University of Texas Press

Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen

beth — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen by Kathleen Rowe Karlyn is a fascinating look into the movies and television I watched as a kid. As a woman in my mid-twenties, I can safely say that my age group, for the most part, was the target audience when the films and television shows mentioned in the book were being produced. Or, at least, one of the target audiences. Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers is a companion volume to Unruly Women, published in 1995 by the same author. (I have not read Unruly Women, so some of my thoughts about Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers may have responses in the earlier work.)

According to the back cover and introduction, Karlyn’s purpose in writing this companion volume is to “ask whether today’s seemingly materialistic and apolitical girls, inspired by such real and fictional characters as the Spice Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have turned their backs on the feminism of their mothers or are redefining unruliness for a new age.” The book is more than 250 pages long, plus twenty pages of endnotes, eighteen pages for the Works Cited, and an index for ease in looking up specific information. It’s clear in reading that Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers is an academic work, but the author thankfully did a good job of keeping my attention with her writing style, relevance of the subjects, and accompanying photographs.

The book is split into an introduction, an afterward, and eight chapters which comprise the bulk of her argument. The first few chapters delve into the worlds of Clueless, Titanic, American Beauty, the Scream trilogy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mean Girls, and The Devil Wears Prada. It really helps to have seen the aforementioned movies (and the others Karlyn discusses later) or some of the series in the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For example, I could really engage in the parts about Titanic, American Beauty, Buffy, and The Devil Wears Prada because I’d seen those multiple times, remembered details, and could grapple with Karlyn’s assertions about each piece. (She says American Beauty has a strong incest motif, and since I’d seen the movie multiple times I was able to disagree at first and then maybe see where she was coming from.) But for the others I mentioned—especially the Scream trilogy, which I’ve never seen—it was much harder to understand what she was even talking about; I had to take her at her word that one character did something and then another did something else, etc. It wouldn’t be unthinkable, I suppose, to sit down and watch (at least some of) the pieces mentioned in Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers to have a basic understanding of the author’s starting point, but until I have time to do that, I can’t fully engage with some of the text. I suspect other readers will have similar issues.

Nonetheless, the movies and characters with which I was familiar provided me with plenty of brain fodder. There’s an entire chapter on Reese Witherspoon’s ability to “walk the line” between feminine and feminist in her film portrayals, and in real life, a chapter about teen melodrama that focuses on My So-Called Life and Thirteen, and a chapter about girls and women of color in film. I’m not sure how I feel about having only one chapter about girls and women of color; I don’t know if Karlyn could only work with the movies she had and most of them just leave out people of color (i.e., the entertainment industry is racist) or if she picked and chose the films that fit her thesis and the ones that most easily fit didn’t include people of color in important roles, or some combination thereof. (I suspect it’s the third option.) That said, someone could write an entire book about just girls and women of color on screen, so I’m not sure how I’d have written it differently in this book.

Overall, I’d say that Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers is a great reference text; it has a lot of relevant, useful information for Third Wave feminists (and parents of said), and it may open up someone’s eyes when they ascribe to feminist beliefs that begin with, “I’m not a feminist, but…”

Written by: Viannah Duncan, March 29th 2011

One Hundred Bottles

annette — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Ena Lucía Portela, Achy Obejas

University of Texas Press

An intensely vivid and riveting story of abuse, pain, honesty, erotica and discovery-this combination of words may not sound appealing, but the provocative and imaginative novel of these topics woven together creates a graphic fall from the literary world into our laps of reading desire. Crafted by Ena Lucía Portela, One Hundred Bottles is the story of a young woman named Z, who is incidentally an amazing storyteller (as well as a reluctantly educated person) and who leads us through her story while trying to find meaning behind her experiences. Given her challenging background, Z delivers a step by step account of her life (with creative backstory included) and you hope she will end up a champion. Z faces what seems the most challenging of all living through an unlucky survivorship; however, she keeps moving along through life, and author Portela puts you, the reader, right next to her. You feel the slaps, you feel the insults, and you breathe a sigh of relief with her at the climax.

