(Pix from video that may be accessed HERE)
The recognition of one of the oldest elements that make up the rich diversity of American culture came only recently in the history of the nation. Hispanic Heritage week was recognized officially during that transformative period that marked the 1960s by President Johnson, and expanded into a moth long observation during the presidency of Ronald Reagan in 1988, when legislation to that effect was enacted. Hispanic Heritage Month is now celebrated from 15 September to 15 October; the start date connected to the independence days of many Central American Republics, whose independence days are celebrated between 15 and 21 September.
This year for Hispanic Heritage Month I revisit something I wrote in 1998, “Not a Zookeeper’s Culture: LatCrit Theory and the Search for Latino/a Authenticity in the U.S.,” Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy 4:7-27 (1998). I wondered whether much has changed over the twenty years that separates my thinking about the conception and self conception of this very fragile concept--of an orthodox "hispanicity" (itself a politically sensitive term) from the political landscape within which we find ourselves now. Latcrit theory, of course, might have moved on. Beyond that, I am not sure much has changed; perhaps lines have hardened (on one end) and dissipated almost entirely on the other. I suspect that the notions of ethnic community increasing produce a contradiction--the lived experience of community is increasingly remote from its political expression, especially as it is driven by civil and political society. And, of course, what remains the same is the scope and intensity of argument about all of this. My principal concern--the outsider within outsider groups--still looms large and is more visible at the level of groups but not at the level of the individual. And perhaps that is the ultimate marker of our times--as the political and societal conversation continues to coalesce around essentializing markers (and lived assertions of membership, the individual is both abstracted and reconstituted as an expression of orthodox characteristics, against which individual conformity if judged and deviation disciplined. In this age n which ethnic and other non-political communities must renegotiate their relationships with dominant political structures in many places, these challenges might be more important now than they were twenty years ago.
Not a
Zookeeper’s Culture:
LatCrit Theory
and the Search for Latino/a Authenticity in the U.S.
Larry Catá
Backer*
We always used to know who we were. We didn’t need anyone to tell us. We didn’t have to think too hard about
it. We also understood we were many and
that we might not like each other or each other’s practices very much
sometimes.[1] We also understood how everyone else saw
us. We were mostly Mexican (that,
certainly is how Disney saw us).[2] We were mostly Puerto Rican on the East
Coast.[3] We might also be Cuban, in which case, as
Desi Arnaz showed us, we had rhythm and a bad accent.[4] Sometimes we were rich,[5]
but mostly we were poor. We were all
differently colored with some of us darker than others. But no matter our hue, we were still “darker”
than those who possessed power.
Still, like the outsiders who are always
looking and assessing our ‘people’ and us in this country, we, too, judge, we
assess, and we categorize. “In the past,
Latinos saw each other differently; we discriminated against each
other . . . In the past we would say, ‘aah, those Salvadorans!
Aaah those Mexicans! Always those
people, these people.’ No longer. Now we say our Mexican brothers, our
Nicaraguan brothers, and our Salvadoran brothers. Because that is what we are, brothers.”[6] We are Latino/a, but we are also
nationalities, and sexes, and culture, and religion, and race, and power. We are all these things all the time in
everything we do and in everything we are.
There is no running away from it.
Even when we don’t want to ‘think’ about it, others will.
We were once a part of the background norm
ourselves. As part of the dominant group in the old countries, we were at the
top of the hegemonic hierarchy.[7] It was an unconscious act—much like being an
‘Anglo’ is an unconscious act for many in the United States.[8] Like our ‘Anglo’ neighbors, our nations and
our culture were the product of imperialism.
We are the children of an invading culture. ‘Hispanic’ is a geographical term alluding to
origins in Europe; ‘Latino/a’ is a term of origin, which looks also to the
European Mediterranean. Both terms
announce the intention to erase the indigenous and betray our common European
orientation. Dominance, we came to
understand, is quite comforting and automatic.
All we had to worry about was socio-political, religious and racial
stratification. Culture, however, was
another matter, at least our official “Latinocentric” culture.[9] In whatever way imposed, at least among the
elites, culture is a living thing in the old countries, especially our dominant
Latinocentric cultures. As people living
these cultures in a geography where such cultures are dominant, cultural
identity is easy. Culture on its home turf
is also easier to interrogate without threatening our core identity, unless it
is threatened by the importation of cultural norms from another place.[10]
It is less easy here. Ought it to be easy at all? The question of
who we are, either as individuals, as a collective, or as the sum of all of our
parts, is one we are forced to consider.
It has become a question of culture,[11]
language,[12]
as well as of politics.[13] It is treated as a question of life and
death. Perhaps it is a question of
extinction.[14] We deal with these fears and challenges as
a “family problem.” Family coherence now seems to require us to
count heads and exact compliance with norms in the face of the challenges of
becoming more mixed up. Specifically,
for example, we might worry about whether there is a place within our family
for gay men and lesbians,[15]
people who descended non-Spanish immigrants,[16]
females resisting traditional gender norms,[17]
and people of sangre impura (impure
blood). Should we reject them when they seek affirmance as part of our
sub-cultural mainstream?[18]
I believe the enterprise of critical
theory which focuses on Latinos/as in the United States “in their individual
and collective struggles for self-understanding and social justice,”[19]
LatCrit theory,[20]
provides the necessary substantive and methodological framework for approaching
these questions.[21] LatCrit theory ought to specifically focus us
on a project requiring the excavation of the history of how the notion Latino/a has been variously constructed,
understood and punished, and how it can be reconstructed, celebrated and lived.[22]
More importantly, LatCrit theory should offer a justification for the necessity
of considering these questions.[23]
Critical theory helps us understand why the consideration of these questions
must remain a central part of being
Latino/a. As such, LatCrit theory
provides us with a basis for approaching law
in this country; it provides the basis for judging the results of and
participating in the political, legislative and judicial life of this country
with equality and dignity.[24]
In this way, LatCrit theory provides us with a roadmap. It provides us with the means of becoming
conscious of the meaning and effect of the choices we make in living our lives
as individuals and as part of such multiple communities to which we belong.
It is in this context and with the tools
of Latino/a Critical Theory that I want to consider the ways we think about
being Latino/a. I will not consider here
the good—the family ties, the bonds of language, the way we understand the
world, and the relationship of people to each other. I do not propose to examine that from which we
can draw strength and of which we should be proud. That
task is easy, and perhaps better left in the hands of our poets and
songwriters.
I want to undertake a more difficult task,
a task with which no ‘outsider’ can provide much help. I want to interrogate two normative
questions, which usually get lost in the theoretical and political
shuffle. The first centers on
identity—who we think we are. Here the
critical endeavor involves the way in which we develop and maintain those
characteristics necessary to claim membership in the community of Latinos/as in
the United States. A related question
involves the determination of who among us does the selecting of these characteristics—who
ought to have the authority to speak for and about us both inside our communities
and to the “outside” world.
The second issue centers on the cluster of
mores and beliefs, which evidence our common identity. Related to this set of identity norms is our
approach to the issue of change. Assuming that the community of Latinos/as is
not genetic, but national/cultural and therefore constructed, we ought to
figure out whether the “construction” is finished. More importantly, if the construction of the
Latino/a identity is an ongoing project, we ought to consider carefully (and
continuously) the “where” and the “what” we look to for change. Here we have several choices—among them the
countries of origin, the country of settlement, or ourselves separate from
either. I argue that each is an important source for the development of our
collective identity in this country.
A.
How We Define Ourselves
We tend to define ourselves in one of a
number of ways. Many of these methods
should give us pause. I consider a
number of the most significant ways which we use to conceive of ourselves.
First, though, a few words on the term ‘we.’
In a sense, there is no ‘we.’ We
are many and different. The references
to we, therefore, should be understood as a categorization that is porous. I suggest a loose commonality, understanding
that nothing I suggest applies to all people all of the time. The exceptions can be significant in both
time and place. Still, the notions I interrogate
here are common enough, historically and currently, that they stand out.
The most dangerous way of conceiving
ourselves is through the eyes of others.
Here critical race theory has helped us understand how, in many
respects, non-dominant groups acquire a sense of themselves through the power
of the dominant group to define us.[25]
It is easy to play to the stereotypes of the dominant group. Sadly, we share a significant history of
doing precisely that back in our home countries. There are, after all, at least some among us,
who were part of a dominant discourse.
Recall the way in which our Hispano-European fore-parents constructed
and subordinated the “indio” or the “negro” or the “judio” or even the “maricón o
tortillera.”[26]
In parts of Mexico, at “one point in history, the words negra and ‘prostitute’ were synonymous. This image has persisted, and is routinely
depicted in Mexican comic books.”[27]
It is less easy to resist definition by
dominance than one would think.[28]
There are rewards to being the main act in the dominance minstrel show. Consider how conformance to the dominant
group norms is rewarded. For example,
think about affirmative action as a reward.
Consider also that conformance comes with a price. The price of
affirmative action is to act deserving.[29] Thus, I do not believe that affirmative
action is meant to dismantle the edifice of white privilege, as critical
theorists sometimes come to believe.[30]
Instead, my sense is that affirmative action provides a vehicle for
socio-cultural colonization. It is a way
for dominant society to train and contain, to extract particular forms of
behavior from people in need of assimilation. We are expected to conform to the
behavior expectations of the dominant group.
