as an object (a natural character type, a behavioral average, a norm), we need to focus on the processes and relationships through which men and women conduct gendered lives. ‘Masculinity,’ to the extent the term can be briefly defined at all, is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture” (138). In other words, masculinity is not a fixed and tangible object or archetype but a constantly negotiated gender performance that is often part of one’s gender identity and gender relations.
Definition: cisgender
a term used to describe those who identify with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.
Definition: masculinity
the culturally specific traits, behaviors, and discourses expected of men.
Gender scholars have studied masculinity among cisgender men, trans men, and cisgender men and women identifying as gay or queer (Abelson 2016; Connell 2005 [1995], 2001; Gutmann 2007 [1996]); Halberstam 2018 [1998]; Inhorn 2012; Mitchell 2015; Parker 2003; Schilt 2010). These scholars have examined a wide range of topics related to masculinities. For example, some scholars have focused on gender hierarchies and inequality between men and women and among men as well (Wade and Ferree 2019). There is a substantial body of literature on the relationship between men, masculinity, and violence, including examining men as perpetrators and victims of violence (Abelson 2016; Ellis 2016). Another topic of study is representations of men and masculinity in the media (Keith 2017; Zeglin 2016). Scholars have also been interested in understanding masculinities in relationship to kinship and parenting (Edley 2017; Keith 2017). Scholars examine masculinity in conjunction with sexuality, sexual orientation, as well as the relationship between masculinity and homophobia (Bucher 2014; Edley 2017). Ethnographic studies of masculinity highlight cross-cultural and intracultural variation in the construction and performance of masculinity (Conway-Long 1994; Ellis 2016; Gutmann 1997, 2003, 2007 [1996]; Mitchell 2015; Wentzell 2013).
THEORIES OF MASCULINITIES
By far the most frequently utilized theory of masculinities is Connell’s (1995) hegemonic masculinity theory (HMT). The theoretical concept of hegemony (Gramsci 1971) explains how power can function without force when a dominant social group creates collective agreement within a society about such things as behavioral norms, beliefs, and values. This collective consent naturalizes both the power and prestige of the dominant group, as well as social inequality. For example, many people in the United States believe class inequality is a natural product of human behavior rather than the outcome of our political economic system or the value of individualism. Beliefs or ideals are hegemonic when they are taken for granted and viewed as inevitable realities rather than products of society and culture and when they are supported by the dominant groups who benefit from them and by the marginalized groups who do not benefit. “Hegemony, then, means widespread consent to relations of systematic social disadvantage” (Wage and Ferree 2019, 137) often involving the “willing compliance of the oppressed” (Anderson 2016, 184). Hegemonic masculinity theory in turn argues that there are certain traits, behaviors, and discourses associated with masculinity and the performance of masculinity that are valued and rewarded by a culture or society’s dominant social groups. As a result, the performance of and practices associated with hegemonic masculinity help to legitimize power and inequality, or more specifically according to Connell—patriarchy. Therefore, hegemonic masculinity is not only a society’s ideal of manhood but part of a system of social and gender inequality that preferences certain traits, practices, and discourses over others, oppressing and marginalizing both men and women who do not meet this standard (Wage and Ferree 2019).
Definition: hegemonic masculinity theory (HMT)
a theory developed by Connell (1995) arguing that there are certain traits, behaviors, and discourses associated with masculinity that are valued and rewarded by a culture or society’s dominant social groups and that the performance of hegemonic masculinity helps to legitimize power and inequality, or more specifically, patriarchy.
Definition: hegemony/hegemonic
the dominance of one group over another supported by legitimating norms and ideas that normalize dominance. Using collective consent rather than force, dominant social groups maintain power and social inequalities are naturalized.
Definition: patriarchy
a dynamic system of power and inequality that privileges men and boys over women and girls in social interactions and institutions.
According to Connell (2005 [1995]) there are three categories of masculinities subsumed by the term hegemonic masculinity: complicit, subordinated, and marginalized. Individuals who exhibit the traits or practices associated with hegemonic masculinity, or who aspire to them, would be “complicit” within this gender system. Connell described men whose other social identities—particularly race and class—place them outside the dominant social groups as having “marginalized” masculinities because their position on the gender hierarchy is beneath that of the dominant group of men who more closely approximate hegemonic masculinity. Interestingly, Connell opted to distinguish sexual orientation from other forms of social identity, arguing that the masculinities of gay men were “subordinated” rather than marginalized. As such, Connell argued that heterosexuality is a key component of hegemonic masculinity, and other scholars have built from this theory to argue that hegemonic masculinity and homophobia are mutually constitutive. As one scholar observed, “Homophobia is not only a tool to enforce masculinity, but is a part of how hegemonic masculinity is constructed. Meaning, just as heterosexuality is part of ‘being a man,’ so too is denying the masculinity of gay men” (Bucher 2014, 225). Hegemonic masculinity theory opened up awareness that there are many forms of masculinity, that traits and behaviors of men who do not approximate hegemonic masculinity are policed (physically and discursively) and marginalized, and thus not all men hold an equal position on the gender hierarchy (Anderson 2016; Wage and Ferree 2019). Hegemonic masculinity theory pioneered new directions in gender scholarship and continues to be one of the most widely used theoretical approaches to studying masculinities.
However, no theory is without critique. Anderson (2016) suggests that in using the concept of hegemony, HMT is problematic on the one hand because it does not grant individuals agency to question or challenge hegemonic norms and on the other because it treats hegemonic masculinity as “an archetype of masculinity” rather than “a social process.” (Anderson 2016, 183). Revisiting their theory in 2016, Connell does note that the characteristics a society or culture value and associate with ideal masculinity are constantly in flux, and therefore hegemonic masculinity “can be defined as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (Connell 2016, 139). Anderson (2016) also points out that while HMT was very useful for examining masculinities in North America in the 1980s and 1990s, it is less applicable in a contemporary North American society. They argue that since heterosexuality and the subjugation of gay or queer men is a key component of HMT, the theory is no longer relevant in a society, or among subgroups (e.g., high school students) for whom heteronormativity is no longer a hegemonic ideal. I offer a similar critique, that HMT—with its emphasis on heteronormativity—is inadequate for examining masculinity in societies where sexuality and sexual orientation are more fluid than the gay/straight binary discussed by gender scholars of North America in the late twentieth century. Therefore, valuing the contributions of HMT but recognizing its shortcomings, scholars today employ several alternative concepts, such as “mainstream,” “dominant,” and most frequently “normative” masculinities to examine the ways that certain traits, behaviors, and practices are idealized by a society, and how those ideals are constantly changing in response to social, cultural, and political economic changes.
Definition: heteronormativity
a term coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.
Ethnographic studies have contributed a more nuanced approach to the study of masculinities and provide evidence showing that there can be multiple (more than three) masculinities in a given setting and that men are not necessarily aspiring toward one dominant ideal, nor are they limited to one form of masculine performance and identity. Men can aspire to a dominant or normative form of masculinity, challenge norms, or combine aspects of normative gender scripts and performances to create a hybrid form of masculinity that is unique or useful to them in a given space and time (Giddings and Hovorka 2010). For example, Gutmann describes how men in Mexico perform a multiplicity of masculinities both in the public sphere and in the home (Gutmann 2007 [1996]). Terms such as variant masculinities (Fonseca 2001; Lindisfarne 1994), emerging masculinities (Inhorn 2012), composite masculinities (Wentzell 2013), and inclusive masculinities (Anderson 2016) challenge the assumption of a fixed or “traditional” masculinity, and show that not all people subscribe to gender norms that reinforce the power of dominant groups while oppressing others.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have examined some of the key concepts that will be used throughout this book, including gender, sex, and sexuality as well as nonbinary gender expressions throughout the world. We also addressed how gender is fundamentally shaped by culture and how all gender expressions, including masculinity, must be understood in relation to one another and in the cultural context in which they occur. As you go through the chapters of the book you may wish to refer back to these concepts, using them as a guide and reference to understand the various global perspectives on gender. These key concepts will also form the foundation for the following chapter, which introduces the key perspectives used in this book. These are exciting and perhaps challenging ideas, as they address intimate parts of our own identities and worldviews.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
• Discuss how sex, gender, and sexuality are related but also distinct concepts.
• Discuss two examples of how gender is shaped by culture.
• Identify some cross-cultural examples of nonbinary gender expressions.
• Explain how gender is relational, such as how masculinity is relational to other gender expressions.
KEY TERMS
biological determinism: the scientifically unsupported view that biological differences (rather than culture) between males and females lead to fundamentally different capacities, preferences, and gendered behaviors.
cisgender: a term used to describe those who identify with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.
cultural relativism: the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture and not our own.
ethnocentric/ethnocentrism: the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as the yardstick by which to measure all other cultures.
ethnography: the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.
gender: the set of culturally and historically invented beliefs and expectations about gender that one learns and performs. Gender is an “identity” one can choose in some societies, but there is pressure in all societies to conform to expected gender roles and identities.
gender ideology: a complex set of beliefs about gender and gendered capacities, propensities, roles, identities, and socially expected behaviors and interactions that apply to males, females, and other gender categories. Gender ideology can differ across cultures and is acquired through enculturation.
hegemony/hegemonic: the dominance of one group over another supported by legitimating norms and ideas that normalize dominance. Using collective consent rather than force, dominant social groups maintain power and social inequalities are naturalized.
holistic/holism: the idea that the parts of a system interconnect and interact to make up the whole.
hegemonic masculinity theory (HMT): a theory developed by Connell (1995) arguing that there are certain traits, behaviors, and discourses associated with masculinity that are valued and rewarded by a culture or society’s dominant social groups and that the performance of hegemonic masculinity helps to legitimize power and inequality, or more specifically, patriarchy.
heteronormativity: a term coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.
masculinity: the culturally specific traits, behaviors, and discourses expected of men.
matrifocal: groups of related females (e.g., mother, her sisters, their offspring) form the core of the family and constitute the family’s most central and enduring social and emotional ties.
patriarchy: a dynamic system of power and inequality that privileges men and boys over women and girls in social interactions and institutions.
sex: refers to male and female identity based on internal and external sex organs and chromosomes. While male and female are the most common biologic sexes, a percentage of the human population is intersex with ambiguous or mixed biological sex characteristics.
third gender: a gender identity that exists in nonbinary gender systems offering one or more gender roles separate from male or female.
transgender: a category for people who transition from one sex to another, either male-to-female or female-to-male.
Two-Spirit: Traditionally a Native American term referring to individuals who combined gendered activities of both men, giving them a unique status. They were considered neither men nor women but were seen as a distinct, alternative third gender.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short (2019) by Matthew Gutman. Basic Books
• Masculinities under Neoliberalism. 2016. Edited by Andrea Cornwall, Frank Karioris, and Nancy Lindisfarne. London: Zed.
• Toward An Anthropological Understanding of Maleness and Violence. 2019.
• Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2012. Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Taylor and Francis.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Anderson, Eric. 2016. “Inclusive Masculinities.” In Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change, edited by C. J. Pascoe and T. Bridges, 178–187. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bucher, Jacob. 2014. “But He Can’t Be Gay”: The Relationship between Masculinity and Homophobia in Father-Son Relationships. Journal of Men’s Studies 22, no. 3: 222–237.
Connell, Raewyn. 2005 [1995]. Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Connell, Raewyn. 2001. The Men and The Boys. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Connell, Raewyn. 2016. “The Social Organization of Masculinity.” In Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change, edited by C. J. Pascoe and T. Bridges, 136–144. New York: Oxford University Press.
Conway-Long, Don. 1994. “Ethnographies and Masculinities.” In Theorizing Masculinities, edited by H. Brod and M. Kaufman, 61–81. New York: SAGE.
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Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. “The Five Sexes, Revisited.” The Sciences 40, no. 4: 18–23.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2013 [2000]. “Dueling Dualisms.” In Sex, Gender and Sexuality: The New Basics, edited by A. L. Ferber, K. Holcomb and T. Wentling, 6–34. New York: Oxford University Press.
Giddings, Carla, and Alice Hovorka. 2010. “Place, Ideological Mobility and Youth Negotiations of Gender Identities in Urban Botswana.” Gender, Place & Culture 17, no. 2: 211–229.
Gutmann, Matthew. 1997. “Trafficking in Men: The Anthropology of Masculinity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 385–409.
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Parker, Richard. 2003. “Changing Sexualities: Masculinity and Male Homosexuality in Brazil.” In Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America, edited by M. C. Gutmann, 307–332. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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Schilt, Kristen. 2010. Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
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CREDITS
Some sections of this chapter were adapted from work by Deborah Amory and “Gender and Sexuality,” chapter 10 by Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Tami Blumenfield (with Susan Harper and Abby Gondek) in Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, ed. Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, and Laura Tubelle de González, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 2020). | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Gendered_Lives%3A_Global_Issues/01%3A_Introduction/1.01%3A_Key_Concepts.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Compare and contrast the primary goals of the different waves of feminism.
• Articulate how intersectionality helps explain inequalities.
• Analyze how colonialism and globalization have contributed to global inequalities of wealth and power.
If we want to learn about sex and gender from a global perspective, anthropology is a good place to start. This book examines sex and gender through a few particular perspectives or lenses within anthropology. These “lenses” frame how each chapter approaches the study of gender in a particular place and helps us understand why and how certain gendered practices came to be. This chapter outlines the main perspectives in this book, namely: feminism, intersectionality, and globalization. These are all complex terms with long histories, but here we’ll try to give just enough background explanation so that you can contextualize the chapters in the book and identify the threads and themes that connect them.
intersectionality
refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that create overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live in our society.
FEMINISM
Anthropology did not escape the gender ideologies of the time and place where the discipline first started. It was shaped by its “founding fathers”—Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Kroeber, among others—in the late 1800s to early 1900s, about the same time the first wave of the feminist movement was fighting for women’s right to vote. Despite the early involvement of women in anthropology such as Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston, the contributions of many of its founding “mothers” were dismissed or overlooked. The dominant male perspective shaped much of what early anthropologists studied and how they communicated their findings. In fact, it wasn’t until the second wave of the feminist movement, namely the women’s rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, that anthropologists started to ask some key questions. And it was feminist anthropologists who were some of the first researchers to ask how social constructions of sex and gender vary cross-culturally. Why were they interested in knowing the answer to this question? These feminist anthropologists reasoned that if gender roles and statuses are different in different places and times, then it means that there is nothing “natural” about the gender inequalities in our own culture: they are culturally constructed.
Definition: first-wave feminism
started in the late 1800s and early 1900s and was focused on women’s right to vote.
Definition: second-wave feminism
1960s–1980s addressed issues of equal legal and social rights for women. Its emblematic slogan was “the personal is political.”
Since feminism is a concept we will be encountering in some of this book’s chapters, let’s lay out a working definition before we embark. We take the following definition from Estelle Freedman’s book, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. Freedman defines feminism as follows: “Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between women and men, with the understanding that gender always intersects with other social hierarchies” (Freedman, 2002).
Freedman continues with some clarifications of the terms in her definition. She uses the term equal worth to emphasize that we need to value traditionally female tasks (e.g., child rearing) as highly as the types of work usually done by men. She is not saying men and women are the same, or that they have to be the same, but rather that men’s and women’s labor should be valued equally. By men being privileged in most societies, she is referring not only to formal legal and political rights but also to cultural preferences and double standards that give men more freedoms and opportunities than women. Finally, by pointing out that gender always “intersects” with other “social hierarchies,” she is referring to the ways in which the experience of being a woman is fundamentally influenced by other social structures such as class, race, age, sexuality, etc. Perhaps most importantly, Freedman is not arguing that there is a universal identity as “woman” that in and of itself communicates something about the experiences of all women in the world. She recognizes that women experience their lives very differently in different cultural and historical contexts.
Early feminist ideas, like the 1970s concept of a “global sisterhood,” were criticized by feminists of color, such as Audre Lorde, for overlooking the multiple forms of oppression faced by women of color and women in the Global South (Schrock 2013). There are other social inequalities that disadvantage both men and women, and feminism cannot ignore those other systems of power and inequality—like poverty, racism, and homophobia. In her definition of feminism Freedman addresses the issues raised in the third wave of the feminist movement, namely that second-wave feminism had focused too heavily on the experiences of white, middle-class women and had failed to see how other social inequalities shape people’s lives. The concept of feminism has changed over time and has, at times, been given a bad name because it is often oversimplified and misunderstood. However, when presented as Freedman does, it becomes a stance that both men and women can embrace.
Definition: third-wave feminism
began in the 1990s responding to the shortcomings of the Second Wave, namely that it focused on the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. Third Wave feminism is rooted in the idea of women’s lives as intersectional, highlighting how race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when discussing feminism.
As a movement, feminism continues to evolve and grow. We are now in what has been called the fourth wave of feminism, which began in about 2008. This wave has focused on sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture and, in part, is defined by the use of technology. Fourth-wave feminist activism takes place in the streets, but it is planned and spread online through social media campaigns like the #MeToo movement. Fourth-wave feminism recognizes and celebrates the wide variety of “feminisms” that exist around the world and continues to carry forward ideas of intersectionality. Now, let’s take a closer look at intersectionality, which is also central to this book.
Definition: fourth-wave feminism
began around 2012 to address sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture, among other issues. It is characterized by a focus on the global empowerment of women, the greater inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices, and the use of social media in activism.
Table 2.1. Waves of feminism
Waves of Feminism Characteristics
First wave Began in late 1800’s and focused on the fight for political incorporation of women, primarily the right to vote.
Second wave 1960’s-1980’s, addressed issues of equal legal and social rights for women. Its emblematic slogan was “the personal is political.” Pushed for, but failed to have the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) added to the US Constitution. Critiqued for primarily focusing on the concerns of white, middle to upper-class women in the Global North.
Third wave Began in the 1990s responding to the shortcomings of the second wave, namely that it focused on the experiences of upper middle-class white women. This wave is rooted in the idea of women’s lives as intersectional, highlighting how race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when discussing feminism.
Fourth wave Began about 2008 and has focused on sexual harassment, body shaming and rape culture and, in part, is defined by the use of technology. Fourth-wave feminist activism that takes place in the streets, but it is planned and spread online, through social media campaigns like #MeToo movement. Fourth-wave feminism recognizes and celebrates the wide variety of “feminisms” that exist around the world, and continues to carry forward ideas of intersectionality.
INTERSECTIONALITY
A key idea that grew out of the third-wave feminist movement—and out of feminist analyses of how gender and race are socially constructed—is intersectionality. Using an intersectional lens allows us to appreciate the ways different social structures and aspects of our identities intersect in different ways for different people. For example, intersectionality allows us to understand how a person’s identity and life experiences are shaped by racism, sexism, class, and homophobia (among other categories of difference). At the “inter-section” of various social forces we experience ways of being and moving about the world that differ from another person whose intersectionality may be distinct from our own. Intersectionality also examines how interlocking systems of power affect the most marginalized people in a society. From an intersectional perspective, multiple forms of discrimination combine and transform the experience of oppression. The purpose of using an intersectional lens is to understand how overlapping categories of identity change in combination with each other and how they impact individuals and institutions. The framework of intersectionality is essential to studying relations of privilege and power in efforts to promote social and political equity.
The theory of intersectionality was first articulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a lawyer and critical race theorist who was trying to understand how antidiscrimination law could fail to account for the way in which a Black woman might be discriminated against (Crenshaw 1989). She developed the analogy of an “inter-section,” where racism and sexism meet, to help us understand and see the ways in which multiple aspects of our identities—and multiple social forces that helped to shape those identities—could impact us. Crenshaw invented the term intersectionality in 1989, and it was adopted in the years that followed by feminist and feminist anthropologists. In 2016 Crenshaw delivered a TED talk entitled, “The Urgency of Intersectionality.” More than thirty years later, the idea of intersectionality is still an urgent one.
EXPLORE: Review Crenshaw’s TED talk to get a better understanding of exactly what this term, “intersectionality,” means, where it came from, and why it is still important today.
EXPLORE: Peter Hopkins, Newcastle University, 2018, April 22. “What Is Intersectionality?” https://vimeo.com/263719865.
The chapters in this book are grounded in feminist anthropology and as such they examine gendered lives of men and women intersectionally and situate them in their local contexts. The results are culturally contextualized analyses that are often rooted in the concerns of the people who are being studied. Feminist anthropologists like Chandra Mohanty assert that women’s experiences across the globe are diverse and argue for studies that are context-specific and historically situated (Schrock 2013). In this book, we embrace this challenge by focusing not only on intersectionality but also on the concept of globalization as a way to understand both the cultural specificity and the historical global connections shaping the gendered experiences explored in each chapter. Let’s take a closer look at globalization and the history of colonialism that tied much of the world together centuries ago.
COLONIALISM, GLOBALIZATION, AND GENDER
Inequality among cultural groups, societies, and nations is not a new phenomenon: it has roots in the development of agriculture and a sedentary lifestyle starting ten thousand years ago. Yet the reasons why these inequalities persist have troubled social scientists for decades. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond puts forward an excellent argument for why some countries were rich and others were poor prior to 1492 (when Columbus first arrived in the Americas). Europeans, he argues, had many advantages over people in the Americas that allowed them to conquer the Aztec and Incan empires, for example. By the early 1500s the Europeans had domesticated horses, and they possessed guns and steel swords, ocean-going ships, large-scale political organizations, and phonetic writing systems, as well as having resistance to several deadly epidemic diseases. In short, guns, germs, and steel gave them key advantages over the Indigenous groups they encountered (Diamond 1999).
Europeans had these advantages, not because of genetic superiority but rather due to their fortuitous geographic location. The Eurasian landmass was home to most of the large mammals that could be domesticated and used in the grain harvesting process. This meant that six thousand years ago, the Eurasians were using large draft animals to power their plows, providing more calories and fueling population growth. The large landmass also allowed for ideas to circulate across cultures, like between Europe, North Africa, and China, bringing innovations that fostered the development of more complex and stratified societies. With these advantages, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, and other European countries set off on an age of exploration to see what they could learn about and acquire from the New World. However, while this history helps explain why Europeans were able to launch an age of exploration to other continents, it does little to help us understand why some countries are rich and others poor after over five hundred years of global trade. The history and legacy of colonialism give us more insight into these persistent inequalities.
As Europeans colonized the world, they transformed societies that were growing food for their own subsistence into exporters of cash crops for European consumption. Europeans used their military might to capture lands and then levied taxes or created large plantations that forced locals to produce export crops like sugar, coffee, cocoa, and tobacco. They also put colonized peoples to work in dangerous mines, extracting precious metals such as gold and silver. Foods, plants, and diseases spread throughout the world, along with ideas, values, technologies, money, and commodities. Over centuries, a global world economic system emerged in which the wealth and profits earned in the Global North depended on the cheap labor, raw materials, and lack of development in the Global South (see chapter 15, “The Global North—Introducing the Region,” for more on sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems theory).
Definition: Global North
does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe, and Australia.
Definition: Global South
does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global South encompasses the poor and less powerful countries in areas such as Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
The slave trade was perhaps the most profound example of this world system in action. Due to the decimation of Indigenous Americans by European diseases, there was ample land for Europeans to settle but not enough labor. Meanwhile, Africans, by virtue of sharing the same continuous landmass with Europeans, had already built up a resistance to European diseases and had a few of their own, like malaria and dengue fever, that made Africa difficult for Europeans to conquer and settle. So instead of settling Africa, Europeans traded with the more powerful African nations, like the West African Dahomey Kingdom (present-day Benin). The most notable “commodity” they traded was people: enslaved Africans. A total of twelve million enslaved people were brought to the Americas to work in the vast sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations.
In the plantation system, the colonizers amassed fabulous levels of wealth. The growing wealth set the stage for the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which only elevated the need for raw materials, while also increasing the European’s capacity to conquer and rule new lands. Remote regions of Africa and the Amazon that had been impenetrable and difficult for Europeans to settle started to come under European control behind the onslaught of machine guns and armaments shuttled in on a growing network of train tracks.
By the late 1800s, the European powers were engaged in the “scramble for Africa,” strategically colonizing every bit of land, laying down train tracks that would slowly drain Africa of its natural resources in rubber, copper, and other precious materials. As had occurred in the Americas and Asia, local subsistence farmers in Africa were forced to transform their production to serve the global market. Northern Ghana shifted production from nutritious yams to cocoa. Liberia produced rubber; Nigeria, palm oil; Tanzania, sisal; and Uganda, cotton. All of them became dependent on global trade for their subsistence. Even after former colonies in Asia, the Americas, and Africa gained independence in the 1960s and 1970s, exploitative economic relationships with the Global North continued. The example in the box below captures this ongoing dynamic of global economic inequality that is the legacy of colonialism.
Structural Power: A Story of Rich and Poor
[Adapted from Michael Wesch, Kansas State University, anth101.com/book]
Let’s look at two communities on opposite ends of a world system today. Rüschlikon, a small village in Switzerland, received over 360 million dollars in tax revenue from a single resident, Ivan Glasenberg, in 2011. That amounts to \$72,000 for each of the village’s five thousand residents. It is one of the richest communities in the world. Glasenberg is the CEO of Glencore, one of the most powerful companies in the world, specializing in mining and commodities. If we follow the commodity chain back to its source, we find copper mines like the Mopani copper mine in Zambia, where 60 percent of people live on less than \$1 per day, the residents struggle to find adequate food and health care, education is difficult to attain, and the air and water are frequently polluted by the mines. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Switzerland is the highest in the world at just over \$75,000. Zambia is among the lowest at under \$2,000. In fact, Glencore’s revenues alone are ten times the entire GDP of Zambia.
Over a ten-year period in the early 2000s, \$29 billion dollars’ worth of copper was extracted from Zambia, yet Zambia only collected \$50 million per year in taxes while spending over \$150 million a year to provide electricity for the mines. Zambia was actually losing money on their own resources. How did this happen?
During the “scramble for Africa” the region was proclaimed a British Sphere of Influence administered by Cecil Rhodes and named “Rhodesia.” When copper was discovered, it became one of the world’s largest exporters of copper; but the wealth did little to improve the lives of Africans. By the time Zambia gained independence in 1964, they were rich in resources but lacked the knowledge and capital to mine those resources. Nonetheless, they successfully operated the mines under national control for over a decade, and their economy grew on their copper profits. By the mid-1970s, they were one of the most prosperous countries in sub-Saharan Africa. But their entire economy depended on that single commodity, and in the 1970s, the price of copper dropped dramatically as Russia flooded the market with it. Like many other countries that depend on exports of natural resources, their economy collapsed along with the prices.
The Zambian economy was in crisis and had to look to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for big loans. But soon they could not keep up with their loan payments. Like other developing countries, the loans that were supposed to save them became crippling. For every \$1 they were receiving in aid from rich countries, they were spending \$10 on loan interest. By the year 2000, with copper prices falling again, Zambia was in crisis and could not receive any more loans. The copper mines were privatized and sold to companies like Glencore. They were trapped in a system that left them no more options. They wanted to demand a higher price for their copper, but their impoverished neighboring countries would just undersell them.
Over the next decade, the cost of copper soared, and Glencore made massive profits. But the lives of Zambians did not improve because none of that money found its way into Zambia. As a large multinational corporation, Glencore was able to avoid paying taxes in Zambia through a practice called “transfer pricing.” Glencore is made up of several smaller subsidiary companies. Their Zambian subsidiaries sell the copper very cheaply to their subsidiaries in Switzerland, which has very low taxes on copper exports. Then the Swiss company marks up the price to its true market value and sells the copper. On paper, Switzerland is the largest importer of Zambian copper (60 percent) and one of the world’s largest exporters of copper, yet very little of this copper ever actually arrives in (and then leaves) Switzerland. This little accounting trick is in part why copper accounts for 71 percent of the exports from Zambia, but only contributes 0.2 percent to their GDP.
This is obviously unfair, but Zambia does not have the financial resources to fight Glencore’s army of lawyers. This is just one more chapter in a long history that consistently places Zambia on the weaker end of power. At the dawn of colonization, they faced the military might of the British and lacked the power to defend their land. They entered at the bottom of an emerging global economy and have never had the resources to educate their public and prepare them for success. They now find themselves trapped in cycles of poverty. Without a strong tax base, they cannot fund powerful institutions that could raise health and education standards to create jobs that could diversify the economy.
Colonialism and ongoing globalization have had a gendered impact as well. That is, men and women have been affected differently by colonialism and global capitalism. For example, among the Taureg in Algeria, women had an active role in tribal politics, could own property, and had a respected status as poets in their society. Their position was in stark contrast to many of their Arab neighbors, but the growing influence of Islamo-Arab cultures in the region has diminished women’s positions in society (Keenan 2003). Colonialism eroded the status of many Native American women. For example among the matrilineal Cherokee, the Council of Women had significant power including the right to declare war. As a result the British disparagingly referred to them as a “petticoat government” and took measures to undermine their authority (Strickland n.d.). US officials also instituted a “patriarchal colonialism” that destroyed the social foundations and the more egalitarian gender relations of many native peoples (Guerro 2003).
In more recent times, globalization has resulted in the increased flows of people and things across the globe. These mobilities can take many forms, from labor migrations, to refugee flows, to travel and tourism, to elite expatriate communities. Here, too, we see how gender, as a fundamental social relation, shapes these phenomena. Scholars have noted a “feminization of migration” as women move around the world to work in domestic service, childcare, large-scale agriculture, and in factories (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2003). Through constructions of femininity, multinational corporations see them as a docile and cheap workforce, well suited for repetitive, detailed tasks required on global assembly lines. Migration can reconfigure gender relations between men and women. Migrant women may gain status through jobs and new social networks, while men may lose power in both the public and domestic spheres if they suffer unemployment and discrimination in the new country (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2003). Ideas of masculinity and fatherhood are also influenced by migration, as we see in chapter 19, as migrant fathers struggle to remake their role by parenting at a distance.
Definition: mobilities
the movement of people, things, and ideas, and the social implications of those movements. Mobilities scholars explore topics such as human migration, tourism, and transportation, and the forces that promote or constrain movement.
Global movements and migrations are tied to work but also to pleasure. With the tourism industry, a global sex trade has developed involving both men and women. Eroticized and exoticized ideas of men and women in the Global South play into the fantasies of foreign tourists both for pleasure (Cabezas 2009; Frohlick 2012) and as potential spouses (Constable 2003). Many in the Global South who engage in sexual relations with tourists dream of migrating through marriage to a foreigner (Fernandez 2019). However, often these relationships do not provide the hoped-for outcome, and mail-order brides do not always get the marriages they envisioned (Faier 2007). Global mobilities are intertwined for both work and leisure, and the impact these global movements have on individuals are shaped by factors such as gender, class, nationality, and race.
A gendered, intersectional analysis helps us see the uneven impact globalization has had on people around the world. Globalization provides many benefits to societies including the spread of technology, longer life expectancies, and shared cultural innovations. However, it can also be a source of vulnerability. For instance, the COVID-19 crisis is an example of a global phenomenon that has laid bare the intense interdependence of global economies and societies. Starting in December 2019, a novel coronavirus that causes the deadly COVID-19 disease began to spread throughout the world. The resulting pandemic halted global and local economies and disrupted globalized supply chains. The crisis led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and is expected to markedly change local and global societies, cultural norms, and economies in ways that are yet to be fully appreciated.