Educated at the University of Havana, Ena Lucía Portela brings her life to fiction and brilliantly sets her story in the historic rocky era of Cuba in the early 1990s. All characters seek a chosen lifestyle and all are survivors; depending on their current resources, people enter and spin through Z's life while their own tales turn-and none are left unexplained.

Although she is called "stupid", Z is curious and insistent. Her friends and support range from her priest to a lesbian mystery author. At certain points in reading One Hundred Bottles, you feel like you are reading strictly a whodunit sort of detective novel, but actually the author (and best friend of Z) writes the detective novel based on Z's retelling of actual real events in her section of the world. Brilliantly juxtaposed, the work keeps you engrossed; at times powerfully violent, the novel reminds you that this is what a certain group in a certain culture experienced during this time; if a reader is intimate with abuse or violence, he or she may identify with these parts, but redemption triumphs and allows readers to breathe deeply a sigh of relief.

Published originally in Spanish in 2002, this novel holds up. Reminiscent of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Brando Skyhorse's The Madonnas of Echo Park, One Hundred Bottles brings the reader a culture delightfully retold through the eyes of a woman who remarkably survives. As well, the story offers hope and fulfillment, both necessary traits for living in today's world.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, February 18th 2011

Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera

mandy — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Georgina Guzman

University of Texas Press

Making a Killing is a collection of essays exploring the history and social/political/economic context of the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico from 1993 to the present day. Essays analyze the economic context of free trade that has contributed to a culture that devalues women workers and sees female bodies as expendable in the making of cheap products for American women. Essays examine activists’ and artists’ efforts to gain attention for the plight of women in Juarez, analyze the culture of law enforcement in Juarez, and vividly portray the efforts of mothers and relatives to get justice for their missing and murdered daughters.

Though the essays collected here are primarily academic, they are easy to read and will be of interest to the general public, not just other academics. The collection provides a thorough history and a complete picture of the efforts to stop the violence against women in Juarez throughout the last two decades. Though the subject is difficult, I enjoyed the book a lot.

I lived in El Paso, Texas for fifteen of the last twenty years; the stories of Mexican women being raped, murdered, and dumped in the desert on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico filtered into my consciousness early. But so did the stories of narco-murders. In the last three years, the world has lost its preoccupation with the murder of women in Juarez and turned its attention instead to the mayhem and murders of over 25,000 Mexican citizens in the drug cartel wars ripping the nation apart. Juarez is the city most affected by these murders (3,000 in 2010 alone).

If I have one criticism of Making a Killing, it is that it pays little attention to the general culture of killing in Juarez. The murders of women didn’t begin in 1993—nor have they stopped. And the narco-murders didn’t begin in 2007—and who knows when they will end? Because the editors focus on femicide, only one essay suggests that the femicides overlap or are inextricably intertwined with the narco-murders. The culture of violence in Juarez envelops the femicides—but exceeds them as well. If we fail to explore and analyze this truth, then the murders of women by individual men and groups of men will be forgotten as we increasingly pay attention to the drug cartel war instead.

Written by: Jessica Powers, January 15th 2011

I Want to Get Married!: One Wannabe Bride's Misadventures with Handsome Houdinis, Technicolor Grooms, Morality Police, and Other Mr. Not-Quite-Rights

admin — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Nora Eltahawy, Ghada Abdel Aal

University of Texas Press, Dar El Shorouk

The first suitor was a friend of a friend's husband. Along with his family, he came to Ghada's house. He was a doctor, she was told. Excited at the idea of finally meeting a potential husband, she washed the carpets, mopped the floor, scrubbed the stairs, and cleaned all the windows.

