Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures

Language of the Flesh: Colonial Violence and Subversion in the Poetry of Judith Ortiz Cofer

2018-04-18T23:09:07+00:00

One third of Puertorriqueñas had been reproductively sterilized by 1982 as a result of U.S. colonial policy. U.S. colonial narratives continue to render Puertorriqueñas vulnerable to this violence. Questions emerge regarding whether these narratives are the limits of Puertorriqueñas’ experiences and potential, and whether decolonial counter-narratives exist. This article argues that the creation of a language of the flesh within poetry can subvert U.S. colonial narratives. A language of the flesh, born from theory in the flesh, communicates flesh experiences via which coloniality is known and can be refuted. Utilizing Decolonial Feminist theories, I distinguish between the “body” as concept within colonial narratives and the flesh where Latinas experience colonialism and constitute their own resilience. A language of the flesh is made possible within poetry via this genre’s “dusmic” capabilities. I argue that Judith Ortiz Cofer, in the poem “The Gift of a Knife,” produces a subversive narrative regarding la operacíon, as reproductive sterilization became known on the island, to identify, delineate, and subvert the processes by which Puertorriqueñas are divested of their ability to refute colonial paradigms of gender. A language of the flesh emerges that renarrates history and produces a decolonial project of healing and empowerment for Latinas.

Sighting Mexican America among the Phantoms

2018-11-28T14:53:35+00:00

Sighting Mexican America among the Phantoms:

Jesse Treviño, Photorealism and the Art of Remembrance

This paper discusses the paintings and murals of the artist, Jesse Treviño, from San Antonio, Texas, in relation to international art history, the history of Mexican American art, and the general history of Mexican America. Drawing but revising the conceptual work of UCLA art critic, Chon Noriega on “phantom sightings,” I argue that since the 1960s, Mexican American artists have ostensibly turned to the daily visual culture of their community but have transformed such a culture in response to trends in modernist art with the result that they have distanced themselves from this community. I offer two examples: Yolanda Lopez’s Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe and Cesar Martínez’s, Mona Lupe: The Epitome of Chicano Art. While enormously creative, such art exists within this contradiction. I suggest that such a contradiction has also occurred in other kinds of discourses such as literature but also scholarly writing. Using the technique of photorealism, itself a dissident tradition in American art, Treviño largely overcomes this contradiction by rendering his native Mexican American community of San Antonio in a far more accessible aesthetic form and in all of its sociological complexity and thus uses his art to forge a stronger community.

A Roundtable on Sovereignty and Sanctuary

2018-11-28T14:57:44+00:00

Abstract: “A Roundtable on Sovereignty and Sanctuary”

The roundtable focused on the meanings of sovereignty for native nations and that of sanctuary within the migrant justice movement. During the panel, there was also discussion across the two concepts as well as between activists working within these movements. The panelists included: Jennifer Marley, Red Nation; Eduardo Esquivel, New Mexico Dream Team; Professor Jennifer Denetdale (American Studies Dept., UNM); Professor Irene Vasquez (Chicana and Chicano Studies and American Studies Depts., UNM); Nellie Jo David, Tohono O’odham environmental justice activist and member of the TOHRN (Tohono O’odham Hemajkam Rights Network); and Daniel Vega (NM Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice). The panel was organized and moderated by Rafael Martínez and Rebecca Schreiber.

Ownership and Order in the Fiesta de Santa Fe

2018-11-28T15:07:23+00:00

Every September, Hispano residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico partake in a week-long celebration foregrounding the region’s Spanish colonial past. The community festival, known officially as la Fiesta de Santa Fe, or the Santa Fe Fiesta, showcases Hispano belonging through pageantry and performance. This paper explores how coloniality has shaped the ethno-religious dynamics at work in the contemporary Fiesta de Santa Fe by focusing on the Fiesta Court’s performance of New Mexico’s “Spanish” past in the public schools. I argue the narrative of reconquest the Santa Fe Fiesta seeks to preserve is not only entangled with the religious underpinnings of coloniality but also what I call the “folkloric difference.” The folkloric difference is a local, critical response to global coloniality. During the early twentieth century, Hispanos used the Santa Fe Fiesta—a “folk” festival largely promoted by Anglo Americans—to reassert their presence and define the terms of their difference in Santa Fe. While the variant of Catholicism adopted by Hispanos and perpetuated through the Fiesta emerged as a result of their physical and social displacement at the turn of the nineteenth century, the same religious devotion has become a tool for justifying the displacement of others, even those who have much in common culturally with Hispanos.