Early gendered analyses of the crisis in the United States suggest that shifts in gender roles may be one such result. Jobs that tend to be predominantly held by women (grocery retail workers, nurses, childcare workers) were the ones that were deemed as “essential” early on in the crisis. As a result, heterosexual couples experienced swift role reversals with men providing more childcare and domestic work and women laboring outside the home under often stressful and dangerous conditions. However, as the crisis continued women began to lose their jobs in greater numbers than men, underscoring the inherent vulnerability and inequity of women’s labor and income (Institute for Women’s Policy Research 2020). Furthermore, for many women around the world the home confinement has increased tensions and has led to a surge in domestic violence: with few support resources operating during the crisis, victims have few options for help. The gendered impact of COVID-19 is shaped by the availability of women’s resources. Those who usually have adequate or even abundant resources may lack their former access to reproductive health services, while those with the fewest resources may be particularly vulnerable to the virus itself and may be struggling just to keep their families fed.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we introduced the key perspectives that unite the chapters in this book: feminism(s), intersectionality, and globalization. We explored how feminism has evolved over time and provided anthropology with essential insights into gender diversity and inequality. The following sections, chapters, and profiles will introduce you to the experiences of men, women, and third-gendered people across the globe. The threads that connect them are intersectional analyses and a focus on globalization that links the local to an economic system that spans the globe. We can best understand the practices and cultures we will read about by focusing on how they are connected in the world system and how individual experiences within that culture are shaped by their context-specific position (race, class, gender, age, etc.). From this vantage point, we can see how our own gendered lives, practices, and patterns of consumption are connected to those people we will be reading about.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Compare and contrast the four primary waves of feminism.
2. How does intersectionality help us understand social inequalities?
3. How do colonialism and globalization contribute to the ongoing global inequalities of wealth and power today?
4. Discuss some positive and negative impacts globalization has had on your own life.
KEY TERMS
first-wave feminism: started in the late 1800s and early 1900s and was focused on women’s right to vote.
fourth-wave feminism: began around 2012 to address sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture, among other issues. It is characterized by a focus on the global empowerment of women, the greater inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices, and the use of social media in activism.
Global North: does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global North encompasses the rich and powerful regions such as North America, Europe, and Australia.
Global South: does not refer to a geographic region in any traditional sense but rather to the relative power and wealth of countries in distinct parts of the world. The Global South encompasses the poor and less powerful countries in areas such as Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
intersectionality: refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that create overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live in our society.
mobilities: the movement of people, things, and ideas, and the social implications of those movements. Mobilities scholars explore topics such as human migration, tourism, and transportation, and the forces that promote or constrain movement.
second-wave feminism: 1960s–1980s addressed issues of equal legal and social rights for women. Its emblematic slogan was “the personal is political.”
third-wave feminism: began in the 1990s responding to the shortcomings of the Second Wave, namely that it focused on the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. Third Wave feminism is rooted in the idea of women’s lives as intersectional, highlighting how race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when discussing feminism.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Feminism is for Everybody (Pluto, 2000) by bell hooks presents a straightforward explanation of key ideas and concepts in feminism.
• Iron Jawed Angels (2003) a film on Alice Paul and the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.
• National Public Radio (NPR)—Planet Money story that followed the making of a single T-shirt in 2013: https://apps.npr.org/tshirt/#/title
• National Public Radio (NPR)—“Goats and Soda: Stories of Life in a Changing World,” a program exploring health and development globally. There’s a whole section devoted to stories on women and girls from around the world: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/
• Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1986) by anthropologist Sidney Wilfred Mintz (Penguin Press, 1986) presents a fascinating history of how sugar transformed from an elite luxury good to a staple in the working-class diet and what effect that shift had on the world.
• The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2015 Vintage) by Jill Lepore recounts the history of the feminist movement in the United States and the evolution of this iconic superhero. There is also a much less inspiring 2017 film based loosely on the book, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.
• The Story of Stuff Project (https://www.storyofstuff.org/about/) has created a number of award-winning short animated documentaries on the detrimental effects of our global consumption-based economy. Check out the movies under the “Learn” tab on their website.
• United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to reach by 2030. All countries have agreed to work toward these goals, and you can track their progress at: https://sdg-tracker.org/. For more statistical information across the globe also see: OurWorldinData.org.
• We Should All Be Feminists (Fourth Estate, 2014), a powerful short book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The acclaimed author also presents her ideas on feminism in a TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists?language=en.
• WIDE+ (Women in Development Europe+), a European feminist organization, has gathered articles on the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: https://wideplus.org/2020/03/26/covid-19-crisis-from-a-feminist-perspective-overview-of-different-articles-published/.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cabezas, Amalia. 2009. Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Constable, Nicole. 2003. Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and “Mail-Order” Marriages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Covey, R. Alan. 2013. “Inca Gender Relations, from Household to Empire.” In Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th ed., 70–76. Boston: Pearson Education.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no. 8: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8.
———. (2016, December 7). The Urgency of Intersectionality (video). https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o
Diamond, Jared M. 1999. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton.
Ditch, E. 2006. Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Reader. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Faier, Lieba. 2007. Filipina Migrants in Rural Japan and Their Professions of Love. American Ethnologist 34, no. 1: 148–162.
Fernandez, Nadine T. 2019. “Tourist Brides and Migrant Grooms: Cuban–Danish Couples and Family Reunification Policies.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 16: 3141–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1547025.
Freedman, Estelle. 2002. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. New York: Ballantine.
Frohlick, Susan. 2012. Sexuality, Women, and Tourism: Cross-border Desires through Contemporary Travel. New York: Routledge.
Guerrero, M. A. Jaimes. 2003. “ ‘Patriarchal Colonialism’ and Indigenism: Implications for Native Feminist Spirituality and Native Womanism.” Hypatia 18, no. 2 (2003): 58–69. www.jstor.org/stable/3811011. Accessed May 8, 2020.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, ed. 2003. Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. 2020. “Women Lost More Jobs than Men in almost all Sectors of the Economy.” Quick Figures, April, 20120. IWRP #Q080. iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/QF-Jobs-Day-April-FINAL.pdf
Keenan, Jeremy. 2003. “The End of the Matriline? The Changing Roles of Women and Descent amongst the Algerian Tuareg.” Journal of North African Studies 8, nos. 3–4: 121–162. doi:10.1080/13629380308718519.
Schrock, Richelle D. 2013. “The Methodological Imperatives of Feminist Ethnography.” Journal of Feminist Scholarship 5 (Fall): 48–60. https://youtu.be/NpYlE_EjX9M
Steger, M. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Strickland, Rennard. n.d. “Cherokee (tribe).” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=CH014.
CREDITS
Some of the material in this chapter was authored by Deborah Amory and adapted from The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology by Michael Wesch, Kansas State University, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. anth101.com/book. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Gendered_Lives%3A_Global_Issues/01%3A_Introduction/1.02%3A_Key_Perspectives.txt |
• 2.1: South Asia - Introducing the Region
• 2.2: Controlling National Borders by Controlling Reproduction- Gender, Nationalism, and Nepal’s Citizenship Laws
In this chapter the authors discuss how Nepal, a small country located between two powerful nations (China and India), struggles to maintain its sovereignty and national identity. The state’s politics of belonging exclude certain groups of women from citizenship. Caste, class, national origin, and ethnic markers like language intersect to affect women’s access to the rights granted to citizens.
• 2.3: Understanding Caste and Kinship within Hijras, a “Third” Gender Community in India
In this chapter, the author looks at the organization and functions of a third-gender group in India: the hijras. Here we see how hierarchy and caste also shape third-gender hijra communities. These communities create and operate through discipleship-kinship systems that both regulate their activities and create a power structure among the hijras. These kinship systems are not recognized and legitimized by the Indian state but by the internal hijra governance councils.
• 2.4: The “City” and “The Easy Life”- Work and Gender among Sherpa in Nepal
In this chapter, the authors examine the ongoing poverty of the region that has been the focus of many international development plans and efforts. The authors explore the impact some of these development projects have had on work patterns among ethnic Sherpa women in Nepal. They question whether or not wage labor and urban lifestyles with Western patterns of consumption (the markers of development) actually contribute to women’s emancipation and empowerment.
02: South Asia
South Asia is a region with unity in diversity, having at least twenty different dominant languages and over two hundred basic dialects. And yet, most of South Asia continues to remain economically poor and “developing” with gender disparity remaining a real concern at the heart of South Asian unity. The 2019 Global Hunger Index ranks all the major South Asian countries in the “serious” category with Sri Lanka coming in 66th, Nepal 73rd, Bangladesh 88th, Pakistan 94th, and India 102nd out of 117 countries. Women suffer the most, as they have to bear the direct burden of gender inequality and, as a consequence, children experience malnutrition. The 2018 Global Nutrition Report states that on average 49 percent of reproductive-age women in South Asia have anemia, and the prevalence of stunting in the population of children under-five is 32.7 percent, which is significantly greater than the global average of 21.9 percent. There is no data available for those who identify as nonbinary, and there is a long way to go before the data gap can be filled despite the official recognition of “third” gender people in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Ironically, in spite of the official recognition of a nonheteronormative gender identity, homosexuality has yet to be decriminalized in most of South Asia with the exception of Nepal and India, having decriminalized homosexuality in 2007 and 2018, respectively.
When the British arrived in India, they foisted Victorian sexual mores on Indian culture, criminalized homosexuality, and saw the “third” gender as a threat to morality and political authority (Bhatt, 2018). The precolonial practice of dowry, which was then a self-help institution managed by women, became a colonial tool for covering up the economically devastating British agrarian policies leading to a systematic diminishing of women’s entitlements and worsening gender discrimination in India (Oldenburg, 2002). Scholars argue that in the late nineteenth century, Indians were “humiliated by their colonial status” and became “obsessed with the issues of strength and power” (Datta 2006, 2230). Therefore, to explain their defeat and acceptance of the European notion that the “status of women was integral to the strength of the civilisation,” Indian customs were concluded to be “degrading to a woman’s status” (Datta 2006, 2230). As a result, women became subjects of reformist movements that took up the challenge of modernity, and thereby, problematic notions of middle-class femininity were adopted: these were, in turn, based on oppressive cultural practices impacting the future course of gender relations in South Asia.
Definition: dowry
payments made to the groom’s family by the bride’s family before marriage.
Although patriarchy and the caste system (explained later) have undergone continuous changes, they retain their salience through a “social silence” around the “inherited [and colonial] legacies of practicing inequality” in South Asia (Chakravarti 2018). On the one hand, data from India shows that there are approximately 10.6 million missing females, as a preference for boys and male births (son preference) leaves India with a skewed sex ratio plunging further from 903 in 2007 to 898 in 2018 (Chao et al. 2019). On the other hand, lessons from Bangladesh on how gender equity can help overcome socioeconomic constraints and significantly improve health outcomes (see Chowdhury et al. 2013) show how South Asia can be a region full of contradictions. This chapter will provide a regional introduction to South Asia, highlighting unique gender issues specific to this region. In doing so, this introduction section will also equip the readers with a sense of the diverse contexts within which ideologies toward gender stem, both locally and globally.
INDEPENDENCE AND PARTITION
The Indian independence movement spanned almost 90 years from 1857 until August 15, 1947, when India got its independence from the British Raj. The following 1947 partition of British India into two countries, India and Pakistan, is the most violent and bloody founding movement defining two nations’ existence in recorded history. Millions were uprooted overnight, and it is estimated that about 75,000 women were abducted and raped during this process of redrawing borders (see Butalia 2017). Additionally, Bangladesh’s borders were redrawn first as East Bengal in 1905 when it was attached to Assam as a part of India, then as East Pakistan (after the India-Pakistan partition), and finally as the nation-state of Bangladesh in 1971 (see “Resources for Further Exploration” for link to maps showing the partition process).
During the political partitions, when about twelve million people moved between India and Pakistan in 1947, there was widespread sexual violence. In many instances, women ended up marrying the men who had abducted them, and “because they were now in relationships with men of the ‘other’ religion, they became ‘absences’ in their families, absences that also led, in many ways, to an absence of memory” (Butalia 2018, 267). Moreover,
the idea of women as property—of families, communities, men—underlay the ways in which women’s rights were so routinely violated during Partition, under the guise of protection, honour, purity. The violence on women by their own communities … was disguised as martyrdom or honour killings and its memories today are almost singularly guarded and recounted by men. (Butalia 2018, 267)
Additionally, practices reinforcing gender inequality in marriage inherited from prepartition times continued for many in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These practices include Hindu men converting to Islam to take a second wife (without the conversion of the first wife to Islam), nonconsensual polygamy, and divorce customs like triple talaq (instant divorce) and nikah halala. Other contested practices include mandatory head coverings and seclusion such as ghoonghat and purdah.
Definition: triple talaq
a form of Islamist divorce used by some Muslims in India that permits a man to legally divorce his wife by simply uttering the word talaq (the Arabic word for “divorce”) three times orally, in written form or, more recently, in electronic form.
Definition: nikah halala
a patriarchal practice whereby women divorced through triple talaq must consummate a second marriage and get divorced again in order to remarry their first husbands.
Definition: ghoonghat
a headcovering or headscarf worn by some married Hindu, Jain and Sikh women to cover their heads, and often their faces.
Definition: purdah
a practice in certain Muslim and Hindu societies of physical segregation of men and women and the requirement that women cover their bodies in enveloping clothing to conceal their form from men and strangers.
CASTE SYSTEM
The caste system is an obligatory system of graded social stratification based on a person’s birth or ancestry morally codified in Manusmriti, “The Laws of Manu,” a controversial Hindu scripture. (See “Resources for Further Exploration” for a link to the Laws of Manu.) It was one of the first Sanskrit texts to be translated in 1794 by the British and since then has been used by the colonial government to formulate Hindu law in India. Dividing Hindu society into five groups, called castes, this system laid down the “normative” framework governing and grading all “cultural, economic, religious, spiritual, and political” aspects of social interaction within and between these groups (Simon and Thorat 2020, ii). Furthermore,
many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation. At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma’s head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma’s feet and did all the menial jobs. … Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots—the Dalits or the untouchables. (BBC News, 2019)
Since the second century BCE, through the caste system, hierarchies of “quasi-biological groupings” get naturalized by “inherited privilege or stigma,” using religion (including Islam and Sikhism) as justification and continue to this day (Simon and Thorat, 2020). Caste discrimination is a chronic human rights violation of Dalits (formerly untouchables) and other persons affected by discrimination, based on their work and descent, found in varying degrees in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and also in diasporic South Asian communities all over the world. According to a compilation report published by the International Dalit Solidarity Network (2019, 6–7):
The caste system is a strict hierarchical social system based on underlying notions of purity and pollution. Those at the bottom of the system suffer discrimination influencing all spheres of life and violating a cross-section of basic human rights including civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. Caste discrimination entails social and economic exclusion, segregation in housing, denial and restrictions of access to public and private services, and lack of equal access to education and employment, to mention some effects.
Since its very formation, each caste category aimed to be isolated and socially separated from each other through practicing endogamy (i.e., marrying only within one’s caste) (Chakravarti 2018). Despite reformist movements, there is still a stigma associated with intercaste marriages, and love relationships between them are strongly discouraged by families. Even today, many cases of honor killings associated with breaching these social rules continue to arise, particularly targeting women (ANI 2018).
In India, Dalit women often experience violence when attempting to assert their rights to access housing, drinking water, the public distribution system (PDS), education, and basic sanitation services (Irudayam et al. 2015). In Nepal, Dalit rural women are among the most disadvantaged people, scoring at the very bottom for most social indicators, such as literacy (12%), longevity (forty-two years), health, and political participation (Navsarjan Trust et al. 2013). Moreover, there is a rampant problem of caste-based discrimination estimated to affect more than 260 million people, particularly in Asia and Africa (Yokota and Chung 2009).
According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, Dalit women in India die younger than those in the upper-caste category, with the average life expectancy for Dalit women being 14.6 years less than for higher-caste women (Masoodi 2018). Furthermore, disadvantaged groups of women and girls in Bangladesh, including Dalit women, women with disabilities, elderly women, Rohingya refugee women, and women of ethnic minorities face multiple intersecting forms of discrimination due to their gender, health, Indigenous identity, caste, and socioeconomic status (CEDAW 2015).
CURRENT NATIONALIST STRUGGLES
The relationship between culture and politics often centers on the idea of democracy based on identity and conflict. For instance, ethnic tensions based on the construction of the separate racial identity of ethnic Mongols in Nepal, emerging from differences in cultural practices instead of biological inheritance, shows uses of “race” invoked by those subaltern groups who are economically and politically disadvantaged in South Asia (Hangen, 2005). Another example is the denationalization of the people of Nepali origin who claimed to be wrongfully evicted citizens of Bhutan who have been refused the right to return to Bhutan (see Hutt, 2003).
Definition: subaltern
a person from a colonized population who is of low socioeconomic status, displaced to the margins of a society and with little social agency.
In the politics of belonging in South Asia, there is an overlap between the national, cultural, and ethnic identities of people. For instance, ethno-national conflicts remain, particularly with the history of redrawing Bangladeshi borders. Women are also severely affected in conflict areas, especially in northeast India, with reported cases of mass rapes and sexual violence filed in court by 21 Hmar tribal women in Manipur in 2006; 14 tribal women in the neighboring state of Tripura in 1988; and 37 women of Assam in 1991 with no action taken so far against the perpetrators of violence (WILF 2014).
Efforts for peace and cooperative development are still obstructed by the struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, situating modern South Asia at a decisive crisis in its history (see Bose and Jalal, 2017). On August 5, 2019, the “special status” of the state of Jammu and Kashmir was controversially taken away by the Indian government by dividing it into two union territories and imposing an unprecedented five-month Internet blackout—the longest ever to be imposed in a democracy (Cooper 2020). Scholars predict a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan fueling further anxieties between the two countries (Toon et al. 2019). Women’s voices in the peace processes have largely been absent from the male-dominated Kashmiri nationalist and conflict narratives despite being governed by a female state head for two years (Parashar 2011). Kashmir’s marginalized transgender community, mostly working as matchmakers for couples, also struggle with survival for existence and identity under the shadow of curfews and internet blackouts (Bhat 2019).
In August 2019, the Indian government introduced another controversial citizenship policy that required people to prove that they came to the northeast state of Assam by March 24, 1971, the day before Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan, to obtain citizenship. As a result, 1.9 million people have become “stateless” and stripped of their Indian citizenship because they failed to furnish adequate substantiating documents (BBC 2019). A fact-finding team’s research trip to Assam by Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression found that women are the “worst victims” of this process as they are unable to produce “legacy documents” because holding entitlements to land and lineage have historically been guided by patriarchal norms that exclude women from property ownership (Singh 2019). Furthermore, rural women from lower castes and ethnic minority groups face multiple barriers like legal illiteracy and limited knowledge of birth registration procedures, which prevent them from registering births and obtaining birth certificates for their children (CEDAW 2014).
Despite India being created as a secular state during the 1947 partition, the Indian government introduced yet another controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019. This amendment aimed to redefine the category of “illegal immigrant” to include Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who have been living in India for decades without the necessary documentation required to prove their citizenship. Protestors challenging the 2019 Citizenship Amendment in court say that it violates the Indian constitution by discriminating against Muslims, treating them as “second-class citizens” and giving “preferential treatment” to other religious groups (Economic Times, 2019). India’s increasingly right-wing political climate, which often promotes Hindu nationalism at the expense of other cultures and religions, is also exacerbating fault lines between Hindu and Muslim hijras, a third gender community (Goel, 2019).
To curb the quickly escalating mass protests against the citizenship law all over India, another internet ban was imposed in Assam. It was only when India’s first transgender judge, Swati Bidhan Baruah, along with others, filed a petition in court challenging the law that the ban was lifted after nine days of internet blackout in Assam (Agarwala 2019). In other places in India, women led the protests, particularly Muslim women, with a weeks-long sit-in against the citizenship law where some participants have become icons, like eighty-two-year-old toothless Bilkis, endearingly called “Gangster Granny” (Masih 2020). Thousands of people from the LGBT community who were adversely affected by the citizenship law also marched in protest as many of them were “thrown out of their homes in childhood,” and there is an unnecessary burden put on those with name changes and “spelling mistakes” in identity documents (Kuchay 2020). Moreover, gender and sexual minority groups from all across India have been raising their voices in protest, including the All India Network of Sex Workers, Telangana Hijra Intersex Trans Samiti, the Queer Muslim Project, Pink List, TransNow Collective, Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA), National Federation of Indian Women, and many others (Chandra, 2020). Such acts of resistance join forces with global trends in women’s movements, like the Aurat March in Pakistan, thereby becoming an intrinsic part of fourth-wave feminism (Kurian 2020).
Definition: fourth-wave feminism
began around 2012 to address sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture, among other issues. It is characterized by a focus on the global empowerment of women, the greater inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices, and the use of social media in activism.
Although isolated, the above examples challenge normative gendered duties toward the process of nation building despite the pressure on women to do the reproductive work of nations—biologically, culturally, and symbolically (see Yuval-Davis 1993). LGBT populations and other gender minority groups who are often forgotten in the process of nation building are also stepping forward to make their voices heard through protests and marches in resistance to a patriarchal and heteronormative process of nation building in South Asia (Saigol 2019). Therefore, the relationship between nationalism, gender, and sexuality is culturally and historically contingent upon each other and is continually evolving and redefining itself in South Asia.
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Gender inequality is not “one homogeneous phenomenon, but a collection of disparate and inter-linked problems” (Sen 2001, 35). Consequently, gender-based violence is one of the most challenging problems in South Asia. Statistics show that between 2007 and 2016, there were four cases of rape reported every hour in India, making India the most dangerous country for women in the world (Goldsmith and Beresford 2018). After the rape of a twenty-three-year-old student in New Delhi triggered a national uproar, the issue of women’s safety in India attracted international media headlines, and social media buzz also declared that India is no place for women (Lakshmi 2012). Since then, many international governments have issued warnings and advised women against solo travel in most countries in South Asia. Feminist observers point out, however, that it is always the women who are issued warnings and who ironically have to be controlled for their own safety and protection instead of the perpetrators of violence.
In the South Asian context, gender-based violence starts at birth or even before. Prenatal sex determination leads to an increasing number of sex-selective abortions and infanticide of girls because of male preference. Therefore, unlike the growing trend in the United States of celebrating parenthood through “gender reveal” parties (King-Miller 2018), after finding out the sex of a child, in India prenatal sex determination has been banned since 1994. Stories of disappointment on the birth of a female child and distribution of sweets on the birth of a male child are so common they have become folklore. There is also a practice of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) among girls who are between six to eight years old in the Bohra communities of India (Lawyers Collective 2017) and Pakistan (Baig 2015), and it is estimated that up to 80 percent of Bohra women have been through this procedure.
Definition: female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)
surgeries to alter the external female genitalia. It may include cliterotectomy, removing and/or suturing the labia.
In Nepal, intersex children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds suffer from intersex genital mutilation (IGM) practices that are irreversible and harmful (CEDAW 2018). Furthermore, there are known cases of gender-reassignment surgeries being performed on children born with intersex variations in India (Goel 2014; also see Fausto-Sterling 1993). The medical interventions and genetic deselection are based on the presupposition that intersex traits are treated as disorders in South Asia (see Srishti Madurai 2019). Such operations by medical doctors in hospitals are done to prefix a gender that can then be assigned to an intersex child based on their cosmetically “fixed” perceived sex characteristic because there is shame in being a parent to an intersex child in India (Goel 2018a). Parents get away with insisting that the intersex child be surgically rendered a boy even though it is easier to create functional female organs in cases of sex-selective surgeries in India (Sharma, 2014). However, as an exception, in April 2019, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu became the first in Asia and second globally to ban sex-selective surgeries for intersex children (Daksnamurthy 2019).
On December 5, 2019, a controversial Transgender Person’s Bill became Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act in India (see links in “Resources for Further Exploration”). Under this act, intersex births are inaccurately assigned as transgender births. Such confusion exists because often gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics are conflated terms. Furthermore, the vague language of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act implies that surgery—plus approval from a medical authority and district magistrate—is required for a person to legally change their gender identity. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act also defines family as only those related by blood or law despite the National Human Rights Commission survey conveying that only 2 percent of transgender persons in India live with their biological families, failing to accommodate the alternative kinship structures of the remaining 98 percent trans population (Goel, 2018b).
As India is a strongly patriarchal and patrilocal society, there is a significant preference for having sons over daughters. In a majority of cases, after marriage, the daughter moves into a joint household with the husband’s family with a dowry. Though illegal since 1961, dowries in India are widespread and are given by the bride’s family to the groom’s: this practice forces women to be seen as a liability by their families. Such a mindset is so ingrained in the cultural fabric that girls as young as seven years old from poverty-stricken families are forced to marry illegally, resulting in underage brides (Strochlic and Khandelwal, 2019). At present, India has the highest number of child brides in the world (Wangchuk, 2018). To tackle this problem, the Indian government came out with innovative “Dear Daughter Schemes” aiming to encourage the birth of female children by gifting one hundred thousand Indian rupees (approx. 1400 USD) to the first and second daughters of a family for their wedding after their eighteenth birthday (Times of India, 2019). Similar sentiments have also been echoed by full-page newspaper advertisements on ways a father can save ten million Indian rupees (approx. US\$140,000), which can then be invested in his daughter’s wedding—in which dowry has been camouflaged as a “gift” for the daughter (Roy 2016).
Definition: patriarchal (patriarchy)
a dynamic system of power and inequality that privileges men and boys over women and girls in social interactions and institutions.
Definition: patrilocal
married individuals live with or near the husband’s father’s family.
Subverting the gaze on the daughter as being a “costly” property, other attempts in the form of public information films from India with antidowry themes have centered themselves around the idea that dowry is the amount of money paid by the bride to “buy” the groom and thereby insinuate that it is, in fact, the boy who should be treated as property by turning them into “objects” (Dhillon 2016). Reengineering new ideas with such role reversals is equally problematic as this becomes a harbinger of the same patriarchal notions of ownership and control that lead to gender inequality. But desperate attempts like these satirical public service advertisements by the Indian government aim to attack the notions of family prestige—the weight of which is placed on women—by turning the tables on men.
According to the 2019 Global Report published by OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), the lifetime prevalence of domestic violence against women is 25 percent in Nepal, 29 percent in India, 53 percent in Bangladesh, and 85 percent in Pakistan (see link to SIGI in “Resources for Further Exploration”). Within the same report, it has also been found that the proportion of the female population justifying domestic violence is 43 percent in Nepal, 22 percent in India, 28 percent in Bangladesh, and 42 percent in Pakistan. Examples highlighting the rural-urban divide bring to light the ongoing practices of violence against women through “feudal laws” of disinheritance and forced marriages that lead to “blade-cutting,” “acid-throwing, stove-burning homicide and nose-cutting” to take revenge from women (Times News Network, 2010; Niaz, 2004, 60). In a majority of South Asian countries, marital rape is not recognized (e.g., Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) or the penalties are not severe (e.g., Nepal). Given the rampant practices of gender-based violence in South Asia, it is an underrecognized cause of injury and deaths among women, LGBT communities, and gender-diverse populations.
CONCLUSION
According to the 2019 Global Report published by OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) that measures discrimination against women in social institutions including 180 country notes and ranking 120 countries, there is “very high” gender inequality in Pakistan and Bangladesh and “medium” levels of the same in Nepal and India. Such disparity in terms of gender equality appears paradoxical, when on the one hand there are several countries with examples of female heads of government: Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. This is a feat yet to be achieved even by the United States. And yet, despite allocating for political participation of women, women’s agency in the political process is debatable and often seen as a kind of tokenism that does not lead to gender equality (Ban and Rao 2008).
The gender disparity in South Asia demands more local explanations compared to other parts of the world to understand the dichotomous contradiction in attitudes and practices toward gender and sexuality. Inclusion of gender-diverse people, particularly intersex births and the “third” gender population in indices measuring sex ratios and other aspects of gender inequality in South Asia needs to be developed globally. Insufficient data further marginalize the most vulnerable population and widen the gender disparity data gap between different gender and sexual minorities in South Asia.
On the one hand, menstruating Goddess Kamakhya is worshipped in the Indian state of Assam (Das 2008), on the other, in Maharashtra, poor women sugarcane harvesters, some of whom are still in their twenties, are forced to have hysterectomies to stop menstruating (Pandey 2019). Similarly, transphobia and rampant acts of violence against people from the “third” gender contradict the revered attitude toward those who are simultaneously worshipped as cultural demigoddesses in India (Goel 2019). Such ironic regional inequity stretching over the same geographic region becomes a barrier to finding a universal solution to the problem of gender disparity in South Asia. As a consequence, there is a need to strengthen local innovations that aim to bridge the gaps between the rural-urban, class-caste demographic divide of women, nonbinary, and LGBT populations in South Asia.
The chapters in “Part II: South Asia” present anthropological research that showcases some of the ethnic and gender diversity and struggles presented in this introduction to the region. Chapter 4 explores how patriarchy and ethnic and caste hierarchies combine to limit women’s access to legal citizenship in Nepal, depriving them of the attendant benefits of such a status. This chapter presents an example of how the ethnic diversity of the region and legacies of the caste system complicate the politics of belonging and disadvantage women’s and third-gendered people’s access to the rights and privileges of being a legal citizen. Chapter 6 focuses on the Sherpas, an ethnic group in Nepal, and the push to incorporate Sherpa women into wage labor as a way to advance this impoverished country’s economic development. However, incorporation into wage labor may not actually benefit the women tasked with implementing this national development strategy. Chapter 5 explores gender diversity, presenting an analysis of the kinship and family structures that operate among the third-gender Hijras in India. Finally, the two profiles at the end of this introduction to the region introduce us to two nonprofit groups addressing the issue of violence against women: one in India and one in the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam.
KEY TERMS
dowry: payments made to the groom’s family by the bride’s family before marriage.
female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C): surgeries to alter the external female genitalia. It may include cliterotectomy, removing and/or suturing the labia.
fourth-wave feminism: began around 2012 to address sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture, among other issues. It is characterized by a focus on the global empowerment of women, the greater inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices, and the use of social media in activism.
ghoonghat: a headcovering or headscarf worn by some married Hindu, Jain and Sikh women to cover their heads, and often their faces.
nikah halala: a patriarchal practice whereby women divorced through triple talaq must consummate a second marriage and get divorced again in order to remarry their first husbands.
patriarchal (patriarchy): a dynamic system of power and inequality that privileges men and boys over women and girls in social interactions and institutions.
patrilocal: married individuals live with or near the husband’s father’s family.
purdah: a practice in certain Muslim and Hindu societies of physical segregation of men and women and the requirement that women cover their bodies in enveloping clothing to conceal their form from men and strangers.
subaltern: a person from a colonized population who is of low socioeconomic status, displaced to the margins of a society and with little social agency.
triple talaq: a form of Islamist divorce used by some Muslims in India that permits a man to legally divorce his wife by simply uttering the word talaq (the Arabic word for “divorce”) three times orally, in written form or, more recently, in electronic form.
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PROFILE: BLANK NOISE: STREET ACTIONS AND DIGITAL INTERVENTIONS AGAINST STREET SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN INDIA
Hemangini Gupta
When Jasmeen Patheja was an undergraduate student in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) in 2002, she began taking public transport frequently. As she rode buses, took auto-rickshaws, and walked along city streets, she found herself subjected to the range of acts that constitute street sexual harassment and assault: groping, winking, pinching, lewd comments, and men pushing up against her in public. In South Asia, street sexual harassment is often dismissed with the use of the colloquial term “eve teasing” to describe it. As “teasing,” it becomes seen as a form of harmless banter, even play, something that can be brushed aside and not taken seriously.