She opened the door only to meet Mr. Not-Quite-Right, her technicolor suitor. His shirt was yellow, his pants were blue, and he was wearing purple socks with brown shoes—not to mention the green sweater. "Maybe he is fun and he likes colors", she told herself, in an attempt to convince herself to focus on his personality and brains. The official introduction happened when her father entered the room. "My name is Samy. I'm a physiotherapist," he said. She was impressed until he started rambling about his "imitation skills;" apparently, he could imitate every character in this world. He eventually stopped sharing his talent and asked if the television was working. He turned it on and proceeded to watch a football match. Ghada held in a laugh and tried to pretend that everything is normal, but when her mother criticized his favorite football team, hell broke loose and at the ancient age of twenty-eight, Ghada lost a potential husband. Not only that, she also lost her friend who was angry with her for not being compromising to a "perfect" groom.

I first came across I Want to Get Married! in 2009 and soon afterwards, the blog was turned into a book by a publishing house in Egypt. The blogger/writer is a young Egyptian woman who is a successful pharmacist, but in a country like Egypt, success is measured by your ability to attract a groom at a young age. "The clock starts ticking the day you graduate. Personally, I started feeling like a spinster after I turned twenty-three," Ghada wrote in the introduction to the book.

Currently, Ghada is thirty-two and is still unmarried. After she turned thirty, her family and friends narrowed down her husband wish-list to a man "with a heartbeat." After introducing her to numerous men, from the technicolor suitor to the paranoid policeman who was adamant to get her fingerprints for "research," they gave up on her.

In her book, she chronicles the at least thirty prospective grooms she was introduced to from the age of twenty-five. This is how it works: Someone nominates her to an eligible bachelor, and the bachelor brings his nuclear family to meet her and her family. If she feels something towards him, they start dating to get to know each other. Not only does Ghada hilariously document meeting the men; she also shares the struggles of young women in Egypt who face societal pressure to tie the knot.

Recent statistics state that there are at least nine million unmarried women in Egypt. Social scientists consider rising costs as the main reason to blame for the delayed age for marriage, and they even use the term "marriage crises" to describe the situation of late marriage in Egypt. Diane Singerman, a professor of Comparative Politics at American University, uses the term " wait-hood" to describe the marriage situation in Egypt. She states that women used to get married by seventeen or nineteen in the past and men were ready to get married around the same age or even at twenty-five. Currently, the average marriage age for men in Egypt is thirty-one. Singerman estimates the cost of marriage at eleven times the annual household expenditure per capita. As economic reasons make it hard for couples to marry, women take the brunt of this delay. Ghada is such an example, but she took advantage of the digital age and empowered herself by blogging about her situation. Not only has she established herself as a great social commentator, but she reached out to millions of unmarried women and helped them deal with the social stigma they face.

This Ramadan, after reading the book, I watched I Want to Get Married! as a TV series and today, I will also get the chance to read the book in English as well.

Written by: Reem Abbas Shawkat, October 14th 2010

Experiments In A Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Edited by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore, Sharon Bridgforth

University of Texas Press

In June 2009, I participated in a writing workshop with Sharon Bridgforth, not knowing what to expect and not knowing what I was expected to give. I only knew that I loved music, having already pledged my undying love for jazz at a young age, and that I loved writing; but I never intended to leave with a blueprint for the foundation of how I would put pen to paper from that point on. Since then, my writing has been centered in being present in the here and now, a soulful, deep listening, improvisation (which brings together both the aforementioned), and an integrity that refuses to deviate from what makes up what is known as the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

According to Austin Project founder Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, the Jazz Aesthetic Manifesto “is a way to forestall the erosion of human connection by bringing to voice women of color and those white women who are able to learn the role of allies.” Jazz has always been about being in the moment, listening to oneself and to one’s surroundings, improvisation, and continuous change. Those precepts are among the few that shaped themselves into the manifesto that would become the Austin Project.