The price might also be conversion.
We do what is required to attain success in a world in which norms we consider
important are not dominant and even perhaps always marginalized. Such a price is hard on the collective
ego. It ought to be. People do not like to be made to live like
caricatures of themselves, and nobody likes to lose their soul.
Out of this resentment comes a second
method of cultural expression, that of anti-dominance culture. We define ourselves as a reaction to the
insensitivity and hegemonic tendencies of the dominant discourse.[31] We reject ‘their’ learning, ‘their’ clothing,
‘their’ food, and ‘their’ lifestyle. Any
copying of such life habits is treasonous.
Traitors must be excised from the community, or induced to come back to
the fold. Here we arise anew as a political
culture. But politics and reaction
in matters of culture tend to be as hegemonic as the discourse of the dominant
group. Politics requires discipline and
control. Discipline in matters of
culture requires a forced conformity to shared (imposed) ideas of the normal
within the culture. That forced conformity may have the effect of either leaving people
out or subordinating sub-groups within the culture. Perversely, a culture of
reaction is also held hostage to the dominant conceptions. Where culture as politics is meant to combat
another group, then the dominant group combatant continues to hold the reins on
cultural expression. We retain or adopt
habits or norms not because we want to, but as an expression against an
“other.”
Our definitions of ourselves are suspended
in time, defined by memories of the ways of our peoples at the time that we
left. We historicize our culture. In this country we began the process of
treating culture like an artifact, something to be excavated and studied and
copied but never lived. Away from the
sources of cultural norm making and the accepted expression of those norms as
they change over time, we are left to carry on without the benefit of the
changes. How can we change? We are never
quite sure that the change is acceptable.
Worse, we fear that the change will make us inauthentic. We fear the
process of assimilation, which will leave us without our roots. This would be tolerable, perhaps, for those
who look like the people with power in this country.[32]
But for those who cannot pass, there is no reward for assimilation. In the end, the assimilated brown or black
person will become “stateless.”[33]
And so we create and worship our mythical
conceptions of eternal definition of group characteristics. We recall who we were, and adherence to those
norms becomes a litmus test of continued affiliation. And two significant ingredients of the glue
that holds it all together are language and religion.[34]
Ironically, the language and religion
which serve this purpose are not the religions of our Indian and African
ancestors, but rather Castellano, the Spanish of Castilla,[35]
and the Roman Catholicism of our conquering Spanish ancestors. Yet, using language and religion as
affiliation fetishes creates a risk of converting us into a museum
culture. It is easy to become a culture
of Baile Folklorico. We see evidence of museum cultures all around
us. We have the example of the various
European ethnicities now lost except for colorful costumes and habits, and that
scares us. Do we want to wind up like
the Poles?
Ironically, and perhaps paradoxically, we
also define ourselves by the standards of our home countries. Thus, Professor Valdes speaks of a
general
sensibility, which can be extended to other Latina/o groups in the United
States: a continuing care for the people and the society of our ancestral or
original homelands. Whether of Mexican,
Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran or other Latinidad,
every Latina/o community in the United States harbors a special interest in
relations between this nation and its homeland and a continuing concern for the
impact of American policies on its homeland kin. This more general sense of linkage makes for
a certain political sensibility, but the particulars of these linkages could
also undermine Latina/o pan-ethnicity.[36]
This linkage,
and its effects on the possibilities of pan-ethnicity in the United States, is
a cultural phenomenon as well.[37]
But cultural absorption is at best second
hand, and experienced within the lived reality of our lives in this country.[38]
Yet there also can be perverseness in the linkages between our homelands and
us. Unlike the past, when travel was
expensive and time consuming, the modern age of cable and satellite has brought
the home country back in ever increasing doses.
But here we have to ask ourselves, just what are we receiving. In a sense the television and film versions
of the cultures we absorb are as artificial and distorted as that foisted on
the dominant groups by mythological “Hollywood.” Worse, it reflects the universalification of
artistic or expressive culture around the values and tastes of the dominant
popular culture of the United States!
Indeed, the international culture of technologically driven “human
rights” tends to essentialize all core expressions of culture. We are all internationalists now.[39] There is
variation—regionalism is alive and well, but the hoped for and exclusive
authenticity is absent. Thus, with a
television, radio, newspaper, and telephone, we can participate in our culture
as well in East Los Angeles or S.W. 8th Street in Miami.
In the end, we are to a great extent on
our own. Yet, we are not on our own
together. There are real differences in
the local cultures of the various regions which make up what the non-Latino/a
Americans conceive of as Hispano-America.
The differences between a city dwelling Uruguayan of Catalán parentage,
a Bolivian Indian, a Puerto Rico mulatto, and a Northern Mexican Mestizo can be
significant. The differences are
historic, racial, economic, ethnic, religious and linguistic. Of course, as Latino/as we are sometimes
heard to marginalize those among us who do not (or never did) speak Castillian
Spanish. Consequently, for me, there is
a bit of irony to Juan Perea’s observation, in another context, that “Language
is both our principal means of communication and a social symbol, malleable and
capable of manipulation for the achievement of social or political goals.”[40] If this is true, then we also have a
troubling history of language repression, as a cultural norm, which we bring
with us from our countries of origin.[41] Especially excluded are some of the native
and African peoples of Hispano-America.[42] Historically, we marginalized communities and
individuals that did not fit the stereotype of ourselves, as well as those who
we marginalized in the home countries.[43] But we do that less in this country now.
Perhaps that is what makes the English-only movements so painful for us in the
United States—we are culturally accustomed to forcing people to conform to our
own linguistic hierarchies and find it insulting to be on the other side of
that equation.[44]
Yet, in an odd twist of the American
slogan, e pluribus, unum, the
dominant discourse treats us as ONE to the world beyond our cultural borders.[45]
Perhaps we feel that we should oblige, if only for political purposes.[46]
Yet, ironically again, it seems that it is only in this nation that we have the
luxury of blending together, if we choose to.
But the process of blending, of creating what Leslie Espinoza has
described as multi-identity47
requires us to look forward not back.
B.
Can We Change
It is easy enough I would argue, to fall
into the trap of cultural ossification as an immigrant from a non-dominant
culture in this country. To retain our
identity we freeze our notion of what it meant to belong to the culture of the
country of origin from about the time we entered into the country of
settlement. Historical culture becomes
our identity anchor. I suggest that we
should not tie ourselves so tightly to this historical culture that we sink and
drown with it. We must avoid both the zookeeper’s approach to culture and the zookeeper’s approach to identity. We must avoid the possibility of what Jurgen
Habermas describes as “administrative preservation” of cultures like forms of
endangered species.48
A zoological approach to culture and
identity in the Latino/a diaspora can be criticized on two grounds: First, the very act of preserving cultures unmodified and
unchanging is an effective means of perpetuating hegemonies and hierarchies
which might be better discarded.
Preservation eliminates the possibility of growth or modulation. Preservation becomes a trap. It is the cage within which we can perform
historically accurate roles for the enjoyment of the outsider. This is the exercise of raw power without
contact with the regulated—the power to define and the power to regulate.
Second,
the resulting culture will inevitably be an artificial construct. It is derivative of something that no longer
exits. The artificiality results from
the maintenance of cultural norms from without rather than from the exercise of
free cultural practice from within. Understood
properly, the temporal expression of culture, what I call popular culture,49 represents merely an implementation of the
possibilities inherent within
culture, not the totality of the possibilities of culture itself (an
impossibility). We necessarily practice culture through an endless
attempt at replication.[50] “All the constitutional state can do is make
possible this hermeneutic accomplishment of the cultural reproduction of
lifeworlds. A guarantee of survival
would necessarily rob members of the very freedom to say yes or no that is required today to make cultural heritage
one’s own and to preserve it.”[51]
C.
Sites for Self-Examination
I have been somewhat cynical and critical
so far. I have adopted that posture
deliberately. I adopt it as a
demonstration of the need to avoid imitation of all that we find so irritating
in the attitudes and behavior of the dominant group in the United States. Critical theory and especially LatCrit Theory
has a difficult and thankless task to perform.
It takes upon itself the role of critic and questioner. This is a role requiring of a person to adopt
the stance that nothing is sacred but human dignity and respect. It grounds its project on the notion that
culture is constructed and should reflect the highest expression of human
aspiration. LatCrit theory must start
with the proposition that culture is not a museum piece. LatCrit theory rejects the notion that we are
all meant to play the role of exotic animals in a zoological park of immigrant
culture.
Critical Theory seeks to help us
understand who we are, and helps us engage in the project of being living authentic cultures. As Latinos/as, we must be who we want to be. In this project, all norms and normalizing
rules are fair game. Dennis Altman has
recently criticized the related discipline of Queer Theory, because
‘Queer
theory’ shares with much of contemporary postmodernism an emphasis on
representation as an aesthetic rather than a political problem, a desire to
deconstruct all fixed points in the interests of ‘destabilizing’ and
‘decentering’ our preconceptions. Given
the arcane language within which much theory is written…this theory is almost
totally ignored by the vast majority of people whose lives it purports to describe.[52]
I believe Altman is quite correct in
describing the aesthetic orientation of critical theory. I disagree that it tends to neuter either
political action or the construction of individual lives. Rather, it provides us with the tools through
which these goals can be effected through a process of cultural calumny.53
There are a number of ways in which we, as
individuals, practice our culture that we should think about as we confront the
lived reality of what it means to be
Latina/o in this country.[54]
I will briefly touch on some of them, as well as their implications for our
approach to law making and policy in this country, which we share with many
others. I do not suggest this list is
complete. I offer no conclusions. I presume no answers. Those are not my tasks here. Nor should we believe it the task of any
solitary theorist, or any institution, for that matter, to supply the answer
for any of us. Caudillismo––whether theological,
political or ideological––is a
historical weakness we must always struggle against. I suggest only that part of what it means to
exist in some vital sense as Latina/o in this land of ours should be a
readiness to interrogate who we are and what we should be, both as a matter of
personal and group expression.