Patheja began asking her friends and classmates if they also experienced such harassment—and they did. The challenge was in bringing people to recognize that what they considered to be routine behavior was in fact harassment; it was so normalized as an aspect of everyday life that women came to expect it every time they stepped out of their homes. She created Blank Noise in 2003 as a community arts project to respond to such harassment through street interventions and public actions. “Blank” references the feeling of numbness and disbelief felt after being harassed; “Noise” indexes the simultaneous eruption of confusion, anger, hurt, and pain—a cacophony of mixed signals.
Since 2003, Blank Noise has invited volunteers to join a range of innovative and hard-hitting public actions and digital interventions. Initially these were oriented toward raising public awareness about street sexual harassment as a criminal offense (punishable by Indian law) and thus a serious infraction. For example, in one street action, volunteers—mostly young women—appeared at a busy intersection when the streetlights turned red. They walked across the zebra crossing to face the sea of commuters waiting for their light to turn; on their T-shirts were pasted one letter of the phrase “Y R U LOOKING AT ME?” In another, volunteers fanned out on the railings of a bustling thoroughfare where many of them had been groped and harassed in the past. During the intervention, however, they occupied the space not as anxious women but as confident members of a joint action. Women leaned back on the railings, looking passersby right in the eye, lounging in public, and enjoying the feeling of occupying public space as watchers rather than as the watched. When small crowds began to gather, other volunteers handed out pamphlets describing street sexual harassment as a serious offense and engaging in conversations around the experience of it.
Volunteers are called “action heroes,” “sheroes,” or “theyroes”—those who actively subvert the dominant experience of being harassed to question, engage, and subvert expected ways in which gendered bodies occupy public spaces. More recent interventions engender conversations around public space. In one intervention, “Talk to Me,” volunteers ventured into a dark stretch of road that was locally termed “Rapist’s Lane.” Here they set up tables and invited passersby to stop and chat with them. Participants across socioeconomic class, caste, and gender affiliations were able to move beyond stereotypes of each other to actually converse; each interaction ended with the Blank Noise volunteer offering their guest a rose. The aim was to reshape “Rapist Lane” into “Safest Lane” through respectful conversation and interaction.
Currently Blank Noise is working on “I Never Ask for It,” a project ongoing since 2004 in which they invite people to share clothes that they wore while being harassed along with a brief note. All kinds of clothes have been collected over the years toward a final exhibit, intended as a massive material testimony to the widespread prevalence of harassment and evidence that it is not attire that invites unwanted attention. People are invited to bring the clothes they wore when harassed or abused, and these “garment testimonials” represent violations across spaces of home, street, and work. Through “I Never Ask for It” Blank Noise intends to put an end to the consistent use of victim blaming in sexual assault.
Blank Noise is volunteer driven and supported online at blanknoise.org.
PROFILE: VIETNAM WOMEN’S SHELTER: CONTRADICTIONS AND COMPLEXITIES
Lynn Kwiatkowski
Domestic violence occurs all over the world. Violence perpetrated by husbands against their wives is a widespread problem in Vietnamese society, despite the approval in 2007 of the first law to overtly make domestic violence illegal. The only survey conducted on a national level in Vietnam, from 2009 to 2010, found that 58 percent of the women interviewed who had ever been married reported experiencing at least one form of domestic violence perpetrated by their husband in their lifetime (including physical, sexual, or emotional violence), and 27 percent had experienced domestic violence during the previous twelve months (GSO, UN-JPGE, and WHO 2010, 21). Anthropologists have been contributing to our understanding of domestic violence cross-culturally through their ethnographic research and their work to develop measures to end violence toward women. This profile explores the contradictions and complexities that can emerge as global values and structures addressing gender violence are translated at the local level into specific societies by examining a Hanoi shelter for women experiencing domestic violence that was originally based on a European model of shelters. (I will refer to this shelter using a pseudonym, “Vietnam Women’s Shelter,” to protect the identities of the participants in my research study.) As part of contemporary globalization processes involving the circulation of gender ideologies, funding, and professional expertise among diverse societies, Western governments and Western-supported international organizations have introduced to Vietnamese society gender discourses and institutional frameworks that provide a new value regime. These Western ideas include condemning gender violence, novel modes of assistance for women experiencing domestic violence, and innovative approaches to preventing domestic and other forms of gender violence. Some Vietnamese government personnel have reinterpreted elements of Western orientations to gender violence to more closely support cultural and political values of the Vietnamese state and the local sociocultural systems within which abused women’s lives are embedded.
In the mid-1980s, the ruling Communist Party implemented a set of economic policy reforms, referred to as “renovation,” or doi moi policies, which instituted a socialist-oriented market economy. Social reforms also emerged, including the expansion of international and local nongovernmental organizations. These reforms included Vietnam’s greater engagement with international organizations, such as the UN, and global social movements to end violence toward women. While the Vietnamese government has promoted gender equality since the 1940s, domestic violence has persisted. Some of the sources of husbands’ abuse of their wives are patriarchal ideologies and patrilineal kinship that have been, in part, influenced by Confucianism, which penetrated Vietnamese culture as early as the period of Chinese colonization, beginning in 111 BCE. With recent renovation policies, and an associated renewal of the household economy, traditional family and gender ideologies have been reemphasized by the Vietnamese government and society, while gender equality is simultaneously reinforced through new laws and practices. Western discourses introduced by international organizations, particularly since the 1990s, asserting women’s right to be free of gender discrimination and violence (including within the home), conflict with recently revitalized traditional Confucian values that promote, in part through government-sponsored programs, women’s responsibilities to ensure their families’ happiness, including their duty to meet their husbands’ needs. Vietnamese women who are abused by their husbands negotiate these two value systems as they seek assistance in ending their husbands’ violence.
Vietnam Women’s Shelter is one of only approximately four shelters in the country that have characteristics similar to Western shelters. It began as a project sponsored by the Spanish government’s Spanish Agency for International Development Co-operation (AECID) and was implemented in 2007 in conjunction with the Vietnam Women’s Union’s Center for Women and Development (CWD). The Vietnam Women’s Union is a national mass organization largely financially supported by the ruling Communist Party, making the shelter a government-funded institution. This type of shelter constituted a new approach to domestic violence in Vietnam, involving housing abused women and their children for up to three months, or longer if needed. It provides services at no cost to the women, including safe accommodation, employment orientation, vocational training, legal assistance, psychological counseling, health care, education, and other services (Kwiatkowski 2011). Shelter residents can also continue to receive follow-up support for up to two years. The counselors of the Women’s Union CWD also work with abusive husbands. Most current and former Vietnam Women’s Shelter residents I interviewed found the assistance they received at the shelter to be integral to their emotional, social, and economic survival and their ability to address the domestic violence.
While the services of Vietnam Women’s Shelter were highly beneficial to many shelter residents, the shelter personnel and abused women also faced difficulties. Although abused women accessing the shelter’s services praised the help they received, many also found contradictory orientations to their situation of violence from state personnel in their local communities, including local leaders of the Women’s Union. The center personnel strongly prioritized the safety of the abused women and their children, advocating ideas such as women’s potential autonomy from their abusive husbands. Conforming to the strong cultural value placed on women’s integration within their families and communities, ensuring protection and support for an abused woman who would like to return to their communities, and carrying out formal government procedures for addressing domestic violence (such as reporting domestic violence to the nearest police station in the women’s community, the government commune People’s Committee, or the community’s leaders), the shelter also contacts local government authorities from an abused woman’s community and her family, with the woman’s permission, and, in some cases, develops a plan with the woman to reintegrate into her community. This is mandated, according to a counselor working with Vietnam Women’s Shelter and the CWD because this shelter “belongs to the [government supported] Central Committee of the Vietnam Women’s Union. … We have to work with the local authorities.” The counselor further stated that “our solution is very different from those of shelters in foreign countries. [This is a shelter that] has to work with the community authorities, other relevant [government] agencies, the [abused woman’s] family, and the abuser. Then, this is a good opportunity to communicate with them. In order to solve a case [of domestic violence], we need to change the knowledge and understanding of the whole community, the people around [the abused woman]. It is a circle, starting with the individual [abused woman], then interacting with the family, and then the community. As a result, their awareness of domestic violence will be changed. Communication about domestic violence prevention and the domestic violence law is then based on this case.”
Abused women found that the local state personnel’s views and practices were, however, often antithetical to Vietnam Women’s Shelter’s priorities. For example, drawing on traditional gender and family ideologies and state laws, some police officers protected abusive husbands from punishment rather than ensuring the safety of the abused women; some abused women encountered corruption in the judicial system; some Women’s Union leaders encouraged its members, during local level meetings of the Women’s Union, to meet their husbands’ needs; and some government officials, who are only minimally educated about gender violence, blamed women for the violence from their husbands and pressured them to return to their families through government required reconciliation processes. A counselor working with the shelter said, “The commune [level] Women’s Union prioritizes reconciliation. … It is very common that when the victim returns to her commune [with shelter personnel] to work with relevant [state] agencies, they will judge her behavior rather than focus on handling the husband’s violent behavior. … And the abuser once again thinks that he has done nothing wrong, that it is her fault. Therefore, they don’t change their behavior because they haven’t done anything wrong.” She continued, “[In one case of a woman who had experienced domestic violence], we had a meeting at the [commune level government] People’s Committee. All the related people sat together. There were many people from her husband’s family, and they blamed her for having many faults, such as not being clever, being dirty, and having other faults. Then they asked us, ‘Why do you support a case like this? The next time, you should learn a lesson from your experience; you shouldn’t support such a woman.’ … Participants [of the meeting] were the [shelter personnel], a woman from the [government] Family Department, the Women’s Union, the police. They criticized us for helping her.” If abused women were not already situated at Vietnam Women’s Shelter, which has limited capacity, there was no (or very little) long-term protection provided by local state personnel to abused women.
The multiple, contradictory Women’s Union and other Vietnamese government discourses about domestic violence depict social and cultural change that is occurring as global ideologies of gender violence are introduced into Vietnamese society and as the government shifts its economic orientation. Having been initially introduced and financially supported by the Spanish government’s international development agency, AECID, the Vietnam Women’s Shelter provides an example of how globalization processes circulate Western professional expertise, new values (including gender, marital, and family values), and innovative social approaches and infrastructures to assist marginalized women. While often helpful to abused women, as Western approaches to gender violence are implemented in Vietnamese society, Vietnamese people interpret them in culturally meaningful ways that sometimes conflict with Western cultural views of gender relations, marriage, and family. Women’s Union and other Vietnamese government discourses about domestic violence also demonstrate the multilayered state approaches to domestic violence that are being negotiated by state actors. Demonstrations of the value of shelters of this type through anthropological research and advocacy, specifically the shelter personnel’s approach to domestic violence that prioritizes the safety and needs of the women (and of the complexities Vietnam Women’s Shelter personnel face) can contribute to making access to support and protection a reality for abused women in need.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Kwiatkowski, Lynn. 2016. “Feminist Anthropology: Approaching Domestic Violence in Northern Việt Nam.” In Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein, 234–255. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Kwiatkowski, Lynn. 2011. “Domestic Violence and the ‘Happy Family’ in Northern Vietnam.” Anthropology Now 3, no. 3: 20–28.
• Merry, Sally Engle. 2009. Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective. Malden, MA; Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
• Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Plesset, Sonja. 2006. Sheltering Women: Negotiating Gender and Violence in Northern Italy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the brave women who have experienced domestic violence and the strong individuals I interviewed in Vietnam who provide aid and protection to them. I owe special thanks to Dr. Nguyen Thi Hoai Duc, Dr. Nguyen Van Suu, and Dr. Nguyen Huong for providing me affiliation with their institutions and tremendous help to me in my research. I would also like to thank Le An Ni for her tireless efforts and dedication to assisting me in my research. Members of the Vietnam Women’s Union generously offered significant time, information, and insights into shelter and other approaches to assisting abused women for which I am grateful. Without the assistance of all of these individuals, this research would not have been possible. A special thanks to Nadine Fernandez and Katie Nelson for their guidance on this profile and for all their efforts in making this open-access book on gender a reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GSO, UN-JPGE, and WHO (General Statistics Office of Viet Nam, United Nations-Government of Viet Nam Joint Programme on Gender Equality, and World Health Organization). 2010. ‘Keeping Silent Is Dying.’ Results from the National Study on Domestic Violence Against Women in Viet Nam. Hanoi: General Statistics Office of Viet Nam, United Nations-Government of Viet Nam Joint Programme on Gender Equality, and World Health Organization.
Kwiatkowski, Lynn. 2011. “Engaging the Challenges of Alleviating Wife Abuse in Northern Vietnam.” Practicing Anthropology 33, no. 3: 32–37. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Gendered_Lives%3A_Global_Issues/02%3A_South_Asia/2.01%3A_South_Asia-_Introducing_the_Region.txt |
In this chapter the authors discuss how Nepal, a small country located between two powerful nations (China and India), struggles to maintain its sovereignty and national identity. The state’s politics of belonging exclude certain groups of women from citizenship. Caste, class, national origin, and ethnic markers like language intersect to affect women’s access to the rights granted to citizens.
Learning Objectives
• Explain how normative concepts of gender and family have shaped Nepal’s most recent citizenship laws, resulting in many people’s exclusion from full citizenship rights.
• Articulate the connection between controlling national borders, citizenship, and reproduction in Nepal.
• Contextualize Nepal’s citizenship laws within broader global trends.
In many places around the world, states attempt to control the national, racial, ethnic, or other demographic characteristics of their citizen populations by adopting policies that directly or indirectly influence biological reproduction (for examples from Egypt, the United States, and China, see Bier 2010, Collins 1998, and Fong 2004, respectively). In the United States, for example, Donald Trump initially rose to political prominence by casting doubt on the birthplace and family relationships of then-president Barack Obama. This racially motivated strategy of questioning Obama’s status as a legitimate US citizen appealed to a wide swath of the US population who implicitly or explicitly link “whiteness” with “Americanness.” After being elected president in 2016, Trump continued to appeal to this base of voters by proposing to end birthright citizenship (the legal policy that every person born on US soil is a US citizen, which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution) and seeking to severely restrict immigration, particularly from Latin America and Muslim-majority countries. During Trump’s presidency, access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care has been under attack in several US states. These are just a few examples of how, in the words of professor and feminist critic Laura Briggs, “All politics [have become] reproductive politics” in the contemporary United States (2017).
In this chapter, we will provide a case study that illustrates the dynamics of gender, reproduction, citizenship, and nationalism in contemporary Nepal, focusing on the years immediately before and after Nepal’s adoption of a new constitution in September 2015. We will demonstrate that the Nepali state’s efforts to influence reproduction can have serious impacts on the lives of cisgender women, who are held primarily responsible for the task of reproducing the kind of citizens that the state desires. We will also show how gender politics intersects with geopolitics in Nepal, a small country that borders two larger and more powerful countries (India and China), and explain how this intersection has affected Nepal’s citizenship laws. Even though Nepal’s border with India is technically an open border, with thousands of people moving back and forth between the two countries every day, many of Nepal’s political leaders are concerned about maintaining the distinction between the two countries in order to preserve Nepal’s sovereignty. One of the ways they have sought to maintain this distinction is by passing citizenship laws that are discriminatory both toward cisgender women and toward the people who live along the Nepal-India border. The questions of “what does it mean to be Nepali?” and “who counts as fully Nepali?” lie at the heart of public debates around the issue of citizenship. In the final section of this chapter, we will focus on how women who are doubly marginalized by virtue of their gender and ethnicity are seeking to answer these questions in their own words.
Broadly speaking, citizenship laws around the world tend to fall into two major categories: jus soli and jus sanguinis. In addition to these major categories, many countries provide other routes to obtaining naturalized citizenship, such as military service, visa lotteries, or sponsorship by citizen relatives. In countries that follow jus soli (right of soil), people are entitled to citizenship if they were born within the geographic territory of the country. In countries that follow jus sanguinis (right of blood), people are entitled to citizenship if their parents are citizens of the country in question; thus, parentage is more important than place of birth. Nepal’s citizenship laws follow the jus sanguinis principle. The most prominent public debates over citizenship and gender in contemporary Nepal are focused on the question of whether women, as mothers, are legally capable of passing on their citizenship to their children. In effect, the citizenship clauses of the constitution of 2015 say that a man’s right to pass on citizenship to his children is absolute; a woman’s right to pass on citizenship to her children is conditional. As we will show, this discriminatory statute is rooted not only in the fact that over the course of Nepal’s recent legal history, the Nepali state has linked women’s identity and legal status to that of their male kin—a pattern that Seira Tamang has described as “state patriarchy” (2000)—but also in social and geopolitical tensions with India, particularly with regard to nationalistic fears about Indian encroachment into Nepali territory and politics (Grossman-Thompson and Dennis 2017).
Definition: jus sanguinis
the legal principle of granting citizenship through blood (family relationships).
Definition: jus soli
the legal principle of granting citizenship through soil (place of birth).
While we are focusing in this chapter on the debate about cisgender women’s rights to pass on citizenship to the children who are born to them, we recognize that this is only one facet of the complex relationship between gender and citizenship in Nepal. For example, although Nepal officially recognized “third gender” as a legal category in 2007, many people still struggle to get citizenship papers and other legal documents that properly reflect their gender identity. As a result, trans men and women who would prefer to have their documents reflect their identities as “male” or “female” may be inaccurately lumped into the “third gender” category, which is used as a catchall category for anyone who is not cisgender and heterosexual. Having documents that do not match one’s gender identity can lead to many forms of harassment and marginalization.
Currently, citizenship laws in Nepal and most of the public debates about those laws are based on the assumption that families are composed of cisgender heterosexual couples who reproduce through intercourse leading to pregnancy and childbirth. This assumption leaves out a wide array of people of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. It also overlooks the fact that there are many ways for families to have children, such as assisted reproductive technologies, surrogacy, and adoption. Therefore, activists who represent Nepal’s gender and sexual minorities are fighting a difficult battle against a legal system and a broader social milieu rooted in patriarchal, cisnormative, and heteronormative ideas about gender and family (please refer to the book’s introduction to review definitions of these terms). In this chapter, we will sometimes use the term “women” to refer to people who are perceived to have the capacity to bear children, as this reflects the language that is used by the majority of our interlocutors; however, we want to highlight that cisgender women and their children are not the only people who are directly affected by the gendered framing of Nepal’s citizenship laws.
The stakes of acquiring citizenship documents are high. Without documentation of citizenship, Nepali people are denied not only their political rights, such as the right to vote or hold elected office, but also are unable to register marriages or births, pursue higher education, have bank accounts, own land, get driver’s licenses, or get passports. According to the most recent estimates, 5.4 million people in Nepal do not have citizenship; this constitutes 24 percent of the population over the age of sixteen (US Department of State 2019, 17).
CITIZENSHIP IN NEPAL’S HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In order to understand citizenship debates in Nepal as they have played out in recent years, it is necessary to understand the dynamics that have shaped Nepali citizenship in the past. Nepal was a monarchy led by a Hindu king since the foundation of the modern nation-state in the eighteenth century. Caste, the system of hereditary class that follows Hindu principles of purity and pollution, was an important structuring principle of the law, including laws that regulated marriage, family structure, and inheritance (Höfer 1979). Ethnocentrism was central to the Nepali nation-building project, and notions of what it meant to be a “Nepali citizen” were shaped by policies of exclusion against women, ethnic minorities, and people on the lower end of the Hindu caste hierarchy. Even though Nepal is a country of more than a hundred distinct ethnic and linguistic groups, the perspectives of high-caste Hindu men from the hills have historically been legally and socially dominant.
The Hindu monarch Mahendra Shah came into power in 1956, and in 1960, he consolidated his hold over Nepali politics and society by installing the Panchayat system. Under the Panchayat system, Nepal was declared “an independent, indivisible and sovereign monarchical Hindu State” with Nepali as its national language, and all executive, legislative, and judicial power was ultimately derived from the king. There was great state investment in creating a homogenized populace, and the slogan of the government was “one king, one country, one language, one culture.” Although Hinduism had been an important source of royal authority in Nepal since at least the 1700s, Mahendra was the first to declare Nepal a constitutionally Hindu nation in the 1960s. Nepal remained a constitutionally Hindu nation until after the Maoist civil war ended in 2006, when secularism was officially adopted and the last king, Gyanendra, was forced to abdicate. Thus, the relationship between Hinduism and the Nepali state has been a significant factor in shaping concepts of Nepali national identity.
By 1967 “partyless democracy” was added to the preamble of the constitution, and all forms of oppositional politics were effectively declared illegal. The policy of enforced homogeneity discriminated against people belonging to different ethnic groups who did not speak the language or share the cultural characteristics of those deemed “authentically Nepali” by Mahendra; namely, upper-caste Hindu Nepali-speaking people from the hilly regions of Nepal. Simultaneously, high-caste people from the hills were privileged because of their knowledge of the Nepali language and practice of norms and customs that the state deemed authentically Nepali. While these upper-caste Hill groups comprise only around 30 percent of Nepal’s population, over the course of generations, discriminatory state policies have helped upper-caste people from the hills accrue wealth, economic opportunities, education, and political power that is vastly disproportionate to the size of their population. The capitalized term “Hill” is a translation of the Nepali-language term “Pahadi” (pahad = hill). Like the term “Madhesi,” it denotes a broad cultural category as well as a geographic region. Hill culture was also patriarchal, which was reflected in state policies, including those pertaining to citizenship. These laws assumed that women’s identities derived from their male relatives—first from fathers, then from husbands—even though this kinship system was not shared among all of Nepal’s ethnic groups.
A Citizenship Act was passed in 1964, during the Panchayat period, which distinguished between naturalized citizens and citizens by descent. To acquire citizenship by descent, one’s father needed to be a Nepali citizen. To become a naturalized citizen, one needed to speak Nepali. In line with the monocultural patriarchal ethos of the Panchayat state, these provisions discriminated against women, who could not pass on citizenship to their children, and Madhesis, people belonging to the southern plains of Nepal.
Definition: naturalized citizens
In the current Nepali context, naturalized citizenship is the limited category of citizenship. It is available to people who cannot prove that their fathers were Nepali citizens but have some other family relationship with a Nepali citizen (e.g., their mothers or husbands are Nepali citizens).
Definition: citizens by descent
in the current Nepali context, citizenship by descent is the full/first-class category of citizenship. It is available to people who can prove that their fathers are Nepali citizens.
Madhesis are people who originate from a broad swath of the southern plains of Nepal, bordering the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Although people of different religions and caste groups reside in the Madhes, they share strong cultural ties across the border in India. They speak Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, and Hindi, and many do not speak Nepali. The Nepali language requirement for citizenship in the 1964 Act meant that many Madhesis were effectively denied access to citizenship regardless of factors such as place of birth, place of residence, or family ties in Nepal.
Definition: Madhes
the southern part of Nepal, bordering India. It is linguistically and culturally distinct in many ways from the hilly regions of Nepal. The Madhes is also called the Terai or Tarai.
Advocates for a more democratic system organized a movement against the tyranny of the Panchayat system in 1990. This “People’s Movement” resulted in protests by thousands of people in the streets of Kathmandu. After the protests of 1990 a new constitution was promulgated. The 1990 constitution retained the legal distinction between naturalized citizenship and citizenship by descent; however, it also introduced an important change by allowing that one could now speak any “national language” in order to obtain Nepali citizenship, rather than the Nepali language only. This meant that many Madhesi people who did not speak Nepali were now eligible for citizenship, although bureaucratic obstacles to acquiring citizenship remained. For example, a large majority of government officials overseeing the citizenship certification process were from the hills, and many were hesitant to give Nepali citizenship to Madhesis, whom they deemed to be potentially Indian citizens (because of cultural or linguistic factors, family ties, place of birth, and so forth). Since dual citizenship is illegal in Nepal, the actual or potential possession of Indian citizenship renders applicants ineligible for Nepali citizenship. There is also a widespread negative stereotype among Hill Nepalis that Madhesis are liars and cheats, which played into bureaucrats’ anxieties about granting them citizenship.
The 1990 People’s Movement did not lead to the democratic transformations that many hoped for. Due to this disillusionment, a Nepali Maoist insurgency began in rural areas of the midwestern hills in 1996. The Maoists’ list of demands included: the end of the monarchy, state secularism, federalism, land reform, a robust welfare state, and gender equality, particularly as it related to women’s ability to inherit property. The Maoist insurgency was long and bloody, with seventeen thousand people killed by state security forces and the rebels from 1996 to 2005. It culminated in the second People’s Movement of 2006, where the Maoists and a coalition of seven parliamentary parties reached a compromise in which the Maoists agreed to support a multiparty democracy. This agreement unified the political opposition against the monarchy. Nineteen days of continuous protests in Kathmandu and beyond forced the king, Gyanendra, to yield executive authority to a prime minister in April 2006; Gyandendra was forced to fully abdicate the monarchy in 2008. “His Majesty’s Government” now became the “Government of Nepal,” and the country was declared secular. The political parties, including the Maoists, set out to restructure the country by writing an interim constitution.
During the writing of this interim constitution in 2006, Madhesis, as well as other historically marginalized groups including Dalits (“lower caste” people) and Janajatis (indigenous peoples) demanded decentralization and ethnicity-based federalism as a system of governance that would change the hill-centered political and cultural system that had been a remnant of the Panchayat era. After the Maoists joined the political mainstream, a mass movement took place in Madhes in early 2007. Although Madhesis had been involved in political organizing against hill domination at least from the 1950s, the scale of the 2007 movement was far larger than movements from the past. The Madhesis were angered by the fact that their needs had been sacrificed by politicians who used them as a support base but did not advocate for them. These protests were motivated by the fact that since the 1950s a combination of state negligence and exploitation had left Madhesis disproportionately poor, jobless, uneducated, and are denied cultural membership in the Nepali nation.
The 2007 Madhes uprisings came as an unexpected shock to the establishment but did lead then Prime Minister G. P. Koirala of the Nepali Congress to declare that principles of inclusion would be enshrined in the constitution. The Interim Constitution was amended to include a provision that guaranteed a “democratic, federal system.” As a result of the progressive wave that came with the protests of 2006 and 2007, the citizenship clauses were also notably altered in the constitution. It now specified that one could obtain citizenship by descent through one’s mother or father. There was also a one-time distribution of citizenship by birth for permanent residents, through which many Madhesis acquired citizenship documents. While there were still some legal and bureaucratic barriers to obtaining citizenship, the changes in the 2007 interim constitution were more ostensibly egalitarian than citizenship provisions had ever been.
CAMPAIGNING FOR CITIZENSHIP, 2014–2015
In September 2014, newspapers reported that the lawmakers who were drafting the constitutional provisions on citizenship had included language that would require applicants to prove the citizenship of both father and mother. This was a clear step back from the provisions of the Interim Constitution of 2007, which had technically allowed for citizenship to be granted through father or mother. Galvanized by this threat to citizenship rights, activists began an escalating series of protests and demonstrations in fall 2014 that continued into 2015. These activists included a wide array of people and groups, such as the Chaukath feminist network, the Forum for Women, Law, and Development, and the community organized through a Facebook page titled “Citizenship in the Name of the Mother.”
The citizenship debate played out openly in the form of frequent street protests, speeches by politicians and public figures, discussion programs organized by civil society groups, and a flood of impassioned editorials in both Nepali and English language newspapers. Activists, policymakers, and intellectuals extensively used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Change.org to inform the general public and to organize protest actions targeting those directly involved in the constitution-writing process. Events were organized in Kathmandu, in other districts throughout the country, and even internationally: in January 2015, nonresident Nepalis delivered petitions to Nepali embassies in Ottawa; New York; Washington, DC; and Delhi. However, this section focuses specifically on discourses circulating in Kathmandu, as this is where Dannah Dennis was conducting fieldwork at the time.
At the heart of the citizenship debate is the question of who is fully Nepali. Are women fully Nepali? Are Madhesi people and those from other marginalized ethnic groups and geographic regions fully Nepali? In the 2014–2015 movement to demand citizenship through mothers, activists in Kathmandu framed the issue as an issue of women’s rights and gender equality. In effect, they chose to argue primarily that women are fully Nepali and to downplay the claim that Madeshis are fully Nepali. The iconography of protest reflected this focus on women’s rights. For example, a cartoon by the artist Diwakar Chettri was the featured image of the Facebook group “Citizenship in the Name of the Mother” and was often printed on signs carried at protests and circulated widely on social media (see figure 4.1). The cartoon depicts a human figure without facial features but with many other markers that signal femininity, such as jewelry, long hair with a flower, and wide hips. Moreover, the red sari, red bangles, and beaded necklace suggest the attire of a respectable, married, high-caste Hindu woman. The featureless face seems to invite viewers to imagine their own mothers, or other mothers whom they know, and the large tear emerging from the face makes a moral and affective appeal to the suffering of mothers. Activists also used the iconography of protest to emphasize the uncertain futures of children who would be unable to gain citizenship through their mothers (see figure 4.2).
Because the debate over a single conjunction, “and” versus “or,” could have appeared to be a minor detail of the intractable debates plaguing the Nepali constitution-writing process, activists worked hard to convince their audiences of the enormous impact of this provision. By framing the citizenship debate as a fundamental issue of women’s rights, supporters of citizenship through maternal descent attempted to pressure political parties that had made public commitments to the principle of gender equality. Activists sometimes attempted to shame politicians with the argument that the politicians were failing to respect their own mothers if they didn’t support the cause of citizenship through mothers.
In response to this public outcry, many political leaders paid lip service to the idea of gender equality, while emphasizing that national security interests were of paramount concern. For example, Jhalanath Khanal a leader of the United Marxist-Leninist Party—at that time, the party with the second-highest number of elected representatives in Nepal’s Constituent Assembly—was quoted as saying, “We are always in favor of gender-equality. Issuing citizenship in the name of father and mother, if both are Nepalis, is not a problem for us. But we have to be cautious while issuing citizenship for children born in districts bordering India in Tarai (Madhes) as well as Tibet in the mountains through mothers” (Pun 2015). This type of nationalist rhetoric casts women, and particularly women who live along Nepal’s borders, as a potential threat to both the sovereignty and the cultural makeup of the Nepali state because of their ability to have children with non-Nepali men.
Some politicians went even further and denounced the entire movement for citizenship through mothers. For example, in July 2015, Bidhya Devi Bhandari (UML) stated publicly that activists on the citizenship issue and other issues of women’s rights were unduly influenced by Western feminist ideas and should accept what she deemed to be an appropriately “Eastern” perspective on the necessary subordination of women to men (Basnet 2015). A few months after these antifeminist remarks, Bhandari became Nepal’s first female president in October 2015. With unintended irony, some Western media outlets hailed this development as a step forward for women’s rights in Nepal.
CITIZENSHIP IN THE CONSTITUTION OF 2015
Despite the determined efforts of many activists, the constitution that was adopted in September 2015 made a distinction between men and women in terms of their ability to pass on citizenship. Harking back to the Citizenship Act of 1964, this distinction was couched in terms of two categories of citizenship: citizenship by descent and naturalized citizenship. Citizenship by descent is available to people who have Nepali citizen fathers, whether or not their mothers are Nepali citizens. Naturalized citizenship, on the other hand, is available to people who have Nepali citizen mothers and foreign fathers, and it is subject to some limitations. For instance, people who apply for naturalized citizenship must be permanent residents of Nepal and must be able to prove that they do not hold citizenship in any other country. Naturalized citizens are also barred from holding the highest government offices, such as president, prime minister, and chief justice (Article 289). Furthermore, Nepali citizen men married to foreign women may bestow naturalized citizenship on their wives, but Nepali citizen women are not able to bestow naturalized citizenship on their foreign husbands. The differences between citizenship by descent and naturalized citizenship are outlined in table 4.1. It is also important to note that as in previous iterations of Nepali citizenship law, people who hold Nepali citizenship are not allowed to hold citizenship in any other country; thus, dual citizenship is not an option.
