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COPYRIGHT 2006 Western States Communications Association
Bracketing hot-button topics such as immigration, affirmative action, or bilingual education, the instances in which Chicana/os, and broadly Latina/os, have been at the forefront of the public's consciousness are rare. In fact, throughout Crowding out Latinos: Mexican Americans in the Public Consciousness Portales (2000) goes so far as to argue that within American culture, be it in the media (particularly television) or in collections maintained by the Smithsonian, Chicana/os, or Mexican Americans, remain essentially absent from the American consciousness. More to the point, he notes that Chicana/os have endured a "negative presence" in the media. Portales emphasizes that television has ignored Chicana/os, and when they are represented negative stereotypes abound. Chicana/os' absence from television, especially as it circulates conceptions of "family," is significant for a variety of reasons. Not only does the viewing public remain ignorant of Chicana/o families, Chicana/os themselves are not "publicly represented as full-fledged Americans," and that is an injustice to current and future generations (Portales, p. 41). The denial of Chicana/os os as possessing an "American" identity is perhaps not surprising given that within the social imagination, and as supported by national history, "American" has become nearly synonymous with whiteness. [1] Extending these ideas are cultural changes [2] that were underway at the start of the millennium that underscore a certain ambivalence about changing U.S. demographics and about where Chicana/os fit within notions of "America."
Central to the formulation of an "American" identity is the family unit. Contemporary discourse about "family values" and debates about extending legal rights and protections to lesbians, gays, and transgendered and transsexual individuals points to a social concern with who and what constitutes "family." Implied in the family-values rhetoric is a sense that family is a site from which nations are built (R. Rodriguez, 2003) and national identities projected, because who is admitted or recognized conveys much about the nation and its cultural investments in "family." The reigning depiction of the family unit on television is patriarchal, white, nuclear, and gendered, and in particular privileges masculinity and subordinates of femininity.
The embodiment of masculinity in popular discourses reflects a white heterosexual male whose characteristics include being powerful, sexually aggressive, rational, and in control (Hanke, 1998b; Kimmel, 2001; Nakayama, 1994). This image, whether in television or film, is juxtaposed to men of color, whose masculinity is beset with negativity. In the case of Chicanos' masculinity, cinematic depictions show Chicano masculinity following a trajectory from conquistadores, Indians or bloodthirsty Aztecs, greasers or bandidos, Latin Lovers, and buffoons to gangbangers, each of which accord with specific historical movements (Fregoso, 1993, p. 30). The circulation of such negative images and stereotypes in cultural texts, as Delgado and Stefancic (1995) argue, are far from innocent. They are in fact functional because the images, while not viewed as negative by individuals within a particular time period, facilitate society accomplishing its goals (e.g., securing a labor force or going to war). Chicana/o cultural discourses, notably cinema (Fregoso, 1993) and recently rap music (Delgado, 2002), challenge the stereotypes of Chicano masculinity. These Chicana/o discourses offer constructions of resistive masculinities that convey not only a national identity but also an ethnic identity (G. Rodriguez, 2002a, 2002b). The performance of Chicano masculinity, however, gestures toward a cultural nationalistic sense of familia (family) that raises concerns about the patriarchal overtones plaguing the association of familia and nationalism (Fregoso, 2003a; Garcia, 1997).
Weighing in on existing cultural discourses about the position of Chicana/os within a national family is Resurrection Blvd. (hereafter RB), which offers a case study for pursuing the relationship between familia and Chicano masculinity. [3] To date it stands as one of the longest running Chicana/o-Latina/o drama shows in television history (Vazquez, 2000). Its reception is notable, given the support RB received from prominent Mexican American and media institutions and the awards bestowed on the show. RB portrays the Santiago familia, [4] the protagonists, and their dream for a world boxing championship. [5] In pursuit of the dream, the lives of each family member--composed of a widowed father, his five grown or nearly grown children, and his brother--are shared with viewers. Thematically, boxing emphasizes the representation of Chicano masculinity that is contextualized within la familia and conveyed through familiar mainstream archetypes such as the stoic male, the brooding silent type, the sensitive male, and the all-American male. The combination of archetypes and a culturally based depiction of familia encourage both mainstream and Chicana/o-Latina/o audience identification. More important, the show depicts Chicano masculinity as navigating through and against prevailing masculinities, in particular hypermasculinity and hegemonic masculinity, subsequently producing a syncretic masculinity of el simpatico boxer. In light of prior dominant depictions of Chicano masculinity, redefining the representation of Chicano masculinity assists in inscribing Chicana/os into the American consciousness.
The current analysis of Chicano masculinity rests on three seasons of RB, airing from 2000 to 2002, and on extant literature about familia and masculinity. Given the centrality of both tropes to this essay, I provide a separate section on each to frame the analysis. As not everyone may be familiar with RB, I discuss what media discourses have had to say about the television show, thus offering insight into its reception. Following this is an analysis that explores the contours of Chicano masculinity by explicating the qualities and actions supporting "el simpatico boxer."
Recuperating, Advocating, and (Re)Presenting Familia
Conceptually, familia exists on terrain that is ever shifting in relation to sociocultural conditions. Scholarly examinations of Chicana/os' and Mexican Americans' experiences suggest that interpretations of familia have been based on familial characteristics, aligned with cultural nationalism, and textually conveyed and critiqued. Each view emanates from distinctive perspectives that combined offer a conceptual understanding of familia as exceeding a blood-lineage-based view of family. The proceeding discussion is an overview of the literature to facilitate a cultural understanding of familia and frame the examination of masculinity as depicted in RB.