One increasingly notorious life-habit,
which we share with our non-Latino/a fellow residents is the adherence to
old-fashioned, traditional patriarchy.
If we follow the ancient ways, there is little room for women as people
of dignity equal to men. True, Latina
women have always been accorded their special
dignity. We are comforted by the notion
of equivalence—separate but equal. This
equivalent dignity has always been exercised by women only in a segregated
world of their own, centering on the house.
“Todas queremos ser damas de casa” is what may for many of us now be the
ironically quaint articulation of this notion.
Still, I wonder whether we would
destroy our culture were we to deviate from the norms we brought with us from
the home countries in this regard. Are gender roles for Latinos/as etched in
stone? I think not.[55]
Indeed, people in our home countries have begun down the path of rethinking
patriarchy.[56]
Also, consider the way many Latinos/as have attempted to abandon the
masculinity inherent in the construction of our language.[57]
The political implications of this cultural life-habit, if the notions inherent
in patriarchy are strongly Latina/o life-habits, are comforting to Anglocentric
as well as Latinocentric traditionalists.
Yet here is a vital core area of cultural definition with which LatCrit
theorists would seem to wish to modify.
It is true that the particular forms through which we attack Latina/o
patriarchy may be different from the ways in which “progressive” non-Latinos/as
attack such fundamental cultural norms, yet in this area, who we may be does
not appear to be who we may want to be.
And we here use law in an attempt to remake us in certain fundamental
respects.
In addition, gender roles are not limited
to heterosexual identities. Latinos/as,
like most cultures with strong European roots, traditionally marginalized
sexual minorities as well as women.[58]
I wonder whether that cultural trait should be part of the essence of what it
means to be Latino/a in this country.[59] I am reminded that the reality of division
within gender transcends the simpleminded binary — black/white. Consider Terri de la Peña’s experience during
a workshop on homophobia given to a staff “mostly Latina, with some Latinos,
African-Americans, and Asian-Americans.”
During the course of her participation, she looks “at the many brown
faces before me, some haciendo caras (making faces), repulsed, others stoic, their
visages like chiseled bronze, and I feel as if I am revealing myself to my
family all over again . . . [B]ut this time I am not teased for
being the shy bookworm; this time I proclaim myself a Chicana lesbian, a
tortillera, a maricona. To these Latinas
who otherwise could be my sisters, I am the “other.”[60] The politics of sexual orientation has significant
implications for Latinas/os. If we mean
for our peoples to engage in politics, which extends beyond the insular, then
we must confront our own cultural attitudes toward issues of sex. Yet, a Latina/o approach to these issues
based on traditional cultural approaches may not produce the contribution that
“progressive” practitioners of LatCrit theory may wish. If the “cure” is “education” through coercive
imposition of international law principles, then “we” are “contributing” to a
general problem of American law and public policy to the same degree (though
perhaps manifested in marginally different approaches)[61]
as our neighbors of European cultural adherence. Perhaps in this respect we are
stereotypically “American” as the dominant culture group in this country—the
difference (and perhaps the critical difference) is the nuance which our own
sexual non-conformists (a subordinated group within a subordinated group) may
bring to the legal issues of the acceptance among us of sexual non-conformity.[62]
But, I suspect many of us will not come willingly down this road.
Another set of cultural norms worth
reexamining is our attachment to religious chauvinism. Once, we were not all Catholic, or even Christian,
or even Judeo-Christian. We sometimes
pretend we were or are or can still be.
I wonder whether our culture is so tied to the ancient notions of pureza de sangre[63]
that we cannot escape it without rejecting all that we are. I doubt that is true. Yet there is irony here. We are fond of accusing Anglo-American
culture of racializing everything. Yet
we are the heirs of a culture which might be said to have done the same thing,
substituting religion for race. Are
religious converts culture traitors?[64]
While
the conspiracy theories of the left about the evangelicals as agents of
American imperialism are less frequently heard today, the Catholic church
continues to be concerned about the advances of what the Catholic bishops at
their 1992 Conference in Santo Domingo called “the sects.” Referring to the
challenge posed by “proselytizing fundamentalism by sectarian, Christian groups
who hinder the sound ecumenical path,” they accused them of hostility to
Catholicism and of resorting “to defamation and to material inducements,”
adding that, “although they are only weakly committed to the temporal realm,
they tend to become involved in politics with a view to taking power.”[65]
It troubles me that we can still remain
blind to the exclusions inherent in statements such as the following: “Even if
one could identify with precision which surnames connote Hispanic ethnicity,
the question remains whether the name was obtained through marriage or adoption
rather than birth. Moreover, some
Hispanic sounding names – such as Cardoza and Perez – are common among
Sephardic Jews.”[66] The marginalization of non-dominant religions
within our Latina/o cultures has racial overtones, which replicate the patterns
of our home countries. Consider that
even in officially progressive places like present day Cuba, “African
traditions are relegated to the category of folklore, and centuries-old African
religious systems are dismissed as cults and sects – despite representing the
form of religious belief and expression of perhaps most Cubans, including the
elite.”[67]
The political and legal implications of an “ethnicity” tied to a dominant
religious discourse in the United States have already been felt in significant
ways. Indeed, what might have been
considered an intra-Latino/a conflict in another context has now helped shaped
the contours of American notions of the free exercise of religion in this
country.[68] The way the voice of religion silences the
voices of “others” in the ongoing dialog about abortion, euthanasia, welfare
reform, and other issues with respect to which religion claims an “independent”
or perhaps discussion stopping voice remains to be seen. Yet the study of the relation between
religion and ethnicity may contain the seeds for helping us separate the
strands of our own multi-identities. Latinos/as
speaking with or through the voice of the Roman Catholic Church may well be
speaking as Catholics, perhaps even as Latina/o Roman Catholics but may not be
speaking as Latinos/as. Nor ought the
Roman Catholic, or Evangelical or Mormon voice, speaking Castellano, be
conflated necessarily with Latino/a voices seeking to be heard with respect to
issues of concern to the Latino community as a whole.[69]
Ironically, Latino/a culture does preserve a color line. Perhaps we are far less obsessed with color
than others, but we are certainly not color blind. Latino/a culture traditionally preserved a
hierarchy of color—white on top, blended people in the middle and pure brown or
black on the bottom.[70]
Our notions were more democratic than the English. We tend to believe that white purifies all
else, “blanqueamiento,” rather than the other way around which was the English
analogue. However, the notion of pureza (purity) in this context was also
neither unknown nor rejected.[71]
In this country these notions of racial purity have perverse effects. Rather than implying socio-economic status,
racialisms are sometimes used as criteria for membership in the community. Does one have to be brown or black to be
Latino/a? Certainly the dominant
discourse would have us characterize membership in that way. But should we?[72]
That would be ironic given the pride
with which we display the countless ways of the European origins of our common
traits—including, most ironically of all, our language. One can’t discard the race and keep the
culture. That seems unfair, and perhaps
undoable.[73]
Nor can racializing our origins erase the reality that ours is in some large
part an invader’s culture. That sort of
erasure is a fraud.
Then there is the question of assimilation.
Perversely, given our history of “burn
and convert,”[74]
Latinos/as have become very much the Jews of North America. We fear assimilation, yet we want to be
treated as if we were not different. We
hold on to those signs, symbols and manifestation of our difference, yet resent
the recognition of that difference by the majority. We despise being despised and still our
difference makes us a target of hatred by the majority. We come to this country to better our lives
and live like everyone else. Once here,
we find ourselves the major character of any number of grand conspiracy
theories about how we mean to take over and dominate the other peoples of this
country. Perhaps in this we are all Jews.
Consequently, how we treat others and recognize differences within our
ranks, the dignity that we accord to others, may well reflect on the way in
which the dominant group will treat us.
Our orgullo (pride) as a
self-consciously inclusive culture, as a culture of the mesclados (multi-racials) requires us to confront any tendency
within us to reproduce the stratification and hegemony we have grown to despise
when applied against us in this country.
The positive sense of our Jewishness in this land is the very openness
and inclusion, the malleability, of which we strive to be as a group of many
disparate parts.
Lastly, we need to interrogate the notion
of culture treason. This is a nasty
thing, tied, in many respects to assimilation.