Table 4.1. Summary of Citizenship Provisions in Nepal’s 2015 Constitution
Citizenship by descent Naturalized citizenship
• Available to people who have Nepali father + Nepali mother OR Nepali father + foreign mother
• Can hold high office
• The right to determine one’s gender identity is guaranteed (Article 12)
• Available to people who have Nepali mother + foreign father
• Available to foreign wives of Nepali men, but not to foreign husbands of Nepali women
• Cannot hold high office
• Conditional (must reside in Nepal, must not hold citizenship elsewhere)
• The right to determine one’s gender identity is not guaranteed
In effect, these constitutional provisions convey the message that a Nepali man’s citizenship can be passed on to his children unconditionally or to his wife, if he marries a non-Nepali citizen. A Nepali woman’s citizenship, on the other hand, can be passed on to her children only if certain conditions are met and cannot be passed on to her husband. Children of foreign fathers can only receive naturalized Nepali citizenship, which means that they can never be regarded as full Nepali citizens. On Twitter, public intellectuals Kedar Sharma and Manjushree Thapa dubbed this principle “sperm nationalism” (shukrakit rastriyata).
MADHESI WOMEN AND CITIZENSHIP
As is apparent from Jhalanath Khanal’s comments about needing to be “cautious while issuing citizenship for children born in districts bordering India in Tarai (Madhes) as well as Tibet in the mountains through mothers,” the controversial citizenship clauses in the 2015 constitution were not just about gender but also ethnicity and national borders. Because the Madhes is proximate to India, both geographically and culturally, and cross-border marriages are the norm, Madhesi women are especially unlikely to be able to pass on their citizenship to their children. In addition to legal discrimination, Madhesi women’s frequently binational attachments mean that their citizenship is called into question both legally and socially because they are not understood to be as “authentically Nepali” as women from the hills are. Abha Lal conducted her fieldwork in two towns in the Madhes, Birgunj and Janakpur in 2017 and 2018, where she interviewed women about how they assert themselves as Nepali citizens when the Nepali state refuses to see them as such. All names in this section are pseudonyms.
When asked about whether she saw herself as Nepali and how she understood what that meant, this is what Bibha, a woman who was born in India and married to a Madhesi Nepali man had to say:
Before I got married I was pure Indian, there is no doubt about that. But as soon as this became my sasuraal (marital home), I had to tyaag (sacrifice) my Indian citizenship, I became Nepali. It is Madhesi custom that you forget your natal home and become part of your husband’s family as soon as you get married. I understand that, but the Nepali state does not. I get naturalized citizenship and have less rights than other citizens. (Bibha, interviewed by Abha Lal)
Bibha’s understanding of citizenship being derived from male relatives—first, one’s father, then one’s husband—was not uncommon. A common refrain heard across the Madhes is that there is “beti-roti ke sambandha” between Nepal and India, which roughly translates to a “relationship of daughters and bread.” What this is referring to is the fact that India and Nepal share a way of life (bread), and the shared culture means that Indian “daughters” come to Nepal and become Nepali and vice versa.
Bibha did not take issue with the idea that a cross-border marriage meant that a woman’s national identity automatically changed. For her, the source of discontent was the fact that the Nepali state treated her, a naturalized citizen, differently than it would a citizen by descent. If citizenship based on kinship, “beti-roti sambandha,” was to hold true, would need to mean that a “daughter” of India was entitled to all the rights and privileges of Nepali citizenship after becoming a “daughter-in-law.”
The “daughter-in-law” versus “daughters” issue was a division that became evident in the fissure between women’s rights activists and Madhesi activists in the aftermath of the 2015 constitution (Pudasaini 2017). Because women’s rights activists had made the strategic choice to focus on citizenship in the name of the mother, they did not emphasize the fact that the naturalization clause gave fewer rights to women who had become citizens after marrying Nepali men. The fact that the women’s rights activists who were most vocal about the citizenship issue were from the hills—and therefore likely shared some of the same anti-Madhesi prejudices as their male counterparts—also played a part in this sidelining of the naturalization issue. Madhesi rights activists, on the other hand, were predominantly men and did not have much to say about women being able to pass on citizenship by descent. Rather, they were concerned with the fact that their “daughters-in-law” did not get immediate and full citizenship that honored the practice of cross-border marriages. The differing priorities held by women’s rights activists and Madhesi rights activists meant that the movement against the constitutional citizenship provisions was fragmented, and thus a broad alliance was not able to form.
While activists talking about the “daughters-in-law” in the national political scene were largely men, many Madhesi women, like Bibha, were primarily concerned with the naturalization clause and did not fundamentally question the patriarchal logic of deriving citizenship through kinship. This was most apparent in how they talked about national affiliation changing after marriage but also in the way children were invoked in a manner very different from how the women’s rights activists talked about children being entitled to citizenship through the mother. When asked about what she wanted from the Nepali state, here is what a young woman named Bhagyalata in Birgunj had to say:
In India, kids get bicycles to go to school, they get good lunches. Our kids, ghanta! (nothing). This harami sarkar (bastard government) gives us nothing at all. In India they have fuel, food, rations, why won’t this government give us anything? Our kids deserve to have bicycles and food and an education, to have better lives than we do. If Indians can have that, why can’t we? (Bhagyalata, interviewed by Abha Lal)
While Bhagyalata’s use of the Indian government as an example of what a good government should look like is interesting in itself, her emphasis on what the Nepali state needed to do for the children is a common way of asserting citizenship that many Madhesi women used. Regardless of their age or maternal status, many women talked about their children, or “our children” in the abstract, while expressing their political grievances. The logic for this appeared to be whether a Madhesi woman is Nepal-born or India-born, a naturalized citizen, a citizen by descent, or whether or not she holds a citizenship certificate at all; as a mother of a child with a Nepali father, she is the mother of a Nepali child. Therefore, basing claims on children is a mode of legitimating Madhesi demands in the eyes of the Nepali state.
The inversion of the logic of motherhood here is interesting: while campaigners for “citizenship in the name of mother” talked of the uncertain futures of children who would be unable to gain citizenship, Madhesi women based their claims to citizenship on the fact that they are mothers of Nepali children. It is important to note here that while the logic of motherhood to Nepali children made sense to Madhesi women who were talking about their belonging in Nepal in these terms, for elite political forces, Madhesi women’s children were not necessarily Nepali. Many politicians dismissed the demands for equitable citizenship laws by claiming that children born to Nepali women married to foreigners were “bhanja-bhanjis” (nieces and nephews by maternal descent) and thus not truly Nepali. So, for them, many Madhesi women were the mothers of “bhanja-bhanjis,” rather than “sons and daughters” of Nepal, and thus they and their children were not entitled to full Nepali citizenship. This perspective was reflected in the constitution.
Madhesi women draw on patriarchal notions of citizenship—being entitled to political belonging in the nation as a daughter, a wife, a daughter-in-law and a wife—because they have few other options for staking their claim to belonging in Nepal. The impact of the state patriarchy combined with a deep and abiding legacy of ethnic discrimination means that Madhesi women have been discouraged from seeing themselves as autonomous citizens in their own right, independent of their family attachments. However, Madhesi women’s views on this subject are not necessarily monolithic, as evidenced by the following dialogue between Mamata, who was born in India, and Sangeeta, who was born in Nepal:
Mamata: (Smiling) I am Indian. I believe in Modi-Sarkar (government). Nepal sarkar is completely useless.
Sangeeta: Hey, what a liar!
Mamata: How am I lying? I was born in India, obviously I am Indian.
Sangeeta: Well, what if you were born in India? Women have no jaat (caste). As soon as you got married to a Nepali man, you became Nepali. Your household is here, you work here, your children were born here, you are not Indian, you are Nepali. (Mamata and Sangita, interviewed by Abha Lal)
Like Sangeeta, many women rely on patriarchal notions of family membership to make their claims to belonging in Nepal, but these claims are tenuous and only available to those in certain familial and marital arrangements. Madhesi women who do not know the identity of the fathers of their children, are in same-sex relationships, have chosen to end their marriages, or have been abandoned by Nepali men may not be able to obtain citizenship documents for themselves or their children.
CONCLUSION: GENDER AND CITIZENSHIP IN NEPAL AND BEYOND
The constitution of 2015 leaves many details to be resolved through legislation. As of this writing in January 2020, a citizenship bill that will expand on the guidelines in the constitution has been under discussion in the Nepali Parliament for months. In this ongoing process, many lawmakers continue to display patriarchal attitudes. For example, lawmakers have suggested that women who claim that the identity of their children’s fathers is unknown must “provide proof” or “provide an explanation,” citing a concern that women might lie about the identity of their children’s fathers and “indulg[e] in immoral acts” (Gurung 2019). If such provisions are passed into law, women seeking citizenship for their children may be required to recount their complete sexual histories to local bureaucrats, who would still retain the authority to deny the citizenship application if they deem that sufficient “proof” has not been provided. Similarly, lawmakers have also discussed the idea that third-gender or trans people should have to submit a doctor’s recommendation in order to get citizenship documents that reflect their correct gender; in turn, activists have pointed out that this medicalization of gender identity is unnecessarily burdensome and invasive, arguing that self-declaration of gender identity should be sufficient (Panday 2019). Both of these discussions highlight the fact that applicants who do not conform to hegemonic norms of gender and family relationships may be expected to provide additional evidence to substantiate their claims to citizenship. Although the citizenship bill remains to be passed, it seems likely that access to citizenship will continue to be restricted along the lines of gender, family structure, ethnicity, and region.
In conclusion, the case study presented in this chapter illustrates three main points that are true not only in Nepal but elsewhere in the world as well. First, many states base their citizenship laws on a set of normative assumptions about gender and family; consequently, people who do not conform to these normative assumptions may not be able to gain access to their full citizenship rights. Second, nationalist anxieties about being overrun by noncitizen “others” are often used by politicians as an effective rationalization for passing laws that are blatantly discriminatory. And finally, people who experience multiple and intersecting forms of marginalization (such as Madhesi women in Nepal) are likely to have particular difficulties in obtaining citizenship, both in the legal sense and in the broader social sense of perceived belonging. Moreover, even though multiply marginalized people are likely to be most deeply impacted by discriminatory laws, their voices are often missing from public debates about the issues that affect them directly; as we have shown, Madhesi women’s perspectives and experiences of citizenship were not well represented by either the women’s activist movement or the Madhesi activist movement.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why do governments around the world seek to regulate family relationships and reproduction? What does this have to do with citizenship?
2. What are some of the arguments that Nepali politicians have used to justify their refusal to grant full citizenship through mothers?
3. Why are Madhesi women’s perspectives and experiences particularly important for understanding the ongoing debate about Nepal’s citizenship laws?
4. Beyond the question of whether citizenship can be inherited through mothers, what are some of the other gender-related issues that shape Nepal’s citizenship laws?
5. Choose a country and read about its citizenship laws. What do these laws reveal about how the state sees gender and family relationships? Who are the laws designed to include? Who are they designed to exclude?
KEY TERMS
citizens by descent: in the current Nepali context, citizenship by descent is the full/first-class category of citizenship. It is available to people who can prove that their fathers are Nepali citizens.
jus sanguinis: the legal principle of granting citizenship through blood (family relationships).
jus soli: the legal principle of granting citizenship through soil (place of birth).
Madhes: the southern part of Nepal, bordering India. It is linguistically and culturally distinct in many ways from the hilly regions of Nepal. The Madhes is also called the Terai or Tarai.
naturalized citizens: In the current Nepali context, naturalized citizenship is the limited category of citizenship. It is available to people who cannot prove that their fathers were Nepali citizens but have some other family relationship with a Nepali citizen (e.g., their mothers or husbands are Nepali citizens).
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Adhikari, Aditya. 2015. The Bullet and the Ballot Box: The Story of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution. London: Verso.
• “Birthstory” podcast from Radiolab—a story about transnational surrogacy, changing laws, and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/birthstory2018.
• Facebook page of the Queer Rights Collective of Nepal: www.facebook.com/QRC.np/.
• Forum for Women, Law, and Development. This is a Nepali NGO that works on citizenship advocacy and other issues: www.fwld.org.
• Jha, Kalpana. 2017. The Madhesi Upsurge and the Contested Idea of Nepal. Singapore: Springer.
• Pant, Suman. 2019. “The Long and Arduous Journey to Winning a Supreme Court Case as a Same-Sex Married Couple.” Record. https://www.recordnepal.com/perspective/opinions/the-arduous-journey-to-winning-a-supreme-court-case-as-a-same-sex-married-couple/.
• Tamang, Seira. 2002. “Dis-embedding the Sexual/Social Contract: Citizenship and Gender in Nepal.” Citizenship Studies 6, no. 3: 309–324.
• Tamang, Seira. 2009. “The Politics of Conflict and Difference or the Difference of Conflict in Politics: The Women’s Movement in Nepal.” Feminist Review 91: 61–80.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank all of the people who agreed to be interviewed over the course of this research. Rukshana Kapali and Niranjan Kunwar provided valuable insight into how current citizenship laws affect Nepal’s gender and sexual minorities. Dannah Dennis’s research was carried out with funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Virginia. Abha Lal’s research was carried out with funding from Swarthmore College.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Basnet, Basanta. 2015. “Paschimi Samskarko Prabhavma Mahila Adhikarkarmi: Bidhya Bhandari.” Kantipur, 2015. https://www.kantipurdaily.com/news/2015-07-14/412678.html.
Bier, Laura. 2010. “The Family Is a Factory: Gender, Citizenship, and the Regulation of Reproduction in Postwar Egypt.” Feminist Studies 36, no. 2: 404–32.
Briggs, Laura. 2017. How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1998. “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation.” Hypatia 13, no. 3: 62–82.
Fong, Vanessa. 2004. Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s One-Child Policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Grossman-Thompson, Barbara, and Dannah Dennis. 2017. “Citizenship in the Name of the Mother: Nationalism, Social Exclusion, and Gender in Contemporary Nepal.” Positions: Asia Critique 25, no. 4: 795–820.
Gurung, Tsering. 2019. “Debate over Nepali Women’s Right to Pass on Citizenship to Children Reignites as House Committee Holds Discussions on Controversial Provisions.” Kathmandu Post, March 7, 2019. https://kathmandupost.com/national/2019/03/07/debate-over-nepali-womens-right-to-pass-on-citizenship-to-children-reignites-as-house-committee-holds-discussions-on-controversial-provisions.
Höfer, Andras. 1979. The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal: A Study of the Muluki Ain of 1854. Innsbruck: Universitatsverlag Wagner.
Panday, Jagdishor. 2019. “Doc’s Recommendation Must for ‘Other Gender’ to Obtain Citizenship.” Himalayan Times, March 19, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/docs-recommendation-must-for-other-gender-to-obtain-citizenship/.
Pudasaini, Surabhi. 2017. “Writing Citizenship: Gender, Race and Tactical Alliances in Nepal’s Constitution Drafting.” Studies in Nepali History and Society 22, no. 1: 85–117.
Pun, Weena. 2015. “UML Blocks Proposal to Issue Citizenship Through Mothers.” Kathmandu Post, January 14, 2015. https://kathmandupost.com/valley/2015/01/13/uml-blocks-proposal-to-issue-citizenship-through-mothers.
US Department of State. 2019. “Nepal 2018 Human Rights Report.” Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2018. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NEPAL-2018.pdf. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Gendered_Lives%3A_Global_Issues/02%3A_South_Asia/2.02%3A_Controlling_National_Borders_by_Controlling_Reproduction-_Gender_Nationalism_and_Nepals_Citizenship_Laws.txt |
In this chapter, the author looks at the organization and functions of a third-gender group in India: the hijras. Here we see how hierarchy and caste also shape third-gender hijra communities. These communities create and operate through discipleship-kinship systems that both regulate their activities and create a power structure among the hijras. These kinship systems are not recognized and legitimized by the Indian state but by the internal hijra governance councils.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter students should be able to
• Define the hijras, a “third” gender community in India.
• Describe the pattern and complexity of hijra kinship.
• Explain the hijra prestige economy system.
Sharmili, a twenty-four-year-old hijra from the Dakshinpuri area in New Delhi confided in me that she belongs to the Valmiki community. In north India, the Valmikis are classified as a subcategory of caste belonging to the Dalit community. Indian kinship is always grouped around a system of social stratification based on birth status known as the caste system, and the Dalits are a historically oppressed caste, formerly known as “untouchables” in India. Most people in Sharmili’s natal family work as safai karamcharis, or sanitation workers, a job that is socially bound to those in the lowest castes in India. Sharmili’s maternal grandmother worked as a safai karamchari at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where I completed my MPhil studies in social medicine and community health. Sharmili inherited this job from one of her dying relatives, her maternal uncle, and worked at a national bank in New Delhi as a safai karamchari. The passing down of sanitation work from one generation to another within the Valmiki community is made possible because of a government policy that enables safai karamcharis to nominate a member of their family to take up the same line of work after their death (Salve et al. 2017).
Definition: hijras
also known as “third” gender in India; can be understood as subaltern forms of trans-queer identities existing within a prestige economy system of kinship networks.
Definition: Dalit
formerly “untouchable” community in India.
Definition: caste system
Indian kinship is always grouped around a system of social stratification based on birth status known as the caste system.
When Sharmili started her job at a local branch of one of the world’s biggest banking corporations (in which even I have an account), Sharmili was still using her deadname. Arriving at work every day on a motorcycle, Sharmili used to wear a black leather jacket and had an outwardly masculine appearance. Based on the belief that people’s gender is fixed for life, Sharmili’s colleagues at the bank assumed that her then “alpha-male” persona was set in stone. So much so that when Sharmili started showing visible signs of becoming herself by growing her hair and wearing light makeup to work, other colleagues at the bank did not like it. They did not even consider that Sharmili was inwardly always feminine, and when they saw her displaying those traits outwardly, the colleagues at work started making fun of her new effeminate look.
The ongoing teasing at work made Sharmili believe that at least she was being recognized for who she really is, even if that came at a cost. In those taunts, Sharmili found recognition of a gender identity she always thought she belonged to. Mustering courage, Sharmili showed up at work in a salwar-kameez, a traditional style of clothing typically worn by women in north India, coordinating her outfit with a dark color shade of lipstick and a long scarf called a dupatta. It was on this day, as she clearly remembers, that one of her colleagues pulled at her dupatta to shame her for “acting” like a female. Since then, pulling at Sharmili’s dupatta became an office joke that was quickly shared and spread among some of her male colleagues. Sharmili felt violated. Even though they were colleagues, Sharmili felt “lower” than them in social status, not only because of caste but also because of her transgender identity. Sharmili’s colleagues continued to bully her.
Sharmili underestimated just how much a change in her attire would provoke reactions from her colleagues. They were now more open and outwardly bullying Sharmili by calling her derogatory names like chakka and gandu (asshole or giving ass) (Bhaskaran 2004, 95). The environment grew so hostile that Sharmili would end up crying in the bathroom at her place of work most of the time. Despite the harassment at her job, Sharmili continued to come to work because at that point this was the only means of income available to her natal joint-family.
Definition: joint-family
a household system in which members of more than one generation of a unilineal descent group live together.
One day, the bank manager and some senior colleagues gave Sharmili an ultimatum that if she wanted to continue her job as a safai karamchari, she must not dress as a woman and must return to her “male” disguise. Irrespective of Sharmili being the only breadwinner in her family, a fact known by the bank management, they considered it their duty to provide a “family-friendly environment,” which they thought was put at risk by Sharmili’s presence. Not only that, Sharmili was considered a “threat” by the bank management, especially to the women colleagues working there, and more so for the “female” customers and their accompanying children visiting the bank. The perceived threat to the bank’s image was based on the stereotype that “hijras” kidnap young boys and castrate them to increase the membership of their own community. Therefore, Sharmili’s presence in itself was considered a “bad influence” that was perceived as threatening to women working and visiting in the bank.
Not being in a position to negotiate her working relations with the bank management, Sharmili eventually decided to quit her job as a safai karamchari. During this distressing time, she came in contact with the hijra community living in her area. She was introduced to a hijra guru by her friend who was also her neighbor and the same person who loaned her the salwar-kameez.
The hijras are a third-gender group in India and can be understood as subaltern trans-queer identities existing within a prestige economy system of kinship networks. The hijra guru initiated Sharmili into the hijra community through a reet, or a ritualistic ceremony. In this ceremony, Sharmili was adopted by the guru to the hijra house or gharana to which the guru herself belonged; in this way, she became a new member of the house. It was during this process that the name Sharmili became the only name she wanted to identify with: she did not want to use her natal family surname, which also revealed her caste origins. Her hijra guru accepted Sharmili just as she wanted to be.
In her coming days of apprenticeship with the hijra guru, Sharmili learned the hijra ways of being. She learned how to dress, wear makeup, sing hijra traditional songs, and dance the steps that accompany those songs. Sharmili wanted to earn money through the “traditional” way of hijras, typically by collecting ritual blessings or toli-badhai where the hijras shower their blessings on newborns and newlyweds in exchange for gifts both in cash and kind. However, Sharmili’s hijra guru had other plans for her.
Despite Sharmili’s dancing skills and musical flair, her hijra guru did not allow her to be in the group for toli badhai. Instead, Sharmili was encouraged to work as a beggar and assist in begging at traffic signals, or lal-batti mangna. If Sharmili wanted to boost her income and earn extra, then she was also given the option for sex work, or khanjara, by her hijra contemporaries. Sharmili felt that it was because of her lower-caste status that her hijra guru did not allow her to be a part of the auspicious dances associated with collecting ritual blessings. Historically those coming from the Valmiki community have been denied priestly jobs and even barred by the upper castes from entering temples for the fear that lower castes will “pollute” the sacredness of those spaces.
Sharmili felt fortunate to be accepted by her hijra guru for her chosen gender identity but also felt discriminated against due to her caste identity. Eventually, Sharmili made contacts in another hijra group, in the Trilokpuri area of New Delhi that let her accompany them in their group for toli badhai. Sharmili now commutes four hours’ round trip on a public bus whenever she can from Dakshinpuri to Trilokpuri just to be able to earn respect and money in traditional hijra performances.
UNDERSTANDING HIJRAS
Distinct from transgender and intersex identities in other countries, hijras occupy a unique and contradictory place in Indian society. Many have understood “third gender” to mean only the hijras; however, numerous other gender nonconforming identities fall under this umbrella term—and yet, some argue against the use of the term “third” gender for all gender nonconforming people.
One of the main differences between trans and hijra identities is that trans people have the freedom to self-identify as trans. To identify as hijra, a person must be initiated through a ritual adoption by a hijra guru into the hijra community (see Nanda 1990 and Reddy 2006). The general trans population in India does not adhere to such an internal social system but subsequently has a less tight-knit community than hijras. Also, conventionally, trans men are not a part of the hijra community.
Legally recognized as the “third” gender in April 2014 by the Supreme Court of India, the hijras are a highly stigmatized minority group with an estimated population of half a million according to the Census of India 2011 (Census of India 2011). However, this figure is widely disputed as the census counted trans people, the hijras, and intersex births under the third-gender category. Therefore, the population counted by the census is not a true representation of hijra demographics in India. In 2018 India also decriminalized homosexual sex, overturning a 160-year-old law instituted by the British.
One explanation for this confusion over the differences between other third-gender identities, transgender persons, and those born intersex could be that the Hindi word hijra has been used as a catchall term for all these identities. Moreover, the interchangeability of the term hijra with the terms such as transgender and intersex neglects the historicity of all these three terms that came about in different contexts and sociopolitical settings, and conflating them is problematic.
There is also an inherent public confusion persisting in understanding who hijras are and who they are not. Addressing this confusion are classifications made by the hijra communities themselves on who “real” hijras are and how they are differentiated from those who are “fake.” One such way to demarcate the difference between the two is by affiliation to a hijra “house.” “Real” hijras have a house affiliation whereas “fake” hijras do not have this affiliation. “Fake” hijras are men who are “cross-dressed beggars” and not “legitimate hijras but are often mistaken as having a hijra identity by the “mainstream public” (Dutta 2012, 838). In India, an authentic hijra identity is based on its affiliation to a hijra gharana (house society) (see Goel 2016). The hijra gharanas are symbolic units of lineage, called a house, guiding the overall schematic outlining of the social organization of the hijra community in India.
Definition: hijra gharanas
symbolic units of lineage guiding the overall schematic outlining of the social organization of hijra community in India.
In this chapter, I will focus on two areas to help understand the ties between gender and kinship in the hijra community in India. I have been working with the hijras for over ten years, first as a social worker and then as an anthropologist witnessing their struggles and successes. I learned to speak Hijra Farsi and was ritually adopted into the community by a guru. The first section of this chapter will highlight the historical roots of the formation of a kinship system within the hijra community and its connection to the contemporary forms of kinship. The second section will focus on the prestige economy system of the hijra community and the various ranks within it. The overall aim is to enable readers to understand the complex multilayered hierarchies and intersectionality between gender and kinship within the hijra community in India.
HIJRA KINSHIP
THE HISTORICAL LENS
In the seventeenth century, eunuchs became trusted servants in the Mughal courts. The term eunuch in reference to hijras in India is now considered pejorative; however, historical research finds the terms eunuch and hijra used interchangeably. Through their gender “uniqueness,” the eunuchs were allowed to travel freely between the mardana (men’s side) and the zenana (women’s side), guard the women of the harems, and care for their children (Jaffrey 1996, 53). Travelogues document that the eunuchs were also “intimate servants” and “beloved mistresses” of kings and princes (Jaffrey 1996, 54). The eunuch slaves had many different roles to play, and different tasks were assigned to them in royal courts (Taparia 2011). Eunuch slaves were not only in charge of administrative tasks but also served as confidantes, warriors, and advisors at the helm of diplomatic and military affairs. And in some rare instances they held literary posts in the imperial courts in New Delhi (Chatterjee 2000). However, because of their enslaved status, eunuchs could not establish a life elsewhere and were not allowed to leave the royal territories.
Definition: Mughal
early modern empire in South Asia founded in 1526 that spanned two centuries.
Historical evidence reveals that there were internal relationships among the court eunuchs themselves, like that of a master (guru) and disciple (chela) (Hinchy 2015). During the Mughal period, the court eunuchs in India were known as Khwaja Seras (Jaffrey 1996, 29). The word Khwaja Sera comes from Persian—“(Khwaja: honorific, meaning ‘real master’; sera, to decorate),” which reads as “male members of the royal household” decorating the real master (Jaffrey 1996, 29). In the mid-eighteenth century, nonbiological kinship relations were formed between child eunuchs and adult Khwaja Seras. Such relatedness was formed by a system of discipleship-lineage of the guru-chela relationship. It has been argued by Hinchy (2015, 382) that through this socially recognized kinship, the emotional impact of enslavement was lessened for the enslaved children. Though eunuch slavery has now long been a thing of the past, kinship based on relationships of discipleship among hijras by organizing themselves in households and societies remain central to the hijra community.
DISCIPLESHIP-LINEAGE BOND
Hijra kinship works as a nonbinary family network, the continuation of which is based on a nonbiological discipleship-lineage system. Within the hijra community, members use Hindi kinship terms and
Definition: hijra kinship
androgynous nonbinary family network, the continuation of which is based on a nonbiological discipleship-lineage system, which is based on power relations that are further legitimized by internal hijra councils.
Definition: nonbinary family network
kinship pattern for those who identify on the gender spectrum outside the male-female binary.
call one another nani (grandmother), dadnani (great grandmother), mausi (mother’s sister), didi (elder sister), gurumai (head of the [house] band), gurubhai (disciples of the same guru), chela (disciple), natichela (disciple of disciple) or amma or ma (mother). (Saxena 2011, 55)
Though most of the kin relation terms are addressed in the feminine pronoun, chela (which is lower in the hierarchy) and nati-chela (disciple of a disciple, lowest in the hierarchy) are addressed using male pronouns. Furthermore, all the disciples to the same guru are “brotherly” related to each other as another male pronoun of bhai (Hindi term for “brother”) is suffixed after guru to describe their relationship to each other.
There are some other aspects of kin relatedness that often appear to be contradictory to its gendered status within the hijra community. For instance, those hijras who share a common guru continue to be “brotherly” related to each other, even if they rise higher up in the hijra hierarchy. Therefore, they may be addressed as ma (or mother) by their disciples lower in rank but as “brothers” by those who share the same rank. The ambivalence of simultaneously using both male and female gendered pronouns for addressing the kin relatedness to the same person within hijra community creates a unique way to embrace the androgynous nature of hijra kinship.
There are also many descriptive ways and terminologies to identify the same kin relation within hijras. An example of multiple descriptive terms to refer to the bonding between two ranks of hijras—guru and chela—are teacher and student, master and disciple, husband and wife, mother and daughter, and mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, respectively. An example of how the affective bonds between gurus and chelas are formalized by the government of India is through voter ID cards. During fieldwork, I saw that hijras who had valid voter ID cards, listed “TG (transgender) or O (other)” as their gender, had the names of their gurus written in the column that required either their father’s or husband’s name. Yet, contradictorily, in December 2017, the police did not allow the hijra family of Bhavitha, who was found dead near a dustbin in the city of Warangal, to claim her dead body because their nonbiological kinship networks are not recognized by Indian law (Datta 2017). These examples show the Indian government’s ambivalence toward the recognition of hijra kinship in India.
Some scholars also believe that hijras lie “outside” stratification systems of caste in India because hijra kinship contrasts with heteronormative assumptions of family (Hall 2013, 635). Therefore, it is believed that the hijras “are not moderated by the logic of the caste system” (Reddy 2006, 145), and there is no apparent caste-based ritualistic practice to which the hijras collectively subscribe (Belkin 2008). However, Nanda (1990, 40) briefly mentions that hijra “houses” function as divisions between different hijra groups to facilitate intracommunity organization, replicating the patterns of the Indian caste system. When a hijra is adopted by a guru through a ritualistic ceremony, along with renouncing the perceived male gender assigned at birth, there is also a renunciation of the caste assigned at birth. As a result, I found that most hijras drop their surnames to hide their caste at birth identity. These dropped surnames are often associated with those caste identities that need hiding in order to protect them from caste-based discrimination in India (see Goel 2018). Other hijras who have higher caste privilege by birth often retain their surnames. In rare instances, newly initiated hijra chelas may also take the surnames of their hijra gurus. Therefore, in the hijra community, the core and the burden of maintaining the guru-chela relationship rests heavily upon the individuals where kin relatedness becomes highly “performative” (see Butler 2006). There are strict rules of kin performativity institutionalized in a hijra prestige economy system.
Definition: hijra prestige economy system
a system of kin relatedness within the hijra community based on the social standing of hijras to one another.
One of the crucial aspects of the hijra community is its social stratification embedded within a prestige economy system. With the hijra prestige economy system, kin relatedness is rooted in the social standing of hijras to one another. The social standing is based on a number of factors contingent on the power relations between and among different individual hijras and their gharana networks. There is no written constitution that the hijra gharanas have to abide by. There is, however, an ideal “expected” hijra behavior and unwritten rules to meet those expectations. This ideal of a “good” hijra, based on behavioral expectations and an unwritten code of conduct, is similar to how gender roles are imposed in any society—though always in the process of transition but often based on unspoken norms. There are three key aspects of performative kin relatedness within the hijra community: respect, livelihoods, and embodiment.
