Writing for a Real World

A multidisciplinary anthology by USF students

PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO DEPARTMENT OF RHETORIC AND LANGUAGE www.usfca.edu/wrw

Writing for a Real World (WRW) is published annually by the Department of Rhetoric and Language, College of Arts and Sciences, University of San Francisco.

WRW is governed by the Rhetoric and Language Publication Committee, chaired by Michael Rozendal. Members are: Brian Komei Dempster, Philip Hanson, David Holler, Michelle LaVigne, Ana Rojas, Michael Rozendal, and David Ryan.

Writing for a Real World: 13th edition © 2016

The opinions stated herein are those of the authors. Authors retain copyright for their individual work. Essays include bibliographical references. The format and practice of documenting sources are determined by each writer. Writers are responsible for validating and citing their research.

Cover image “Epidermis” was painted by Taylor Smalls. © Taylor Smalls Reproduction courtesy of Taylor Smalls See more at taylorsmalls.com

Printer: BR Printing, San Jose, Calif.

Thanks to James Barrios and Matt Bonnett To get involved as a referee, serve on the publication committee, obtain back print issues, or to learn about submitting to WRW, please contact David Holler . Back issues are now available online via Gleeson Library’s Digital Collections.

For all other inquiries:

Writing for a Real World University of San Francisco Kalmanovitz Hall, Rm. 202 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117

Fair Use Statement: Writing for a Real World is an educational journal whose mission is to showcase the best undergraduate writing at the University of San Francisco. Student work often contextualizes and recontextualizes the work of others within the scope of course-related assignments. WRW presents these articles with the specifi c objective of advancing an understanding of academic knowledge, scholarship, and research. We believe that this context constitutes a “fair use” of copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material herein is made available by WRW without profi t to those students and faculty who are interested in receiving this information for research, scholarship, and educational purposes. Writing for a Real World

Issue Thirteen 2014–2015

EDITOR David Holler

EXECUTIVE EDITOR David Ryan

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Cathrin Jacob

SENIOR COPY EDITORS Ben Brandenburg Jenna Douvikas Allys Nu Ton

COPY EDITORS Elizabeth Angarola Miles Bierylo Jonah Dorrance Maggie Hazard Shelby Lueders Paula Mirando Natalia Rocco

COVER DESIGN Cathrin Jacob

PROGRAM ASSISTANT Sara Veeraswami

4 JOURNAL REFEREES

Paula Birnbaum, Art + Architecture Brian Komei Dempster, Rhetoric and Language Leslie Dennen, Rhetoric and Language Doreen Ewert, Rhetoric and Language Cathy Gabor, Rhetoric and Language Philip Hanson, Rhetoric and Language David Holler, Rhetoric and Language Devon Christina Holmes, Rhetoric and Language Jonathan Hunt, Rhetoric and Language Michelle LaVigne, Rhetoric and Language Genevieve Leung, Rhetoric and Language Tom Lugo, Rhetoric and Language Catherine Lusheck, Art + Architecture Theodore Matula, Rhetoric and Language Giovanni Meloni, Chemistry Ana Rojas, English Michael Rozendal, Rhetoric and Language David Ryan, Rhetoric and Language Carol Spector, Gleeson Library Stephanie Vandrick, Rhetoric and Language

5 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Table of Contents

DAVID HOLLER Editor’s Introduction 8

Honorable Mentions 14

CLARISA JANSSENS Resisting Patriarchy Through Maternal Love and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Sula 17

AUBREE MLADENOVIC In the Eye of the Beholder: The Face of Il Gesù 40

GRACE BERG Girls Like Us 59

SUSANNA BASAPPA Cobalamin as a “Trojan Horse” for Targeted Delivery of Chemotherapeutics 74

BRITTANY TINALIGA “Omo, oppa! I saranghae you so much! Fighting!”: Unpacking the Korean-Pop Fandom Language 89

6 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

VALERIA VERA Migrant Women’s Experiences of Abuse in U.S. Detention: A Self-Narrative Gendered Critique of U.S. Immigration Detention Policies and Practices 124

MADELINE WARNER Modes of Visual Communication: The Role of Wari Featherworks in Constructing an Iconography of a Ruler 154

AMBER FLOYD A “Dream” Deferred: An Exploration of the Scarlet Title “Undocumented” 180

ELIZABETH FRAY Relational Dialectics and Management Strategies Between Blue-Collar Parents and Adult Children on Divergent Career Paths 191

Issue Fourteen Submissions Information 212

7 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Editor’s Introduction

E DEDICATE this thirteenth issue of Writing for a Real World to a Wrecently departed friend of this journal, Rev. Michael Kotlanger, S.J. As Tyrone Cannon, dean of university libraries, wrote recently, “Fr. Kotlanger was very dedicated to his work as the university’s archivist. His dedication was underscored by his being a virtual fountain of USF history and his never-ending enthusiasm and wonderful stories about the university and Gleeson Library. A question presented to him would usually result in a marvelous tapestry of information. His work support- ed countless individuals who needed information about USF, including alumni, researchers from around the world, and colleagues on campus.” Indeed, no one knew more about the history of research and creative work published by USF students than Fr. Kotlanger. I recall planning to see him in the Archives for a few minutes, only to spend much of an afternoon with him, pulling interesting student publications from the shelves in the Archives. The experience did indeed result in a marvelous tapestry of information and insight, and I know I am not alone in saying that he will be missed at USF.

