Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands , livre ebook

PERFORMING THE US LATINA AND LATINO BORDERLANDS
PERFORMING THE US LATINA LATINO BORDERLANDS
EDITED BY Arturo J. Aldama, Chela Sandoval, Peter J. Garc a
This book is a publication of
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2012 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Performing the US Latina and Latino borderlands / edited by Arturo J. Aldama, Chela Sandoval, and Peter J. Garc a. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-00295-2 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00574-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00877-0 (electronic book) 1. Hispanic Americans in the performing arts. 2. Hispanic Americans-Ethnic identity. I. Aldama, Arturo J., [date] II. Sandoval, Chela, [date] III. Garc a, Peter J. PN1590.H57P47 2012 790.20868-dc23
2012013047
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13 12
For Gloria Anzald a .
Her work, and her life, have given us the courage to embrace our borderland identities and to seek out a de-colonizing global justice .
We can transform our world by imagining it differently, dreaming it passionately via all our senses, and willing it into creation. As we think inspiring, positive, life-generating thoughts and embody these thoughts in every act we perform, we can gradually change the mood of our days, the habits of years, and the beliefs of a lifetime. . . .
Let s use art and imagination to discover how we feel and think and help us respond to the world. It is in nepantla that we write and make art, bearing witness to the attempt to achieve resolution and balance where there may be none in real life.
GLORIA ANZALD A
CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY ALICIA GASPAR DE ALBA
Introduction
Toward a De-Colonial Performatics of the US Latina and Latino Borderlands Chela Sandoval, Arturo J. Aldama, Peter J. Garc a
ACTO ONE
PERFORMING EMANCIPATION: INNER WORK, PUBLIC ACTS
1
Body as Codex-ized Word / Cuerpo Como Palabra (en-)C dice-ado: Chicana/Ind gena and Mexican Transnational Performative Indigeneities Micaela D az-S nchez
2
Milongueando Macha Homoerotics: Dancing the Tango, Torta Style (a Performative Testimonio) Maria Lugones
3
The Other Train That Derails Us: Performing Latina Anxiety Disorder in The Night before Christmas Angie Chabram-Dernersesian
4
The Art of Place: The Work of Diane Gamboa Karen Mary Davalos
5
Human Rights, Conditioned Choices, and Performance in Ana Castillo s Mixquihuala Letters Carl Guti rrez-Jones
6
Decolonizing Gender Performativity: A Thesis for Emancipation in Early Chicana Feminist Thought (1969-1979) Daphne V. Taylor-Garc a
ACTO TWO
ETHNOGRAPHIES OF PERFORMANCE: THE R O GRANDE AND BEYOND
7
Performing Indigeneity in a South Texas Community: Los Matachines de la Santa Cruz Norma E. Cant
8
Re-Membering Chelo Silva: The Bolero in Chicana Perspective (Women s Bodies and Voices in Postrevolutionary Urbanization: The Bohemian, Urban, and Transnational) Yolanda Broyles-Gonz lez
9
Roland Barthes, Mojado , in Brownface: Chisme -laced Snapshots Documenting the Preposterous and Fact-laced Claim That the Postmodern Was Born along the Borders of the R o Grande River William Anthony Nericcio
10
Decolonial Border Queers: Case Studies of Chicana/o Lesbians, Gay Men, and Transgender Folks in El Paso / Ju rez Emma P rez
11
Te Amo, Te Amo, Te Amo : Lorenzo Antonio and Sparx Performing Nuevo M xico Music Peter J. Garc a
12
Sonic Geographies and Anti-Border Musics: We Didn t Cross the Border, the Borders Crossed Us Roberto D. Hern ndez
13
Lila Downs s Borderless Performance: Transculturation and Musical Communication Brenda M. Romero
ACTO THREE
NEPANTLA AESTHETICS IN THE TRANS/NACIONAL
14
El Macho: How the Women of Teatro Luna Became Men Paloma Mart nez-Cruz Liza Ann Acosta
15
Suturing Las Ramblas to East LA: Transnational Performances of Josefina L pez s Real Women Have Curves Tiffany Ana L pez
16
Loving Revolution: Same-Sex Marriage and Queer Resistance in Monica Palacios s Amor y Revoluci n Marivel T. Danielson
17
Is Ugly Betty a Real Woman? Representations of Chicana Femininity Inscribed as a Site of (Transformative) Difference Jennifer Esposito
18
Indian Icon, Gay Macho: Felipe Rose of Village People Gabriel S. Estrada
ACTO FOUR
(DE)CRIMINALIZING BODIES: IRONIES OF PERFORMANCE
19
No Somos Criminales: Crossing Borders in Contemporary Latina and Latino Music Arturo J. Aldama