RESPECT
The hierarchical guru-chela relationship is the formative core of the social organization within the hijra community. Working with the hijras of Hyderabad, anthropologist Gayatri Reddy (2001, 96) has highlighted the importance of respect: “If there is no guru … in the hijra community, that person [from the community] does not have (honour/respect), and is not recognised as a hijra.” Furthermore, Reddy, in another study (2006, 151), argues that the hijra “affective bonds” of guru-disciple are “assigned [by the guru] rather than chosen” and are in contrast with the concept of “chosen families” described by Kath Weston (1991, 1998) in the context of American gay and lesbian relationships.
Based on my fieldwork, one of the many rules within this prestige economy system is the expectation that the chelas always speak in a pitch lower than their gurus and don’t interrupt or cross them while the gurus are speaking to others in public. If a chela does not obey this form of kin performativity, then a monetary fine or dand is imposed upon the chela by the guru for the infringement of this rule. The chela is not allowed to participate in the hijra activities or earn through their hijra networks until the dand is paid in full by the chela to the guru. Despite being in a symbiotic relationship, the gurus have more control over their chelas’ appearance and activities, which is consistent with hijra hierarchy. There are internal councils that serve as disciplinary bodies within the hijra community to guide the code of conduct of kin relatedness between the gurus and chelas. There is also a practice of pleasing their gurus as a kin-performative gesture because those who are close to their gurus often inherit the property from them after their death. Some examples include offering unconditional service (seva) like pressing and massaging the guru’s feet, which is always instrumental for becoming the guru’s “favourite” disciple. A hijra, Saloni in the Seelampur area of east Delhi, reflecting on the relationship with gurus, said that
sometimes the guru–chela relationship is as sweet as a mother-child relationship, but you know how it is these days. A majority is considered similar to that of a mother-in-law–daughter-in-law relationship, which is both sour and sweet at times. (Saloni, interview by author)
Within the prestige economy system, the upward mobility of hijras is also measured by the number of chelas the hijra gurus have under their patronage. Therefore, the more chelas a guru has, the more social status and respect the guru earns in the broader hijra community. This upward mobility then raises a hijra guru to the status of a hijra chief, or nayak within the larger community. The nayaks of the hijra community are often those who are financially better off, compared to the rest of the hijra kin under their patronage. Although the nayaks may not be directly involved with the day-to-day life activities of those chelas and nati-chelas under them, they often serve as mediators when there are disagreements between gurus and chelas as they serve on the hijra internal councils. Scholars have found that the hijra community is legitimized by these councils, also known as hijra jamaats or hijra panchayats, which are formed by an internal governing body comprising higher ranked members within the hijra community (Nanda 1990; Reddy 2006; Jaffrey 1996; Goel 2016).
Those hijras who have positive kin relations within the overall community, a large number of people in their gharana networks, and superior wealth and rank as compared to the rest of their hijra kin are then voted as greater chiefs, or maha nayaks of the community within the internal council of the hijras. These greater chiefs are mostly responsible for maintaining kin relations among different gharana networks of hijras within one state or across different states in India.
Those junior in rank have to seek permission from those in higher ranks to engage in activities outside of their hijra ways of life. This may include maintaining kin relations with their natal families or having sexual partners. Hijras’ participation in any research- or media-related activities must also be approved by someone higher in rank. The hijras therefore function as a closed social group, tied by their kin relatedness and guided by an internal council that helps to maintain the social order within their prestige economy system.
LIVELIHOODS
Those hijras who are lowest in rank, like nati-chelas, are often assigned to work as beggars at traffic intersections and on public transportation to earn money. Begging is considered to be of the lowest prestige within the hijra community, so those engaged in begging are automatically considered to be lower in rank within the hijra hierarchy. Those in a higher rank have the power to delegate begging to those lower in rank and can choose not to participate in this activity. Those with a slightly higher rank (e.g., chelas) can also work as sex workers to boost their incomes.
However, those in the lower ranks find it challenging to be in sex work because often they do not have the financial resources to sustain their looks. For many lower-rank hijras, it is difficult for them to perform gender the way they would like to, due to the prohibitive costs of makeup, fine clothing, and body transformations. For example, those soliciting sex in cruising areas (often accessed by lower-rank hijras) earn only a pittance since they shave their faces, which leaves “unattractive” chin and jawline stubble. Those hijras (also higher in rank) who earn better money undergo laser hair removal from their faces and bodies, mammoplasty, and better hormonal injections that enhance their femininity—an aspect that is rewarded by the better-paying sex customers. Moreover, those hijras lower in rank also find it difficult to attract customers in some open cruising areas because of increasing competition from other “effeminate” men (or kotis) and female sex workers. Kalyani, a hijra who has not been castrated but has breast implants, said:
Definition: kotis
effeminate men who are mostly gay or bisexual and are not affiliated to any hijra gharana.
We hijras are well aware today of our health and the consequences that such an atrocious operation (castration ceremony) of removing the most sensitive and important part of our bodies can do. I am still a hijra and I do not want to harm my body permanently for the rest of my life. (Kalyani, interview by author)
Hijras higher in rank, like gurus, are often those delegating work assignments to the hijra ranks subordinate to them. The gurus have the privilege of choosing who will accompany them for ritual blessings, or toli badhai. The guru selects the chelas and nati-chelas based on several factors. These include their mutual cordial relationships, hijras with more money and better methods of “feminine” gender performativity, caste status, and sometimes just circumstantial luck. Ritual work is considered to be of the highest prestige within the hijra community. Therefore, those engaged in toli badhai are automatically considered to be higher in rank within the hijra hierarchy. However, it must be noted that collecting voluntary donations through ritual work is also an institutionalized form of begging—a traditional way of earning a livelihood within the hijra community.
Conventionally, the senior gurus do not engage in sex work openly or visit cruising areas to solicit prostitution. Within the hijra prestige economy system, it is considered disrespectful for gurus to take part in such activities. However, in some cases, the gurus might themselves be involved in sex work but only with a select client base. The chelas have to show respect to the guru by not acknowledging this aspect of their lives in public, despite it being a public secret.
However, before rising to the rank of a guru, the hijras almost always have to work as sex workers and beggars. Therefore, rising in rank within the hijra hierarchy of social systems also entitles the hijras higher in rank to have more bargaining power in choosing their livelihoods. Consequently, if one is higher in rank, the workload for them is less. The money earned through these three income-generating activities is then placed in a central pool and distributed and shared among members of the house based on the power structures within the hijra prestige economy system. Champa, a chela hijra says the following for a senior guru in the Laxmi Nagar area:
What is it that we have except our gurus? Our gurus are our saviors. They have rescued us from the harsh and brutal world. We have no one that we can trust, even our families, the one to which we were biologically born, have disowned us. Life is not perfect! In such a situation, even when we have to face some difficulties, it is only something that we have earned in return of our ill-doings and we deserve it. There is no other way of skipping it. It is all a part of life. (Champa, interview by author)
The maha nayaks, who are at the uppermost level in the hierarchy, do not have to go out and earn because they receive a portion of the earnings of those in the ranks below them. In exchange, they maintain social relations, order, and harmony within the hijra community by serving on the internal governing councils, known as panchayats or jamaats.
The hijra financial chain is a structure of systematic payments whereby those at the bottom of the structure pay those above them. Those higher in rank have a duty to care for their subordinates in the hijra prestige economy system. They also look after those who have been victims of sexual harassment, rape, and police violence. Those lower in rank often have multiple jobs. The nati-chelas may work as beggars in the morning and as sex workers in the evening; the chelas might works as ritual workers in the morning and sex workers in the evening. Irrespective of their workload, payments need to be given to their gurus. The gurus then pass a share from their collection to those higher up in rank and so on until it reaches the maha nayaks at the topmost tier.
EMBODIMENT
Within the prestige economy system of the hijra community, those hijras who are castrated gain more respect than those who are not (see Reddy 2006). There is pressure on those lower in rank to be castrated, despite the fact that castration is not a prerequisite for becoming a hijra. Currently, there are both Nirwana (castrated) and Akwa (noncastrated) hijras in India. Pikoo, a castrated migrant hijra from Bangladesh at the Shashtri Park Theka area in New Delhi said:
This is a matter of confidence and trust alone. How can we give our lives to untrained and unprofessional hands with no experience at all? This is a question of life and death to us and we would rather go to our community’s trusted hands and healers who have been performing this ritual since generations. (Pikoo, interview by author)
This insistence of the religiosity of a castrated hijra body is rooted in three key factors. First, hijras are associated within Hindu mythology to many androgynous avatars of gods and goddesses (Pande 2004; Pattnaik 2015). In the Indian cultural context, hijras are accepted as androgynous avatars of those gods because of their socioreligious status in society. Acknowledging their age-old socioreligious approval, the hijras reappropriate their bargaining power within society by asking for voluntary donations in exchange for their blessings. In this process, there is an implicit understanding of an asexual and castrated hijra body. Kapila, another castrated migrant hijra from Bangladesh at the Shashtri Park Theka area in New Delhi said:
This is why we Hijras are considered to be god-like as we undergo such pain that ordinary men and women cannot even think of bearing. We are the closest to The Almighty and as folklore has it, in the Mahabharata, the greatest Indian epic of all times, we are called ‘Ardhanarishwar,’ i.e. half-(wo)man half-god. (Kapila, interview by author)
Within a Hindu cosmological frame of reference, desire is seen as the root of all evil, and renouncing desire through asexuality and castration is seen as a way of being associated with rising above the material pleasures and becoming spiritual. Scholars argue that castration then does not embrace sexual ambiguity since the pressure is on renouncing it (Jaffrey 1996, 56). However, in the context of Muslim hijras, Hossain (2012, 498) argues that despite having Hindu practices, those hijras born Muslim can situate themselves into a Hindu cosmological frame of reference because Islam as a religion is open to this transcendence.
This spiritual status of the hijras is publicly acknowledged and accepted as part of their gender role, which entitles them to rise to the spiritual level of “others” who are nonhijras. Consequently, the hijras are elevated to the status of demigoddesses with spiritual abilities to confer fertility and good luck on those seeking their blessings. It is also considered a sin to refuse hijras money, as their curses are considered highly potent and dangerous. Most dangerous of all is the point in the negotiation when a hijra threatens to shame those who refuse to pay by lifting their skirts and exposing whatever lies beneath the hijra’s petticoat.
Second, the British colonialists criminalized hijras by banning them from public areas under the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871. This act forced the hijra community underground as they were considered “eunuchs” responsible for sodomy, kidnapping, and castrating male children (see Hinchy 2019). Although the CTA was rescinded in 1952, a collective memory still paints hijras as historical gender deviants with a criminalized sexual variance. Testimony to this fact is that the first colonial antisodomy law introduced by the British in 1861 through Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) considered homosexuality an unnatural act and a public offense until 2018 in the postcolonial Indian nation-state. As a result of this colonial baggage, the mainstream society conflates hijras with homosexuals despite hijras being a gender identity and not a sexual identity.
Third, if not associated with castration, then the popular understanding of the hijra body is of those born with intersex variations. In fact, in colloquial Hindi, the term intersex is culturally synonymous with the term hijra. Within hijra communities, those born intersex are considered “natural” hijras who are “born that way.” There are also many Indian folktales about intersex children being donated by the birth parents to hijras who adopt those children with pride and increase the membership of their community. However, no person with an intersex variation can become a hijra without the patronage of a hijra guru.
Therefore, one of the crucial elements of rising in rank is achieving an ideal castrated hijra body—an element central to hijra performativity of gender. Consequently, often the hijra gurus pay for the castration of their chelas, in exchange for which the chelas pay the guru a portion of their income. This way the chelas also compensate their gurus financially for learning the hijra ways of gender performativity. However, the initial sum paid for castration is compounded with interest, and eventually the sum grows to a point where chelas are typically never actually able to repay this debt in full over a lifetime. As an outcome, kin relatedness within the hijra prestige economy system then also forms a kind of economic bond based on financial debt.
Some scholars have also viewed the guru-disciple lineage as a form of disguised “bonded labor,” especially if the hijra guru pays for the castration of their hijra disciple, in return for which the disciple is not only expected to remain in bonded servitude to their guru for a lifetime but also because there exists a hijra custom of “leti,” which is the amount payable by a hijra disciple to the guru if they leave their hijra guru for another (Saxena 2011, 159). The hijra disciple is also expected to repay the “loan” by turning in a share of their earnings and doing household chores in the hijra commune, which is “invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed” from their hijra gurus (Mazumdar 2016, 46; see Goel 2019). Such internal rules also bound Sharmili to her hijra guru in Dakshinpuri who discriminated against her because of her lower-caste status, and Sharmili could not afford to pay the “leti” and take patronage under another guru in Trilokpuri.
CONCLUSION
Kinship has been a significant and essential area of study in anthropology, reflecting on the complicated and often contradictory nature of negotiating gender roles and sexuality. In the context of the hijras or “third” gender in India, androgynous nonbinary kinship becomes a critical site of examination for studying the hijra prestige economy system. Decisive aspects of maintaining hijra kin through performative aspects of respect, livelihoods, and embodiment are central to the hijra social system. Hijra kin relatedness is based on a system of informality not recognized by Indian law but, contradictorily and unknowingly, recognized in some aspect by the Indian government through issuing voter ID cards for hijras that carry the names of their gurus either as fathers or husbands. Therefore, hijra kinship functions as an androgynous institutionalized system of discipleship-lineage based on power relations and further legitimized by internal hijra councils.
Caste is an ever-evolving process of engagement between individual hijras within the hijra community, and the negotiation of the hijra caste identity is contingent upon several factors. Many aspects depend on the relationship hijras have with their gurus. As a collective unit, it is difficult to understand the intersection of caste with hijra kinship, and little is known about the intersection of the Indian caste hierarchies with the social stratification in the hijra community. Nonetheless, caste is an important, often hidden factor in determining kin relatedness within the hijra community, particularly through Sharmili’s narrative in the opening vignette of this chapter.
Hijra kinship, therefore, is a mutually coordinated support system maintained by a historically oppressed community by making it a hierarchically organized enclave that is mostly hidden from the outside world (Goel 2016). Through kinship, hijras sustain their ordered rankings within their cultural enclaves by justifying their logic according to the rules made by the internal governing councils of the hijra community, and this renders their community a “closed” social group.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why is kinship so important to the hijra community?
2. How do Indian social hierarchies intersect with hijra kinship?
3. How do power dynamics shape the relationship between hijra guru and chela?
KEY TERMS
caste system: Indian kinship is always grouped around a system of social stratification based on birth status known as the caste system.
Dalit: formerly “untouchable” community in India.
hijras: also known as “third” gender in India; can be understood as subaltern forms of trans-queer identities existing within a prestige economy system of kinship networks.
hijra gharanas: symbolic units of lineage guiding the overall schematic outlining of the social organization of hijra community in India.
hijra kinship: androgynous nonbinary family network, the continuation of which is based on a nonbiological discipleship-lineage system, which is based on power relations that are further legitimized by internal hijra councils.
hijra prestige economy system: a system of kin relatedness within the hijra community based on the social standing of hijras to one another.
joint-family: a household system in which members of more than one generation of a unilineal descent group live together.
kotis: effeminate men who are mostly gay or bisexual and are not affiliated to any hijra gharana.
Mughal: early modern empire in South Asia founded in 1526 that spanned two centuries.
nonbinary family network: kinship pattern for those who identify on the gender spectrum outside the male-female binary.
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In this chapter, the authors examine the ongoing poverty of the region that has been the focus of many international development plans and efforts. The authors explore the impact some of these development projects have had on work patterns among ethnic Sherpa women in Nepal. They question whether or not wage labor and urban lifestyles with Western patterns of consumption (the markers of development) actually contribute to women’s emancipation and empowerment.
Learning Objectives
• Analyze the gender dimensions of work inequalities through the case of Sherpa in Nepal.
• Identify the gendered effects of mobility.
• Define key concepts such as gender and mobility regimes, sexual division of labor, and productive and reproductive work.
Waged labor has become a central focus in development issues around the world, particularly as it relates to women’s equality and emancipation. For example, if we look at the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, participation in the labor force and having paid work outside of agriculture are both indicators of achievement for goal number three: “promote gender equality and empower women” (United Nations 2010). Similarly, the Global Gender Gap Report measures variables such as female labor force, wage equality, and earned income (World Economic Forum 2017), with the goal of reducing the gap between male and female economic participation and opportunities. However, as this chapter demonstrates, wage labor is not always the best or only path to women’s equality or emancipation.
Multiple studies (Escobar 1998; Hirschman 1980; Sen 1999) have challenged the idea that development should solely be based on material and economic growth, and indeed as our study shows, analyzing development from a gender perspective highlights the problems of such a view. First, economic growth has been based on specific models of material development and the subsequent promotion of women as efficient, wage-earning workers. These ideas of women as ideal workers “are embedded in, rely on, and actively reinforce and extend the existing patriarchal structures and gendered relationships of power” (Wilson 2015, 807). Not only do the global production processes and labor markets reproduce an unequal distribution of power between men and women, but they are increasingly made precarious by the dominant neoliberal economies and policies (Mills 2003; Peterson 2016). Second, economic growth is also “defined and measured in a way that arbitrarily excludes the essential, but invisible ‘economic inactivity’ that goes into making it happen” (Kabeer 2016, 298). The gendered division of labor is therefore essential to unpack and understand gender inequalities, and it has historically been at the center of feminist research and vindications.
In Nepal, changing modes of production and living under the urban-development paradigm have provoked a rapid transformation of social structures and hierarchies, including gender. In this chapter we specifically explore the constant (re)shaping of the meanings and patterns of work for Sherpa women, drawing on data from a multisited ethnography (Marcus 1995) in Gaun and Kathmandu.
Gaun is a small village located at an altitude of thirty-four hundred meters in the Solu region of the Himalayan mountains in Nepal. The village includes roughly twenty households settled around cultivation terraces, three Buddhist monasteries, and a primary school. Its population is mostly Sherpa, an ethnicity native to the mountainous regions in the north and the east of Nepal. Sherpas are 0.43 percent of the population of Nepal (Nepal Population Report 2016), have Tibeto-Burman origins, and are typically engaged with Buddhist traditions. For their knowledge of high-altitude areas and particularly within the Everest region, they are highly regarded and well known as expert mountain climbers. In fact, the term Sherpa is nowadays often misused to refer to any mountain guide or expedition staff member in the Himalayas, regardless of their ethnicity. Most of our informants often move between Gaun and Kathmandu, due to work or school requirements, to visit relatives, and/or for seasonal or temporary changes of residence. The importance of this mobility led us to the multisited approach to our ethnography, allowing us to consider not only both geographic contexts but also the variety of processes relevant to women’s mobility flows. Kathmandu is the largest metropolitan area of the Himalayas and the capital city of Nepal. It has the hustle and bustle typical of big cities: noisy, dusty, and busy streets; markets of all kinds; and also temples from diverse religious traditions—all of these attract not only foreign tourists but also pilgrims from all over Nepal.
Our fieldwork in both locations centered on issues of women’s work, specifically (1) the construction of femininity and social relations in Gaun, (2) women’s narratives on education and development (Castellsagué and Carrasco, 2020b), and (3) women’s expectations and desires for mobility in urban settings, both within Nepal and abroad.
WORK: A DRIVER FOR WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT IN NEPAL
This chapter focuses on three important labor factors from a gender perspective among Sherpas in Nepal. Firstly, there are the continuing ethnic differentiations of women’s participation in wage labor. Second, the dominant development discourses situate “modern” wage labor as desirable, particularly for women, who are usually considered by development organizations as independent or empowered if they participate in the productive economy and bring a monetary income to the household. Finally, government and international organizations promote wage labor over other traditional activities such as subsistence farming, as the Nepal Human Development Report (2014) emphasizes: “The pace of economic growth needs to accelerate, and be accompanied by large-scale employment generation and enhanced productivity” (3). In Nepal, although women represent 53 percent of the employed population, there’s a significant gender gap when it comes to wage employment—only 8.3 percent are paid—women are overrepresented in the informal sector (including unpaid family workers, unpaid apprentices, and part-time workers) and low-skilled jobs (Acharya 2014). According to the Gender Gap Report, Nepal ranks high among countries in terms of female workforce participation (16th out of 144) but fares much worse when it comes to wage equality for women where it ranks much lower (98th out of 144) for all workers, and 115th out of 144 for professional and technical workers) (World Economic Forum 2017). If we take a more qualitative approach, we see that the organization of female labor reflects Nepal’s ethnic and cultural diversity. Acharya and Bannett (1983) noted two differentiated patterns: while the Hindu communities concentrated female labor within domestic work and subsistence production, Tibeto Burman communities, such as Sherpa, showed a higher degree of female participation in the market economy and a more significant role in household economic decisions. Despite dramatic changes in the modes of production in Nepal and the organization of women’s labor organization, we found that the patterns described by Acharya and Bennett (1983) still persist.
Mobility is the second (and intimately related) factor as women’s movements are tied to job-seeking opportunities (Hagen-Zanker et al. 2014). As we have argued (Castellsagué, forthcoming), a particular mobility regime in Nepal, embedded within the hegemonic development paradigms, promotes certain flows to urban centers and abroad, mainly to more developed countries (e.g., the Gulf States, Southeast Asia, and India (Maharjan, Bauer, and Knerr 2012; Government of Nepal and Ministry of Labour and Employment 2016). This chapter examines an often-overlooked aspect of mobility, namely the linkage between internal and external migration from a gender perspective. International migration, which is predominantly masculine, is closely tied to national and internal patterns of wives’ mobility to the urban centers (Maharjan 2015). Women are increasingly participating in such mobility dynamics and are no longer seen as mere administrators of remittances. Rather, they have an active role in the economic and labor strategies in Nepal and abroad (Hamal Gurung 2015).
Definition: mobility regime
refers to the specific ways in which movements of people are organized in a hierarchical way, privileging some movements over others.
Finally, young women see education as a strategic access door to wage labor and modern lifestyles, which mostly means being educated, living in a city or abroad, and participating in the wage labor force. Harber (2014) maintains that the promise of access to the labor market, as well as of better jobs and income, is at the core of schooling discourses and constitutes one of the main drivers in the promotion of education in Nepal.
The education system is being viewed as being “successful” only when a student graduates and secures the job that will take him or, rarely, her out of the village with its traditional values and into the city with its modern lifestyle. (Wynd 1999, 107)
To continue their education, young people must move to Kathmandu or abroad, adapting to more urban livelihoods and job expectations.
LIFE IN GAUN
“It’s hard work, but we’re satisfied,” stated Amita, a thirty-year-old woman who lives in Gaun with her younger son and daughter. Her eldest son lives with her extended family in a nearby village, and her husband spends weekdays in another village where he is employed as the school principal. The organization of work in Gaun is based on a sexual division of labor. As Dolma, fifty-eight, describes it, “Women are always busy with the home, the culture. Men work to make the money, they go to the Himalaya, trekking, ride a car in Europe … they want to be rich; after all, daily life is carried on by women.” Note that Dolma uses the expression “ride a car in Europe” and links it to the idea of being rich; that is, being able to afford a car in Europe and ride it. Everyday life in Gaun for women includes working in the fields, taking care of the animals (usually cows or goats), fetching water for the kitchen, sharing tea and chatting with other women, exchanging products with other families, and visiting relatives, among other activities. Some women, such as Amita or Mingma, also work as teachers in Gaun’s school; while others own small shops with basic goods or host guests at their households as forms of business. For men, everyday life can vary depending on their work: they pray and make puja (ceremonies) if they are lamas (Buddhist monks), they guide trekking expeditions, or work in the school if they are teachers. They also work in the construction sector and take care of the livestock. In the periods between work assignments, they socialize with other men and work in the crops with their relatives.
Definition: sexual division of labor
delegation or assignment of different tasks to males and females within a group, family, or society
We quickly noticed that the masculine and feminine spheres are significantly separated in Gaun. The spaces of socialization, the type of work, and the daily activities are organized according not only to sex but also age. Men and women carry out different activities and spend most of the time with their gender equals, while age is used to assign roles within the family and the crop production. Both factors, age and gender, appear to be intertwined, not only for the organization of daily chores but also for the transference of knowledge and social responsibilities. This makes the case for an intersectional approach in our analysis.
Women never viewed the separate gendered spheres of work and socialization as a disadvantage. Due to the work women perform, they also play a central role in resource management and decision making, both within the family unit and the village (Tamang 2000). Their capacity of work is an essential component of the valuation of femininity in Gaun. They consider a “real Sherpa” to be a woman who is strong, both physically and in character, self-confident, and capable of working hard. While working in the fields, women also create strong networks through which they help each other and develop a sense of community (see figure 6.4).
In their workspaces, including the households, they make decisions about social issues. Whenever something happens in Gaun, whether it is a political, economic, or community issue, women informally gather at some household or in a field, and while sharing tea or working together they evaluate the situation, exchange opinions, and usually come up with an agreement on how to address the issue at hand (see figure 6.5). Work becomes an aspect of women’s identities, something for which they are socially valued and respected; their labor is much more than just an economic contribution.
If we think about other intrinsic factors, women nowadays carry the majority of the burden of both household and village work due to long absences of men and young people who are away for work or education. The majority of families in Gaun lack some of their male members, either permanently or temporarily. We learn of them through phone calls, photographs, and the many stories we hear from their wives, children, and relatives. Men pursue paid jobs in the mountain region (trekking, expeditions), Kathmandu (work in an office or restaurant), or abroad (mostly construction). Young boys and girls move for educational purposes, as the possibilities for further study are better in the larger cities of Nepal. Male internal migration has an impact on the way work is organized, experienced, and signified by women in Gaun. Productivity decreases due to the lack of laborers, many fields and houses are left unoccupied, and women, both adult and elderly, take an active role in most of the work in Gaun. Amita describes her daily chores, which are “to carry water from the riverside, look after the babies, feed them, look after the animals, work in the fields, cooking, host guests.” A common feeling among women, particularly younger women, is that “life is hard in Gaun, because we have to do a lot of work,” as the fifteen-year-old Manju states. Other informants also refer to life as gharo (hard or difficult) in Gaun because of the lack of amenities. Amita observes that “there is no access to a market, it is hard to bring basic goods and there’s a lack of infrastructure, such as electricity.” Therefore, the difficulties among Sherpa women encompass not only the amount of work to be done but also the burdens they face due to poor infrastructure and the absence of men. Age, gender, and men’s national and international migration are relevant factors in shaping the design and development of women’s mobility projects and their perceptions of life. As we will see in the next section, the perception of rural life as “hard” is usually based on comparisons with urban life either experienced or only imagined.
LIFE IN THE CITY
The reasons for moving to Kathmandu are diverse, depending on each family’s situation and their particular mobility projects. However, as men migrate to seek better job opportunities, women may also try to avoid relatively unproductive and hard agricultural labor by moving to urban areas, usually to educate children (Maharjan, 2015). We can identify common themes in the organization of work among the families, as well as the way women experience and perceive city life.
Definition: mobility project
the intentional family decisions and plans made regarding mobility, as opposed to involuntary movements forced by particular needs.
Sherpa women have very good facilities here [in the city], and they don’t have to work. Most of [the] Sherpa women that stay in Kathmandu, their husbands are abroad, in Dubai, Malaysia, Qatar … you know? And they earn money, and they send them (remittances). And the woman’s job is only to look after their kids, and look after herself also. Only this. (Mingma, twenty-three years old)
As we notice through Mingma’s statement, daily life is notably different for Sherpa women in Kathmandu. She points out some transformations in the organization of work in urban settings, compared to rural life in Gaun. First, life is perceived as much more sagilo (easy) for women in the city due to access to better amenities. Although she recognizes that women, due to the absence of men, are still the ones that do all the work, the fact of being in an urban environment and having money completely changes her interpretation of work and its difficulty. She feels that they “only” have to perform reproductive tasks. Dolma also stresses the importance of money in order to reduce the burden of work in the city by saying that “if you have money in the city you can buy everything, you can order food from home, and in the village you have to do it yourself.” Men’s internal migration is relevant, as their remittances may seem more useful for women in an urban setting, where money can be put to better use. On the other hand, extra money in Gaun does not necessarily contribute to an easier life for women, at least not as they perceive it. We can also see how while in Gaun concepts of “work” did not differentiate between productive and reproductive labor, in Kathmandu such distinctions are meaningful. Reproductive work in Kathmandu is not just seen as “easier” work but not even considered work at all.
Definition: productive work
human activities that produce goods or services with an exchange value, usually associated with the public spheres.
Definition: reproductive work
human activities that sustain the biological and social (re)production of the workforce. The term encompasses all the tasks needed to guarantee the survival, care, and material and emotional well-being of the members of a group, family, or society.
Working less is perceived as an improvement in women’s daily lives. However, if we consider how central work is for their self-worth and identity, we must consider whether such changes have other effects in their social lives and relationships. As we noted, life in the city is much more isolated than in Gaun; in fact it represents a loss of social ties and support networks for women living in Kathmandu. Dolma often expresses a feeling of loneliness, while other women feel that they have “nothing to do.” Interestingly, while working less is central to the idea of life as being “easier,” the informants also see the feeling of “not working at all,” in Dolma’s own words, as problematic.
Thus, mobility to access urban centers, often embedded within larger mobility projects and men’s international migration, shapes the patterns of Sherpa social organization. Women shift from a heavy combination of productive and reproductive work in Gaun to doing mainly household work in the city. With this change in work patterns, women need to (re)think and (re)orient their position and role within the family and the community.
HIGH EXPECTATIONS VERSUS POOR OPPORTUNITIES
Within mainstream development discourse, the city is imagined and portrayed as full of opportunities for women to engage global economies. When asking the young girls from Gaun about their expectations for the future, the majority of them aimed to live in Kathmandu or abroad. Many hoped to keep studying or to work as teachers, nurses, or social workers. Education is therefore seen as a useful tool to access to better job opportunities and gain sources of income (Castellsagué and Carrasco 2020). We found these common ideas embedded in notions of development such as productivity and the promotion of an urban-centered economy that prevail in Nepal to have particular gendered interpretation among our participants.
Boys can get any job. In the village they can work as a porter, as a trekking guide, as a cook … Even if they are uneducated they can get this kind of job easily. In Kathmandu also, they can be a driver, work in the construction. Even abroad, they can do any work. Girls … girls they can’t. If you are a girl, you have to get good education to get any job. (Mingma, twenty-three years old)
Mingma talks about how education becomes more meaningful for girls, who need it to compete for a job in the labor market. Since “jobs for boys” are often low skilled and can be accessed without any formal training, Mingma feels that girls need education to access “girls’ jobs,” such as teaching, working in a call center, or working as an administrative assistant. From an intersectional approach, we see how education is not only meaningful but is also considered valuable along gendered lines.
Nonetheless, one of the frequently mentioned challenges that young women living in the city face is the difficulty of getting jobs.
The problem is that everyone wants to come to Ktm [Kathmandu] to study further and to do something, but they can’t because it is very hard, you know? The person who has a bachelor pass or something like this, they can’t find a job. So it is very difficult here. (Mingma, twenty-three years old)
As Mingma explains, even having success in school does not guarantee that women will have access to formal jobs in the city. Therefore, the expectations that link schooling in the urban environment to direct access to productive jobs are not always fulfilled.