A Critical Race Feminist Analysis of Dar a Luz and Censura

2018-11-28T15:13:12+00:00

Through a critical race theory (CRT) lens, this paper examines the rationale and impact of Dar a Luz and Censura, two dance works from my thesis concert that consider the power and danger present at the intersections of race, gender and nation in Latinx bodies in relation to the racist, imperialist U.S./Mexico Border. The audience sits in the round, serving as a border encircling the dancers. An authority figure polices it, monitoring the brown bodies inside that get close to the border’s edge. Inside the liminal border space, dancers draw attention to the ceaseless violence that women undergo that is exacerbated by the bordered space, and reclaim their bodies and rearticulate their relationship to colonial power. I use Kimberle Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality to interrogate how my choreographic choices speak to Chicana identities in bordered geographies, Tribal CRT to investigate how and why savagism informs these works, and Latin Critical Race Feminism to deeply analyze the Chicana based cultural, social, and political themes that contribute to the greater structure of the pieces and their aesthetics. Finally, I discuss how these dances serve as a mode of CRT praxis and why performance is a valuable ingredient to CRT discourse.

Feeling Brown Like You

2018-11-28T15:36:48+00:00

In this essay, I historicize the theatre movement creación colectiva as a movement of sophisticated postmodern cultural production that reconfigured communities of affect across the hemisphere. I focus on the 1975 off-Broadway production of Cap-a-Pie, scripted and directed by María Irene Fornés, as an exceptional example of the wide reach of this Latin American movement. This key case study shows how creación colectiva staged a forum where Latin American and Latinx people renegotiated latinidad at a key moment in the emergence of U.S.-based Latinx identities. I focus on how the production staged latinidad through the transmission of nationally-defined affect across difference in a transnational, pan-ethnic context. Cap-a-Pie exemplifies how avant-garde practices breakdown borders and binaries, disrupting common sense notions of identity. Fornés’s dramaturgy juxtaposes and montages a diverse group of Latin American immigrant and U.S. Latinx experiences, dislocating these experiences from a fixed sense of nationality. By displacing structures of feeling associated with Puerto Rican, Colombian, or Cuban national belonging from their ordinary context of reception, the aesthetics evoke a space of arrival where untethered affects converge and come to hold new meaning. In this regard, Cap-a-Pie is an exploration and an exercise in what I define as Latinx affect.

Memoria, excavaciones y exhumaciones simbólicas en la poesía salvadoreño-americana: The Gravedigger’s Archaeology, de William Archila

2018-11-28T15:45:00+00:00

El presente ensayo se centra en la obra The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (2015), del poeta salvadoreño-americano William Archila. Los poemas de este texto referencian memorias sobre la violencia que tuvo lugar durante la guerra civil en El Salvador (1980-1992). A partir de los planteamientos de Walter Benjamin sobre memoria y excavación, se examina aquí cómo la estructura y el contenido de la obra de Archila se remiten al hecho de excavar como una analogía del acto de recordar. El estudio se focaliza en aquellos poemas donde, de manera simbólica, la voz poética cava en el interior de tumbas hallando vestigios y fragmentos que le permiten reconstruir su historia personal y el pasado de la nación salvadoreña. Es así como el sujeto de la enunciación rescata imágenes de una violencia que vivió en su niñez y que lo condujo al exilio en los Estados Unidos. Se examina además la perspectiva de la voz poética frente a la guerra desde un contexto y una comunidad que aún exiliada sobrelleva el trauma de la guerra y el duelo por sus seres queridos fallecidos.

Transfigured Women: Race, Gender, and Disability in Alejandro Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues

2019-05-15T13:29:57+00:00

Alejandro Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues is experiencing renewed scholarly interest. Scholars that have critically analyzed the impact female characters have on the actions of the recurrent male protagonist, Gregory, tend to rely on a feminist framework (Garay 2012 and Sohn 2012). Other scholars have focused on the role of illness and disability in the text, drawing on critical race theory and/or a new historicist approach (Martinez 2012; Priewe 2004; Uzendoski 2016). This essay uses a feminist disability approach to analyze the impact of illness on the novel’s central female characters Marisela, Sandra, and Gabi. These women drive the plot of the novel; however, they have not been analyzed with an intersectional framework that considers their race, gender, and disability at great length. To address this critical gap, this essay analyzes the characters from both a metaphorical and material perspective, teasing out the significance of dis/ability to the novel.