20
Pelones y Matones : Chicano Cholos Perform for a Punitive Audience Victor M. Rios Patrick Lopez-Aguado
21
Mexica Hip Hop: Male Expressive Culture Pancho McFarland
22
The Latino Comedy Project and Border Humor in Performance Jennifer Alvarez Dickinson
23
(Re)Examining the Latin Lover: Screening Chicano/ Latino Sexualities Daniel Enrique P rez
24
Rumba s Democratic Circle in the Age of Legal Simulacra Berta Jottar-Palenzuela

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX
THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF ALTER-NATIVE * LIBERATION: A FOREWORD
ALICIA GASPAR DE ALBA
Today I m performing some new identities: photographer, videographer, art assistant. I m helping the artist Alma Lopez (one of whose other identities is legally wedded wife of yours truly) with the biographical video that she s submitting to Season 2 of the Bravo Channel s Work of Art show, a reality contest like Top Chef or American Idol . She s already reached the third level, which requires that she produce a five-minute video about herself and her artistic process as well as a self-portrait that captures her essence, both due in a week. I snap dozens of pictures of her standing in the pose she has chosen for the portrait, a pose she calls guilty as charged, even though she doesn t do guilt and is twisting the term around to mean if you accuse me of loving women, I stand accused. In the studio, I document her every move as she selects the photo that will be the basis of her self-portrait and then Photoshops the image into a digital sketch that approximates her idea for this painting. Now she transfers the design onto a 3 4 canvas in phthalocyanine blue. As I stand behind her recording the first blue strokes of the brush, I see three Almas: the original, the Photoshop version, and the acrylic one emerging onto the white canvas. I am reminded of Aristotle s Poetics . Art is but an imitation of the original creation (or nature), which itself is but a simulation of the image in the mind of God. I am watching mimesis in action. God/Alma is creating the image/painting that is a representation of the idea/design in her mind.
If I analyze Alma s creative process utilizing the language of decolonizing performatics or performantics as delineated by the editors of Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands , I realize that what I am witnessing, what I am participant observing, is the enactment of creation at the margins of a marginalized community, as described in the introduction to this volume. But I am also watching, witnessing, and assisting in a methodology of the oppressed: artistic interventionism. Although painting isn t typically considered a performance art, Alma is engaging the technology of two-dimensional art-making specifically to intervene as a queer Chicana visual artist in an aesthetic/cultural space in which she has never seen herself reflected or represented. Thus, art-making can be considered one of the many designed interventionist actions that are designated to intercede on behalf of egalitarianism within any larger (cultural or aesthetic) performance, and function as a decolonizing performatic process meant to decolonize the Work of Art show for Chicana lesbians.
Writing this Foreword mano a mano while video-recording Alma s process extends this methodology even further. Not only is Alma enacting the process of artistic interventionism but also, together, we are engaged in a collaborative antic or adventure of performing creativity and chronicling our performativity. We re creating the story even as we watch the representation of the story unravel before our eyes, much as the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe unraveled before the skeptical eyes of her first witnesses. The need for creating, performing, and actively witnessing the de-colonizing perform-antics that energize the heart of Latina and Latino Borderland stories has never been more urgent, write the editors in their introduction. The very simultaneity of Alma s and my perform-antics mirrors the urgency of the stories encapsulated in this volume, which collectively seek to mediate colonial wounds in a transnational age. Stories about the music, dance, and theater of the Borderlands are interlaced with stories about other cultural performances of Latinidad that include sexuality and the erotic, binationality and bilingualism, queer indigeneity and