Notes on the Selection and Publication Process

This issue is the result of a rather competitive selections process. Each year the WRW publication committee issues a call for students to submit their top two papers in May. More than twenty faculty and librarian readers, in service to the university, then spend at least two weeks anonymously scoring the work. All reviewers agree to recuse themselves if they recognize their own students’ work. Everything here in print—and every honorable mention—received high marks from at least four reviewers. From our many submissions this year we selected nine works. Notifi cations were issued in June, after which the authors were invited to revise and polish their work before resubmitting manuscripts in August. Student copyeditors in my RHET 325/ENGL 325 course then took over in September and helped lay out and revise every page of this book throughout the fall. To my staff of ace copyeditors who pored over every sentence you’re about to read, I owe a great debt. They truly helped professionalize this book.

8 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Notes on This Year’s Publications

First and foremost, we congratulate Clarisa Janssens, winner of the Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J., Award for Eloquentia Perfecta for her top-scoring entry, “Resisting Patriarchy Through Maternal Love and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Sula.” Written for Professor Christina Garcia Lopez’s English literature capstone course, Clarisa’s piece offers an insightful and poignant lens on one of Morrison’s masterpieces. Clarisa’s blend of strong research and personal insights exemplify what is best in essays of this kind, and I hope that her work will serve as a model for others who are just now beginning to work on capstone essays in the English Department. Following Clarisa’s piece we present Aubree Mladenovic’s outstand- ing art history investigation, “In the Eye of the Beholder: The Face of Il Gesù.” Written for Professor Kate Lusheck’s class, Aubree’s research offers a fascinating physiognomic hermeneutic on one of Rome’s most interesting Post-Tridentine churches. Next we offer “Girls Like Us,” a powerful and poignant essay by Grace Berg. Written for Professor Brian Komei Dempster’s Written and Oral Communication course, this exploration of Grace’s journey is one of the most compelling essays I’ve seen in years. (Grace, incidentally, delivered an incredibly powerful speech at last year’s Speaker Showcase.) Following Grace’s piece is Susanna Basappa’s Chemistry term paper, “Cobalamin as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Targeted Delivery of Chemotherapeutics,” written for Professor Jeff Curtis. Susanna, now pursuing an MD/PhD at the Mayo Clinic, makes plain (even to a non- scientist such as myself) the cancer-research potential of cobalamin (which is form of Vitamin B12). Moving from Chemistry to Communication Studies, we are also proud to print Brittany Tinaliga’s provocatively titled research, “ ‘Omo, oppa! I saranghae you so much! Fighting!’: Unpacking the Korean-Pop Fandom Language.” Her research offers fascinating insights into the function of K-pop lingo and the perceived appropriateness of its use in various contexts. Our sixth essay, “Migrant Women’s Experiences of Abuse in U.S. Detention: A Self-Narrative Gendered Critique of U.S. Immigration De- tention Policies and Practices,” by Valeria Vera is surely essential reading

9 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

for anyone interested in correcting certain abhorrent detention practices on the U.S.-Mexico border. Valeria’s research was co-winner of this year’s Ralph Lane Award. After reading her work, written as an honors thesis for Professor John Zarobell’s International Studies class, you’ll see why she earned these accolades. Next we offer Madeline Warner’s important contribution to the study of Wari culture, which she begins to reconstruct, to a great degree, by closely examining a feathered tabard that was displayed at the nearby de Young Museum. “Modes of Visual Communication: The Role of Wari Featherworks in Constructing an Iconography of a Ruler,” written for Professor Emily Breault’s Art + Architecture course, is actually Madeline’s second outstanding publication in the three most recent issues of WRW. Amber Floyd, an alum of the Martín-Baró Scholars Program which I direct (whose work I’m pleased to say was selected by four other faculty reviewers), wrote our next excellent piece, “A ‘Dream’ Deferred: An Ex- ploration of the Scarlet Title ‘Undocumented.’ ” This essay makes strong use of an interview Amber conducted with an undocumented friend, whose struggles, despite a 4.0+ GPA, are outlined in Amber’s powerful appeal to enact the Dream Act. Finally (and I long for a fresher way to sincerely convey, “Last but certainly not least”), we conclude with very interesting research con- ducted by Elizabeth Fray. Written for Communication Studies Profes- sor Allison Thorson, “Relational Dialectics and Management Strategies Between Blue-Collar Parents and Adult Children on Divergent Career Paths,” contributes powerfully to family communication scholarship.

Our Gratitude

To bring Writing for a Real World to fruition both as a book and as an annual celebration of student writing requires an enormous collaborative effort. People at every level of the university are involved—from the dozens of students who submitted papers, to the 20 faculty members and librarians who judged manuscripts, to the 10 student copyeditors who created and pored over all the layouts, to the valuable behind-the- scenes work of the WRW Publication Committee members and our program assistants, to the presentations of our inspiring guest speakers

10 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

at our ceremonies, to the fi ne work of our tech support crew who have enabled us to accept online submissions, and to the Deans who have enthusiastically supported our efforts—this project could not be what it is without multivalenced support. I thank you all for rallying behind this project with such enthusiasm. Let me name here a number of our valued allies and supporters. We are, fi rst of all, deeply grateful to Provost Jim Wiser, who supported this project from its inception many years ago, and of course to former Provost Jennifer Turpin who championed the project as well. We also thank Marcelo Camperi, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Eileen Fung, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences—both of whom continue to back this project with unwavering enthusiasm. I also thank my class of eagle-eyed student copyeditors whose names are listed prominently on our masthead for their detailed review of manuscripts and layout of the journal. Our Fall 2015 course was devoted to carefully preparing this book, as indeed any book of this kind deserves. Their professionalism in handling matters was truly impressive. And making those layouts possible through the acquisition of the very latest version of InDesign, I would like to thank John Bansavich, Director of the Center for Instruction and Technology (CIT), who has provided more than just tech support for this journal for the last several years. John has also been instrumental in securing us plenty of lab time to devote to making this book a reality. And speaking of serious tech support, I’d also like to thank Alexey Fedosov for helping us streamline our submissions process by creating an online review portal for students and editors. This innovation helped us make a quantum leap, not only in terms of our effi ciency in reviewing, it will also, we’re certain, pay off in terms of increased submissions in the future. Thank you again, Alexey. I’d also like to thank Taylor Smalls, whose haunting image graces our cover. Taylor, whose work I fi rst encountered in a student exhibition at the Thacher Gallery at USF, has generously allowed us to reprint her work. Clearly, as you’ll see if you go to her webpage, www.taylorsmalls. com, Taylor is creating outstanding images. We also gratefully acknowledge the important work of Digital Collections Librarian Zheng Lu who spearheaded digitizing WRW—