Of Myth and Men

2019-05-15T13:32:05+00:00

This article focuses on In Search of Snow (1994), the understudied first novel of the critically-acclaimed author Luis Alberto Urrea. My analysis centers on the triangulation of a diverse group of Latinx men, including a white presenting Mexican, a Chicano, and an Apache who negates his Mexican ancestry, and how each responds to culturally scripted forms of masculinity taken directly from historical and popular forms, such as comic books, television, and film. Drawing on literary, masculinity, Mexican American, and Indigenous studies, I argue that Urrea generates a model for the critical interrogation of ethnic and/or racialized performances of masculinity that illustrate the difference among and between Latinx men in the US Southwest.

“Racialización y vulnerabilidad de la migración centroamericana en la novela Amarás a Dios sobre todas las cosas”

2019-05-15T13:35:46+00:00

El ensayo discute la vulnerabilidad extrema de los migrantes centroamericanos a partir de la novela Amarás a Dios sobre todas las cosas (2011) del escritor y periodista Alejandro Hernández. Afirmo que la ficción literaria además de enmarcar la vulnerabilidad de los personajes en el contexto de la crisis de derechos humanos en México y la política hemisférica de securitización fronteriza, gestionada por el gobierno estadounidense, añade un elemento imprescindible para entender la vulnerabilidad de los migrantes, me refiero a los procesos de racialización de las identidades centroamericanas por parte de agentes estatales, bandas delincuenciales y comunidades locales, quienes se aprovechan de su posición de poder como ciudadanos para explotar económicamente los flujos migratorios ilegalizados por las leyes de extranjería. El texto de Hernández sugiere que la frontera para los centroamericanos comienza en México con la suspensión de sus derechos y la racialización de sus identidades. Los migrantes irregulares en la novela son percibidos como cuerpos deportables y desechables, pero sobre todo como mercancías de valor para los negocios del tráfico, explotación sexual, secuestro y extorsión, que acontecen en la ruta hacia Estados Unidos.

Spanish as a Tool of Latinx Resistance against Repression in a Hostile Political Climate

2019-05-15T13:36:23+00:00

Spanish is the first or heritage language of many Latinx in the U.S., whether speakers are fluent in it or not. Even though Spanish is the most frequently spoken language after English (U.S. Census), it continues to be publicly repressed and stigmatized. Since the 2016 elections, there has been an increase in anti-immigrant climate and Anglo-centric rhetoric, as well as an explicit attack to Spanish and bilingualism in the U.S. Ironically, Spanish has functioned as a resource exclusively for those in positions of power, for political or economic advantages, yet it is considered unpatriotic to use Spanish as a “symbol of a positive Latino ethnic identity” (García 1993).

Given the current political climate, in this paper we study Latinx’s use of Spanish in public spaces since Trump became president. We examine whether there has been a recent shift in the attitudes of young Latinx heritage language speakers toward using Spanish. Data from Arizona and California helps us shed light on how diverse Latinx communities are negotiating language use in the face of immigrant stress, especially as there are increased racial attacks, linguistic discrimination and linguistic profiling since the last elections (Flores, 2018; Holguín-Mendoza, Oliver Rajar, Vergara-Wilson 2017; Zarate 2018).

Transfigured Women: Feminist Disability in Alejandro Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues

2019-05-15T13:36:40+00:00

Scholars have critically analyzed the impact female characters have on the actions of the recurrent male protagonist, Gregory, in Alejandro Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues (Garay 2012 and Sohn 2012). These scholars rely on a feminist framework. Other scholars have focused on the role of illness and disability in the text, drawing on a critical race and/or a new historicist approach (Martinez 2012; Priewe 2004; Uzendoski 2016). This essay centers illness and disability relevant to the portrayal of the novel’s female characters Marisela, Sandra, and Gabi. Despite driving the plot of the novel, these characters have received inadequate critical attention because they have not been approached through an intersectional framework that considers their race, gender, and disability. Instead, they have been overshadowed by the mental and emotional journeys of the recurrent character, Gregory. To address this critical gap, I analyze each of the women from both a metaphorical and material perspective, teasing out their significance to the overall novel.