Cultural treason suggests socio-cultural apostasy. It sparks extremely strong reaction because,
taken too far, assimilation might well imperil the cohesiveness, the
differentiated self-consciousness of that bundle of differences that separates
“us” from “them” whether by “our” hand or “theirs.” I remember growing up and hearing the charge
of arrepentido (regretful) leveled at
people who were moving too fast and too completely into the mainstream. It was meant as a warning and a
challenge. Move too far into the
mainstream and you will lose your identity; you will also lose your place among
us. No one of us is ever unaware of the
constant tug of what increasingly is seen as conflicting loyalties to this
country and our culture.[75]
Yet I wonder whether the notion of choice implicit in notions of assimilation
must always be so. If one can add a
second language without losing the first, ought one not be able to develop a
facility in another culture without disavowing the first. Participation ensures the authority to
interrogate and seek the modification of the communities to which one
belongs. It would seem that the emerging
notion of multi-identity is compatible with notions on non-exclusive
assimilation without the need for the coercive social restraint of “cultural
treason.”
Cultural treason mattered less for any
given individual, perhaps, in the days before culture became political in both
dominant and subordinated communities.
One could always retain or reclaim one’s identity, or not be bothered by
thinking that this identity has been “lost.”
And, in contrast to African-Americans, even partial assimilation is an
option with Latinos/as. We have a high
rate of intermarriage. And many of us
look white, or at least not of noticeably African or indigenous origin. Yet, even for those of us who can,
assimilation, which includes a disavowal of what one assimilated from, can be
traumatic, and is not always successful.[76] Moreover, assimilation, and the fear
encapsulated in notions of cultural treason, carries with it the dread of a
“deal with the devil” of dominant society.
Once the source of subjugation and exploitation, “the dominant society
has embarked on [a campaign] to divide and conquer. Dominant . . . culture will open the doors to
‘whiteness’ for those groups of people of color who it deems readily
assimilable . . . Critical targets as communities (not as individuals) are
light skinned Latinos/as . . .”[77]
It is not clear that this project has our best interests at hear; but the
carrot is the ability to once again (re)join a dominant group. For some of us, the price we will pay is the
acquiescence in the model of subordination created by the current
socio-cultural elite. Some of us will be sacrificed so that others can “progress”
and the choice of sacrifice will be based on color. Yet, to some extent, this is a price we have
already shown a willingness to pay in our countries of origin.
But public membership, in accordance to
some sort of public set of norms, seems to matter more now. Where did these norms come from? Who gets to have input in their inclusion,
and their relative importance? Who can
help change them, at least as public expressions of manifestations of
identity? Public expressions of
allegiance in accordance with one formula or another seems important for the
preservation of ties to the community.[78]
Belonging is an active thing now, a manifestly political project. Cultural expression becomes a political
act. As such, it becomes far too
dependent on the whims of faction. It
becomes artificial again. It serves a
purpose other than the purpose of living
and being. It becomes the charge of
those who would represent us, or some of us at any rate. “Acts such as stereotyping, reading the books
of groups’ leadership, and letting the representatives of blocs speak may do
injustice to the transcultural concerns on the one hand and the micro-interests
of subcommunities on the other.”[79]
Yet, we should worry about the people we permit to determine belonging. I agree that culture has political
manifestations. One need only read the
opinions of Justice Scalia to see the truth in that.[80]
Still, I suggest that cultural expression should not be reduced solely or
primarily to a tool of politics. A
culture, which can be shrunk to mere political discipline, has lost its power
as culture and become something
else. Perhaps it becomes closer to our
concept of partido (divided), and far
less attached to our notion of comunidad (community). All people have a bad habit of looking for
leaders, for the embodiment of truth in some person or other. LatCrit theory should make us sensitive to
the reality that who we are is the sum of all of our parts, and not the product
of the manipulation of some.
Excommunication is something that should trouble us. Engaging in the project of exclusion and
rigidity within our ranks may be a sure way to disintegration. Worse, perhaps, such a project may make the
notion Latino/a irrelevant in the long run.
D.
Where Do I Leave You
LatCrit, or, for that matter, any critical
theory is frequently used to explain the ways in which dominance imposes
hegemony. It seeks to interrogate the
sources of power imbalances and to suggest sites where such imbalances can be
contested. I suggest that LatCrit theory
is also useful entre nosotros (amongst
us). It provides with the discipline
necessary to view ourselves honestly, and to live authentically but not
uncritically within the cultural norms which animate us. LatCrit should offer you a catechism. LatCrit provides the mechanism for cultural
truth seeking and for cultural honesty.
It provides a mirror. It suggests
that you study the mirror carefully, and that you see the truth revealed. LatCrit theory provides a habit of
reflection, which cannot be easily discarded.
The habit of looking in the mirror, the critical self-conscious
reflection which LatCrit theory offers us, is a project for the lifetime of the
observer.
For Latino/a culture in the United States,
that habit will be around, in some shape or other, for a long time. A Latino/a is not an artifact, a creature in
the zoological exhibit of immigrant exotica; being Latino is not a daily
reliving history. Being Latino/a today requires
that we become conscious of the nuances both of who we are and of who we ought
to be. It requires a conscious
willingness to confront the contradictions of our own system of norms. It also requires a commitment to facing
cultural habits, which we may want to interrogate. We expect the dominant groups in this country
to engage in this exercise; we expect them to acknowledge the contradictions of
their norm systems and to make an effort to accommodate and change in
accordance to shared principles of fairness and equity. We can expect no less within our family. Being Latino/a is being, conscious of the
past and open to the future. We are a
living thing.
[1] “We who are Latinos are eating each
other up.” Tanya Broder & Clara Luz
Navarro, A Street Without an Exit: Excerpts
From the Lives of Latinas in Post-187 California, 7 Hastings Women’s L. J. 275, 304 (1996) (quoting
Mariana). In this article Ms. Broder and
Ms. Navarro collected the thoughts of Latina immigrant women involved in
community activity in San Francisco, California. Kevin Johnson has written
thoughtfully about divisions within what to outsiders may appear to be a monolithic
community. See Kevin R. Johnson, Civil Rights and Immigration: Challenges for
the Latino Community in the Twenty-First Century, 8 La Raza L. J. 42,
67-72 (1995); see generally Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology,
and Politics (Virginia Yans-McLaughlin ed. 1990).
[2] Recall those wonderfully perverse
cartoon mini-movies, in which Donald Duck was teamed up with a Brazilian parrot
(Jose Carioca) and a rooster (Panchito) to explore Disney’s version of the US’s
“Good Neighbor Policy” in effect during the years of the Second World War. The
Three Caballeros (Disney 1945) and Saludos
Amigos (Disney 1943).
[4] Consider any episode of I Love Lucy, which started airing on
television in the 1950’s and can still be seen on reruns. Although at this point I must confess my
biases — I learned to speak English watching old episodes of that program
rebroadcast on TV. My parents didn’t
understand a word the characters said, but they were immensely proud of Desi.
[5] Consider the apocryphal Latin American
Heiress, or for that matter, the bon
vivants and jet setters Carolina Herrera or Paloma Picasso. See,
e.g., Stephen Glover, Why Diana is
Such a Party Prize, Evening Standard
(Eng.), November 23, 1995 at 9, available
in Lexis, Nexis library,
curnws file (“By and large the modern English upper classes dress badly, or at
least dress down. She, on the other
hand, favours the kind of ostentatious costumes and coiffure that might find
favour with a Peruvian heiress . . .”).
[6] Broder & Navarro, supra note 1, at 305. (quoting Rosa)
(Rosa, in this passage refers to the unifying effect of proposition 187 on
California Latinos/as). See Berta Esperanza Hernandez Truyol, Building Bridges – Latinas and Latinos at
the Crossroads: Realities, Rhetoric and Replacement, 25 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 369, 410-11
(1994) (recounting the story of how Cubans are sometimes excluded and
classified as part of the members of the dominant group in the U.S., despite
their language, culture and history).
[7] Hegemony, of course, implies
exclusion. And we did exclude in the old
countries. We trivialized our Indian and
African selves; we obliterated the multiculturalism of our religious norms,
hounding some out of existence, and sending many underground. Consider the marginalized place of Santeria in the Caribbean, or of
indigenous religious practices in Central and South America. As such, some of us were more a part of the
dominant group than others. We carry
these hierarchies with us when we come here.
Consider that the power structure of Hialeah, whose government sought to
suppress public expressions of Santeria
practice, were Latino/a. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v.
Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113 S. Ct. 2217 (1993).
These systems of subordination work the same in the United States for
those we consider uniformly part of the dominant discourse here. All non-Latino/a white people in the United
States are not “created equal.” Eastern
European Catholics, for instance, are not as comfortably ensconced in the
realms of the elite, as may be her Anglo-German Protestant sister. And then, of course, there are issues of
social class, even among white non-Latino/a Americans.