The Austin Project (tAP) was started in 2002 with a stone etching that “all women-all people-are inherently creative, are artists in their own right, and that claiming this identity can be transformative for individuals and communities.” It provides a space for women of color and their allies to write and perform in a jazz aesthetic as a strategy for social change, be they writers, performers, doctors, or social workers. It consists of collaborators Lisa L. Moore, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Texas at Austin, and Sharon Bridgforth, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the bull-jean stories and love conjure/blues. Mentors and teachers of the women of tAP have included artistic nobility such as Laurie Carlos, Carl Hancock Rux, Virginia Grise, and Daniel Alexander Jones, to name a few.

Not often do I find it difficult to summarize the works of a collective into several hundred words; however, this is one of those times. Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic includes the works of some of the previously mentioned collaborative artists, as well as a veritable who’s who in all things to do with art, activism, and the academics. Jones wrote that in conceiving the Austin Project, she was trying to save her own life; consequently, many births seem to have taken place, for many artists have birthed a way of creating, organizing, and performing. Whether it is art, activism, or academia—being present, listening, body- centered, true to the both/and instead of the either/or all on an inclusive level all serve as the foundation with which to maintain the integrity of the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, August 4th 2010

A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Carole M. Counihan

University of Texas Press

From the time Laura Esquivel’s well known novel Like Water for Chocolate was made into a film, food and meals have been presented as a means of communication that extends beyond the dinner table. A Tortilla Is Like Life is an excellent book about Hispanic food, recipes, and home remedies.

A Tortilla Is Like Life is an introduction to the unique Hispanic community of Antonito in San Luis Valley of Colorado. This small urban centre with a population of approximately 900 has Spanish, Mexican, and American Indian ancestry with some Anglophone influences. The town of Alamola, thirty miles away with a population ten times the size of Antonito, provides employment for people from nearby communities.

Carole Counihan, an anthropologist who settled in Antonito with her husband and two sons, presents the culture of the community by gathering food-centred interviews between 1996 and 2006 from nineteen women ages thirty-two to ninety-four, making fifty-five interviews in total. Two women in particular play a major role by providing information about the food, traditions, and culture of Antonito. The most active participants in Counihan’s study were Helen Ruybal, born in 1906, who she interviewed nineteen times, and Teddy Madrid, born in 1936, who was interviewed six times.

In this small community, gender arrangements surrounding cooking have changed over the years along with the archetype of the Chicano patriarchal family. Food sits at the heart of the household, contributing to the structure of families. A woman who prepares food is seen as the head of the family, and women construct relationships with men through cooking. Given that many women sell prepared food to make a living, domestic duties belong to both husband and wife. Through food, women establish a sense of their own identity, culture, and place in society. They create stories about food to preserve their legacy for future generations.

Certain foods encapsulate memories, rituals, beliefs, and traditions. Two things that are central to the Antonito diet (for both flavour and tradition) are red and green chilis, which are eaten on numerous occasions—with extended families, during birth rituals, at one's wedding, and after death—as they communicate love, nurturing, and care.

Counihan wants to enrich the understanding of Antonito’s history by presenting diverse women’s voices and creating a cultural mosaic revealing how they relate to food and community. She classifies her book as testimonio and has done a very thorough job researching. A Tortilla Is Like Life deals very well with the sense of cultural belonging felt by those living in a community where women’s identity is shaped by food.

Written by: Anna Hamling, April 5th 2010

No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000

By Cynthia E. Orozco

University of Texas Press

So often, when studying the history of civil rights in the United States in school, the curriculum concentrates on the struggles faced by African Americans and white women. The plights of other minority groups though, such as Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans, are often omitted from the textbooks. In those rare instances when these other groups are mentioned, their histories are condensed into a paragraph or side note. Cynthia E. Orozco attempts to shed some light on one of these ignored civil rights movements in her book, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed. Her chronicle is a fascinating exploration at an overlooked chapter of American history.