11 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

making this, and every issue, available for future researchers. A special salute goes to Sara Veeraswami, program assistant for the Department of Rhetoric and Language, who deserves special praise for helping us with publication, publicity, distribution, and ceremony details. Many thanks of course go to John Pinelli and Dan Dao for helping us pay the bills. I’d also like to underscore my thanks to all 20 of our journal referees who spent many collective hours reviewing the research that ultimately ends up in WRW. As the saying goes: “Many hands make light work”— but the fact that so many people rallied to carefully review so many manuscripts while also grading fi nal papers and resisting the siren song of summer, well, that effort demonstrates the real camaraderie to be found here at USF—and—the genuine devotion to honoring student work, as we have done now in various forms for virtually one century. Our deepest thanks, of course, are reserved for those students who submitted their work. As our Honorable Mentions list illustrates on the following pages, we received many more fi ne papers than we were able to publish. Congratulations go to all those who earned honorable mention, and especially to those students whose work we hope you will now read. — David Holler, Editor

12 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Honorable Mentions

ANTHONY ARNONE “Preserving the Past and Personality in Nabokov’s Ada and Speak, Memory” Written for Senior Seminar in Literature Tracy Seeley, English

JULIA BALLENGER “Divine Sight: Shared Visions and the Birth of the Medieval Pietà” Written for Medieval Art and Society (de Young Research Symposium) Catherine Lusheck, Art + Architecture

MARISOL BEAULAC “Nikki Giovanni’s Missing Voice: The Past and Present Resistance of Social Control” Written for Senior Seminar in English Christina Garcia Lopez, English

MILES BIERYLO “Music as Resistance: The Rhetoric of Afrobeat” Written for Rhetoric 195 Michael Rozendal, Rhetoric and Language

BLAKE GREGOR “Communication of LGBT Identities After the Move from a Conservative to Liberal Area” Written for Qualitative Methods Brandi Lawless, Communication Studies

NICHOLAS MACKER “Prisoners’ Rights and Solitary Confi nement” Written for Sociology of Human Rights Heather Hoag, History

SUSANNA McINTYRE “I didn’t choose the Thug Life, the Thug Life chose me: A criticism of the media’s coverage of the uprising in Baltimore” Written for Rhetoric 131 Brian Komei Dempster, Rhetoric and Langauge

13

This issue is dedicated to the memory of Fr. Michael Kotlanger, S.J., (1946-2015), whose contributions to USF were invaluable

CLARISA JANSSENS

CLARISA JANSSENS

Resisting Patriarchy Through Maternal Love and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Sula

Clarisa Janssens, class of 2015, graduated with a degree in English. This essay won USF’s Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J., Award for Eloquentia Perfecta.

17 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

WRITER’S COMMENTS

Nothing catapulted me into the frontier of sexism and gendered expecta- tions like pregnancy and motherhood. Thus, it would be accurate to say that my research began with the unexpected news of my pregnancy. I im- mediately found myself circling between the exhaustively confl icting emo- tions that I discuss so heavily in my paper: joy, despair, fear, and anticipation. However, as I searched for support from community I found my negative emotions constantly censored. There is no tolerance in mainstream society for the mother who experiences any form of negativity regarding mater- nity, regardless of what form that emotion may take. It was that moment of silencing that made me ask—is it wrong for a mother to feel negativity, regret, and sadness regarding maternity? Aren’t these emotions just as im- portant as archetypical maternal love? And if so, what are we depriving our children of when we deny the existence of negative maternal emotion? I found these questions marvelously explored in Toni Morrison’s Sula, where we can observe and examine the pathology of dominant motherhood in the generations of characters who are simultaneously born and destroyed within the culture of singular motherhood. —Clarisa Janssens

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Clarisa Janssens produces a work of startling accomplishment in her thesis, “Resisting Patriarchy through Maternal Love and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Sula.” She expertly attunes her attention to maternal duality, linking ancient mother-goddesses of creation and destruction with Mor- rison’s historically infl ected work, as well as with timely contemporary contexts. Her observations about the text’s resistance to binary mother- hood are paired with cogent refl ections on the confl ict this created in readers wavering between judgement and empathy. The critical conscious- ness that Clarisa argues may emerge from a permeated model of an ultimately “ethically violent” motherhood reveals insightful awareness of Morrison’s writerly strategies. In particular, the careful contextualization of the historical and economic commodifi cation of black women’s bodies, and the exclusion of these bodies from social protections highlights Sula’s embedded representations of trauma and “maternal resistance” to patri- archy. Clearly, Clarisa is a scholar of extraordinary talent and perception, as she eloquently demonstrates in this thesis. —Christina Garcia Lopez, Department of English