[8] Having said this, I want to take it
back, if only just a little. We do
ourselves a disservice by constructing this thing we call an ‘Anglo.’ This is especially the case when we use that
term and direct it at the children of immigrants from Italy, Spain, Poland and
other non-English speaking European countries, many of whom were until fairly
recently as much the ‘other’ we now claim for ourselves. See,
e.g. Nathan Glazer, We Are All
Multiculturalists Now 85-88, 101-12 (1997). By way of small example: it is perverse to
insist on the term ‘Anglo’ to describe the Irish, who have spent the last
several centuries attempting to overthrow the domination of the English in
their own country. If the term is meant
to deride, then we demean ourselves by practicing those vile habits we so hate
when exercised against us. If the term
is meant to describe, then it ought to be abandoned as non-descriptive. Moreover, we are hardly in a position to name the ‘other;’ taking for ourselves
that right of naming would be supremely ironic in a age when we congratulate
ourselves for taking back the power to name ourselves. We should be careful about demonizing even
the dominant ‘other.’ See Larry Catá Backer, Queering Theory: An Essay on the Conceit of
Revolution in Law, in Legal Queeries (Leslie
J. Moran et al., eds. 1998).
[9] I use the term “Latinocentric” to
denote practices and preferences rooted in the norms derived primarily from
Hispano-American culture. Latinocentric
culture in our home countries is accorded the same power and dignity as in
“English” culture in the United States. Cf. Francisco Valdes, Foreword: Under Construction: LatCrit Consciousness, Community, and Theory,
85 Cal. L. Rev. 1087, 1096 &
n. 23 (1997); 10 La Raza L.J. 1,
10 & n. 23 (1998) (using the term “Anglocentric” to “denote practices and
preferences rooted in norms derived primarily from English Culture,” and noting
that “Latinas/os have been subjected to injustice and prejudice, and thereby
pushed into positions of marginality and disempowerment in this Anglocentric
society.” Id. at 85 Cal. L. Rev.
at 1096; 10 La Raza L.J. at
10). Like Anglocentric culture, our
Latinocentric culture, proud, supreme and dominant in our home countries
marginalizes and disempowers the foreigners (primarily of African descent) in
its midst. Consider the conclusions of
Jameelah Muhammed who argues that “in spite of [the] impressive historical,
social and cultural legacy [of Afro-Mexicans], Afro-Mexicans exist today as a
marginalized group. They are arguably,
the least represented and most oppressed of all of Mexico’s ethnic groups, and
have yet to enter the mainstream and be recognized as full citizens.” Jameelah S. Muhammed, Mexico, in No Longer
Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today 163, 164 (Minority Rights Group
eds. 1995). More telling are the
problems associated with the celebrations of the 500th anniversary
of the beginning of the European colonization of the Americas.
During the nationalist buildups to
the 1492-1992 quincentennial celebrations in Ecuador and Columbia, cultural
images of a distinct ‘Latin American-Iberian’ unified identity became very
important. The elite in these nations,
who identify themselves as blanco,
stressed that the national identity symbol should be that of mestizaje (racial intermingling) to
emphasize Latin America’s heritage in the 500th year since the European
‘discovery’ and ‘civilizing conquest’ began.
In direct opposition to this elite-sponsored nationalist identity
problem, black spokesmen and spokeswomen rejected ‘Hispanic’ (Iberian)
designations and stressed ‘Afro-Latin-American culture’ as their preferred designation.
Norman E. Whitten, Jr. & Diego Quiroga (with the
assistance of P. Rafael Savoia), Ecuador,
in No Longer Invisible, supra at 287,
311. “Ecuador is today governed by an
ideology of mestizaje, which is
itself driven by the spirit of blanqueamiento
-- ethnic, cultural and racial whitening.”
Id. at 310.
[10] Thus, for example, commentators seeking
ways of incorporating non-dominant, that is, non-stereotypically Latinos/as,
into their systems of governance, suggest that lessons from the experiences of
the United States might be useful, but worry that “charges of Americanization
and, implicitly, denationalization suggest that individual societies, eager to
protect themselves against corrupting influences from extraneous sources, may
well justify establishing a cordon
sanitaire.” Anani Dzidzienyo, Conclusions, in No Longer Invisible, supra note 9, at 345, 346. Perhaps it should not surprise us that
Anglocentric culture exhibits a similar cultural reaction.
[13] See,
e.g., Alex M. Saragoza et al., History
and Public Policy: Title VII and the Use of the Hispanic Classification, 5 La Raza L.J. 1 (1992). Issues centering
on immigration policy in the United States have energized both the Latino/a
community and the dominant groups as well.
For a taste of the debate from the perspective of the American non-Latino/a
elite, see, e.g., Peter D. Salins, Assimilation, American Style
185-197 (1997). For Latino/a
perspectives, compare Linda Chavez, Out of the Barrio: Toward a New
Politics of Hispanic Assimilation (1991), with Bill Piatt, Born as
Second Class Citizens in the U.S.A.: Children of Undocumented Parents, 63 Notre Dame L. Rev. 35 (1988), and David
G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican-Americans, Mexican Immigration, and
the Politics of Ethnicity (1995).
[14] Like the People of Israel, we fear
assimilation. For us, as for them,
assimilation may amount to little more than a form of living extinction. We fear even more that our children (or their
children) will fear this sort of extinction less. See
Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory: The
Education of Richard Rodriguez (1981) (“Rodriguez. The name on the door. The name on my passport. The name I carry from my parents – who are no
longer my parents, in a cultural sense.”
Id. at 4); Richard Delgado, Rodrigo’s Fourteenth Chronicle: American
Apocalypse, 32 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L.
Rev. 275, 294-97 (1997) (on elimination of Latino consciousness through
assimilation).
[18] We have begun to understand the vastness of our diversity. We must now incorporate that knowledge in our
political response to difference in this country. See,
e.g., Leslie G. Espinoza, Multi-Identity:
Community and Culture, 2 Va. J. Soc.
Pol’y & Culture 23 (1994) (on the promise of multi-identity).
[20] LatCrit theory is in its infancy. Its meaning and scope has not yet been
bounded by a Credo, or subject to an
ideological test for purity. These
deficiencies constitute its strength as a means of approaching problems of
American law in contemporary society.
For a discussion approaches to the “meaning” and “scope” of LatCrit
Theory, see, e.g., Valdes, supra note 9. For a discussion of the early history of
LatCrit Theory, see Francisco Valdes,
Poised at the Cusp: LatCrit Theory,
Latina/o Pan-Ethnicity and Latina/o Self-Empowerment, 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 1 (1997).
[21] I agree with Frank Valdes when he
argues that “for a legal theory to work – to be ‘worth it’ – it must embrace
and perform four interrelated and overlapping functions.” Valdes, supra
note 9, at 85 Cal. L. Rev. at
1093; 10 La Raza L.J. at 7. These Professor Valdes identifies as (i) the
production of knowledge; (ii) the advancement of transformation, (iii) the
expansion and connection of struggles, and (iv) the cultivation of community
and coalition. Id. at 85 Cal. L. Rev.
at 1093-94; 10 La Raza L.J. at
7-8. See also Francisco Valdes, Foreword:
Poised at the Cusp: LatCrit Theory,
Outsider Jurisprudence and Latina/o Self-Empowerment, 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 1, 53-59
(1997). I do not, however, believe in
the reality of transformation. See Larry Catá Backer, Constructing a “Homosexual” for
Constitutional Theory: Sodomy Narrative, Jurisprudence, and Antipathy in the
United States and British Courts, 71 Tul.
L. Rev. 529, 538-53 (1996). I
also believe that the project of “struggling” can suggest no more than that
social elites constantly struggle over the “value” of the variables which
constitute our conceptions of “justice” and “fairness.” See
Larry Catá Backer, Poor Relief Welfare
Paralysis, and Assimilation 1996 Utah
L. Rev. 1, 6-10.
[22] LatCrit shares much with the emerging
disciplines of critical race theory and queer theory. “The study of how race, ethnicity, and
culture join ranks with gender and sexual orientation to erect hierarchical
social barriers must be central to Critical Race Theory scholarship if
inclusiveness is to be achieved in its project of social transformation.” Celina Romany, Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Language, 9 La Raza L. J. 49, 50 (1996).
See also Francisco Valdes, Latina/o Ethnicities, Critical Race Theory
and Post Identity Politics in Postmodern Legal Culture: From Practices to
Possibilities, 9 La Raza L.J.
1 (1996). This study must be turned
inwards as well as outward. It is not
enough to expel the devils of hierarchy and subordination from without. If in fact the hoped for transformation will
occur, then hierarchy and subordination, insensitivity and marginalization,
must be confronted within communities as well as between communities. On Critical Race Theory, see, e.g., Critical Race
Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (Kimberlé Crenshaw et
al., eds. 1995). On Queer Theory, see Legal
Queeries, supra note 8.
[24] For just one of a growing number of
examples of this type, see, e.g., Yvonne A. Tamayo, “Official Language” Legislation: Literal Silencing/Silenciando la
Lengua, 13 Harv. Blackletter L. Rev.
107 (1997). One should remember,
however, that “Law is neither the truth of power nor its alibi. It is an instrument of power, which is at
once complex and partial. The form of
law with its effects of prohibition needs to be resituated among a number of
other, non-juridical mechanisms.” Michel
Foucault, Powers and Strategies, in Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977 134, 141 (Colin Gordon ed.
1980) (Interview by the editorial collective of Les révoltes logiques, 1977).
[25] George Martinez has recently explained
how Mexican-Americans were defined as white by the dominant discourse, yet
allowed few of the privileges of “whiteness.”
