Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Anyone can tell you that family is important to Mexican and Chicano culture, and we can all venture guesses as to why. However, where exactly this family unit seems to be headed and how it has evolved in U.S. popular culture over the past 25-30 years is what Richard Rodríguez chooses to scrutinize in his study—and he does so with unexpected wit.

Rodríguez's Next of Kin is structured into four chapters framed by an introduction and an afterword. His first chapter, "Reappraising the Family Archive," examines the predominance of the family in Chicano cultural production since the establishment of the explicitly Chicano movements in the early '70s. Here, Rodríguez displays evident skill in his pictorial analysis, a talent that is augmented by the inclusion of various reproductions of the materials that he is analyzing.

In the aptly named second chapter, "Shooting the Patriarch," Rodríguez's analysis traces the same phenomenon as it appears in the medium of film and television. Although he looks at many films and programs produced by Chicanos, he primarily focuses on the film Mi Familia. Remarkably, Rodríguez manages to avoid using the word "stereotype" in this chapter, at least for the first part of his breakdown of the film.

In the third chapter, "The Verse of the Godfather," Rodríguez very thoroughly traces the origins of Chicano rap music and hip-hop culture. However, we can only lament that he did not extend his discussion to specific lyrics, since he is especially skilled at textual analysis. We finally find this skill put to use in the too brief final chapter, entitled "Carnal Knowledge," where carnal refers to the Mexican Spanish "brotherly" aspect of kinship. Rodríguez investigates the construction of gay Chicano Culture, but once again, the chapter seems underdeveloped and this begs the question of insufficient material, since Rodríguez dates the outing of gay masculine Chicano culture as far back as 1981. Seeing as the book is otherwise well written and informative, we can but lament that almost one third of the book (some 80 pages out of 257) are devoted to notes and bibliography.

Much of Rodríguez's analysis in Next of Kin revolves around the construction of the Chicano identity as different from (and similar to) the construction of other gendered identities, such as African American identity. This comparative aspect is one of the conclusions that Rodríguez's book implies, but does not mention explicitly in its afterword. As American culture becomes more and more heterogeneous, it is undeniable that the (supposed) melting pot society will constantly construct new permutations of the Chicano identity and, as Rodríguez concludes in his afterword about the family, "community is made, and remade, ideally over and against normative familia romances whose hopeful passing will call forth its next of kin."

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, November 23rd 2009

Toward a Latina Feminism of the Americas: Repression and Resistance in Chicana and Mexicana Literature

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Anna Marie Sandoval

University of Texas Press

Anna Marie Sandoval has written a very personal book: Toward a Latina Feminism of the Americas: Repression and Resistance in Chicana and Mexicana Literature. Can a book about such a scholarly topic be personal? In the preface and afterword (eighteen pages), Sandoval explains how. To summarize would be to remove the reader’s pleasure for those who will venture into her story. Suffice to say that Sandoval has taken a chance: the academic is so rarely personal that she might be faulted for including these sections. However, Sandoval’s own “Chicana” story of repression and resistance comes to frame the analysis that she presents in her books of the works of authors: Sandra Cisneros (Chapter 2), Carmen Boullosa, Laura Esquivel (both Chapter 3) and Helena María Viramontes (Chapter 4). Just as real life often intersects with literature, as Sandoval demonstrates in her analysis, literature intersects with real life.

Chapter one introduces some of the critical theoretical elements necessary to framing the study of the Mexicana and Chicana genres. Sandoval provides a very thorough review of existing literature and includes subsections on context and mythologies. While all parts are quite detailed, some of the shared (social, political, and literary) history of the Mexicanas and Chicanas appear superficially covered, possibly an editing decision linked to the vulgarisation process.

The sections on Boullosa, Cisneros, and Viramontes are very well executed, especially in her very perceptive textual analysis. It is difficult to make innovative points regarding Como agua para chocolate, perhaps the most over-analysed Mexicana novel. Chapter three did hold some promise when Sandoval mentioned the importance of the Chicana grandniece’s gaze, but she failed to produce an assessment of it, something that would have helped bridge the Mexicana-Chicana divide, a concept central de Sandoval’s analysis. Furthermore, in her brief analysis of the novel (the shortest of all the authors examined), she did not reflect on the ambiguity of Mama Elena’s symbolic upholding of patriarchal ideals (since she did have an affair and child), a position which is essential to any analysis of repression and resistance in the feminist context.

In her chapter four discussion of Chicana writers and mainstream presses, Sandoval does not support her argumentation surrounding the “marketability” of Chicana writers with figures. Regrettably, she does not make the explicit link between marketability and what she deems “continuing overt racism and sexism.” Her provocative stance denouncing mainstream presses’ publishing decisions is undermined by her own lack of supporting evidence as well as by the fact that her analysis centers on authors published by mainstream presses. She warns against an ‘exoticization’ of these texts as representative of all experience of Latino and Chicano, paradoxically something to which she seems to contribute.

Overall, the book is very well written and can be read very easily. There were a few occasions when I questioned Sandoval’s expression, perhaps where she endeavoured to be too exhaustive in her writing. For example, exactly what is “U.S. third world women’s feminist discourse”? In the same vein, I was puzzled about how, by its very nature, Chicana literature could be neither “gender- or ethnicity-specific” and what exactly “women-centered spaces in Chicana literature” would be like?

Regardless of these minor questions, this book makes a significant contribution to the developing field of transnational analysis. The Chicana act of resistance hinges on the act of writing the story, as apparent in Viramontes’ heartbreaking story of a Guatemalan immigrant’s murder (Chapter 4). Consequently, both Sandoval’s personal story and literary analysis are very much a part of this progression “toward a Latina feminism.”

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, July 3rd 2009

mexicana

Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics

Toward a Latina Feminism of the Americas: Repression and Resistance in Chicana and Mexicana Literature