Partiendo La Madre:

2019-05-15T13:37:00+00:00

This paper links an exploration of the various inflections behind the colloquialism “partiendo la madre” as it relates to the recursive migratory movements of the Hñähñu, an indigenous community split between Central Mexico and the Southwest, United States. I examine transnational sites of belonging and creative modes of resistance enacted by this community in order to maintain the integrity of their pueblo, from which eighty-percent of the community has migrated to the United States. This paper also considers Etienne Balibar’s theorization of territorialization as dependent on the figure of the Strager/enemy in relation to heightened US nationalism in the form of border hysteria and the criminalization of the undocumented body. Drawing from the term “partir” I explore the limits and possibility of “translation” as a form of connection in the face of difference, and the social and political possibilities that arise at the breaking point of being “split open.”

Outlier

2018-04-18T23:07:17+00:00

Xicanisma-Putin’s Puppet

2018-11-28T14:58:50+00:00

Primera Causa/First Cause

2018-11-28T15:01:01+00:00

Chapbook of 10 poems by Tino Villanueva

Colonial Solo

2018-11-28T15:07:17+00:00

In Washington Heights

2018-11-28T15:27:39+00:00

U T’AAN CH’I’IBAL TI’ IIK’ T’AAN ICH MAAYA T’AAN KU YÚUCHUL TI’ LE K’IINO’OBA’ : TIKBALO’OB YÉETEL IN NOOL

2018-11-28T15:47:34+00:00

Poesía en maya y en español

The Uncertainty of Ceremonias

2018-11-28T15:49:37+00:00

“The Uncertainty of Ceremonias,” which combines literature, popular culture, and family conflict, is a Latinx retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It focuses on an impromptu ritual performed in a hospital room by three Latinx grandmothers from diverse circumstances, who are attempting to forge family and connection in unusual circumstances.

Eight Omens Before the Destruction of the Empire

2019-05-15T13:18:06+00:00

Filiberto Mares Hernandez

2019-05-15T13:44:28+00:00

Estos poemas expresan ideas sobre el sentir de ser migrante, de estar en constante movimiento, de desterritorización forzada y no forzada, de lenguajes, memoria y anhelos.

La nueva tocaya

2019-05-15T13:58:34+00:00

"Batman Chicano"

2019-05-15T13:59:19+00:00

Cross My Heart

2018-11-28T14:56:27+00:00

Dora

2019-05-15T13:42:12+00:00

Judithe Hernández: A Dream is the Shadow of Something Real

2019-05-15T13:59:24+00:00

Jillian M. Báez, In Search of Belonging: Latinas, Media, and Citizenship

2018-11-28T14:51:38+00:00

Book Review A library for the Americas: The Nettie Lee Benson Latin America Collection

2018-11-28T14:52:36+00:00

This is a book review

The Un\

2018-11-28T14:54:33+00:00

This is a book review of Rebecca Schreiber's The Undocumented Everyday: Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility.

Heredia, Juanita. Mapping South American Latina/o Literature in the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Pp. 238.

2018-11-28T14:59:45+00:00

Review of Socorro Castañeda-Liles’s Our Lady of Everyday Life: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Catholic Imagination of Mexican Women in America

2019-05-15T13:20:08+00:00

N/A

Los niños perdidos (un ensayo en cuarenta preguntas), de Valeria Luiselli

2019-05-15T13:42:30+00:00

Esta es una reseña del libro de Luiselli

Reseña de Yes! We are Latinos

2019-05-15T13:43:51+00:00

Review of Los californios: historia sociolingüística de California en el siglo XIX

2019-05-15T13:57:51+00:00

Coco and The Shape of Water

2018-11-28T14:43:00+00:00

This a book review in Spanish of two films

Coatlicue Sin Fronteras

2019-05-15T13:14:41+00:00

Review of the performance Coatlicue 2.0 during the Sin Fornteras festival held las January at the University of texas at Austin.

Guadalupe Rosales

2019-05-15T13:55:20+00:00

This is an art exhibit review

Contemporary Casta Portraiture

2019-05-15T13:13:11+00:00