18 CLARISA JANSSENS

Resisting Patriarchy Through Maternal Love and Violence in Toni Morrison’s Sula

HE ROMANTICIZING of maternal love is not new: from Ancient Greece’s TGaia, to Ancient Aztec’s Coatlicue, and Christianity’s Virgin Mary. These mother goddesses and their myths reveal that maternal affection has been cross-culturally regarded as one of the most powerful and un- wavering tenets of love—maternal love persists despite the exhausting weight of responsibility. While all three religions worship motherhood’s redemptive nature, only Ancient Aztec and Greek paganism appreciated the mother’s ability to destroy as central to her power. Unsurprisingly, as Christian empires turned violently imperialistic, goddesses embodying ma- ternal dualities were destroyed in favor of the Virgin Mary, whose pious and self-sacrifi cing image was deeply infl uenced by the weight of Eve’s original sin. This image of the selfl ess and content mother with her well- adjusted and successful children continues to permeate today’s collective cognition. As such, societal expectations demand religious adherence to an idealized motherhood despite its inherent unreachability. Even more troubling is that these conventions create misled heu- ristics through which greater society—and to a lesser extent—women themselves, control the trajectory of maternal experience. These harm- ful fi lters color our judgment and evaluation of a mother’s experiential and emotional life. This perspective determines what society considers authentic motherhood; and categorizing motherhood based on authen- ticity, excludes the existence of a variety of experiences and emotions. For example, a woman who longs for her past, who regrets sacrifi cing her career, or who expresses negative emotions towards her children, is either deemed insuffi cient or abnormal. The danger in failing to include motherhood’s multifaceted nature into popular collective discourse, and by extension cognition, is that culture then fails to rationalize and cope with the inevitable complex emotions involved in the mother-child rela- tionship. Perhaps more sinister is when the mother encounters parental obstacles, the haunting ideal causes shame, anxiety, and even rage—all of which are inherited by her children. This tension between the ideal family and motherhood versus its in- compatibility with reality is deeply explored in Toni Morrison’s Sula, where

19 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

the novel’s atypical mother-child relationships critique dominant culture’s model of maternal love. In Sula, mothers are subject to immense histori- cal and societal marginalization that often results in tragedy; as such, the realities of maternal aggression and fi licide do not neatly fi t into simplifi ed binaries of good and bad. The maternal fi gures in Sula simultaneously act as both the powerhouse and the demolition-site through which their children’s lives are created and destroyed. Popular culture frowns upon the concept of the mother as a destroyer; however, in rearing children, every parent engages in a cycle of creation and destruction. We create the social norms we want our children to obey, and in enforcing these boundaries we destroy socially unacceptable behaviors. Specifi cally, Sula features mothers who, in their attempt to raise chil- dren while dealing with insurmountable socio-economic undercurrents, commit acts that leave the reader confl icted with judgment and empathy. Set directly after the Emancipation Proclamation in nineteenth-century Ohio, Sula focuses its narrative on African-American women’s struggle for agency and authenticity within a system that profi ts from their op- pression. The novel’s plot centers around a triadic structure of women: Eva, Hannah, and Sula Peace. Eva, abandoned by her husband, sacrifi ces her leg for income. When her son is destroyed by war and drugs, she saves him the only way she knows how —by killing him. Eva’s daughter Hannah, a widow, survives by maintaining her mother’s house and her only relief comes from a constant staccato of sexual affairs. And fi nally Sula, Hannah’s daughter, is a girl catapulted into womanhood and de- fi ned by her mother’s rejection. All women in Sula’s family are unmarried and have no access to resources, yet must still raise children and provide for them. As such, it would be unreasonable to hold them responsible for the dominant ideal. Their immensely complex and diffi cult lives make it impossible to fi t them into the socially preferred binaries of good and bad. Fur- thermore, the complex interaction of motherhood, culture, and social circumstance in Sula creates cultural work. By featuring characters that cannot adhere to the dominant ideal and writing their experience in such a way that the reader cannot pass judgment without considering other factors, Morrison creates a space to critique and question the previously impermeable model of motherhood.

20 CLARISA JANSSENS

The Cult of Domesticity, Womanhood, and Maternal Experience

In order to understand how dominant culture informs Morrison’s nar- rative, readers must fi rst examine the conditions that polarize woman- hood and maternity. Then they must consider the resulting infl uence of these conditions on African-American community and culture of this time. While patriarchal discourse concerning women and mothers has existed throughout history, slave-holding antebellum America experi- enced a particular urgency for codifi ed gender roles with the rise of the Cult of Domesticity, or True Womanhood. Marci Littlefi eld looks at the effects of the industrialization of the West through the lens of black women. America saw an unfortunate transition from a “family-based social system to a market-based social system that ultimately under- mined [women’s value]” (Littlefi eld 54). In response to this, Susan Far- rell discusses how women’s previously valuable contributions to strenu- ous farming and crop management were deemed inferior, and were thus replaced by an entirely domestic and private role defi ned solely through motherhood (Farrell 141). Certainly sexism and gender roles were present before this time, but patriarchal slaveholding America was economically and socially de- pendent on its “pious, pure, submissive, and domestic” women (Little- fi eld 54). Paula Gallant Eckard asserts that historically speaking, black and white women were unifi ed by the roles that “were clearly defi ned for them in the plantation system … it was in the realm of sexual- ity and motherhood that patriarchy delivered the most oppression … both women’s bodies were the terrain upon which the southern patri- archy was erected” (14). A woman’s body proved valuable to society for its reproductive functions explicitly because her progeny renewed white southern families on one hand, and the system of slavery on the other. As a result, both were forced to “endure repeated childbearing expressly for the benefi t and support of the patriarchy” (Eckard 12). While Eckard’s observation of historical unity between black and white women seems to serve as an attempt to unite contemporary women to- day, it raises a contentious question that needs answering. If the direct female descendants of Old Southern patriarchy are already sexually, biologically, and spiritually harmed by the silencing of their voices and