NEW PROBLEMS, CREATIVE ALTERNATIVES
We have identified the ways women’s lives and expectations have changed and been (re)shaped by mobility and access to urban centers. Within their new circumstances in the cities, women face new positions and roles that they need to (re)negotiate and (re)signify in dialogue with their changing individual and social identities.
Facing the difficulties in pursuing job opportunities within the formal labor market, most of the informants have devised creative solutions. The majority of them have, in fact, a part-time job or run businesses in Kathmandu. “Sherpini [Sherpa women] always are looking for a side job, even in Kathmandu,” Dolma explains. She works as a volunteer, translator, and is a social activist. Other women prepare chang (homemade alcohol), momo (sherpa dumplings) or ghe (homemade butter) and sell it in the neighborhood, or they import products from the village and distribute them in Kathmandu. Mingma’s mother works in the family restaurant, and Jangmu owns a tea house in Boudhanath, the city’s Sherpa neighborhood. Their jobs are usually circumscribed within the informal sector, and they are obtained through the (re)activation of social networks, often built on the basis of a common village origin or kinship. “From home to home. With the phone we call the houses and ask what they need. We buy and sell through our own networks,” Dolma explains.
Women might seem somehow caught in a paradox. Despite their opinions highlighting a predilection for the “good” and “easy life” of the city, they have also expressed the need or desire to feel themselves active beyond the household. Dolma summarizes some of her reasons:
Money is important for independence. If you keep money you can have power. But it is also good for mental health and depression. You can see other women suffer from these, but the Sherpa we suffer much less, because we keep our minds busy, active, and we never stop working. You have to hold business. Also through work we can have connections with European people, while if you stay home you never get that. I’m almost 60 and I travel, I make new friends. I feel great! (Dolma, fifty-eight years old)
We see how working beyond the household continues to be meaningful for Sherpa women. While women are attracted to city life for the infrastructure and less work burden, they also do not settle for a role that only encompasses reproductive work and domestic chores.
(RE)QUESTIONING WORK AND THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN
This chapter has analyzed the transformations of work culture and organization between rural and urban environments, challenging the dominant development paradigm that links particular kinds of work (productive) and lifestyles (urban) with women’s empowerment and emancipation.
Our results confirm classic research that unpacks how a particular ideal of a “good” and “easy” life was, and still is, linked to development, which promotes urban settlement and productive work. By contrast, manual labor and agriculture are seen as “too hard,” a fact that we interpret as a way of devaluing these rural modes of production. Moreover, this chapter specifically analyzes this phenomenon from a gender perspective, questioning the pertinence and relevance of the dichotomy between productive and reproductive work. In rural contexts, daily life includes multitasking activities, which according to Aikman are “characteristic of women’s work and belies sharp divisions between household tasks and productive tasks” (1999, 71). However, such task differentiation becomes more relevant when women move to Kathmandu and they start to integrate the discriminatory logic of the capitalist sexual division of labor (Rosaldo 1979; Federici 2012): that is, not valuing as work the reproductive activities they do and reducing the variety of participation and socialization spaces to the domestic sphere.
The supposed emancipation that comes through participation in productive wage labor needs to be reconsidered. Although research has shown a clear increase in women’s participation in the labor market in terms of quantity, it is not clear what they have gained in terms of quality (Kabeer 2016). It is important to assess whether participation in the labor market, in the cases where participation is successfully achieved, is actually an improvement in women’s life conditions, since the workplace has been set as another patriarchal space and is broadly segregated along horizontal and vertical lines (Mills 2003; Kabeer 2015, 2016; Wilson 2015). Gender segregation in employment refers to men and women’s unequal distribution of access and performance within a certain occupational structure (a company, an economic sector, a state). Vertical segregation refers to the concentration of men at the top of the power hierarchies; while horizontal segregation is used when the segregation is based on the tasks both men and women do. Moreover, this push for development relies on a very narrow idea of work, which undervalues and excludes the multiple subsistence activities (e.g., agriculture and livestock, manual labor) that are considered unproductive (Shiva 1989). Feminism has historically challenged the very idea of salaried jobs as liberating (Federici 2004) and reclaimed that reproductive tasks are the foundations of any society, particularly within capitalist economies (Federici 2012). We need, therefore, new paradigms and approaches calling for the inclusion of community and familiar spheres as part of the economies, spaces where women are already active and powerful (Norberg-Hodge 1991). This chapter has highlighted the importance of women’s networks as sites for gender analysis and as sources of power (Cornwall and Rivas 2015; Rosaldo 1979). Our ethnographic data show how women (re)activate these networks to challenge urban isolation and keep their economic participation vibrant. Finally, ethnographic insights challenge the dominant macro and quantitative approaches to labor and economics. Not only do they enrich the existing knowledge about the “geographies of gender” (Kabeer 2016), but also they also help us imagine diverse and meaningful paths toward development and gender equality worldwide.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What factors should we consider when analyzing work relations among men and women?
2. How does mobility to urban areas affect the organization of work for the Sherpa?
3. Which are the social aspects to take into account when considering women’s well-being?
KEY TERMS
mobility project: the intentional family decisions and plans made regarding mobility, as opposed to involuntary movements forced by particular needs.
mobility regime: refers to the specific ways in which movements of people are organized in a hierarchical way, privileging some movements over others.
productive work: human activities that produce goods or services with an exchange value, usually associated with the public spheres.
reproductive work: human activities that sustain the biological and social (re)production of the workforce. The term encompasses all the tasks needed to guarantee the survival, care, and material and emotional well-being of the members of a group, family, or society.
sexual division of labor: delegation or assignment of different tasks to males and females within a group, family, or society
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Acharya, Meena, and Lynn Bennett. 1983. “Women and the Subsistence Sector: Economic Participation and Household Decision Making in Nepal.” World Bank Staff Working Papers, Washington, DC.
• Hamal Gurung, Shobha. 2015. “Coming to America. Gendered Labor, Women’s Agency, and Transnationalism.” In Nepali Migrant Women: Resistance and Survival in America, 1–83. New York: Syracuse University Press.
• Mills, Mary Beth. 2003. “Gender and Inequality in the Global Labor Force.” Annual Review of Anthropology 32, no. 1: 41–62. doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093107.
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INTRODUCTION
Latin America and the Caribbean comprise a vibrant region in relation to women’s activism, leadership, and contributions to society, particularly economically and politically, as well as historically and currently. In fact, the organizing efforts of women and people with nonbinary gender identities, transnational solidarity, and state responses have led to increased access to health, education, and other services over the past decades (Cosgrove 2010). These Latin American activists and leaders are uniquely positioned to meet challenges the region faces while continuing to advance their rights. This is because these activists’ culturally ascribed roles as caretakers in the home and the community, as well as their activism and volunteerism during periods of economic and political turmoil—such as conflict, authoritarianism, and neoliberal cuts to state spending, to mention a few—translate directly into important oppositional knowledges and skills such as networking, organizing, cooperating, and listening across difference.
Definition: authoritarianism
A political doctrine that requires strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.
Though women and people with other nondominant gender identities and sexualities across the region have achieved much over the past fifty years, there still exist gender gaps: in many spaces, men have benefited from gender hierarchies—the regional equivalent of which is machismo. Gender is best understood relationally; the struggles and experiences of women and people with nondominant gender identities are tied to those of men. Machismo or public and private “exaggerated masculinity” (Ehlers 1991, 3) is a wily term that evades easy definition given its overuse, which stereotypes macho Latin American men who are portrayed as unfaithful and who mistreat the women in their lives. This usage can get deployed to depict men from the Global North as angels compared to their counterparts in the Global South. Obviously this is not the case, as gender-based violence and gender discrimination permeate patriarchal societies around the world, not just Latin America and the Caribbean. Terminology is further complicated by women’s participation in the perpetuation of harmful gender roles and expectations. In the region, men don’t learn gender relations in a vacuum; rather, men, women, and others participate in the maintenance of these cultural roles, even though men generally hold more power and control over resources in patriarchal societies. Sometimes referred to as marianismo—or the trope of the long-suffering mother (e.g., Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ)—is a term that can also reaffirm stereotypes of Latin American women; in this case, the term helps sustain beliefs that women are submissive and should stay in abusive relationships because it’s a woman’s lot to suffer (Ehlers 1991). The machismo/marianismo dichotomy is problematic for a number of reasons. It implies that men and women have equal power, which is not the case given the gender hierarchies in place across the region. And the terms also stereotype male and female roles in ways that do not reflect the complexity or reality of people’s lives and relationships. Due to persistent gender inequalities throughout the region, women and people with nondominant gender identities experience higher levels of poverty and discrimination than men (Craske 2003, 58). There are hidden aspects of the discrimination that women and often those with nonbinary gender identities face as well, such as having to work a double shift—income generation and unpaid care work—or a triple shift, which means income generation, unpaid care work, and community activism. This triple burden (Craske 2003, 67; Cosgrove and Curtis 2017, 131) means women and others from poor communities are often working around the clock to guarantee their families’ survival.
Definition: marianismo
a gender ideology in which certain feminine characteristics are valued above others. These include being submissive, chaste, virginal, and morally strong.
Even the category of “woman” is heterogeneous in Latin America given the intersectional identities that many women hold. First, Latin America and the Caribbean generally have high levels of income inequality, which means that many women are in poverty, creating a gendered ripple effect given women’s responsibilities for children and members of their extended families, particularly the elderly. Second, Latin America and the Caribbean have significant Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. Often Indigenous and Afro-descendant women face exclusion due to racism throughout the region, which is compounded by sexism. Third, there is quite a lot of population movement throughout the region; often women migrants or refugees as well as those with other nondominant gender identities face challenges their community-of-origin counterparts don’t face, such as lack of what Goett calls “female sociality and mutual aid” (2017, 161) or solidarity that often emerges from kin relations and community life and may not exist for those who are traveling alone from one place to another without documentation or visas. And finally, women aren’t the only people in Latin America who face gender discrimination; women as well as people with nonbinary gender identities and nondominant sexualities have not historically held positions of leadership or control over resources. In fact, people with nondominant gender identities often face worse discrimination and exclusion than cisgender women. In the rest of this introductory chapter, we review regional gender indicators across several areas; then we provide a brief survey of the historical events that inform current opportunities and challenges for women and others; the third section summarizes present-day political and economic policies and their gendered ramifications.
Definition: Indigenous
refers to people who originated in or are the earliest-known inhabitants of an area. Also known as First Peoples, First Nations, Aboriginal peoples or Native peoples.
Definition: cisgender
refers to people whose gender identity corresponds to their sex at birth.
GENDER AND REGIONAL INDICATORS
The purpose of this section is to describe some of the opportunities that women in Latin America and the Caribbean face in terms of health, education, employment, political participation, and civil society participation as well as some of the challenges they confront related to sexism and the intersectional effects of other forms of social and economic difference. Gender-based violence affects women across the region; we explore this topic in greater detail in this section as it puts at risk achievements in other areas and indicates pernicious gender inequality and serious intersectional impacts for women and people with nondominant gender identities and sexualities from poor, rural, or other marginalized backgrounds and ethnic identities, which exacerbate exclusion (World Bank 2012, 15).
Definition: intersectional/ality
refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that create overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact to impact our identities and how we live in our society.
Reproductive health is an important topic for women in Latin America, and yet, women’s access in some parts of the region is at risk due to conservative values colliding with women’s sexuality, which results in oppressive laws, legal frameworks, and enforcement or lack thereof. Many countries in the region provide access to birth control, and the rate of maternal deaths is decreasing, while live births are rising. However, this still hasn’t reached across difference (see figure 7.1). There are large gaps across economic, ethnic, and racial groups (PAHO 2017, 11–12) that affect overall health. This means that poor women, Indigenous women, and others affected by multiple forms of social difference suffer disproportionately; this is further exacerbated by severe antiabortion laws that imprison women who seek abortions as well as doctors who provide them (Guthrie 2019). For example, abortion is prohibited in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic and very limited in many other countries in the region (Guthrie 2019).
In terms of education, more girls than boys are attending school—primary through secondary—as well as graduating from college in Latin America and the Caribbean. This has led to the overturn of a historical gender advantage for boys and men (World Bank 2012, 15), but these advances are threatened by the fact that in the face of economic or political crisis, families often encourage girls to drop out of school before boys. This is due to the social expectation that boys will grow up to be providers—therefore they need an education to secure a job—whereas girls will be primarily responsible for homes and unpaid care work and therefore not need an education as much as boys (Cosgrove 2010).
There has been a steady increase in women’s participation in the formal economies of Latin America and the Caribbean (World Bank 2012, 20) since the late twentieth century. However, there are a number of factors that continue to impede this participation. At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, new burdens were placed on women. During the crises created by authoritarian military regimes in the 1970s and 1980s, women were often responsible for the survival of their families as men fled the fighting, joined the fighting, or were targeted as subversives. This dire situation saw women working around the clock. Upon the return to democracy across the region in the 1990s, Latin America and the Caribbean were negatively impacted by the structural adjustment policies and neoliberal demands placed on governments by international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These policies that privatized state enterprises and cut basic food subsidies and welfare programs had gendered impacts on women who were primarily responsible for the survival of their families. When the economic depression of 2008 hit, many men lost their jobs. Women had to generate income in whatever way they could, and again women were primarily responsible for the survival of their families and communities. Finally, women tend to join the informal sector more often than the formal sector where they have fewer legal protections and benefits (World Bank 2012, 21). In the informal sector, women often earn less, have less job security, and are more vulnerable to violence.
When it comes to political leadership and civil society organizing, women have made significant contributions. In the arena of political leadership, there are and have been multiple women presidents across the region over the past couple of decades with multiple women leaders of state in the early twenty-first century. Sixteen out of eighteen countries in Latin America have implemented quotas requiring certain levels of participation of women on electoral lists for political office, and women are drawing close to comprising 30 percent of the parliaments across the region. There are gender inequities across the political sphere (IDEA 2019), such as the fact that in most political party structures men hold higher positions and women congregate at the lower levels, often serving as political organizers at the local level but not holding decision making positions within the parties (IDEA 2019).
Civil society—the wide range of formally registered nongovernmental organizations, community associations, and other organized groups be it at the local or national level—has been led and organized primarily by women for more than a hundred years in Latin America and the Caribbean (Cosgrove 2010). For example, in Argentina, women created a national network of hospitals, schools, and an emergency response system to natural disasters in the late nineteenth century. In El Salvador, women participated in the country-wide protests of the 1930s that led to the matanza or slaughter of over thirty-thousand people in 1932; Salvadoran women also comprised a third of the guerrilla forces that fought the government in the 1980–1992 civil war. Similar stories exist across the region.
LGBTQIA rights have expanded in recent decades in Latin America and the Caribbean, which have benefited women and people with nonconforming gender identities and sexualities; interestingly, this is accompanied by the fact there are a number of cultures in the region that allow for more than two genders, such as the machi for the Mapuche (Chile) and the muxes in southern Mexico, for example. As we’ve seen in other areas such as health care, changing legal frameworks mean that LGBTQIA individuals have more rights, at least on the books (Corrales 2015, 54). Although there are countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil) as well as cities (Mexico City, Cancún, Bogotá, and Santiago) in the region where the legal framework and implementation of laws have formalized rights (Corrales 2015, 54), there are many places where rights are not guaranteed. In fact, LGBTQIA individuals—like other minority or marginalized groups—face higher levels of vulnerability if their gender identities or sexualities also intersect with other marginalized identities.
A sobering factor that affects women and people with nondominant genders throughout the Americas is violence, in general, and gender-based violence, in particular. We mention violence in general because violence perpetrated by state actors, organized crime, gangs, human trafficking, and violence against displaced and migrant people promotes an atmosphere in which gender-based violence increases (PNUD 2013, 85). In countries with a history of civil war or military dictatorships throughout the region, violence against women can be exacerbated, particularly for Indigenous or Afro-descendant women (Boesten 2010; Cosgrove and Lee 2015; Franco 2007; Hastings 2002), in part due to the failure to hold soldiers accountable for the abuse (Goett 2017, 152).
In the region, femicide rates are rising faster than homicide rates; though more men are killed in the region, the rate at which women are killed for being women is rising faster than homicide rates (PNUD 2013, 85): “Of the 20 countries with the highest rates of homicide in the world, 18 are in Latin America and the Caribbean” (PAHO 2017, 23). Almost one-third of women in Latin America and the Caribbean have been subject to violence in their own homes (PNUD 2013, 23), and two thirds have faced gender-based violence outside of their homes (PNUD 2013, 82). Though domestic and public violence cut across all social classes and other forms of difference, women and people with nondominant gender identities and sexualities often face more obstacles to gain access to justice, which is obviously worse in countries with weak governance and rule of law (PAHO 2017, 13). Though there is agreement that the region is confronting high levels of gender-based violence, it is hard to know the full extent of the problem because sometimes there is underreporting due to the fact that women and others don’t feel that their cases will result in any form of justice and/or they are afraid to report violence (PNUD 2013, 83). In some countries, the statistics are increasing, but this isn’t necessarily because there is an increase in violence against women but rather because there is an emergent culture in which members of society are more likely to report a crime.
Definition: femicide
refers to the intentional killing of females (women or girls) because of their gender.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The arrival of European conquerors and colonizers to Latin America had disastrous effects on the entire region; the decimation of the region’s Indigenous peoples unfolded quickly as people were murdered outright or died from contracting European diseases (Denevan 1992, xvii–xxix). It is argued that in most of the Americas, Indigenous populations had declined by 89 percent by 1650 (Denevan 1992, xvii–xxix; Newson 2005, 143), a mere 150 years after contact with Europeans. In addition to European illnesses, displacement and loss of life due to slavery, war, and genocide, also contributed to the loss of life. Indeed, Indigenous populations did not recover from the conquest, and by the early 1800s Indigenous people “accounted for only 37 percent of Latin America’s total population of 21 million” (Newson 2005, 143).
When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1502 to the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica in Central America, there was a large and thriving population comprising multiple Indigenous cultures—including the Mayas, Aztecs, Pipils, and Lencas, among others—and robust economies, including regional trade from present-day Mexico to Panama (Lovell and Lutz 1990, 127). At that time, it is estimated there was a population of 5.6 million people spread from what is present-day Chiapas in southern Mexico to Panama (Denevan 1992, xvii–xxix).
In South America, there were the Incas in the Andes, the Mapuche in present-day Chile and Argentina, and other Indigenous groups in the Amazon basin. Similar to the Aztecs in Mexico and the Maya in southern Mexico and Central America, European diseases decimated South American Indigenous peoples along with outright genocide and enslavement. It is important to note, however, that the Spanish never conquered the Mapuche, as the Mapuche warriors fought back so hard and ingeniously that they forced the Spanish to sign a treaty respecting their lands south of the Biobio River in south-central Chile. It wasn’t until after independence that the Chilean and Argentine armies finally subjugated the Mapuche in the late 1880s.
Whereas the Spanish—and to some extent the British—focused on Central America, and while in South America it was primarily the Spanish and the Portuguese, the Caribbean region had even more colonial powers vying for the region. In the Caribbean, the French, British, Spanish, and others competed for dominance; this, in turn, created obvious problems for local Indigenous populations, as was the case of the Afro-indigenous group, the Garifuna, on the island of St. Vincent. In a treaty in which the French ceded the island to the British, the Garifuna were then exiled to the coast of Honduras by the British, decimating their population: half of the Garifuna died at that time. A big development in the Caribbean—and other places in Latin America—was the introduction of enslaved Africans from the Atlantic slave trade in which twenty-one million Africans were brought to the Americas over the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The colonization of Latin America left an imprint of inequality, elite privilege, racialized and racist institutional practices, gendered legacies, and the dispersal of Indigenous and African descendant peoples across the region. This history has served to naturalize and embed divisions between rich and poor, men and people with nondominant gender identities and sexualities, and mestizos and Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant peoples in social mores and legal frameworks (Radcliffe 2015, 15).
These processes of enslavement, genocide, and colonization had gendered effects across the region from the beginning. Because initial population flows from Spain and other European colonial powers were primarily male with European female migration unfolding more gradually, Spanish men raped and cohabitated with Indigenous and African women leading to a new generation of mestizos or mixed-race people. The foundation of colonies was based on the rape of Indigenous women and then their expected service to this colonial project. This not only normalized violence against women but also affected gender roles between Indigenous men and women. Many historians of Latin America discuss how violence against women today is informed by the rape of women during the Conquest and early years of the colonies: this was a “broader acceptance that dated back to the colonial era of using sexual and gender-based violence to uphold patriarchy” (Carey and Torres 2010, 146), in which neither local customs nor community legal frameworks intervened to stop gender-based violence. Though there were differences across the region, colonial culture and law conspired to protect elite interests and subordinate nonelites (Socolow 1980) as well as allow local men to mistreat women as an escape valve for discrimination, poverty, and other indignities (Forster 1999). This, then, continued into the nineteenth century, or the early state-building era under independent countries, in which women were often blamed for the abuse they suffered, called witches, or categorized as sex workers and therefore undeserving of justice. This time also coincides with the neocolonial rise in global power of the United States. From the mid-nineteenth century on, US foreign policy and economic interests played a significant role in the region from supporting the overthrow of leaders critical of the United States, providing military aid to repressive governments aligned with US interests, and promoting US corporations’ expansion along the length and breadth of the region (see Chomsky 2021).
Definition: mestizos
refers to people of mixed ancestry, including Indigenous and Spanish.
During times of dictatorship and authoritarian regimes in the early, mid-, and late twentieth centuries, restrictive gender roles and targeting of so-called subversive women furthered gender-based violence to the extent that Drysdale Walsh and Menjívar argue that high present levels of impunity and violence are informed by “deeply intertwined … roots in multisided violence—a potent combination of structural, symbolic, political, gender and gendered, and everyday forms of violence” (2016, 586), which moves us past the facile stereotype used to blame gender-based violence on Latin American “macho men” and instead opens up a field of study that posits colonialism, neocolonialism, poverty, state violence, and high levels of impunity as some of the causes of high levels of violence against women in the region today.
As previously mentioned, the effects of this conquest led to the emergence of a mestizo population, or ladinos as they are known in Guatemala: the children, and in turn, their descendants, of Europeans and Indigenous or African people. Some members of this hybrid group came to hold power, and upon independence in the early 1800s, an emergent mestizo elite was poised to claim power over poor mestizos, Indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendant groups. European-descendant whites and mestizos hold most of the power today in Latin America. Models of exclusion and repression were thus integrated into the early independent countries of Latin America, which continued to perpetuate exclusion for marginalized groups, including women, with the use of force and “calculated terror … an established method of control of the rural population for five centuries” (Woodward 1984, 292), which did spark Indigenous and peasant resistance, revolution, and civil war at different times.
Definition: ladinos
refers to mestizos and Westernized Indigenous Latin Americans who primarily speak Spanish.
MODERN CONTEXT
The work of historians—often reading between the lines of early colonial diaries and even court proceedings—has uncovered some of the historical and cultural complexities of Indigenous cultures in the Americas and provided insight into the struggles of the marginalized and disenfranchised, substantiating claims of their activism, contributions, and struggles from the sixteenth century onward, especially in the phases of early state building after independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. This is how a vibrant civil society emerges throughout the region with numerous examples of leadership and activism by women, workers, and Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples (Cosgrove 2010, 43). Historically, conservative oligarchic interests and dominant Catholic Church teachings had a double standard for women. There were the elite women, bound to uphold social mores and European standards, and there were the peasant, Afro-descendent, and Indigenous women who were expected to do most of the social, economic, and unpaid domestic work during the early years of colonies and independent Latin American states.
Women often chose to participate in struggles as activists and leaders when their livelihoods, families, and customs were threatened. The actions they chose to carry out were obviously shaped by social class, race, and gender. These histories have also affected the amount of solidarity (or lack thereof) that can be found among women activists: the more stratified a society is, the more women are separated by class. Therefore, the less likely it is that cross-cutting movements will form and accomplish social change and transformation (Cosgrove 2010, 44). In Chile and Argentina, for example, it was primarily elite women who were the first to agitate for women’s rights due to their access to resources, education, and political ideas from Europe. This consciousness alienated many working-class, poor, and Indigenous women who were doubly or triply oppressed. However, in places like El Salvador, feminism did not emerge until the civil war ended in the early 1990s. Because the war had promoted solidarity among women across difference, the women’s movement emerged in the 1990s with a much more integrated and diverse constituency (Cosgrove 2010, 45). In Cuba, by contrast, women played an active role in the 1959 Revolution that overthrew the US-backed dictator Batista and brought the socialist regime of Fidel Castro to power. Socialist Cuba by no means completely eliminated gender or racial inequality, but social reforms in health care, education, and housing greatly lowered health, educational, and income disparities across the population.
Another common theme that emerges for women today across the region is the impact of authoritarian regimes on their respective populations—civil society organizers in general and women activists in particular. Most of the authoritarian regimes of Latin America and the Caribbean—the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, the civil war in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, the civil conflict in Peru with the Shining Path—utilized gendered messages for women and the expectations that they would support the goals of the conservative security forces in charge of each country. Patriotic women were expected to be good mothers but not to take active roles in society or the workplace; women who stepped out of line were sanctioned, often punished, sometimes even more harshly than male subversives. Throughout Latin American history, women have assumed leadership roles in their families, communities, and even countries during periods of economic and political turmoil, which in turn has led to the expansion of opportunities for women to exercise leadership and activist roles.
Latin America and the Caribbean present interesting insights into the ambiguous or contradictory nature of policies meant to address inclusion. Many countries in Central and South America as well as in the Caribbean were forced to adopt neoliberal structural adjustment policies by international financial institutions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As many studies have shown, these policies had adverse effects on women and minoritized groups. Nonetheless, out of some of these policies came increased attention for Indigenous groups and their rights. Many countries were “encouraged” to implement land titling policies for Indigenous groups by the very same international agencies that had required them to cut social spending and privatize state-owned banks and electric companies. This created a space in which Indigenous peoples have made gains, but this has also meant they’ve had to negotiate these gains with state officials and the private sector: these entities had little interest in ceding land when future economic development plans include land for settlers to address the pressure of the urban poor or rural overpopulation and mega-development projects such as dams and hotels, for example. In these negotiations, Indigenous groups have found themselves having to negotiate their rights, making some progress in places and losing ground in others. This is what Hale (2005) calls neoliberal multiculturalism. Multiculturalism creates uneven gains for women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendant groups (Radcliffe 2015, 22). “Uneven gains” is the perfect term because it applies to access to land and rights, but it also means doing more with less money, fewer social services, more need for women’s unpaid care work.
Definition: neoliberal
characterized by free-market trade, deregulation of financial markets, privatization, and limited welfare and social services for populations.
Authoritarian regimes, inequality and poverty, and weak governance and rule of law are factors that contribute to the displacement and migration of people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean today. It is estimated that half the people leaving their places of origin seeking safety or economic opportunities are women or girls (PAHO 2017, 15). Given that gender hierarchies translate as discrimination toward women and people with nondominant gender identities, risks are exacerbated when they do not have official documents for travel. The risks for these undocumented migrants of sexual violence and human trafficking are even higher when they are migrating from Central America to Mexico or the United States or from Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru to Argentina or from Venezuela to other parts of South America.
CONCLUSIONS
Although women and people with nonbinary gender identities and sexualities in Latin America and the Caribbean have achieved improvements in health, education, and income generation, women still lag behind men in terms of political representation—though the region has higher political participation of women than the United States—equal pay for equal work, and access to formal leadership positions. Throughout the region there are impacts from macro-level policies, such as structural adjustments, and the effects of more generalized violence due to postwar or postconflict realities, weak states with low levels of rule of law, and gang violence, for example, that have even harsher effects on marginalized groups. These effects are exacerbated for Indigenous women, rural women, and people with nondominant gender identities and sexualities. These challenges, though, are balanced by a long history and a multitude of present-day examples of activism and leadership on behalf of rights, the survival of their communities, and commitment to addressing the effects of climate change. A number of international movements across different issues unite people throughout the region: this, in turn, has led to extensive transnational networks, concerted actions, and knowledge sharing throughout the region and with other parts of the world. This includes the Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (FEDEFAM); the Network of Rural Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Red LAC), and annual meetings of the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Association.
The chapters in Part III Latin America present anthropological research that showcases some of the ethnic diversity and ongoing struggles for equality presented in this introduction to the region. Chapter 8 and 9 begin from the standpoint of gender being relational, that is, the experiences of women are tied to the gendered lives of men. In chapter 8 the author explores how older men with erectile dysfunction construct their identities as men in the context of a culture of “machismo” rooted in sexual prowess. The author of chapter 9 in turn, takes an intersectional view of the masculinities of Black working-class men in northeast Brazil. As a marginalized racial group facing widespread unemployment, these men struggle with dominant notions of masculinity that they cannot meet. In chapters 10 and 11, the authors examine the lives of Indigenous women and their efforts to improve the economic conditions of their families. Chapter 10 explores the unintended consequences of an antipoverty project targeting Indigenous rural women in Mexico. Here the program’s requirements help adolescent girls but hinder their mothers’ efforts to provide for their families. The author in chapter 11 demonstrates how global capitalism dovetails with traditional market practices of Indigenous women in Guatemala, as women engage in a new form of sales as independent distributors for Herbalife, a multinational corporation. Finally, the profile at the end of the introduction to the “region” section presents the work of a nonprofit focused on curbing the high rate of violence against women in Guatemala.
KEY TERMS
authoritarianism: A political doctrine that requires strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.
cisgender: refers to people whose gender identity corresponds to their sex at birth.
femicide: refers to the intentional killing of females (women or girls) because of their gender.
Indigenous: refers to people who originated in or are the earliest-known inhabitants of an area. Also known as First Peoples, First Nations, Aboriginal peoples or Native peoples.
intersectional/ality: refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that create overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact to impact our identities and how we live in our society.
ladinos: refers to mestizos and Westernized Indigenous Latin Americans who primarily speak Spanish.
marianismo: a gender ideology in which certain feminine characteristics are valued above others. These include being submissive, chaste, virginal, and morally strong.
mestizos: refers to people of mixed ancestry, including Indigenous and Spanish.
neoliberal: characterized by free-market trade, deregulation of financial markets, privatization, and limited welfare and social services for populations.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
BOOKS
• Cosgrove, Serena. 2010. Leadership from the Margins: Women and Civil Society Organizations in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Kampwirth, Karen. 2010. Gender and Populism in Latin America: Passionate Politics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Marino, Katherine M. 2019. Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.
• Shayne, Julie. 2004. The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Stephen, Lynn. 1997. Women and Social Movements in Latin America Power from Below. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Radcliffe, Sarah. 2015. Dilemmas of Difference: Indigenous Women and the Limits of Postcolonial Development Policy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
ARTICLES
• Burrell, J. L. and E. Moodie. 2021. “Introduction: Generations and Change in Central America.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 25, no. 4 (2020): 522–31. doi-org.library.esc.edu/10.1111/jlca.12525.
DOCUMENTARIES AND FILMS
• Cabellos, Ernesto, Frigola Torrent, Núria Prieto, Antolín Sánchez, Carlos Giraldo, Jessica Steiner, Hilari Sölle, Miguel Choy-Yin, Martin Ayay, and Nélida Chilón. 2016. Hija De La Laguna—Daughter of the Lake. Lima, Peru: Guarango Cine Y Video.
• Guzmán, Patricio, Renate Sachse, Katell Djian, Emmanuelle Joly, José Miguel Miranda, Atacama Productions, Blinker Filmproduktion, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and Cronomedia. 2010. Nostalgia De La Luz = Nostalgia for the Light. Brooklyn, NY: Icarus Films Home Video.