An "ideology of family" (Zavella, 1987) was the reigning view of Chicano families espoused by theorists who operated from acculturation and functionalist perspectives. They purported that Chicano families were male dominated, patriarchal, and maintained a gender-based family structure (Williams, 1990; Zavella, pp. 11-15). Traditional social science research historically blamed the structure of familia for whatever failures Mexican Americans and Chicana/os experienced (Gangotena, 1994, p. 73). At issue is the stabilization of meanings regarding family among Mexican Americans, as well as the suggestion that Chicana/os cannot adapt to changing conditions (Zavella). More to the point, Chicana/os were described as enmeshed in a "culture of poverty" (Fregoso, 2003a, p. 81). Challenging the prevailing views of Chicana/o families was sociological work that advanced a characteristics-based understanding of familia. Characteristics included varying degrees of egalitarian relations among marital couples, a strong emphasis on family solidarity and extended relations, affectionate and close bonds, and celebrations of life-cycle rituals (Coltrane and Valdez, 1997; Griswold del Castillo, 1984; Miranda, 1985; Williams; Zavella). [6] Fluctuations in the characteristics are attributed to processes of urbanization, industrialization, acculturation, and socioeconomic status (Miranda, 1985; Williams). Also posited are specific themes such as la persona's (the person's) spirit and qualities, and respect based on hierarchies of age and gender that constitute a "rhetoric of la familia," which offers Chicana/os a "common symbolic reality" from which to act (Gangotena, pp. 76-80). Inasmuch as Chicana/o familias were recuperated from a "culture of poverty," the result was "an uncritical celebration of the Chicano familia [sic] with a singular focus on only the 'positive"' (Fregoso, 2003a, p. 84).
Continuing the trend of a strong familia, especially as it aligned with cultural nationalism, was the Chicano movement. It was a multifaceted grassroots effort struggling for political, educational, territorial, and union rights during the 1960-1970s. Infusing the movement was its ideology of Chicanismo [7] that united Chicana/os and functioned as a key underpinning for constructions of Aztlan, identified as Chicana/os' homeland ("El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan," 1989). Chicana/os' familial bond was deepened further by references to "la raza'" or "mi raza." While literally translated as "the" or "my" race, respectively, raza symbolized a peoplehood and a sense of collectivity among Chicana/os that amounted to a culturally and nationalistically based familia. Carrying forward that vision of familia contemporarily is rap music. Chicano rappers reinvigorate Chicanismo by providing updated articulations of it, affirming Chicano identity, critiquing state-sanctioned power, and calling for community action (Delgado, 1998a). In spite of its own resistance to oppression, the nationalist familia promulgated in rap risks perpetuating the exclusions present in Chicano movement discourse (R.T. Rodriguez, 2003). In sum, the construction of familia in both discourses fostered a collective, yet exclusive, identity amongst Chicana/os.
Chicana feminists argued that the familia espoused during the Chicano movement maintained gender inequities in the private and public spheres, whereas Chicana lesbians offered strident critiques about the (hetero)sexism and homophobia pervading a cultural-nationalistic sense of familia (Garcia, 1997; Moraga, 1993; Segura & Pesquera, 1988-1990; C. Trujillo, 1991). Ideologically, Chicana lesbians unsettled a sense of familia within Chicana/o culture and the Chicano movement. For instance, C. Trujillo notes that Chicana lesbians' presence "disrupts" a status quo among Chicana/os in relation to issues of sexuality, identification, motherhood, and religion. The cultural marginalization of Chicana/o lesbians and gays, then, by default omits them from cultural views of familia, which is not to say without recourse or access to alternate familias. Rectifying the discursive marginalization of Chicana/o lesbians and gays is a spatial homeland, "queer Aztlan" (Moraga), which powerfully intervened in Chicano discourse that had conceived of Aztkin in heteromasculinist terms. Queer Aztkin invokes the ideas of nationalism and familialism familiar to Chicana/os yet also reflects a new sense of nationalism premised on the decolonization of Chicanas' bodies, the privileging of a queer subjectivity, and the elimination of heterosexism and homophobia. The visionary reflected in Moraga's queer Aztlan remains open ended and thus full of possibilities. Even so, its likelihood remains questionable [8] and subsequently leaves unclear where Chicana/o lesbians and gays fit within cultural conceptions of familia.
Finally, literary and film representations of familia underscore its limited, sometimes progressive, yet retrograde perspective that persists. Chicana authors, [9] in particular, remain at the forefront of (re)presenting familia in order to liberate Chicana/os from constrictive ideologies. They, through the production of literature, explore socioeconomic inequities, the intersections of race and ethnicity, gender, class, and the relations produced to call attention to the material conditions shaping the lives of Chicana/os. Also present are critiques of Catholicism and heterosexuality as they are inculcated by familia, which consequently circumscribes Chicanas' identities and subjectivities (Alarcon, 1987; Holling, 2000). Working in tandem with Chicana authors is recent scholarship that reimagines familia by identifying the practices of both a queer familia and home in which there is an emphasis on maintaining familia "under erasure" in order to subvert normative understandings that are oppressive (R. Rodriguez, 2003). In contrast, contemporary films produced within the...
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