I grew up in Texas, graduated from a Texas university, and currently teach in the same district where I attended school as a youth. Suffice to say, I have some experience studying Texas history. I found Orozco’s book, which focuses mainly on the region of South Texas, to be extremely eye-opening. Orozco outlines the history and development of the Mexican American culture and civil rights movement, starting with the early 1900s and concentrating mostly on the cities of San Antonio and Corpus Christi. She draws readers in, not with flashy writing or hooks, but with historical data and simple statistics that are interesting and to the point.

The book starts out by defining the cultural differences between Mexican Americans whose families have lived in Texas since before it became a state and recently immigrated Mexicans—a difference that many modern Americans still struggle with. Orozco then delves into the history of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC as it is commonly known by, as well as other organizations that were influential in the Mexican-American civil rights movement. She also takes on the issue of gender inequality within Mexican-American society and how this affected the civil rights movement and modern scholars’ perception of the women who participated in it.

For those interested in American history, civil rights history, women’s history, or Mexican American history, this book should be at the top of your reading list. After completing this book, I found myself wanting to know more about the people and incidents discussed. One can only hope that more books like this one will be published so that people can be educated on all facets of the civil rights movement in America.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, February 20th 2010

Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman’s Journey Toward Independence

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Leila Abouzeid, Barbara Parmenter

University of Texas Press

A collection of one novella and a handful of short stories, Year in the Elephant is a translation from Arabic that does a great job of painting life in Morocco prior to and after independence from the French colonial power. The realization of independence is at times painful and disappointing, but Abouzeid’s characters are full of conviction and passion.

In the novella, "Year of the Elephant," the main character, Zahara, narrates the double-edged history that she has experienced; fighting for Moroccan freedom and finding herself alone after decades of marriage (to a man who leaves her after the revolution, simply because she isn’t “modern” enough).

As a Muslim woman, Zahara is well-balanced and strong. She represents women who courageously steps into the spiritual unknown. Like many other women, she begins to doubt Allah when her marriage is abruptly ended. Expectedly bitter, she repeatedly refers to how her ex throws a few months’ worth of money (as per divorce law) at her, just enough for nothing but a room she owns in her old family house.

Although she spends a few days in her hometown—to which she can’t return permanently because her heart belongs elsewhere. With the help of a holy man, she must decide whether to let her bitterness engulf her or put the past behind her and move on.

Along the journey, the writer gives us glimpses of the devastation colonialism had on Moroccan peoples, from men and women to children. Independence and change in class status turns her husband into a cold, materialistic man. Going from poverty to a manor is unnerving for Zahara; she becomes depressed as she is slowly traded in for a younger woman. Having a chauffeur doesn’t make up for it.

Similarly, the unrelated stand-alone short stories deal with issues such as poverty and the struggle for national independence. In “The Discontented,” two male cousins, one rich, another poor, have a visit. The wealthier one offers the other a job which will give him better housing and money. Ultimately, he turns him down, arguing that he doesn’t want his children’s education ruined by elitist superiority. The fight for freedom brought the people of Morocco together, but paradoxically, freedom divided them.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, January 15th 2010

Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Bárbara Renaud González

University of Texas Press

Golondrina is the Spanish word for a (female) swallow, a noun. But to accept that in such strict terms would be an injustice to this literary artwork laid out by Bárbara Renaud González in Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?. To swallow—the verb—would be to envelope or take in and also to accept or believe without question, anger, or protest. To embrace the former, this long-winged migratory bird with the deeply-forked tail is to embrace all of these definitions within the context of Amada García’s journey.

Amada’s story is intricately woven within the delicacies of Mexican cuisine and through the eyes of her second daughter, Lucero. Her journey begins and, dare I say, ends in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution would seem to better serve as a prelude rather than a catalyst for the bitterness that unmercifully surrounds Amada. For if it were a prelude instead of a catalyst, time may have been kinder to her.

Having to be taken out of school at the age of thirteen, Amada decides to educate herself. This education came in the form of a rebellious quinceañera gift to herself: a brutal marriage to a man her father’s age and a daughter, Salomé, forced to grow up without his love. Amada decides to leave Mexico and Salomé in search of a better life for herself and she hopes the daughter will join her eventually. She falls in love with the man who takes her across the border, but chooses to marry a man who is only in love with the land taken from his people. The love Amada so wishes to have is the love she gives to her eight children and the physical and emotional nourishment she provides for them.