• Kinoy, Peter, Pamela Yates, Newton Thomas Sigel, Rigoberta Menchú, Rubén Blades, Susan Sarandon, Skylight Pictures, Production Company, Docurama, and New Video Group. 2004. When the Mountains Tremble. 20th Anniversary Special Edition. New York: Docurama.
• Montes-Bradley, E., dir. 2007. Evita. Heritage Film Project.
• Portillo, Lourdes, Olivia Crawford, Julie Mackaman, Vivien Hillgrove, Kyle Kibbe, Todd Boekelheide, Xochitl Films, and Zafra Video S.A. 2014. Señorita Extraviada—Missing Young Woman. Coyoacán, México: Zafra Video.
• Sickles, Dan, Antonio Santini, and Flavien Berger. 2015. Mala Mala. Culver City, CA: Strand Releasing.
• Suffern, R., dir. 2016. Finding Oscar. FilmRise.
• Torre, S., and V. Funari, V., dir. 2006. Maquilapolis: City of Factories. San Francisco: California Newsreel.
• Wood, Andrés, Gerardo Herrero, Mamoun Hassan et al. 2007. Machuca. Venice: Menemsha Films.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful for the support of our institutions—Seattle University and Universidad Rafael Landívar—and we are inspired daily by the example of all the women activists of Latin America and the Caribbean who are making inclusive social change happen across the region.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Carey, David, and M. Gabriela Torres. 2010. “PRECURSORS TO FEMICIDE: Guatemalan Women in a Vortex of Violence.” Latin American Research Review 45, no. 3: 142–164.
Chomsky, Aviva. 2021. Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration. Boston: Beacon.
Corrales, Javier. 2015. “The Politics of LGBT Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean: Research Agendas.” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 100: 53–62.
Cosgrove, Serena. 2010. Leadership from the Margins: Women and Civil Society Organizations in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Cosgrove, Serena. 2018. “Who Will Use My Loom When I Am Gone? An Intersectional Analysis of Mapuche Women’s Progress in Twenty-First Century Chile.” In Bringing Intersectionality to Public Policy, edited by Julia Jordan-Zachery and Olena Hankivsky, 529–545. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cosgrove, Serena, and Benjamin Curtis. 2017. Understanding Global Poverty: Causes, Capabilities, and Human Development. London: Routledge.
Cosgrove, Serena, and Kristi Lee. 2015. “Persistence and Resistance: Women’s Leadership and Ending Gender-Based Violence in Guatemala.” Seattle Journal for Social Justice 14, no. 2: 309–332.
Craske, Nikki. 2003. “Gender, Poverty, and Social Movements.” In Gender in Latin America, edited by Sylvia Chant with Nikki Craske, 46–70. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Denevan, William M., ed. 1992. The Native Population of the Americas in 1492. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Drysdale Walsh, Shannon, and Cecilia Menjívar. 2016. “Impunity and Multisided Violence in the Lives of Latin American Women: El Salvador in Comparative Perspective.” Current Sociology Monograph 64, no. 4: 586–602.
Ehlers, Tracy Bachrach. 1991. “Debunking Marianismo: Economic Vulnerability and Survival Strategies among Guatemalan Wives.” Ethnology 30, no. 1: 1–16.
Foster, C. 1999. Violent and Violated Women: Justice and Gender in Rural Guatemala, 1936–1956. Journal of Women’s History 11, no. 3: 55–77.
Franco, Jean. 2007. “Rape: A Weapon of War.” Social Text 25, no. 2: 23–37.
Goett, Jennifer. 2017. Black Autonomy: Race, Gender, and Afro-Nicaraguan Activism. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Guthrie, Amie. 2019. “Explained: Abortion Rights in Mexico and Latin America,” New York NBC News, September 29. Accessed November 3, 2019. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Explained-Abortion-Rights-Mexico-Latin-America-561721361.html.
Hale, Charles R. 2005. “Neoliberal Multiculturalism: The Remaking of Cultural Rights and Racial Discrimination in Latin America.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 28, no. 1: 10–28.
Hastings, Julie A. 2002. “Silencing State-Sponsored Rape in and beyond a Transnational Guatemalan Community.” Violence against Women 8, no. 10: 1153–1181.
Lovell, W. George, and Christopher H. Lutz. 1990. “The Historical Demography of Colonial Central America.” In Yearbook (Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers) (17/18), 127–138. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Newson, Linda A. 2005. “The Demographic Impact of Colonization.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, edited by V. Bulmer-Thomas, J. Coatsworth, and R. Cortes-Conde, 143–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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PNUD (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo). 2013. Seguridad Ciudadana con Rostro Humano: Diagnostico y Propuestas para América Latina. New York: Centro Regional de Servicios para América Latina y el Caribe. www.undp.org/content/dam/rblac/img/IDH/IDH-AL%20Informe%20completo.pdf. Accessed November 3, 2019.
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PROFILE: THE GUATEMALAN WOMEN’S GROUP: SUPPORTING SURVIVORS OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Serena Cosgrove and Ana Marina Tzul Tzul
INTRODUCTION
Inspired by the work of civil society women leaders in Guatemala, this profile focuses on the achievements and mutual support that connect the women’s organizations that belong to the Guatemalan Women’s Group (Grupo Guatemalteco de Mujeres, or GGM), an umbrella organization based in the capital Guatemala City. GGM’s mission is to support women’s organizations across the country, providing much-needed services to women survivors of gender-based violence.
HISTORY
Many argue that there are multiple historical events in Guatemala—Spanish colonization, early statehood consolidation and the emergence of political and economic elites, and the thirty-six-year civil war (1960–1996)—that contribute to today’s high levels of gender-based violence (see Carey and Torres 2010, Sanford 2008, and Nolin Hanlon and Shankar 2000). Gender-based violence is defined as “any act that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological hard or suffering to women [and people with non-dominant gender identities and sexualities], including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life” (Russo and Pirlott 2006, 181). There are also a number of current social factors such as inequality, poverty, and discrimination due to gender and ethnicity as well as high levels of violence due to insecurity, gangs, and drug trafficking—that contribute to the “normalization” of gender-based violence in the private, domestic sphere, as well as in the public sphere.
The countries with the highest femicide rates in Latin America are El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala (Gender Equality Observatory 2018). Femicide is the killing of a woman because of her gender; it is an extreme example of gender-based violence, which is on the rise according to Musalo and Bookey (2014, 107) and Cosgrove and Lee (2015, 309). From 2000 to 2019, 11,519 women were violently killed in Guatemala (GGM 2019); the rate of violent deaths of women is growing faster than homicide levels (though homicide rates remain higher than femicide rates). In 2018 alone, 661 women were killed violently in Guatemala (GGM 2019). In fact, violence against women is one of the most highly reported crimes in Guatemala, yet impunity rates are also abysmally high: only 3.46 percent of cases presented between 2008 and 2017 were resolved according to the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG, 9).
ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY AND MISSION
The Guatemalan Women’s Group (GGM) was officially founded in 1988, and in 1991, they opened their first Center for Integrated Support for Women (or CAIMUS) in Guatemala City with the goal of providing an integrated package of services to women survivors in the capital. Today, GGM is an umbrella organization that oversees 10 CAIMUS across the country (with four new organizations coming onboard).
In its early years, GGM played a leadership role at the national level convening diverse women’s organizations across the country to assure that women’s voices were being heard in the peace process and in the early implementation of the peace accords in post–civil war Guatemala. GGM encouraged women to talk to each other from across the country, and this contributed to bridging the class divide between feminists in the capital and women committed to women’s issues from across the country. GGM also played an important role in the No Violence against Women Network, which brought together organizations around the country actively working to eradicate gender-based violence locally and to lobby for improved laws and public-sector accountability at the national level.
This activism by women led to the law against gender-based violence being passed in 1996, as well as the 2008 law against femicide and other forms of violence against women. These laws, in turn, pressured the government to form a public sector–civil society commission to promote state accountability and collaboration with women’s organizations. However, the government has never fully supported GGM or their goals. In 2018, the government only provided a small percentage of funding it had promised to the CAIMUS for their functioning. In 2019, the CAIMUS weren’t even included in the national budget, a sign that the government’s commitment to addressing gender-based violence is waning.
Today GGM provides oversight, training, and fundraising for the CAIMUS, which use the GGM model of integrated services for women survivors including social, medical, psychological, and legal services as well as access to women’s shelters. In addition to seeking resources for CAIMUS and creating a space for mutual support in a struggle that often feels overwhelming, GGM is also a think tank and advocacy organization gathering and analyzing data about the rates of violence against women and leading public campaigns to change the perceptions of Guatemalans about violence against women. Always in coordination with other organizations and social movements across the country, GGM uses key dates for women’s liberation—such as March 8, the International Women’s Day, or May 28, International Day of Action for Women’s Health, among other dates—to organize national campaigns to raise awareness about women’s rights, gender-based violence, and related issues. These campaigns use billboards and other opportunities for public outreach such as radio spots, social media, and events and programming to spread their message. See GGM’s website for more information: http://ggm.org.gt/.
LEADERSHIP
The founder and director of GGM is Giovana Lemus. Her story embodies sacrifice and commitment to women’s participation and contributions to society from before the war ended in 1996, and yet it is also about one-on-one accompaniment of women leaders. As a college student during the civil war, Giovana observed many cases of injustice and violence; she saw how these affected Indigenous people, women, and the poor across the country. In the 1980s she joined other concerned women who all banded together across different backgrounds to serve as peace builders. The importance of working with women showed Giovana how valuable it is to open space for women to support each other and their contributions. Giovana’s own childhood experiences also contributed to her activism. Her mother always welcomed survivors of gender-based violence into the home, making sure it was a safe haven for them. When Giovana’s mother died, Giovana had the example of her nine older sisters to inspire her, as well as her father who always encouraged her to speak her truth and make a difference.
Giovana sums up the important role that promoting women’s leadership can play and that women can build impact through coordinated action: “It is a concrete inspiration to carry out actions and achieve [our goals]” (Interview by author, July 2, 2013). Recently Giovana said, “Our sisterhood grows stronger because of what we’ve had to face” (Interview by author, July 30, 2019). The word that repeatedly appears in our interviews with Giovana and the directors of the CAIMUS when discussing GGM’s role is acompañar (to accompany). And even though there are so many challenges, Giovanna remains optimistic: “We are making progress” (interview by author, July 2, 2013). Giovana’s support of the directors of the CAIMUS has played a significant role in getting more CAIMUS established. The directors speak warmly of the guidance and support they have received from Giovana.
SUMMARY
Though Guatemala is often considered to be a difficult place to be a woman, it is also a country where women themselves are working together to address and transform the problem of violence by collaborating across multiple sites and levels. GGM and its member organizations often face direct government hostility, public-sector resistance in providing promised funding, and a climate in which it is increasingly difficult to raise funds for their work. This creates a double fight: the struggle to end gender-based violence and the fight for state funds to do their work. GGM remains committed to tackling both of these ongoing challenges.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful for the support of our institutions—Seattle University and Universidad Rafael Landívar—and we are inspired daily by the example of all the women activists of Latin America and the Caribbean who are making inclusive, social change happen across the region.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carey, David, and M. Gabriela Torres. 2010. “Precursors to Femicide: Guatemalan women in a Vortex of Violence.” Latin American Research Review 45, no. 3: 142–164.
Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG). 2019. “Diálogos por el fortalecimiento de la justicia y el combate a la impunidad en Guatemala.” Report can be found on CICIG website. https://www.cicig.org/comunicados-2019-c/informe-dialogos-por-el-fortalecimiento-de-la-justicia/. Accessed August 12, 2019.
Cosgrove, Serena, and Kristi Lee. 2015. “Persistence and Resistance: Women’s Leadership and Ending Gender-Based Violence in Guatemala.” Seattle Journal for Social Justice 14, no. 2: 309–332.
Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean. 2018. “Femicide, the Most Extreme Expression of Violence against Women.” Oig.cepal (website). https://oig.cepal.org/sites/default/files/nota_27_eng.pdf. Accessed July 20, 2019.
Grupo Guatemalteco de Mujeres (GGM). 2019. “Datos estadísticos: Muertes Violentas de Mujeres-MVM y República de Guatemala ACTUALIZADO (20/05/19).” GGM (website). http://ggm.org.gt/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Datos-Estad%C3%ADsticos-MVM-ACTUALIZADO-20-DE-MAYO-DE-2019.pdf. Accessed July 20, 2019.
Musalo, Karen, and Blaine Bookey. 2014. “Crimes without Punishment: An Update on Violence against Women and Impunity in Guatemala.” Social Justice 40, no. 4: 106–117.
Nolin Hanlon, Catherine, and Finola Shankar. 2000. “Gendered Spaces of Terror and Assault: The Testimonio of REMHI and the Commission for Historical Clarification in Guatemala.” Gender, Place & Culture 7, no. 3: 265–286.
Russo, Nancy Felipe, and Angela Pirlott, A. 2006. “Gender-based Violence: Concepts, Methods, and Findings.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1087: 178–205.
Sanford, Victoria. 2008. “From Genocide to Feminicide: Impunity and Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Guatemala.” Journal of Human Rights 7: 104–122. | textbooks/socialsci/Gender_Studies/Gendered_Lives%3A_Global_Issues/03%3A_Latin_America/3.01%3A_Latin_America-_Introducing_the_Region.txt |
Learning Objectives
• Define key terms including “medicalization,” “masculinity,” “companionate marriage,” “machismo,” and “erectile dysfunction.”
• Understand that cultural ideas about masculinity determine what kinds of erectile function people define as healthy and normal.
• Explain how cultural ideas about race, gender, and age influenced Mexican men’s understandings of decreasing erectile function.
In this chapter, the author discusses the gendered experiences of older, urban, working-class Mexican men as they navigate changes in their bodies, cultural ideals of masculinity, and the available array of sexual medical interventions as they seek to be good men in later life. The author explores how the “macho” stereotype, now widely critiqued in Mexican society, is seen as a form of masculinity that thwarts national modernization. Older men come to accept their erectile dysfunction as a natural part of the aging process and an alternative form of masculinity that counters the macho stereotype.
If you were born in the 1990s or later, throughout your life you’ve heard ads for pills like Viagra define not being able to get firm enough penile erections as the medical problem “erectile dysfunction” (ED). However, the concept of ED was actually created fairly recently and is only one of many ways to understand men’s changing sexual function over the life course. In different times and places, people have understood the inability to get desired erections as variously as a consequence of witchcraft, as a punishment for “bad” sexual behavior earlier in life, and as a psychological issue called “impotence” (McLaren 2007; Wentzell 2008). In the United States in the 1990s, psychotherapists, psychologists, urologists, and other kinds of professionals were debating both the causes of erections that did not meet social ideals and which professionals should treat this issue. Since the then-common term impotence had become stigmatized, some of them decided to rename this issue erectile dysfunction.
Definition: erectile dysfunction (ED)
the idea that penile erections that do not meet cultural ideals are a medical pathology, defined clinically as the persistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance.
While the goal of this terminology change was to destigmatize this experience by framing it as a medical pathology rather than a personal failing, this renaming also enabled medical professionals to claim expertise over the condition (Tiefer 1995). At the same time, drug companies were developing the first oral pills that could enhance erectile function. The first of these, Viagra, came on the global scene in 1998. These developments enabled a worldwide medicalization of less-than-ideal penile erection. Medicalization is a social process in which areas of life previously understood in other ways (for example, as social, religious, or other kinds of issues) come to be seen as medical concerns to be treated by doctors (Tiefer 1994). Examples of medicalization range from reframings of bad breath as halitosis (a shift engineered by the marketers of Listerine mouthwash in the United States), to more recent reconceptualizations of shyness as social anxiety disorder and period-related mood changes as premenstrual dysphoric disorder. The medicalization of erectile difficulty into ED has now become so prevalent that people who grew up after 1998 might not question the idea that this issue could be understood in any other way.
Definition: medicalization
a social process in which areas of life previously understood in other ways (for example, as social, religious or other kinds of issues) come to be seen as medical concerns to be treated by doctors.
However, understanding ED as a simple biological fact has significant social consequences. The medical definition of ED is “the persistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance” (Lizza and Rosen 1999, 141). Yet what counts as “sufficient erection” and “satisfactory” sex are actually profoundly personal and variable. Failure to acknowledge that variability in ED drug marketing and prescription suggests that there is a single norm for healthy erections and sexual practice.
Since the concept of ED was developed in the United States, that norm comes from the US cultural ideas about sex, sexuality, and masculinity. It is the idea that penetrative (penis-in-vagina), heterosexual sex is what counts as “real” sex and is the kind of sex that is healthy and normal (Rubin 1992). This idea also relates to particular cultural ideas about masculinity, which anthropologist Matthew Gutmann (1996, 17, italics in original) defines as “what men say and do to be men.” ED drugs thus function as “masculinity pills,” enabling men to conform to the idea that healthy and normal men should want (and be physically able to have) penetrative sex whenever possible—despite aging, illness, conflict with their partners, or other life issues (Loe 2004a, 58; Marshall and Katz 2002).
Definition: masculinity
the culturally specific traits, behaviors, and discourses expected of men.
The ability to use ED drugs to attain more firm or frequent erections can ease the emotional pain of men who wish to live out this kind of masculinity. However, casting penetrative sex-oriented manliness as the only healthy or normal way to be a man also creates more suffering. It does so by promoting narrow norms for masculinity and sexuality that exclude those who want anything other than lifelong, penetrative, heterosexual sex as abnormal (Loe 2006; Tiefer 1994; Potts 2000; Mamo and Fishman 2001).
Further, the globalization of this ideology through the worldwide marketing and prescription of ED drugs has pitfalls. Drugs like Viagra are huge sellers, with 2017 global sales reaching almost five billion (Zion Market Research 2018). The worldwide diffusion of the ED concept that those sales reflect has been achieved by promoting specifically Euro–North American cultural ideas about what counts as normal and healthy sex, sexuality, and masculinity as if they were universal, biological facts. Framing such culturally specific ideologies as objective descriptions of the nature of men’s health, bodies, and ideal behaviors both promotes the problematic dominance of one culture over others and reduces the set of possibilities men have for understanding themselves and their bodies.
Yet despite the worldwide popularity and marketing of ED drugs, many men and their sexual partners do not accept these norms. Even among heterosexual couples, people often value or prefer nonpenetrative forms of sexual interaction (including the many women who experience greater pleasure from nonpenetrative sex acts) (Potts et al. 2003; Potts et al. 2004; Loe 2004b). In contexts as diverse as rural Ghana and urban Sweden, people often understand focusing on nonsexual forms of intimacy and interaction in later life as more respectable, age-appropriate, and emotionally fulfilling than continuing the kinds of sex they had as youths (van der Geest 2001; Sandberg 2013). Further, even two people married to each other might disagree about what kinds of sex or intimacy are desirable at particular life stages (Moore 2010).
My aim in this chapter is to analyze a specific case—the experiences of older, working-class men in urban central Mexico—to demonstrate how people might draw on cultural ideals different from those made to seem natural in ED marketing to understand men’s changing erectile function. After discussing the study site and methods, I present data from interviews with over 250 older Mexican men receiving medical treatment for urological issues other than ED. Despite the popularity of ED drugs in Mexico, these particular men overwhelmingly rejected the idea that decreasing erectile function was a medical problem. Instead, they understood decreasing erections in later life in relation to changing local cultural ideals of masculinity and marriage, as well as to local understandings of respectable manhood in older age. By analyzing how they came to these understandings, I show that people’s ideas about what kinds of sexual function are healthy, manly, and age-appropriate reflected context-specific cultural ideologies rather than a universal biological truth about what constitutes a normal erection. This analysis reveals how medical treatments for gendered ailments both reflect and reproduce gender ideals specific to particular places and times.
CHANGING MASCULINITIES IN MEXICO
Urban central Mexico is a particularly interesting site for studying masculinities because it has been the site of long-standing and heated debate about what it is to be a good man. The notion of machismo figures prominently in such discussions. This is the idea that Mexican men are inherently predisposed to “macho” masculinity, which involves emotional closure, violence, womanizing, and dominance over women (McKee Irwin 2003). Mexican public intellectuals popularized the concept of machismo in the 1950s, defining it as an inheritance from coerced reproduction among Spanish Conquistador forefathers and Indigenous foremothers (see Paz 1985). Importantly, this notion is based on elite critics’ interpretations of the behaviors attributed to lower-class men, rather than any actual sociological or biological data. It is also based on ideas about race—specifically, the idea that Mexicans form a unique race generated by this Conquistador/Indigena mixing and thus are biologically and culturally susceptible to forms of behavioral backwardness, like machismo, but are also capable of advancing beyond them through “modern” health and social practices (Alonso 2004).
Definition: machismo
a widely critiqued form of masculinity characterized by violence and womanizing, often attributed to Latin American men’s cultural inheritance from Spanish Conquistadors. The idea of machismo is rooted in unfounded assumptions about the nature of Latin American men; however, these ideas have social consequences that then affect people’s bodies and behavior.
Neither this idea of race nor the concept of machismo it includes are biological truths about Mexican people. It is crucial to note that racial ideologies are not scientifically valid accounts of biology. They are instead cultural ideas that have the social power to influence people’s behavior in ways that then influence people’s health and well-being (Ackermann et al. 2019). Nevertheless, the idea that machismo exists caught on in Mexican and global popular cultures.
However, people in Mexico today generally discuss machismo as both a reality of life and a problematic barrier to desired social change. Amid calls for more equal gender roles, local ideas of marriage have shifted dramatically in recent decades, most visibly in urban areas (Amuchástegui and Szasz 2007). While women and men were once expected to occupy fairly separate spheres, in Mexico, as in many parts of the world, people now value companionate marriage. This is a form of marriage based on emotional fulfillment rather than the traditional foci of economic production and social reproduction (Hirsch 2003; Wardlow and Hirsch 2006). While men were once expected to provide economically for their families but also to demonstrate virility through extramarital sexuality, being a good and modern Mexican man now involves being purposefully different from that model, meeting ideals of fidelity and emotional engagement with one’s spouse and children (Ramirez 2009; Wentzell 2013a).
Definition: companionate marriage
a marriage based on emotional fulfillment rather than the traditional foci of economic production and social reproduction. It has become the ideal type of marriage in many parts of the world.
Given the rise of companionate marriage, Mexican people as diverse as feminist activists and male gang members now critique machismo as a problematic, regressive form of masculinity (Gutmann 1996; Ramirez 2009; Sverdlin 2017). However, while some people decry machismo as a racist stereotype, critiques more often focus on the need for good men to fight against their inherent macho impulses, thus keeping this idea of Mexican male nature alive even while deploring it (Amuchástegui Herrera 2008). This meant that both the cultural idea of machismo as a natural trait among Mexican men, and the major changes in local ideas about what constitutes good marriage and masculinity, fundamentally influenced experiences and perceptions of the research participants I worked with.
STUDY SITE AND METHODS
These participants were urology patients in the central Mexican city of Cuernavaca, a growing metropolis near the nation’s capital with a largely mestizo-identified population that utilizes biomedicine much more frequently than traditional forms of healing. The outpatient urology clinic these participants attended was based in the regional flagship hospital of the federal Instituto Méxicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) system. The IMSS provides care to privately employed workers and their families, or about half of the Mexican population. While the care at the research site was of high quality, waits were long: so IMSS-eligible patients with enough money often sought private treatment. This meant that most men in my study were working class. It also meant that although in some contexts physicians experience economic incentives for diagnosing ED and prescribing ED drugs, the resource-strapped IMSS setting posed a disincentive to medicalizing new conditions. In 2007–2008 I held Spanish-language, semistructured interviews with over 250 of these men, about 50 with their wives who had accompanied them to the clinic. They ranged widely in age, but most were in their fifties and sixties and considered themselves “older” after a lifetime of hard work.
About 96 percent of the men invited to participate in this research did so; despite stereotypes they themselves voiced about Mexican men being unwilling to discuss these issues, they often said they “enjoyed the chance to talk” about intimate issues with an interested stranger. My identity as a white, North American woman researcher facilitated this interaction. Being a foreigner helped, since many men said they felt able to tell me potentially embarrassing information they kept from other men or their social circle (since I didn’t know any of their friends or relatives). Being a white woman from the United States helped in that some men admitted being reluctant to talk about sexual issues with a woman but then voiced beliefs that Anglo-American women were more comfortable talking about such things than Mexican women, hence they felt comfortable discussing these topics with me. Finally, my status as a researcher aided our interactions, as many participants voiced respect for education and said they felt grateful to be included in an academic study.
Despite men’s willingness to participate, they presented the partial and context-specific narratives of their lives that characterize all interview data. For example, none mentioned same-sex sexuality, which was statistically likely to have happened in such a large group of men but was a stigmatized topic among them (see, for context, Carillo 2002). Further, while they did not appear to shape their statements in relation to preconceived ideas they expected me to have about Mexican men, they often took it upon themselves to provide context for a foreigner, such as explaining who Mexican men are in the abstract. This focus reflects the role my own positionality played in data collection.
MEN’S EXPERIENCES OF DECREASING ERECTILE FUNCTION
Most research participants referred to the concept of machismo when discussing their experiences of being a man. They often described it as a fundamental if negative quality of Mexican men—sometimes including themselves—which would shape those men’s understandings of sexual issues. For instance, as one man explained, “Here in Mexico, [infidelity is] something normal. They say the Mexican is passionate. They say the man is polygamous by nature.” Others discussed the “hot” constitution of Mexican men as an innate biological impetus to have a lot of sex. Some described machismo as a cultural inheritance that was prevalent but problematic. One man noted, “A lot of machismo exists. … They’re afraid that if they let their guard down, they’ll become whipped. That’s the closed psychology of the macho man” (interview by author).
Yet even the men who described some of their own actions as “macho” noted that this form of masculinity was problematic and that men would “have to change” to keep up with the times. For example, one participant noted that he and other men his age had been taught that “the woman needs to be behind” but now needed to realize that “the wife isn’t a thing—she’s a person, she’s a comrade” (interview by author). Thus, men who had always practiced fidelity—as well as those who had conformed to “macho” stereotypes in their youth—described the need for men “today” to be faithful and emotionally engaged with their wives and families. One participant even identified himself as an “ex-machista” who had changed his ways in later life.
This idea that good, modern men should reject macho sexuality fundamentally influenced participants’ responses to decreasing erectile function. Despite often identifying themselves or their peer group as predisposed to the kind of male sexuality that would be aided by ED drugs, participants overwhelmingly rejected medical ED treatments. Despite the fact that all the men were aware of (and knew how to get) ED drugs, and that 70 percent of participants reported decreased erectile function, only 11 percent of men even considered seeking medical intervention for decreasing erectile function—and very few of those actually did so. This was because they drew on local cultural ideals of change over time in masculinity and marriage to interpret this bodily change in ways other than as a biological problem.
Men understood ED drugs to enable youthful and macho forms of sexuality in later life, which were now age (and societally) inappropriate. They expected to live out a specific form of male life-course change as they aged, which they frequently termed the “second stage” or “other level” of life. One man said that after his retirement he would change focus and “dedicate myself to my wife, the house, gardening, caring for the grandchildren.” He described this shift as so common that he considered it “the Mexican classic” (interview by author). This second stage was focused on the kinds of emotional engagement with family that had more recently become ideal for men more generally and study participants saw as particularly key for living out respectable masculinity in later life. One man explained, “Erectile dysfunction isn’t important. When I was young, it would have been, but not now.” Another laughed while noting, “Here in Mexico, we have a saying: ‘After old age, chickenpox’ … it means that some things become silly when one is older” (interview by author). He saw older men chasing youthful sexuality as silly in this way.
This was the case both for men who had focused on extramarital virility in their youths and those who had always lived out masculinities closer to current ideals of companionate marriage including fidelity. One man who had always been faithful to and emotionally close with his wife described his decreasing erectile capacity as part of “my nature. I never sought a medical solution to this problem—I just thought that my sex life was ending.” He continued, “In our married life, we were very happy. When the sex life ended, okay, we knew it would end one day. So, there wasn’t treatment—I never tried anything. I really didn’t have a problem with it” (interview by author).
A different participant who noted that he was a “womanizer” in his youth said that his changing body had enabled him to alter his behavior and relationship. He explained, “The truth is, now I don’t have the same capacity. I’m fifty-five, I know what I am. I don’t want problems with my wife. Like I deserve respect from her, she deserves it from me as well” (interview by author). Both men understood decreasing erectile function to be a “normal” and “natural” part of aging; one felt able to incorporate it into his already close marriage, while the other saw it as an aid for relating to his wife in a more respectful way.
Participants often identified decreased erectile function as both a prompt to start acting more maturely and as a way of overcoming bodily urges to now-inappropriately youthful and macho sexuality. One man noted that his generation of Mexican men had confused machismo with manliness, defining the former as seeking to “restrict” one’s wife and children and the latter as being “responsible” for them. He understood machismo as an innate biological urge, for example, explaining that in his younger days, “I saw a pretty prostitute, with a really nice body. In such cases, the macho comes out of us. So I slept with her” (interview by author). However, now that his erectile function had diminished, he believed he was free from such overwhelming urges and felt more able to be the kind of husband he now thought he should be.
It often took wives’ encouragement to help men embrace this change. Women who accompanied their husbands in our interviews reported defining decreasing erectile function change in later life as “natural,” “normal,” and acceptable to them as men’s sexual partners. In an interview with a couple who had not previously discussed the issue, the husband revealed that he worried his wife was unhappy with their decreased sex life. She reassured him, “It wasn’t the same, but it’s not serious, it happens with age and health problems” (interview by author). This exchange was mirrored by a less happy couple, with a husband who had pursued frequent affairs and a wife who had not enjoyed their sex life in part because of his behavior. When the man remarked somewhat wistfully that “the machinery of erection has broken down,” she shouted the qualifier, “Now we don’t want any more!” (interview by author).
As these example demonstrate, men’s interactions with a range of other people influenced their understandings of decreased erectile function. For instance, some men’s adult children encouraged them to be different kinds of men in older age. In an extreme example, one couple said that their children had saved up to buy their mother a separate residence so that she could leave their father if he did not change his ways. IMSS urologists’ attitudes also influenced men’s experiences of decreasing erectile function. Importantly, the urologists did not try to medicalize this bodily change, even though they reported that they did treat ED as a medical problem in their private practices with younger and wealthier patients. This was partly because they shared the same views about respectable male aging as the interviewees (who they saw as older than wealthier men of similar ages—including themselves—because the IMSS patients often appeared older after lifetimes of physical labor). It was also partly because the IMSS system did not offer economic incentives for departing from this ideology to promote medical treatment for ED.
For all these reasons, study participants saw ED drugs as so inappropriate for older men that they were likely to do physical harm. Some saw their aging bodies as increasingly vulnerable to the dangerous side effects of pharmaceuticals. One of the few men who initially sought ED treatment decided not to use it for this reason. He explained that “I was prescribed pills, but I haven’t used them. As a diabetic, I could have a heart attack” (interview by author). Many others saw the drugs as dangerous for older men because they would induce artificially youthful sexual behavior that would be physically taxing. A participant noted, “I don’t like to use things that aren’t normal. I don’t like to force my body” (interview by author). Participants often voiced concerns that ED drugs would inappropriately “accelerate” their bodies. One explained that they could “accelerate you to your death. Many friends have told me, they will accelerate you a lot, then you’ll collapse, that stuff will kill you” (interview by author). The idea that “people are dying of Viagra” was common, illustrating just how normal participants saw the “Mexican classic” form of male life-course change to be and how abnormal and potentially damaging they saw the use of ED drugs to resist this change to be. So, while many men reported that it took time for them to accept their decreased erectile function and come to terms with their older selves, even those who felt unhappy at first still rejected ED drugs, instead often trying gentle interventions like exercise or vitamins to avoid “unbalancing” their bodies.