George A. Martinez, The Legal
Construction of Race: Mexican-Americans and Whiteness, 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 321 (1997). See
also Ian F. Haney Lopez, Race and
Erasure: The Salience of Race to LatCrit Theory, 85 Cal. L. Rev. 1143, 1159-72 (1997); 10 La Raza L.J. 57, 73-86 (1998). Queer theory has provided
substantial examples of this sort of cultural power. See,
e.g., Carl F. Stychin, Unmanly
Diversions: The Construction of the Homosexual Body (Politic) in English Law,
32 Osgoode Hall L. J. 503
(1994). Critical Race theory has also
interrogated the ways in which dominant discourses tend to define themselves by
drawing lines between itself and those who are deemed not to belong, and the
way in which dominant discourse affects the way in which subordinated groups
speak to each other. See, e.g., Reginald Leamon Robinson, “The Other Against Itself”: Deconstructing
the Violent Discourse Between Korean and African Americans, 67 S. Cal. L. Rev. 15 (1993). Christie Davies has shown how groups,
especially groups which form a minority within a larger society, have sought to
preserve their distinctiveness by hyper-construction of group boundaries.
Christie Davies, Religious Boundaries and
Sexual Morality, 6 Ann. Rev. Soc.
Sci. of Religion 45 (Fall 1983) (Eng.).
[26] I am reminded of the sociology of
Argentina of almost a century ago, which attempted an explanation of the
political relationship between a White, European elite and the
barbarians—Indians and people of “mixed” ancestry—which developed after
independence from Spain. “El feudalismo español se continúa en el
caudillismo americano: las masas indígenas y mestizas constituyen la materia
política que manejan los caudillos. Los
núcleos de población blanco y europeizante descienden a usarlas como
instrumento de predominio, o son aplastados y proscriptos cuando no se resignan
a hacerlo.” José Ingenieros, Sociologia argentina 291 (1988) (1918)
(Spanish feudalism was reproduced in the form of American “caudillismo;” the Indian
and mestizo masses served as the political material directed by the
caudillos. The population nucleus of
white Europeanized people are reduced by them to serve as instruments of
domination, or they are crushed or banished when they did not resign themselves
to this role.”).
[28] The power of the hegemony of a system
of norms provides the basis of the disciplines which infiltrate all aspects of
social and economic life. While
resistance to the strictures of formal rules and law is possible—the black
letter is easy to identity and thus resist.
It is far harder to overcome the application of the normative framework
underlying those rules. That application
exists in virtually every aspect of lives lived. The disciplines, as Michel Foucault has well
explained, can wear us down and exact the sort of conformity that the black
letter might be incapable of achieving. See, e.g.,
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Alan
Sheridan, trans. 1979; Vintage Books 2d ed. 1995 (1978)). For a discussion of the way welfare laws
serve as a discipline, exacting conformity on everyday living, see generally Larry Catá Backer, By Hook or By Crook: Conformity,
Assimilation and Liberal and Conservative Poor Relief Theory, 7 Hastings Women’s L.J. 391, 407-29
(1996).
[29] This characteristic of dominant culture
is endemic to the way we approach lawmaking.
Consider, for example, the way in which we expect people to conform to
behavioral ideals in order to maintain eligibility for welfare benefits. See
Larry Catá Backer, Welfare Reform at the
Limit: The Futility of ‘Ending Welfare as We Know It,” 30 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 339, 385-95
(1995).
[32] “The response of the dominant,
norm-setting, groups in the United States has been evident in the two campaigns
which those groups have so effectively waged since the 1970’s. The first is that of the “equality of
opportunity” crusade. The second is that
of expansion, the willingness of dominant society to bring certain portions of
the populations of once marginalized groups ‘into the
fold.’ . . . By saying, in effect, “you are white,” by
arguing that critical basic cultural norms are shared, and by making subtle
distinctions based on home country racial hierarchy and economic status,
dominant culture can minimize the actual threat to its dominance and isolate
more clearly those who would challenge the application of its
norms. . . .” Larry Catá Backer, Pitied But Not Entitled: The Normative Limitations of Scholarship
Advocating Change, 19 W. New Eng. L.
Rev. 59, 63-64 (1997).
[34] On
language, see, e.g., Perea, supra note 12; Oquendo, supra note
31. Yvonne Tamayo put it well when she
explained that: “Long ago, I assimilated into the fiber of this country. Assimilation, however, did not reduce the
powerful influence that Spanish, my native language, continues to have on
defining who I am.” Tamayo, supra note 24, at 121.
Language is more than immigrant
vestige for Chicano/as. It is also a
symbol and an action of resistance to colonization. ‘The hallmark of resistance
still was the maintenance of Spanish.
That Mexicans kept their language in the U.S. territory longer than most
other ethnic groups is partially due to continuous Mexican immigration but also
to the resistance to Anglo domination offers in previous generations’
Leslie Espinoza & Angela P. Harris, Afterward: Embracing the Tar-Baby -- LatCrit Theory and the Sticky Mess
of Race, 85 Cal. L. Rev. 1585, 1645
& n. 78 (1997); 10 La Raza
L.J. 499, 559 & n. 78 (1998) (quoting in part, F. Arturo Rosales,
Chicano! 18 (1996)). On religion, see,
e.g., Juan F. Perea, Hernandez v. New
York: Courts, Prosecutors and the Fear of Spanish, 21 Hofstra L. Rev. 1 (1992). Professor Perea states that Catholicism is to
be considered “an integral part of Latino ethnicity.” Id.
at 18. Now here is a notion in need of
significant unpacking. This sort of
self-stereotyping marginalizes even as it creates boundaries not at all
consonant with the realities of Latino existence, either in this country or in
the home countries. See discussion, infra at
note 48 and the papers in Mestizo
Christianity: Theology From the Latino Perspective (Arturo J. Banuelas
ed., 1995).
[35] What people in this country, of Latin
and non-Latin origin insist of referring to the language they speak as Spanish, it is not. The language spoken in the Western Hemisphere
is derived from the Castillian language.
To use the term Spanish to refer to that language, is to marginalize and
silence the other vibrant living languages of the modern nation of
Spain—Gallego, Catalán, Valenciano. I
choose to refer to the language commonly spoken in this Hemisphere as
Castillian Spanish—Castellano.
[37] Professor Valdes suggests that “the
task awaiting LatCrit theory consequently must be to generate frameworks and
postulates of inquiry, understanding and action designed to yield intra-Latino
cooperation, accommodation and coordination in various legal contexts.” Id.
at 16. Yet, to the extent that what is
suggested is merely union at a political level, it is generalizable to
relations with all communities in this country, and not merely other
communities of color. At that level of
generality the idea may be less interesting jurisprudentially though of great
value politically. We share a great
number of values with dominant society in this country. But we do not share those values in the same
way across the different Latina/o communities here. Even dominant discourse has begun to
recognize this. See, e.g., A Minority Worth Cultivating: America’s Latinos are Rapidly
Becoming one of its Most Useful Resources, The
Economist, April 25, 1998, at 21.
On the other hand, to the extent the tasks Professor Valdes identifies
are cultural as well, linkage may impede as well as facilitate the possibility
of some basic level of Latina/o pan-ethnicity.
Such linkages imply a determination to keep Latina/o subcultures
separate as a matter of political will (or from a sense of the preservationist,
the traditionalist within us) and thus make it impossible to culturally fuse
our disparate elements into something approaching a common culture even at the
most basic level. Such a fusion would
require the abandonment of some of those cultural traits, which make us
different from one another, if only at some sort of basic level.
[38] See
Max J. Castro, Making Pan Latino: Latino
Pan-Ethnicity and the Controversial Case of the Cubans, 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 179, 192, 195-96
(1997). The most significant exception,
and perhaps an exception that alters the rule, involves Mexican-Americans. The common border between Mexico and the
United States makes travel between the two easier in some respects than travel
between far away points within the United States.
[39] Celina Romany, Claiming a
Global Identity: Latina/o Critical Scholarship and International Human Rights,
28 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 215
(1997) (arguing that LatCrit theory ought to be deliberately transnational in
its approach to civil and human rights).
See also the collected essays
of the Colloquium, “International Law, Human Rights, and
LatCrit Theory,” published at 28 U.
Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 223-436 (1997).
Cf. Jamie F. Metzl, Information Technology and Human Rights,
18 Human Rts. Q. 705 (1996).
[41] The Spanish Crown, and Franco thereafter, suppressed the use of
Spanish variants other than Castillian Spanish.
It was not until after the restoration of democracy on Spain in the
1980’s that the Spanish government permitted linguistic autonomy. See,
e.g., Jeremy R. Kasha, Education
Under Catalonia’s Law of Linguistic Normalization: Spanish Constitutionalism
and International Human Rights Law, 34 Colum.
J. Transnat’l L. 657 (1996).
“Other more current examples include the repression of the Ukrainian,
Georgian and Belorussian languages by the former Soviet Government, the current
repression of the Albanian language in Kosovo (formerly part of Yugoslavia) and
the extended repression of the Kurdish language in Turkey.” See
Garcia v. Spun Steak Co., 13 F.3d 296, 298 n. 3 (1993) (Reinhardt, J.,
dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Thus, we “must confront the diversity of languages and dialects among
Latinos/as. “For example, Brazilians and
some other Latinos/as speak Portuguese rather than Spanish, while in Mexico and
Guatemala alone approximately 260 different indigenous languages are spoken. In
Mexico, over five million people speak an indigenous language. Moreover,
diversity in dialects among Spanish‑speakers raises concerns for reforms that
require translations into the Spanish language.