21 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

bodies, then what kind of ethical violence can the reader imagine is imposed on poor women of color? In antebellum America, white women were awarded a sense of political importance and autonomy through their role as breeders and “inculcators” of patriarchal ideals as shown in Marilyn Francus’ book Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth Century Culture and the Ideology of Domes- ticity (3). Black women, however, were excluded from the domesticity codes because of their role as a physical and sexual commodity. They were not seen as “true women” capable of virtue, modesty, and piety (Littlefi eld 54). Thus they were denied what little prestige and protec- tion domesticity had to offer women. Shirley Yee similarly claims that black women’s sexuality only “performed a further service as breed- ers for the slaveholding community,” subjecting them to gross sexual violation by their white male slaveholders—either through rape or forced marriage (41). Moreover, it is their perceived commodifi cation and sexual availability that compelled white women to engage in the subjugation of black women. In attempt to preserve this distinction between the other and the self, and to avoid the reality of their own vic- timization, “white women blamed [black women] for initiating sexual relations with men and, as a result, portrayed [them] as [hypersexual]” (Yee 43). This hypersexualization contributes to oppression long after the Emancipation Proclamation. Repeated rape and forced marriage between slaves and slave owners had an inevitable consequence: motherhood. The resulting abundance of mixed-race children on plantation property compelled lawmakers to absolve white fathers of paternal responsibility and deny the child’s ac- cess to his status and estate. Children born to a slave mother and white father were to inherit the mother’s subhuman status according to Ruth Feldstein (33). For black women, motherhood became a “central and compelling experience … much of female slavery was connected with bearing, nourishing, and rearing children whom slaveholders needed for the continual replenishment of their labor force” (Eckard 14–19). Consequently, “because slaveholders often bought, sold, and traded slaves, the threat of maternal separation was constant, and as a result, maternal resistance was common” (Littlefi eld 57). Maternal resistance is defi ned as any act that seeks to repel or buffer the effects of patriar- chal dominance. There were four common acts of maternal resistance:

22 CLARISA JANSSENS

social revolts, communal mothering or “othermothering,” refusal to accept sexual exploitation regardless of the consequence, and abortion and infanticide (Littlefi eld 57).

Perpetuating Maternal Silence Through Child-Centric or Apologetic Academic Discourse

Sula’s characters are undeniably shaped by their traumatic histories. The acts of maternal resistance that were born in the plantation fi elds were inherited by future generations, and served as an attempt to not only re- sist patriarchy, but to restore maternal voice and identity. These historical events provide readers with the opportunity to examine patriarchal soci- ety and its effects on women of color. However, literary scholarship of- ten fails to adequately critique patriarchy in Sula in two ways. First, many writers engage in mother-blame and child-centric readings. Second, the desire to justify and absolve motherhood and maternal violence from criticism creates apologetic discourse that fails to recognize patriarchy’s pervasiveness. Although each of the mothers in Sula has deviated from the domi- nant ideal, the scene that surprisingly garners the most contempt and disgust is Hannah’s assertion that she loves, but dislikes her daughter. Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi condemns Hannah’s idea of maternal love, blaming her for “Sula’s insecurity and consequent neurosis … [that] stem from her unstable relationship with her mother. [Hannah’s] fl ippant denials of her daughter … are crucial events in Sula’s life” (130). Despite Ogunyemi’s attempt to critique white supremacist patriarchy in Sula, he ironically engages in patriarchal discourse by silencing and invalidating Hannah’s voice because of her refusal to adhere to the dominant ideal of motherhood. Reading the scene with a daughter-centric perspective, Ogunyemi neglects to question why the mother dislikes her daughter at this point in time—the reasons could be puberty, stubbornness, disobe- dience, or quite simply an irreconcilable personality difference (135). As Hannah states, mothers and their children are “different people” (Morri- son 57). If in public life, women can be exclusionary with their approval and love, then why is Hannah—and by extension all mothers—denied this right? Mothers are the terrain on which patriarchy erects its empires

23 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

(Eckard 14). Patriarchal society demands the erasure of maternal indi- vidualism and identity in order to provide unrelenting maternal love, approval, and appropriate enculturation. This results in an ethically vio- lent dependency in the mother-child relationship—one cannot form an identity without the other. Another pivotal scene occurs when Hannah’s mother, Eva, decides to kill her son, Plum, in a tragic attempt to save him from drug addic- tion. Barbara Lounsberry and Grace Ann Hovet also responds to this event through child-centric fi lters. While the critics acknowledge the role of social discrimination in Plum’s drug addiction, they explicitly claim Morrison’s intent to illustrate that the “diminishment of the black male may be caused by excessive mothering by both black wives and mothers” (128). This type of mother-blame is the very kind of engendered dis- course that prevents social progress. Instead of fi rst looking at the op- pressive social factors that cause the “diminishment of the black male,” for fear of what such thinking may reveal about our own realities, these critics immediately resort to mother-blaming. Similar to the critique of Ogunyemi’s work, Lounsberry and Hovet show the pervasiveness of pa- triarchal discourse. Furthermore, they reveal the haunting truth that is so often echoed through Sula’s narrative: women often are the transmitters of racist and sexist thought (128). In contrast to Ogunyemi (as well as Lounsberry and Hovet), author Andrea O’Reilly defends Sula’s women in her piece Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart by asserting that:

Loved and proud African-American selfhood depends upon connecting to the motherline, keeping the values of the [motherline] intact, and receiving the motherlove that fosters self-love. Sons, however, more so than daughters, are required to separate from their mothers and the motherline to assume their normal masculine identity. Plum’s death is a critique of this patriarchal imperative. Likewise, the murder of her son represents one mother’s refusal to give up her son to patri- archy. Eva, recognizing that neither her nurturance nor the motherline can save Plum, kills him in order to save him. (158)

24 CLARISA JANSSENS

Here O’Reilly is on the right path; however, she is too apologetic and misses some important nuances in Morrison’s narrative. She is correct in claiming that Plum’s murder can be, and should be, interpreted as maternal resistance. Specifi cally, his death is a mother’s poignant refusal to raise another useless black man, to adhere to the stereotype that ma- ternal households are pathological ones, and to see her son succumb to heroin addiction that resulted from class and racial warfare. That being said, O’Reilly is too eager to absolve Eva from wrongdoing and misses a crucially important point. Eva, with all her strength and fi ght, fails to resist patriarchal imperialism. Her values are still informed by domestic- ity and by antebellum ideals. Eva kills her son because of his failure to adhere to dominant masculinity and to save herself from the terrifying shame of maternal failure.

Eva: Survival and Reparation Through Maternal Sacrifi ce and Violence

Aesthetics and morality both operate at a surface level, even when Sula is fi lled with maternal anomalies. Morrison addresses the racial discourse implicit in dominant culture’s motherhood by intertwining her charac- ters’ lives with the risks of enforcing a universal static concept of moth- erhood in a diverse and dynamic world. On one hand, these mothers’ actions and words are easily classifi ed as reprehensible. On the other hand, the conditions that birthed the very acts and words leave the read- er oscillating between sympathy, bemusement, and terror. How, then, should the reader determine the narrative’s maternal ethics, if Morrison is constantly moving from a state of empathy to one of judgment? Axel Nissen frames the “interpretive struggle” as “ethical work” (265). He embeds this within the “debate as to whether individual experience or general ethical principles are the sounder basis for personal ethics” (265). However, the term “personal ethics” implies a unique individual opinion that cannot exist without a varied experiential history. If this variation applies to members of the same community, what happens when we be- gin to look at minority communities whose ancestral knowledge differs greatly from dominant culture? According to Naomi Morgenstern, Morrison explores the wilder-

25 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

ness of ethics in her novel with maternal representations that both combat patriarchal motherhood and depicts the harmful effects of a racially and sexually imperialistic society (8). Morrison’s narrative in- vestigates the relationship between individually determined ethics and “interpretive struggle” primarily though Eva, who loves and hates, sac- rifi ces and takes, resists and succumbs, and succeeds and fails simulta- neously throughout the novel (Nissen 265). Before Eva is introduced as the sacrifi cer, Morrison painstakingly details Eva’s early maternal life and personal sacrifi ces with the example of Eva’s husband, BoyBoy, abandoning the family: “Eva had $1.65, fi ve eggs, three beets, and no idea of what or how to feel” (Morrison 32). Eva’s retrospective narra- tive purposefully serves as an important fi lter through which readers must view Plum’s early life and death as troublesome:

Sometime before the middle of December, the baby, Plum, stopped having bowel movements … He seemed in great pain and his shrieks were pitched high in outrage and suffer- ing … she resolved to end his misery once and for all. She wrapped him in blankets, ran her fi nger around the crevices and sides of the lard can and stumbled to the outhouse with him. Deep in its darkness and freezing stench she squatted down, turned the baby over on her knees, exposed his but- tocks and shoved the last bit of food she had in the world (besides three beets) up his ass. Softening the insertion with the dab of lard, she probed with her middle fi nger to loosen his bowels. Her fi ngernail snagged what felt like a pebble; she pulled it out and others followed. (Morrison 33-34)

In this scene, Eva’s body becomes the “central metaphor of love and sac- rifi ce” that adds “mythic and inverted dimensions to the maternal” (Eck- ard 53). The fact that Eva’s fi rst story ties her to this great act of maternal sacrifi ce leaves her harshest critics such as Lounsberry and Hovet vulner- able. Why preface fi licide with such lengthy and humanizing retrospec- tive narratives if readers are to blatantly condemn or blame Eva? After all, Eva did not need to use the “last bit of food she had in this world” to “[soften] the insertion” of her fi nger (Morrison 34). She was thrown into desolate poverty by her husband, the provider, who is required to fulfi ll

26 CLARISA JANSSENS

dominant motherhood; most importantly, was left with three mouths to feed, not including her own. Already in this situation, while it would be diffi cult to accept infanticide with ease, it would be understandable for a mother with no medical knowledge to spare her remaining children from starvation. Instead, Eva used what little food she had left to provide her son of minor comfort and dignity that she could afford in her unforgiv- ing world. Carolyn Jones critiques this sacrifi ce as problematizing Eva’s characterization as a “woman wholly concerned with self ” (98). Eva em- bodies the maternal ideals patriarchy glorifi es in perverse and human- izing clarity. Eva is a mother who, among many things, places her child’s comfort above her own needs. Despite confi rming the incredulous nature of maternal love, it is important to note that Morrison is not affi rming patriarchal mother- hood. Instead, she depicts maternal love and sacrifi ce against the re- alities of marginalization. Specifi cally, Eva’s act of maternal sacrifi ce cannot be aestheticized or idealized for important reasons. Set in the brutal cold, Eva is surrounded by human excrement and is forced to penetrate her infant to save his life. By paralleling bodily waste with maternal sacrifi ce, Morrison breaks down any possible aestheticization or romanticization that is typically associated with motherhood. She exposes the terrifyingly dehumanizing injustices and conditions forced upon underprivileged mothers of color. The maternal body in Sula is not only the ground in which life originates and develops, but it is also the terrain that her children’s sur- vival depends upon. Eva’s fi nal and successful attempt at securing her children’s survival entails the sacrifi ce of her leg, resulting in a $10,000 award. Eva’s maternal bodily sacrifi ce is again shown, but instead of sacrifi cing the last of her resources, it now involves the voluntary am- putation of her leg for fi nancial security—comfort that was almost never afforded to black women and their communities during this pe- riod. Although Eva’s sacrifi ce secures her family’s fi nancial wellbeing, it is still a gamble. Sacrifi cing her limb is an incredibly isolating deci- sion, should Eva need access to additional funds, and she has restricted herself to any income-generating work available to black women at the time. Eva also isolates herself from her community; she becomes asexualized, idealized, and commoditized by her sacrifi ce. Despite her age and legless fi gure:

27 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

Eva had a regular fl ock of gentleman callers, and although she did not participate in the act of love, there was a good deal of teasing and pecking and laughter. The men wanted to see her lovely calf, that neat shoe … They wanted to see the joy in her face as they settled down to play checkers, know- ing that even when she beat them, as she almost always did, somehow, in her presence, it was they who had won some- thing. (Morrison 41)

Much like the archetypal mother who is asexualized in patriarchal dis- course, Eva is stripped from accessing her sexual and individual self. She serves to provide an empowering and maternal presence to the town’s black men. In turn, precisely because of Eva’s sacrifi ce and fi nancial in- dependence, her maternal voice is silenced. During these meetings with her gentleman callers, her remaining leg is aestheticized like her mater- nal sacrifi ce. While fi nding beauty in a socially undesired body is an act of patriarchal resistance itself, Eva’s missing leg is a physical symbol of the intersection of two issues: maternal sacrifi ce and racial sexual dis- crimination. These issues transform into a prosthetic of sorts for Eva. The spiritual and body fragmentation that is endured by the town’s black mothers is constantly implied by the absence of Eva’s leg. Nevertheless, the “gentlemen callers” are unable to cope with the reality that led Eva to this jarring sacrifi ce, as it suggests their involvement in black wom- en’s oppression. This leads to a fi xation on Eva’s remaining leg, which is ethically violent in itself by actively demanding aestheticized mother- hood—ignoring the dismembered maternal body, and thus silencing the maternal voice. However, Eva is not always depicted as the self-sacrifi cing and caring maternal fi gure, and the fi rst act of maternal transgression in the novel is Eva’s decision to kill Plum in order to release him from drug addiction. Motherhood is a duality and Morrison intersects Eva’s frightening bodily sacrifi ces with fi licide. Filicide, the act of killing one’s child, is a jarring and reprehensible act; yet, when it is intertwined with desperate poverty and subjugation, readers are left oscillating be- tween disgust and empathy. It is in this moment that Morrison delivers her harshest critique against patriarchal society. Historically, abortion,

28 CLARISA JANSSENS

infanticide, and fi licide were not uncommon in slave communities as acts of maternal resistance. While Eva murders Plum as a defi nitive act of resistance against patriarchy, she does not successfully dislodge her- self from the throes of her oppressors. The tragedy is that her thinking is very much fueled by patriarchy. Specifi cally, Plum fails to subscribe to patriarchal masculinity by succumbing to the desire for drug-induced nonexistence and escape. This is a battle that he cannot win without a return to the maternal body and community, as children’s identities are directly tied to the maternal (O’Reilly 158). Plum’s downfall exposes the irony and danger of patriarchy: he went to war to fi ght alongside his oppressor in World War I and also to command respect, approval, and masculinity. But due to the war’s atroci- ties, Plum was unable to cope and he was subsequently drawn to opiates. There were no resources or Veteran’s Affairs for black men during the time. Shortly after World War I, a mass hysteria regarding the “negro dope menace” and a perceived sexual threat against white women fueled the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1918, as researched by Rufus King (737). The introduction of this act “allowed the narcotics addict to be pushed out of society and relegated to the criminal community” (King 738). In addition to vicious drug criminalization efforts targeting black men, Barbara Holden-Smith asserts that the Harrison Act also provoked the rampant mass lynchings of people of color that continued until 1968 (36–38). Although Sula’s narrative never expresses these threats, this was the social current that shaped black communities in early-twentieth century America. Despite the gravity of Plum’s situation, many critics seem unable to make the connection between patriarchy, masculine failure, preda- tory criminalization, and their involvement in Plum’s demise. Critics commonly engage in mother-blame by asserting that Plum is already doomed due to excessive mothering, and thus his failure is inevitable. They also claim that this “excessive mothering” is supported by Eva’s coldness towards her daughters (Lounsberry and Hovet 128). These scholars attempt to rationalize Plum’s demise, claiming that Eva is at fault for “[swaddling him in] love and affection” until he goes to war (Morrison 45). However, we cannot attribute his downfall to Eva’s parenting skills. Instead, Plum’s situation highlights the pervasiveness of patriarchal gender roles: men are to be valued and uplifted, while