CONCLUSION
Overall, a range of factors influenced older, working-class Mexican men’s rejection of the globally prevalent idea that decreasing erectile function was a medical pathology to be treated with drugs. These included local cultural changes in ideals of masculinity and marriage, specifically the rise of companionate marriage and critiques of machismo, which emerged over the courses of older men’s lives and made them want to be different kinds of men as they aged. This goal of change reflected another key cultural factor: the idea that good Mexican men should live out a specific life course, which included shifting one’s focus from work (and for some, extramarital sexuality) outside the home as a younger man to a later life emphasis on being present with one’s family. Interpersonal interactions, especially with wives and doctors who understood decreasing erectile function in older age to be “natural” and “normal,” were crucial for helping men decide that it was time for them to mature in this way.
This case demonstrates that people can understand changing erectile function in varied ways. Thus, it can help readers to understand how cultural ideas about things like gender, race, and aging influence what people define as healthy, normal bodily functions. The example here reveals that the physical attributes people define as fundamentally “natural” and “normal,” and those they define as abnormal states to be treated medically, are in fact determined by cultural ideologies rather than reflections of a universal biological truth. As such, they incorporate local ideals and prejudices into seemingly objective medical statements. Readers can keep these takeaways in mind as they seek to make their own decisions about what counts as normal human variation versus medical pathology. This will help them to think critically about the phenomenon of widespread medicalization in which bodily and behavioral difference is increasingly defined as disease rather than diversity. It will also help them to identify the range of ways that people come to view culturally specific ideals of gender, sexuality, and aging as inherently “natural” or universal, and the suffering that this can cause for people who do not conform to those ideals.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How and why did older men’s ideas about ideal male sexuality change over their life courses?
2. What is “machismo,” and how did ideas about it influence older men’s understandings of respectable sexual practice?
3. How did other people, like wives and doctors, influence men’s understandings of their changing erectile function?
4. Why did most men in the study reject erectile dysfunction treatment?
5. What are examples from your own society of bodily traits or changes that have been medicalized based on cultural ideas about normal and healthy gender, sexuality, or aging?
KEY TERMS
companionate marriage: a marriage based on emotional fulfillment rather than the traditional foci of economic production and social reproduction. It has become the ideal type of marriage in many parts of the world.
erectile dysfunction (ED): the idea that penile erections that do not meet cultural ideals are a medical pathology, defined clinically as the persistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance.
machismo: a widely critiqued form of masculinity characterized by violence and womanizing, often attributed to Latin American men’s cultural inheritance from Spanish Conquistadors. The idea of machismo is rooted in unfounded assumptions about the nature of Latin American men; however, these ideas have social consequences that then affect people’s bodies and behavior.
masculinity: the culturally specific traits, behaviors, and discourses expected of men.
medicalization: a social process in which areas of life previously understood in other ways (for example, as social, religious or other kinds of issues) come to be seen as medical concerns to be treated by doctors.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• AAPA Statement on Race and Racism: http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/.
• Amuchástegui, Ana, and Ivonne Szasz, eds. 2007. Sucede que me canso de ser hombre. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico.
• Gutmann, Matthew C. 1996. The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Loe, Meika. 2004. The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York: New York University Press.
• Tiefer, Leonore. 1995. Sex is Not a Natural Act and Other Essays. Boulder, CO: Westview.
• Wentzell, Emily A. 2013. Maturing Masculinities: Aging, Chronic Illness, and Viagra in Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the people who so generously participated in this research, as well as the IMSS physicians, nurses, public health researchers, and staff members who made it possible. This research was funded by Fulbright IIE, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the American Association of University Women.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Wentzell, Emily. 2008. “Imagining Impotence in America: From Men’s Deeds to Men’s Minds to Viagra.” Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 25:153–178.
———. 2013a. “I Don’t Want to Be Like My Father: Masculinity, Modernity, and Intergenerational Relationships in Mexico.” In Transitions And Transformations: Cultural Perspectives on Aging and the Life Course, edited by Caitrin Lynch and Jason Danely, 64–78. New York: Berghahn.
———. 2013b. Maturing Masculinities: Aging, Chronic Illness, and Viagra in Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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Learning Objectives
• To define intersectionality and explain the importance of an intersectional approach to the study of masculinity.
• To describe the concepts of marginalized masculinities, thwarted masculinity, and crisis of masculinity.
• To define the concepts of compensatory masculinity and exculpatory chauvinism and apply these to the Brazilian ethnographic case study presented in this chapter.
• To describe how this case study helps to demonstrate the value of an intersectional approach to understanding masculinities.
In this chapter, the author uses an intersectional lens to examine how gender, race, and class affect the gender roles, gender performance, and lived experiences of working-class, cisgender, Black Brazilian men. The author explores how in a rural Northeast Brazilian community, a decrease in demand for male workers prevented men from maintaining their roles as financial providers for their families, which challenged dominant notions of manhood and authority, creating a “crisis of masculinity” for working-class Black men.
North American media often use stereotypes to portray men in Latin America and the Caribbean as macho, a term associated with aggressive masculinity. This portrayal hides the fact that there are many forms of masculinity, and the macho stereotype ignores the historical, sociocultural, political, and economic issues influencing men’s performance of masculinity. As you read in chapter 1, normative masculinity is socially constructed and comprises traits and practices that are idealized and upheld by the dominant social groups in a society. For example, in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean some characteristics associated with normative masculinity are whiteness, heterosexuality, and middle- or upper-class status. Research shows that not all men meet (or aspire to meet) sociocultural standards of normative masculinity, and their ability or willingness to do so affects their position on gender hierarchies (Wade and Ferree 2019). We should not assume, for example, that all cisgender men have the same level of power over all women. Cisgender men (referred to hereafter as “men”) who are not able to meet a society’s standard of normative masculinity may have a more marginal position on the gender power hierarchy than men who do meet it, and this position is often influenced by men’s other social identities. Intersectionality is an approach to the study of social inequality that examines how gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality overlap to form an individual’s social identity and the ways their social identity influences their position in social hierarchies (Crenshaw 1989). Although an intersectional lens is most often used to examine the experiences and oppression of working-class, cisgender, and trans women of color, it is also a useful framework for understanding the identities and experiences of working-class, cisgender Black, Indigenous, and men of color. Race, class, and sexuality all influence men’s ability to perform normative masculinity (Abelson 2016; Brooms and Perry 2016; Grove 2015; hooks 2004; Lawrence 2019; Linke 2011; Mutua 2006; Neal 2013; Slutskaya 2016; Ward 2016; White 2011).
Definition: intersectionality
Refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that creates overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live.
The inability to meet social and personal expectations of normative masculinity can cause some men to view themselves (or be perceived) as inadequate (Wade and Ferree 2019). Wade and Ferree (2019) argue, in fact, that many if not most men find it impossible to perform all of the dominant or idealized characteristics and behaviors associated with normative masculinity and are therefore frequently in a position where they might be viewed as failing at masculinity or at least feel like they are failing. For men whose intersecting social identities distance them from the dominant or normative paradigm, the potential sense of inadequacy can be more pronounced. Furthermore, since dominant ideals of masculinity are continually changing, men are often tasked with adjusting their gender performance to meet transforming expectations (Wade and Ferree 2019). In other words, masculinity is fragile and fleeting. Scholars use a variety of concepts to refer to men who do not meet the normative or dominant standard their society prescribes. Connell (2016) advocates for the term marginalized masculinities to describe men whose intersecting social identities challenge their ability to fulfill what Connell refers to as “hegemonic masculinity.” Chant (2000) refers to a crisis of masculinity to explain how socioeconomic and political changes and/or challenges can prevent men (even those who met standards previously) from fulfilling dominant social expectations of masculinity. Researchers working in the United States (Moore 1994), Brazil (Hautzinger 2007), and the Congo (Hollander 2014) have used the term thwarted masculinity, which I also use in this chapter.
In this chapter, I describe how rural, working-class, Black Brazilian men’s efforts to meet standards of normative masculinity are both informed and constrained by socioeconomic marginalization at the intersection of gender, race, and class, as well as by geographic location. Subsequently, the strategies these men employ in their pursuit of normative masculinity pose a direct threat to their marriages, as changing gender norms and marriage expectations call into question some of the practices historically associated with normative masculinity in Brazil. I argue that the study of normative masculinity must consider the historical, sociocultural, and political economic structures that influence both the construction of normative masculinity and men’s ability to perform it, as well as the effects of thwarted masculinity on individuals and families.
INTERSECTIONALITY AND NORMATIVE MASCULINITY IN NORTHEAST BRAZIL
I employ an intersectional lens to examine how gender, race, class, and sexuality affect the gender roles, gender performance, and lived experiences of working-class Black Brazilian men living in the rural interior of the Northeast state of Bahia. For several reasons, Northeast Brazil is an important site for examining masculinity among working-class, rural, Black Brazilian men. First, due to historical trends and contemporary policies, the northeast region of Brazil is one of the poorest in the country, with social indicators well below the southern regions. In 2017, 70.6 percent of the households in Northeast Brazil had an income of less than or equal to the Brazilian monthly minimum wage, approximately US\$234 per month (IBGE 2017). The political and socioeconomic marginalization of working-class Brazilians, especially those living in the rural Northeast interior, where there are even fewer employment opportunities than in urban areas, constrains men’s performance of normative masculinity.
Second, Northeast Brazil’s colonial economy centered on the production of sugar cane, for which Brazil imported an estimated four million enslaved Africans—40 percent of all slaves in the Americas (Graden 2006). The legacy of slavery includes not only the socioeconomic marginalization of the descendants of enslaved people and a long history of racial mixing but also racial ideology that informs perceptions of Black men and their self-perceptions, which I will discuss in more depth later in this chapter. Furthermore, the history of slavery has left a demographic footprint on the region, and 70 percent of northeast Brazilians identified as “Black” or “brown/mixed-race” in the 2010 census (IBGE 2011). In fact, Brazilians select from over one hundred terms to self-identify racially or by skin color, although the Brazilian census employs only five: branca (white), parda (brown/mixed), preta (Black), amarela (yellow), and indígena (Indigenous). Notably, race in Brazil is a complex category that encompasses not only phenotypic traits such as skin color and hair texture but also social class, education level, language and communication style, clothing style, and geographic location. A working-class Brazilian who lives in Northeast Brazil, and has phenotypic traits that indicate they have some African ancestry, will often be socially classified as “Black” or “brown/mixed” irrespective of how they self-identify. This is also the result of the racialization of the entire Northeast region, which in the imaginary of Brazilians in southern and central Brazil, is more “African,” “Afro-Brazilian,” or “Black” than the rest of Brazil. This image of the Northeast region is so pervasive that southern Brazilians use the word nordestino (northeasterner) as a derogatory euphemism for a working-class Black Brazilian (O’Dougherty 2002). Furthermore, people who are from and/or continue to live in the rural interior of the Northeast region are also racialized, largely because people from the interior are viewed as uneducated, unsophisticated, and poor—all qualities associated with Blackness rather than whiteness in Brazil. Brazilians also perceive urban, middle- and upper-class Brazilians, especially those from the large southern and central Brazilian cities (e.g., Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília) as more educated and cosmopolitan and therefore “whiter” irrespective of their phenotypic traits. Understanding that the category of skin color/race in Brazil encompasses more than just phenotypic traits is central to examining why and how working-class men in rural Northeast Brazil are socially and economically marginalized as a result of them being racialized as Black.
I lived in the rural interior of the Northeast Brazilian state of Bahia for two years and continued to visit every year for ten years while I conducted ethnographic fieldwork on gender roles, marriage, divorce, and distress, which I wrote about in my book Marriage, Divorce and Distress in Northeast Brazil: Black Women’s Perspectives on Love, Respect and Kinship (2018). The small town I lived in, which I will call Brogodó, was undergoing socioeconomic changes due to the growth of the town’s ecotourism industry. I found that these changes affected gender roles and community members’ identities in important ways.
In Brazil, normative gender roles are associated with marriage, in and of itself a heteronormative institution. Historically in Brazil, heterosexual men and women’s gender roles and their identities were grounded in their responsibilities to their spouses and households. Marriage was also a site where patriarchal values were upheld, granting husbands authority and decision-making power over their wives and their families: although it is important to recognize that women also exerted power within the household. Men’s authority was tied to their responsibility to financially provide for their families and ensure the respectability of their households, including safeguarding the sexuality and morality of the household’s women and girls. Women contributed to the household through their domestic labor and safeguarded their husband’s honor by being faithful wives (Sarti 1995). Men’s responsibilities to their households afforded them the opportunity of a life in the public sphere, colloquially known as the rua (street). Life in the rua consists of work or the search for employment but also includes socializing with friends, consuming alcohol, and flirting with women other than their wives. Life in the rua is also associated with men’s ability to have extramarital affairs, which for generations have been considered a gendered behavioral norm for men (but not for women). In short, men’s and women’s responsibilities to their households and relationships with one another defined gender roles and norms within and outside the household; the gender hierarchy within the patriarchal society was reflected in the household, and vice versa (DaMatta 1985).
However, gender roles and norms are never fixed; over time they continually shift and change within both the private and public spheres. In Brazil, political economic change has challenged men’s authority in the patriarchal family and subsequently gender hierarchies outside of the family. And yet gender roles and norms continue to be informed by historically salient ideas about gender and marital relationships. For example, my research demonstrates that by finding employment outside their households, women contested gender roles and norms that confined them to the household. As a result of their employment, women were able to transform their gender roles and subsequently their identities, describing themselves as “independent” and “modern” women. Employment also granted women more authority and decision-making power within the household. And, pertinent to our discussion of masculinities, all over Brazil and in Brogodó changes to women’s gender roles and to their identities had domino effects that impacted men’s gender roles and their identities as well.
MEN’S UNEMPLOYMENT AND CHALLENGES TO NORMATIVE MASCULINITY
Ethnographic studies demonstrate that in many sites in Latin America and the Caribbean, policies that promote gender equality, combined with increases in women’s education and employment, lead to shifts in women’s gender roles and their identities. These shifts often challenge men’s authority, gender roles, and their identities (Chant 2000; Hautzinger 2007). Scholars argue that masculinity is “precarious” in this sense (Wade and Ferree 2019, 142) and that male power is limited by social expectations, obligations, and social judgment (Mayblin 2010). In this section, I will describe the socioeconomic factors influencing men’s unemployment rates in Brogodó and the effect underemployment had on men’s ability to perform normative masculinity. This will ground my later discussion of the ways that men compensated for unemployment and their thwarted masculinity with behaviors that put their marriages in jeopardy. Ultimately, I argue that rather than merely a product of patriarchal norms, men’s responses to thwarted masculinity were a result of social inequality and marginalization at the intersection of race, gender, and class.
The growth of the ecotourism industry in Brogodó created more job opportunities in the service sector, but those jobs—housekeepers, cooks, laundresses—were locally viewed as “women’s work.” Gender ideology also informed local ideas about what constitutes “men’s work” in the ecotourism industry, mainly jobs such as hiking and backpacking guides. However, many tour agencies preferentially hired guides from Brazilian cities rather than local men. Elsewhere, Medeiros and Henriksen (2019) describe in detail the ways in which employers justified hiring urban Brazilians, examining the ways they assumed that urban Brazilians were better educated and were more suited to the job of guiding domestic and international tourists. By contrast, employers explained to us that local men were unqualified because of their lack of education and foreign language skills, even though many of them had extensive local knowledge of the park’s hiking trails. Discourses surrounding employees’ qualifications masked racial ideology that framed urban Brazilians as “whiter” and therefore more capable and rural Brazilians as “Black” and unqualified or unreliable. These discourses also disregarded the fact that the local working-class men’s subpar education was a product of structural inequities in the Brazilian education system (Medeiros and Henricksen 2019). Other forms of employment, such as working as day laborers on construction sites or as skilled masons or electricians, were not available or consistent, a situation that contributed to high rates of underemployment among men. In sum, men’s underemployment was the result of gender and racial ideologies and structural inequities, and it had significant ramifications for men’s gender roles, their identities, and marital relationships.
Men’s roles as chefes da família (heads of the family) is a central characteristic of normative gender identity in Brazil (Mayblin 2010). For working-class men in Brazil, fatherhood and the ability to protect and financially support their children and spouses is critical to the successful performance of masculinity (Penglase 2010, 2014). Mayblin (2010), for example, found that many men in Northeast Brazil subscribed to a more pragmatic form of intimacy linked to their roles as financial providers. For these men, their inability to be primary breadwinners challenged their ability to demonstrate care for their families.
Men caught up in Brogodó’s persistent underemployment were prevented from fulfilling their gender roles as household providers. This jeopardized their ability to perform normative masculinity and challenged their identities. The inability to financially support their households and the subsequent decrease in household authority that came with their reduced financial contribution (and their wives’ increased contribution) challenged men’s sense of themselves as “men.” For some men, their reliance on wives, mothers, and sisters for financial support was humiliating because it suggested that they were “not man enough” to support their families (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 50). Twenty-seven-year-old Lucas explained, “I think a man who doesn’t work is not a real man. … People look at you differently when you work. You have a little more moral (esteem). [When you have a job] they know that you are a stand-up guy. People look at you with different eyes” (Lucas, interview by author). Lucas described social perceptions of employed and unemployed men, demonstrating how the sociocultural link between men’s gender roles, paid labor, and masculinity influenced those perceptions. Both men and women in Brogodó sometimes shamed unemployed men, labeling them as “lazy,” less reliable, and not “real men.” This discourse further challenged men’s sense of masculinity and self-esteem.
Unemployment and Normative Masculinity in a Brazilian Film
In the film The Middle of the World (Amorim 2003), the protagonist Romão is a married man and a father of five children. He takes his family on a cross-country journey by bicycle in search of employment opportunities in the metropolitan city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. While the entire film gives us a glimpse into the effect of poverty on families and family relations, there are two scenes in particular that indicate the relationship between employment and normative masculinity in Brazil. In one scene, Romão turns to his adolescent son and says, “A man has to work from an early age. When I was your age I was a man.” His son replies, “I am a man.” In a mocking tone, Romão rebukes his son and asks, “A man who makes no money, and has no woman?” Later in the film, Romão tells his wife, “I’m not a man if I can’t provide for my wife and kids. How can you put up with living with a man who doesn’t give you a decent life?” Romão questions the manhood of his son who does not work and is unmarried and then later questions his own manhood due to his inability to provide for his wife and children. This fictional account mirrors the reality of working-class men’s insecurities over their roles in their households and in society and depicts normative notions of Brazilian masculinity.
Unemployment is particularly demeaning for working-class Black Brazilian men whose masculinity is marginalized (Connell 2016) because they are less able than white and middle- and upper-class men to perform normative masculinity both in the family and in society (Hautzinger 2007). In Brogodó, the frustration surrounding local men’s unemployment was aggravated by the fact that local businesses were almost exclusively owned by white, middle-class men and women. These business owners preferred to hire individuals who were from Brazilian cities, educated and socially classified as white over locals who were racialized as Black (Medeiros and Henriksen 2019). This case exemplifies why masculinity must be examined at the intersection of race and class to understand how men cope with racial hierarchies and masculinity (Hordge-Freeman 2015). For Black Brazilian men in particular, structural inequities and daily microaggressions—such as harassment from the local police, or job discrimination—have historically limited their options in society, threatening their social status in the public sphere and increasingly in the private sphere as well (Hordge-Freeman 2015).
In Brogodó, men’s experiences of marginalization and thwarted masculinity were distressing. Thirty-two-year-old Karolina explained the effects of unemployment on two of her former intimate partners:
Men have that thing to be men. That old taboo that it’s a man who provides for the household, that it is the man who speaks loudly, that it is the man who gives the commands. So an unemployed man feels worse [than an unemployed woman]; he feels like garbage. I say this because there are men that I’ve seen, in some of the relationships I’ve had. … I saw how my ex-husband and my ex-boyfriend both changed when they were unemployed. When my boyfriend was unemployed, he’d become very sad. … There were times when he cried, saying, ‘I can’t believe I’m unemployed.’ He felt like less of a man. (Karolina, interview by author)
Karolina also described her interactions with her ex-husband when he was unemployed: “When I would talk to him he would say, ‘You are speaking to me in this way because I don’t have a job.’ One time he got a job and he became all … you know … feeling like he was the man” (Karolina, interview by author). According to Karolina, her ex-husband believed that his unemployment caused Karolina to question his authority or “speak to him that way,” which demonstrates the relationship between employment and perceptions of authority, a key component of masculinity for these men.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, and other parts of the world, the stress of thwarted masculine identities sometimes leads to problematic behaviors such as substance abuse (Maier 2010). When I asked Lucas why he thought it was important for a man to work, he argued that men needed to work for financial and “psychological” reasons. He explained how work prevented men from “losing themselves in life, for example, drinking and other things” (Lucas, interview by author). Women and men in Brogodó perceived a relationship between unemployment and alcohol abuse. Karolina made the connection between her ex-husband’s abuse of alcohol and his status as an unemployed man: “My ex-husband, he drank, drank, drank, and couldn’t get a job” (Karolina, interview by author). Aggravating the situation, when Brazilian men abuse alcohol, they lose the respect of their families, further perpetuating their loss of authority in the household and challenging their masculinity (Sarti 2011). Women in Brogodó also sometimes attributed the verbal or physical abuse of romantic partners to men’s unemployment. Hautzinger (2007) discusses how in Brazil violence serves as a resource for performing masculinity when men’s dominance in the gender hierarchy is threatened by changes that increase women’s rights and autonomy. Thus rather than assume that male violence is the result of a patriarchal culture, it is necessary to acknowledge the structural circumstances and social discourses shaping their identities within a context of social inequality and marginalization. The masculinity of rural, working-class, Black men in Brogodó was fragile; it was compromised by their marginalized social status as well as the socioeconomic changes occurring locally. Furthermore, their inability to perform normative masculinity resulted in compensatory practices that threatened their marriages.
MEN’S INFIDELITY AS COMPENSATORY MASCULINITY
Brazilian men’s participation in the public sphere affords them rights and opportunities that are associated with normative masculinity. In addition to spending time in the rua socializing with their friends, the ability to have extramarital affairs has long been a gender norm for Brazilian men (Gregg 2003). Another component of normative masculinity in Northeast Brazil is malandragem (roguishness), which is associated with activities such as flirting, sex (including extramarital sex), drinking, and the freedom to be out in the street (Mayblin 2010). Married men’s infidelity is in part (although of course not completely) a reflection of their desire to perform normative masculinity and affirm their masculine identities. For generations, Northeast Brazilian men’s extramarital affairs were considered annoying by their wives but were accepted as long as the husband was financially supporting his household (Rebhun 1999). Essentialist discourses surrounding men’s sexuality that justify men’s infidelity as “natural” exemplify exculpatory chauvinism: “the tendency to absolve men of responsibility for performances that embody negative male stereotypes, while simultaneously offering social rewards [such as social status] for such behavior” (Wade and Ferree 2019, 139). Men in Brogodó reported that “real men” did not refuse sexual opportunities, even when such affairs jeopardized a marriage. Twenty-year-old Tiago explained to me the connection between sex and masculinity: “Men don’t cheat on their wives to be men. Having sex with many women makes a man feel like a man. For a married man to do that, he has to cheat on his wife. Men are starting to learn that being fiel (faithful) is a good thing, but they can’t help themselves. A real man never turns down the opportunity to have sex” (Tiago, interview by author). Both men and women in Brogodó rationalized this behavior by saying that men “can’t help themselves” and that having multiple partners “makes a man feel like a man.” Men who rejected sex from women other than their wives and who spent more time at home than in the rua risk being mocked as homens caseiros (house-bound men; see Hautzinger 2007). So although in Brogodó women expressed a desire for husbands who are homens caseiros, they told me they were difficult to find. This suggests that men in Brogodó did not aspire to be homens caseiros and that there was a stigma associated with being a “house-bound man.”
Definition: exculpatory chauvinism
The tendency to absolve men of responsibility for performances that embody negative male stereotypes, while simultaneously offering social rewards [such as social status] for such behavior (Wade and Ferree 2019, 139).
In Brazil, stereotypes of Black male hypersexuality also naturalize and normalize male promiscuity, often through a discourse of Black men’s blood as quente “hot” (Hordge-Freeman 2015; Mayblin 2010; Mitchell 2015). Discourses surrounding Black male hypersexuality are based in historical constructions of Black men as dangerous and sexually aggressive. These discourses, institutionalized in the legal and medical system, were used to justify the brutal treatment of enslaved men and the post-abolition subjugation of Black men in the late nineteenth century and persist today (Mitchell 2015). In Brogoó, twenty-four-year-old Jacqueline compared Black married men to white married men: “I think at times women think white men are more faithful in relationships. … They don’t cheat. … Bahians are born thinking that they are everything and that they can be with all the women. … Many men, principally the Bahians, they look at other women, even in front of their wives, and show that they are desiring them. They [white men] don’t do this, sometimes they don’t even look. For this I think that they are faithful” (Jacqueline, interview by author). Jacqueline used the label “Bahians” (people from the state of Bahia) as a euphemism for Black men and compared them to white men. The talk of women in Brogodó revealed the continued circulation of such racialized notions of sexuality and fidelity; they sometimes verbally contrasted the infidelity of Black men to the perceived fidelity of white men.
Women’s perceptions were often informed by widely circulated media portrayals of relationships, especially in telenovelas (Brazilian soap operas). The telenovela is the most popular television genre among Brazilian women. For working-class women who cannot afford satellite television, telenovelas and the news are the main genres of television programming available in the evening. Hour-long episodes of four different telenovelas air daily from six o’clock to ten o’clock in the evening, and repeat episodes are often aired during the daytime. These telenovelas portray storylines that associate romantic love with fidelity and depict these values as characteristics of white, middle- and upper-class couples. As Fernandez (2010) described in her ethnography of interracial romances in Cuba, the notion of white men’s fidelity represents a “racialized fantasy,” which people in Brogodó contrasted with tropes about Black men’s perceived inability to be faithful.
In my research I found that as women’s gender roles and their identities changed, they began to desire fidelity in their marriages as part of an aspiration for the ideal of romantic love and marriage qualities associated with romantic love, such as fidelity. Their expectation of fidelity was informed largely by messages in the telenovelas that they consumed and often heeded. While women in Brogodó naturalized men’s hypersexuality, they no longer excused men for this behavior. Even men like Lucas who acknowledged that monogamy was becoming a sociocultural ideal argued that men were not capable of controlling their sexuality in the attempt to be faithful. In this community where socioeconomic change threatened men’s ability to fulfill the masculine role of breadwinner, behaviors such as extramarital affairs functioned as compensatory masculinity—“acts undertaken to reassert one’s manliness in the face of a threat” (Wade and Ferree 2019, 142). Hordge-Freeman (2015) notes that young Black Brazilian men in particular struggle with psychological distress as they “try to cope with racial hierarchies and sexual expectations” (Hordge-Freeman 2015, 125). She explains how “Black men with limited options and faced with structural exclusion, superficial cultural inclusion, and the day-to-day microaggressions that reinforce their devalued status” seek ways to “regain their self-esteem and to assert their masculinity” in order to alleviate their distress (Hordge-Freeman 2015, 125–126). In Brogodó men were challenged with trying to satisfy both normative views of masculinity, including financial support of their households, as well as contemporary marriage expectations that countered normative expressions of masculinity, including sexual behaviors. The very practices that enabled men in Brogodó to assert normative masculine identities—such as being out in the rua and having extramarital affairs—were criticized by their wives whose marriage expectations led to their disapproval of these behaviors. Therefore, men’s efforts to meet standards of normative masculinity were detrimental to their marriages, often resulting in marital conflict and divorce.
Definition: compensatory masculinity
Acts undertaken to reassert one’s manliness in the face of a threat (Wade and Ferree 2019, 142).
CONCLUSION
Normative masculinity is neither a fixed set of traits or behaviors nor is it universally defined. The characteristics, behaviors, and types of interactions associated with an ideal or dominant form of masculinity change and shift over time and space. In Northeast Brazil, for generations men’s financial support for their families, freedom to have a robust social life outside of the home, and unabashed sexual pursuits were all components of normative conceptions of masculinity. For working-class Black men in rural Bahia, their marginalization at the intersection of various social identities often challenges their ability to fulfill some of their own (and society’s) expectations for their performance of masculinity. In Brogodó, high rates of male underemployment made it difficult for men to meet the expectation of household providership. Although for decades sexual promiscuity was a common practice associated with normative masculinity, and tropes of Black male hypersexuality further normalized men’s extramarital affairs, changes in gender roles and marital expectations in Brogodó affected women’s acceptance of infidelity. Therefore, while for some unemployed men a life in the rua and the freedom to have flirtations and sexual relationships with more than one woman was potentially a form of compensatory masculinity, women were increasingly unlikely to aguentar (tolerate) this behavior. The junction of transformations in women’s gender roles and marriage expectations and men’s experiences of thwarted masculinity resulted in marital conflict and instability among couples in Brogodó.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why is an intersectional approach important for the study of masculinities?
2. What do the concepts of marginalized masculinity, thwarted masculinity, and crisis of masculinity mean? How do these concepts help us to understand the experiences of working-class Black men in rural Northeast Brazil?
3. How is infidelity in northeast Brazil an example of compensatory masculinity?
4. How does the case study in this chapter help to demonstrate the value of an intersectional approach to understanding masculinities?
KEY TERMS
compensatory masculinity: Acts undertaken to reassert one’s manliness in the face of a threat (Wade and Ferree 2019, 142).
exculpatory chauvinism: The tendency to absolve men of responsibility for performances that embody negative male stereotypes, while simultaneously offering social rewards [such as social status] for such behavior (Wade and Ferree 2019, 139).
intersectionality: Refers to the interconnected nature of social categories such as race, class, and gender that creates overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. The goal of an intersectional analysis is to understand how racism, sexism, and homophobia (for example) interact together to impact our identities and how we live.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
• Gutmann, Matthew. Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America. 2003. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Gutmann, Matthew. The Meanings of Macho. 2007. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Hordge-Freeman, Elizabeth. The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families. 2015. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• hooks, bell. We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. 2004. New York: Routledge.
• Keith, Thomas. Masculinities in Contemporary American Culture: An Intersectional Approach to the Complexities and Challenges of Male Identity. 2017. New York: Routledge.
• Mayblin, Maya. Gender, Catholicism, and Morality in Brazil: Virtuous Husbands, Powerful Wives. 2010. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Medeiros, Melanie A. Marriage, Divorce and Distress in Northeast Brazil: Black Women’s Perspectives on Love, Respect and Kinship. 2018. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• Mutua, Athena D. Progressive Black Masculinities. 2006. New York: Routledge.
• Neal, Mark Anthony. Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities. 2013. New York: New York University Press.
• Mitchell, Gregory. Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy. 2015. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Pascoe, C. J., and Tristan Bridges. Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change. 2016. New York: Oxford University Press.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Rutgers University Press for granting permission for us to use a portion of the original text from Marriage, Divorce and Distress in Northeast Brazil. Thank you also to the women and men in Brogodó, Bahia, Brazil who generously opened up their homes and shared their stories with me.
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