Differences in dialect, though in practice not too substantial, may
render translations at least partially inaccurate.” See
Steven W. Bender, Consumer Protection for
Latinos: Overcoming Language Fraud and English Only in the Marketplace, 45 Am. U. L. Rev. 1027, 1070-71 (1996).
[42] That marginalization occurs not only here, but in the home
countries as well. One gets a reminder
of this from time to time. Consider the
racial and ethnic divides in the Chiapas insurgency, or the racial
stratification in Cuba, Ecuador or Guatemala—white faces in the palace and
plantation, darker ones in the field and factory. This is the story throughout the geographical
space in which we are dominant. For a
valuable discussion, see No Longer Invisible, supra note 9. That sort of marginalization acquires an
official face as well. Russell Barsh
describes the reticence of Chile and Mexico to recognize indigenous people’s
rights to “self-determination” because of the implied threat to their
respective territorial integrity.
Assimilation is the order of the day, assimilation into a European
Hispanic culture. “Indigenous peoples could remain ‘distinct and specific’ yet
also develop as ‘integral parts’ of the Chilean nation.” Russel Lawrence Barsh, Indigenous Peoples and the UN Commission on Human Rights: A Case of the
Immovable Object and the Irresistible Force, 18 Human Rts. Q. 782, 797 (1996). There are exceptions, though. Since 1975, Peru has designated Quechua as an
official language (along with Castillian Spanish), though Ecuador, where a
substantial number of people also speak Quechua, has not done so. Bolivia has designated two native languages –
Quechua and Aymara – official languages along with Spanish.
[46] See,
e.g., Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol, Indivisible
Identities: Culture Clashes, Confused Constructs and Reality Checks, 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 199, 203-04 (1997)
(LatCrit theory itself may evidence possibilities of political pan-ethnicity
based on accommodation and coordination respecting difference).
[47] See Leslie G. Espinoza,
Multi-Identity: Community and Culture,
2 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & Culture
23 (1994). See also Richard Delgado, Rodrigo’s
Fifteenth Chronicle: Racial Mixture, Latino-Critical Scholarship, and the
Black-White Binary, 75 Tex. L. Rev.
1181 (1997) (interrogating the black-white binary for understanding the
relationship of racial elites with subordinated groups other than
African-Americans, and suggesting alternatives to that antique model).
48 See Jurgen Habermas, Struggles for Recognition in Constitutional
States, 1 Eur. J. Phil. 128,
142 (1993). That, certainly is the
implication of a cynical reading of Derrida’s definition of the European
democratic hegemonic norm as including “respecting difference, idioms,
minorities, singularities, but also the universality of formal law, the desire
for translation, agreement and univocity, the law of the majority, opposition
to racism, nationalism and xenophobia.” See Jacques
Derrida, The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe 78-79
(1992). In effect we see difference in a
cage. It can be given effect only within
the strong containing walls of a hegemonic foundationalism which prevents much
freedom for cultures to be as they may have to be. Where stability and the expression of
minority norms is important, this is a desirable outcome, though hardly the
leftist or radical politics under which these notions are hawked. What we approach here are the notions of
toleration espoused by John Locke read somewhat more generously than in the
past. See John Locke, A Letter
Concerning Toleration, in Great Books
of the Western World 1 (Robert M. Hutchins ed. 1952) (1689).
[50] See id.
In this sense, popular culture can be understood as the “prejudices”
(what I would characterize as value choices) of the extant communal
tradition. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth
and Method 302, 306 (Joel Weinsheimer & Donald Marshall trans., 2d
rev. ed. 1989). This is the fundamental
nature of our interpretive community. See generally Stanley Fish, Is there a Text in this Class?, in Is There a Text in this Class? 303-04
(1980). “[W]e constantly constitute and
reconstitute our tradition, our culture, and our community as we engage in
hermeneutic actions. Most important,
this constant reconstitution is always simultaneously constructive and
destructive.” Stephen M. Feldman, The Politics of Postmodern Jurisprudence,
95 Mich. L. Rev. 166, 198 (1996).
[53] “I suggest that, indeed, social change of a limited nature may be
attained. The means by which such successful
change may be accomplished I introduce here as the notion of subversive calumny. This project of subversive calumny is
critical and realist. It insists that
the slow, never-finished project of molding current expression of popular
culture must be consciously undertaken. . . . The project of
subversive calumny will require resort to law for two purposes. The first is to provide a site for the
broadcasting of different iterations of popular culture in an “authoritative”
setting. The second is to provide a
space for a necessary official imprimatur,
for the confirmation, not the
inauguration, of changing interpretations of the possibilities within traditional
culture.” Backer, supra note 8 (on subversive calumny as the means of modulating
cultural recognition and acceptance of otherness and the limitations of this
enterprise).
[54] I am essentializing here a bit. I understand that these norms are neither
uniformly observed, nor always strongly tied to what it means to be
Latino/a. However, the norms I have
chosen to interrogate in this section reflect those culture standard which at
one time or another have exerted a substantial influence on the public
expression of our cultural “signature.”
They are also the norms which the dominant culture ascribes to us,
usually not entirely correctly, as generalizable cultural traits which we share
in common. For an example of this sort
of thing, see, e.g., The Keenest Recruits
to the Dream: Four Centuries After Spanish-Speakers Settled in what is Now the
United States, How Close Have Latinos Come to Make Their Presence Felt?, The Economist, April 25, 1998, at 25
(noting, for example, that “Latinos, with their work ethic, their religion, and
their love of family, might seem natural Republicans” Id. at 27).
[56] See, e.g., The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition
to Democracy (Jane S. Jacquette ed., 1989); Martha I. Morgan, The Bitter and the Sweet: Feminist Efforts
to Reform Nicaraguan Rape and Sodomy Laws, 26 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 439 (1993) (and see the
literature referenced at id. Note 2
at 440); Katherine M. Culliton, Legal
Remedies for Domestic Violence in Chile and the United States: Cultural
Relativism, Myths and Realities, 26 Case
W. Res. J. Int’l L. 183 (1994).
On Latina interrogation of patriarchy in the Unite d States, see, e.g., Jenny Rivera, Domestic Violence Against Latinas by Latino
Males: An Analysis of Race, National Origin and Gender Differentials, 14 B.C. Third World L.J. 231 (1994).
[59] See, e.g., Yxta Maya Murray, Toward Interest Convergence: Coalition
Building Requires Connection Within as Well as Without, 33 Cal. W. L. Rev. 205 (1997) (on
overcoming racism and homophobia within the Mexican-American community); Carmen
Vazquez, Bursting the Lavender Bubble, 4Out/Look 53 (1991) (“Challenging
homophobia in the Latino community is no more and no less a challenge than it
is to challenge it in any other community”
Id. at 54).
[60] Terri de la Peña, Chicana, Working Class and Proud: The Case of the Lopsided Tortilla, in
Out of the Class Closet: Lesbians Speak
195, 203-04 (Julia Penelope ed. 1994). Some have argued for the creation of a
separate ethnicity for gay men and lesbians, arguing by analogy to the
construction of a Latino/a singular ethnicity in the United States. See
Fernando J. Gutierrez, Gay and Lesbian:
An Ethnic Identity Deserving Equal Protection, 4 Law & Sex. 195 (1994).
[61] See,
e.g., Thomas Almaguer, Chicano Men: A
Cartography of Homosexual Identity and Behavior in The Lesbian and Gay
Studies Reader 255 (Henry Abelove et al. eds., 1993) (a study of the
ways Chicano gay males attempt to create a culturally satisfying pattern of
behavior blending European or international “gay culture” with Latino/a
cultural norms which resist the creation of the category “gay” in the manner it
has been culturally constructed among European gay men).
[62] See,
e.g., Elvia R. Arriola, Faeries,
Marimachas, Queens, and Lezzies: The
Construction of Homosexuality Before the 1969 Stonewall Riots, 5 Colum. J.Genger & L. 33 (1995)
(describing the contribution of Latina/o sexual non-conformists to the struggle
for rights for rights for sexual minorities in this country).
[64] If the presence of Jews, and crypto-Jews
among us is not enough to give us pause about conflating Latino/a culture and
Catholicism, perhaps the reality of changing Latino/a religious affiliation
should. Consider that some people
believe that “Evangelical growth among Latinos has occurred in part at the
expense of the Catholic Church, which has been losing an estimated 60,000
Hispanics annually to other church bodies.”
Andrés Tapia, Growing Pains:
Evangelical Latinos Wrestle With the Role of Women, Generation Gap, and
Cultural Divides, Christianity Today,
vol. 39(2), Feb. 6, 1995, at 38. As
such, I find disturbing, the tendency among some of us, to view with suspicion,
the advances made by mostly Christian evangelical sects in the religious
conversion of our neighbors.
[65] Paul E. Sigmund, Religious Human Rights in the World Today: A Report on the 1994 Atlanta
Conference: Legal Perspectives on Religious Human Rights: Religious Human
Rights in Latin America, 10 Emory
Int’l L. Rev. 173, 179 (1994). But see Jim Jones, Latino Catholics Boost Graham Crusade Attendance, Christianity Today, vol. 41(6), May 19,
1997, at 5. (“Flores, one of the
nation’s first Mexican-American bishops, met with Graham and taped radio spots
in English and Spanish encouraging Catholics to attend the Crusade to help
bring them to a closer commitment to their faith.”).