González is a masterful storyteller with the ability to unapologetically simmer pain, desire, and despondency with the richness of words that conjure up beautiful culinary imagery. She refuses to romanticize the brutality of the journey, yet still creates a longing in the reader that allows us to take in this journey with more philosophical resignation than question, anger, or protest. Amada García’s story is that of a heart that migrates across what seems to be three lifetimes: her life in Mexico, her journey from Mexico to Texas, and her life from Texas on forward. Amada's journey starts in Mexico, and even though she is physically in another country, those lessons that have so deeply etched themselves into her heart seem to remain loyal to her motherland.

In Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me? González beautifully and artfully leaves us content with nothing to protest.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, November 19th 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

Sex Work and the City: The Social Geography of Health and Safety in Tijuana, Mexico

admin — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:27:00 +0000

By Yasmina Katsulis

University of Texas Press

Most studies of prostitution still focus on the supply side: the women and girls, the boys and men, and the transgender and transsexual people who toil sexually to survive, meet temporary needs, and thrive. An increasing number of studies focus on the demand side: the direct consumers and the globalizing forces that bring them together. Carved down from what was probably a fine Ph.D. dissertation, and founded upon eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork that she conducted in Tijuana, Mexico, Yasmina Katsulis’s lively and accessible Sex Work and the City does one better. In only eight chapters and 174 pages, interspersed with field-note entries and arresting photos—for example, a family united in picnic but separated by a fence—she also explores the physicians who under- and over-diagnose STDs, the policemen who extort sexual favors, and the many agents who facilitate and profit from the sexual labor of others.

Ethnographic, archival, and other data show that Tijuana’s sex industry is fed by gringo and Mexican male migrant laborers who come and go—the causes and symptoms of staggering degrees of human migration and mobility. I appreciate her caveat about the necessity of squarely confronting centuries-old stigmas of prostitution. Throughout the book, she opposes an epidemiology and popular culture that systematically misrepresents by underestimating the HIV and STD transmissive risks of sex in, or on the way to, marriage. Katsulis demonstrates not just why, but literally how, prostitution’s labor forms and venues structure health and social risks.

She also explores the motivations for entering into, and the various outcomes of sexual labor by contrasting legal, registered sex work with that which is informal and illegal. Her analysis of the Tijuana Regulatory Model of policing and health inspection of The Body Prostitute highlights police extortion and the health and social hierarchies of strip clubs, brothels, alleyways, massage parlors, beaches, and forlorn places. The social and economic contradictions in Tijuana of skin color, gender identity, language, socioeconomic class, and ethnicity produce differing degrees of health, social, and legal hazard.

Apart from a few minor quibbles (her use of the illogical term “HIV/AIDS infection,” the sometimes interchangeable use of “sex workers” and “prostitutes”), Katsulis neglects to point out that pimping is the world’s oldest profession, not prostitution. Some of her claims—for example, regarding the general absence of pimping in Tijuana—are insufficiently grounded in historical, sociological, and ethnographic studies by Schifter, Wardlow, Kulick, Schoepf, Leonard, White, and me. I enjoyed her remarks about sexual praxis, but there was surprisingly little discussion of the tensions between sexual positionality and sexual and gender identity. Her take on “the prostitution debates” in feminism is only three pages in length. She devotes one sentence to what she takes to be one side of the ledger—“Some feminists argue that legalization of sex work serves to normalize and institutionalize the sexual exploitation of women”—which really irked me. The ensuing discussion morphs quickly into yet another Straw Woman argument about “western White feminists.” Katsulis offered her key informants free HIVab tests, but fails to mention IRB concerns and the availability of trained counselors, confirmatory assays, and antiretroviral or other therapies. Finally, the absence of a discussion of religion beyond cultural codes of macho and marianismo precludes her from analyzing a profoundly good example of a marriage:prostitution dialectic par excellence.