[66] U.S. v. Changco, 1 F.3d 837, 841 & n.
1 (9th Cir. 1983) (evaluating a challenge to what was asserted to be discriminatory
peremptory challenges). The case is
mentioned by Professor Johnson in a discussion of the limitation of the utility
of “Spanish” surname in identifying Latina/o identity. See
Johnson, supra note 1, at n. 134;
Kevin R. Johnson, “Melting Pot” or “Ring of Fire”?: Assimilation
and the Mexican-American Experience, 85 Cal.
L. Rev. 1259, 1295 (1997); 10 La
Raza L. Rev. 173, 209 (1998) (Professor Johnson here quotes part of
Judge Kozinski’s opinion in U.S. v. Changco, quoted above, in wrestling with
the question of the utility of surnames
as a proxy for ethnic identification).
Yet this amazing statement by a judge of Eastern European extraction,
outrageous for the unconscious and comfortable (for him) double sets of marginalizations
and subordinations running through it, has raised little comment. It ought to.
The subtle and perhaps unthinking implication that Sephardic Jews (or for that
matter people adopted into Latino/a families) cannot be Latino/a (by some sort
of definition) should be rejected.
Spanish Jews have never forgotten their patria or their language, though marginalized and excluded by their
Christian and Muslim neighbors. This
they took with them to the New World, as did their Catholic neighbors. See,
e.g., the essays in Spain and the
Jews: The Sephardi Experience 1492 and After (Elie Kedouri ed.,
1992). That they have carried their
Hispanicity to the Americas as well as to the gas chambers at Auschwitz is well
known. See Primo Levi, Survival at
Auschwitz 79 (1996) (1958) (describing the “survivors of the Jewish
colony of Salonica, with their two languages, Spanish and Greek”). Compare Earl
Shorris, Latinos: A Biography of the People 3 (1992) (story of a Jewish
Latina) thoughtfully recounted in Juan F. Perea, Los Olvidados: On the Making of Invisible People, 70 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 965 (1995). Yet, one wonders, why an “Argentinean Jew”
must by “cultural” reflex, perhaps, exist only as a “fantasy neo-European theory to understand my
success. In others’ eyes one cannot be
both successful and Latino of non-European ancestry.” Juan F. Perea, Suggested Responses to Frequently Asked Questions About Hispanics,
Latinos and Latinas, 9 La Raza L.J.
39, 40 (1996).
[68] See
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113
S.Ct. 2217 (1993) (Santeria Church brought action challenging city ordinances
dealing with ritual slaughter of animals; the ordinances had been passed in the
predominantly Latino/a city of Hialeah, Florida, by people long used to the
suppression of this form of religious deviance in the home countries. Id. at 508 U.S. at 525, 113 S.Ct. at
2222.)
[70] See,
generally, No Longer Invisible,
supra note 9 at 163, 164 (discussion
of the marginalization and invisibility of African-origin citizens of Latin
America in favor of a European or Indigenous favored discourse). We prefer to refer to this obliquely, even as
we criticize the modern American form of racialization. Thus, for instance Angel Oquendo, in his
insightful article on the Latino/a “race” notes that “[t]here simply are no
discrete, isolated groups, such as White Latino/as or Black Latino/as. Rather, there are numerous different and
overlapping shades, reflecting the individuals’ heritage and to some extent correlating
with their socio-economic class.”
Oquendo, supra note 31, at
102.
[71] Tanya Hernández describes the utility
of creating a favored “mixed race” class as a means of subordinating Blacks and
maintaining white Supremacy. Tanya
Katerí Hernández, “Multiracial”
Discourse: Racial Classifications in an Era of Color Blind Jurisprudence,
57 Md. L. Rev. 97, 121-23
(1998). She argues that “Latin American
race relations are a poor model to emulate.
The recognition of a separate class of mixed race persons in Brazil has
not led to a genuinely color-blind society, because the desire to avoid being
categorized with a denigrated Black populace has resulted in a
hyper-consciousness of color gradations and phenotypical traces of African
ancestry. In fact, Brazilians describe
their race relations as ‘veiled apartheid.’” Id. at 133-34. Even in
post-Revolutionary Cuba, the “higher social status frequently attached to white
and mulatto women leads many black and mulatto men to continue the historical
pattern consistent with blanqueamiento
of selecting whiter women as mates.”
McGarrity & Cárdenas, supra note
67, at 102.
While not subject to
discrimination by Anglo-society on account of physical appearance, light
skinned Mexican-Americans may suffer “micro-aggressions,” such as racial
insults of Mexican-Americans in their presence.
They may also be challenged by their fellow Mexican-Americans as being
“too White.” The term gabacho, slang for Anglo, has been
directed by some Mexican-Americans at other Mexican-Americans. Perhaps it is simply my own
self-consciousness, but many Latinos of mixed heritage at various times feel
less than fully accepted by the Latino community. Because being rejected by Latinos does not
necessarily mean full acceptance by Anglos, such persons may feel as if they do
not belong fully in either the Anglo or Latino worlds.
Johnson,
supra note 66, at 85 Cal. L. Rev. at 1292-93, 10 La Raza L. J. at 206-07 (for the
additional problems of people of “mixed-race”, see id. at 85 Cal. L. Rev. at 1305-06; 10 La Raza L. J. at 219-20.
[75] Richard
Rodriguez, Days of Obligation 50 (1992) (For Rodriguez’s father,
American citizenship would have been seen as a betrayal of Mexico....); Johnson, supra
note 66, at 85 Cal. L. Rev. at
1285, 10 La Raza L.J. at 199 (“a
significant number of Mexican immigrants view naturalization...as the mark of a
traitor.”)
[76] See,
e.g. Yxta Maya Murray, The
Latino-American Crisis of Citizenship,
U.C. Davis L. Rev. 503 (1998).
Coming from vastly different political and socio-cultural perspectives,
both Richard Rodriguez and Kevin Johnson remind us of the conflation among some
Mexican-Americans of declaring allegiance to the patria norteña. Compare the journey of Kevin Johnson,
Johnson, supra note 66, at 85 Cal. L. Rev. at 1285, 10 La Raza L.J. at 199, with that of Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez, supra note 15.
[77] Backer, supra note 32, at 64.
Indeed, Richard Delgado has suggested that the effects of this loss of
identity can have apocalyptic representations at a time when the white elite is
preparing for racial subjugation of people of color in the United States. See
Delgado, supra note 14 (“The
phenomenon of right wing Chicanos and Latinos is used by dominant whites to
split Latinos off from (especially) African-Americans in an effort to continue
white dominance). I agree. And within thus cultural matrix, scholarship,
such as Professor Delgado’s has a favored place:
No society tolerates radical
dissent if that society means to survive.
To the extent that minorities are painlessly co-opted, controlled, or
radicalized, the invitation to engage in what can be characterized as radical
scholarship plays a useful role in defense of the disciplining of dominant
discourse. Rejectionist and separatist
discourse, served up in highly demonized form, is used to scare and intimidate
dominant group elites seeking dialogue.
Perversely, as the tradition rejecting scholars rightly note, past
history and current practice offers little hope for real positive change short
of what for many would amount to racial suicide or oblivion.
Backer, supra, at
65. Professor Delgado suggests that
white revanche will ultimately be
violent when it comes and will presage the fall of the Republic. I suggest, rather, that the discipline of
dominant cultural control has always been in place, has occasionally been violent,
and has worked well within the context of our Republic as the dominant discourse envisions it.
[78] Consider Richard Delgado’s notion that
it behooves Latinos/as to incorporate class consciousness as a sort of cultural
norm when he gently criticizes Judge Garza for “extolling individualism and
telling his countrymen and women that they could rise and accomplish the
American dream through hard work, just as he had. He detested discrimination . . .
but attributed them to individual failures. . . not to anything
systematic.” Delgado, supra note 47,
at 1187.
[79] Martin
E. Marty, The One and the Many: America’s Struggle for the Common Good
113 (1997). Thus, despising the
regimentation and silencing of dominant discourse so much, it is a wonder that
we sometimes appear to mimic these despised political traits. Of what relevance, other than to marginalize
and subordinate, is a judgment that someone like Linda Chavez is “a traitor who
sold her surname to anti-Hispanic causes.”
James Crawford, Hold Your Tongue –
Bilingualism and the Politics of “English Only” 155 (1992). Yet, we sometimes give in to treason analysis
in confronting conflict between groups as well as within them. That tends to reduce culture to politics, and
cultural norms to political cant. See, e.g., Richard Delgado, Rodrigo’s Eleventh Chronicle: Empathy and
False Empathy, 84 Cal. L. Rev.
61, 969-70 (1996); Cf. Barbara J.
Flagg, “Was Blind but Now I See: White
Race Consciousness and the Requirement of Discriminatory Intent, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 953, 969-79 (1993).
[80] For recent expressions of these
notions, see, e.g., Romer v. Evans,
116 S. Ct. 1620, 1629 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting); United States v. Virginia, 116 S. Ct. 2264,
2292 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting);
Employment Division, Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494
U.S. 872 (1990) (“It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the
political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious
practices that are not widely engaged in; but that unavoidable consequence of
democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is
a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws
against the centrality of all religious beliefs.” Id.
at 890).
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