These criticisms aside, Katsulis has contributed a polished, well-written, vibrant, and much-needed book. I hope the university press issues a cheaper paperback edition (lower than the $50 hardcover price) so that it may be used in courses in anthropology, gender studies, and public health.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., May 31st 2009

Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita Gonzalez, and the Poetics of Culture

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:22:00 +0000

By Maria Eugenia Cotera

University of Texas Press

Native Speakers places the work of three foundational female folklorists in conversation to illuminate an often silenced part of feminist intellectual history, the ethnographic and folklore scholarship of women of color. Analyzing the ethnographic and fictional work of Dakota ethnographer Ella Deloria, African American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, and Tejana folklorist Jovita Gonzalez, the text reveals the numerous factors that led to the marginalization of these three scholars who also happened to be women of color. Exploring how the work of Deloria, Hurston, and Gonzalez negotiates intersections of race, class, and gender in early twentieth century America, Cotera places an emphasis on empire and colonialism. In so doing, she reveals the ways in which imperialism affected colonized peoples in different ways, but led to similar results—silencing, marginalization, impoverishment, forced assimilation, and exile.

Cotera enacts an important excavation of the feminist intellectual tradition revealing that the voices of women of color are not absent as some have assumed, but instead have been neglected or silenced. Emphasizing the need to take historical specificity and social location into account, and arguing that the work of these three women contains "complex decolonizing textual subversions," Cotera further claims that "the most provocative point of connection" is each woman’s exploration of "the political and poetic possibilities of fiction." The emphasis she places on the fictional work of these women is unique, especially in the cases of Deloria and Gonzalez, neither of whose fiction was published during their lifetimes.

The book also documents the history of intellectual theft as it pertains not only to these women of color, but to the work of marginalized "others" in general. This reclamation reveals how various fields (ethnography, folklore, literature, feminism, and so on) have relied on the voices of women of color and other marginalized groups, yet have often rendered such voices invisible by using their work without giving them credit. Illuminating how gender, race, and class play key roles in this socio-historical silencing, Cotera's work speaks volumes about how vital it is to reclaim such histories.

The book is organized in two sections, with the first exploring the ethnographic and folklorist work of Deloria, Hurston, and Gonzalez, and the second considering their fictional work. The text offers a detailed account of the history, politics, and socio-cultural conditions that shaped the work of these three women while offering cogent analysis of how race, class, gender, nation, and empire informed both their work and the responses to it, and is especially useful for those interested in feminist anthropology, ethnography, folklore, and literature.

Bookending the two sections are a lengthy introduction ("Writing on the Margins of the Twentieth Century") and a concluding epilogue ("What Love Got to Do With It?: Toward a Passionate Practice"). Each of these sections are beautifully written with a comprehensive theoretical approach that teases out the complex aims of the text while offering a thorough consideration of the historical, sociocultural, and intellectual traditions shaping the work of these three authors in particular and feminist ethnographers/folklorists in general.

The epilogue is one of the most intriguing sections of the book as it covers what is so often left out in academic manuscripts—love, or what Cotera refers to as "passionate praxis." Drawing on Chela Sandoval’s idea of love as a "decolonizing practice," Cotera argues that the work of these women is both motivated by and about love. Their work is driven, she argues, by a passion for sharing and unearthing marginalized knowledge (in terms of gender and race/ethnicity). Further, their work is about the love(s) of the various peoples/characters populating their writing.

Exploring the role of women as active social agents, these women, Cotera argues, "fundamentally reorient the masculinist and colonialist direction of our collective historical imagination." Exploring what Cotera names as affinities inside differences, their work, along with that of Cotera’s, re-imagines feminist intellectual history, opening up a space for othered voices. What is not to love about that?

Written by: Professor What If, April 8th 2009