29 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

women are to be commoditized and taught submission. If anything, Eva’s polarized interactions with her daughters and sons expose how patriarchy affects the “dynamics [in] mother-child-relationships … ‘Fe- male children are quite literally starved … for physical nurturance and a legacy of power and humanity from adults of their own sex’ ” (Eckard 54). Eva’s discriminatory affection strongly suggests her own internal- ized sexism. Eva actively establishes and maintains “the interpersonal and institutionalized mistreatment of [her children] on the basis of their [sex]” (Bearman et al. 13). Contrary to the scholarly claims of exces- sive mothering, Eva’s unabashed affection for only her son is problem- atic because it reveals just how far patriarchy can violate the oppressed. To reiterate bell hooks, “patriarchal masculinity teaches men that their sense of self and identity, their reason for being, resides in their capac- ity to dominate others.” As such it teaches women that their value is in their ability and willingness to be dominated, leaving Eva no reason to nurture her daughters (hooks 70). Plum’s ultimate demise stems from his inability to conform to pa- triarchal masculinity and dominant culture. That being said, in the mo- ments before Plum’s death Eva is in a rare moment of vulnerability and determination. She lugs herself up several fl ights of stairs and scoops Plum into her arms, rocking him as she reminisces about his childhood. As Eva quietly cries, she reaches over to Plum’s desk to drink a glass of “strawberry crush,” when she realizes it’s blood-tainted water (Morrison 46). This is the moment she decides to kill him. Plum’s death is highly aesthetic, and the narrative momentarily shifts towards Plum’s perspec- tive as his mother engulfs him in fl ames:

Plum on the rim of a warm light sleep was still chuckling … He felt twilight. Now there seemed to be some kind of wet light traveling over his legs and stomach with a deeply at- tractive smell. It wound itself—this wet light—all about him, splashing and running into his skin. He opened his eyes and saw what he imagined was the great wing of an eagle pouring a wet lightness over him. Some kind of baptism, some kind of blessing, he thought. Everything is going to be all right, it said. Knowing that it was so he closed his eyes and sank back into the bright hole of sleep. (Morrison 47)

30 CLARISA JANSSENS

The relevance in writing Eva’s act of fi licide as highly aesthetic violence is not to be overlooked. If Eva’s deep grief prior to setting Plum on fi re isn’t an ethical compass of sorts to readers, then Plum’s perspective— albeit drug-induced—defi nitely is. Morrison’s narrative is intended for readers to condemn Eva, which is why she prefaced Plum’s death with an intensely intimate moment between the mother and son, followed by a passage ridden with salvation imagery. O’Reilly reminds readers that “Morrison defi nes the responsibilities of motherwork in terms of four distinct yet interrelated tasks; namely, preservation, nurturance, cultural bearing, and healing” (26). Specifi cally, O’Reilly defi nes preservation as physical preservation. She defi nes nur- turance as “black mothers immuniz[ing] their children from racist ide- ologies by loving them so that they may love themselves in a culture that defi nes them as not deserving or worthy of love.” Cultural bearing is defi ned as the identifi cation with ancestral memories and properties. Fi- nally, healing is seen as the reconnection of unmothered children to the motherline (O’Reilly 28). These four properties of motherhood are lin- ear—without preserving, the mother cannot nurture, without nurturing she cannot bestow ancestral knowledge, and with the proper fulfi llment of the fi rst three properties, no healing is needed. O’Reilly states that because Eva was only able to preserve her children, she must heal them in any way she can—hence Plum’s death. However, O’Reilly’s argument is an overly apologetic one that fails to emphasize the dangers of a belief in a universal maternal experience. Furthermore, since dominant culture attributes normative masculinity to the authenticity of maternal experi- ence, the dangers of universal masculinity are also overlooked. Eva is long removed from her African ancestry and thus only carries fragments of that ancestral knowledge—her life’s perspective is inarguably inter- twined within the dominant culture. Eva justifi es her act to Hannah by stating “he was a man, girl … a big man can’t be a baby all wrapped up inside his mamma no more; he suffocate” (Morrison 72). Morrison herself stated that Eva’s murder is “absolutely the right thing to do but also the thing she had no right to do” in her interview with Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie (185). As with Eva’s leg, the aestheticization of the disfi gured body always exposes a revealing nuance. While the beauty in Plum’s death is alluring because

31 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

it saves him from all of the systemic violence in the patriarchal world, his mother still committed a heinous and unimaginably painful act that cannot be justifi ed under any circumstances. Eva’s attempts to save her son from judgment and persecution only repeat the same violence she endures in order to survive. To echo Nissen, the maternal ethics in Sula are determined by the reader as they are swept between sympathy and dismay. The recogni- tion that these emotions are not separate allows the reader to make the judgment that the maternal experience and the authenticity of maternal love is individually determined. In the case of Eva, her genuine love, regardless of what form it may take, allows the reader to understand her and pause their tendency to condemn women who commit infanticide or fi licide. Eva’s situation then, becomes more telling of the dangers of blindly forcing dominant ideals without considering ancestral, individual, and experiential histories.

Hannah and Sula: Maternal Love and Rejection

Following Plum’s death and the blurring between maternal sacrifi ce and violence, Morrison intersects maternal love and rejection, showing that one often does not exist without the other. Readers fi rst see this when Hannah discusses the burdens of motherhood with a frustrated friend. Upset that her daughter had been causing her grief, Hannah responds to her friend by stating “you love her, like I love Sula. I just don’t like her. That’s the difference. … They different people, you know” (Morrison 57). Hannah boldly identifi es a distinction between loving and liking your child—that loving does not necessitate liking. This proclamation cata- pulted Sula into puberty, causing her rejection of the maternal. However, what is of greater interest at this point is Hannah’s difference in behavior as her role changes from mother to daughter. Despite Eva’s hardships, Hannah is unable to recognize or equate those sacrifi ces as love. Even with Hannah’s own unique and truthful views of motherhood, when she is the child in the mother-child relation- ship, she too is infl uenced by patriarchal ideals. People are fi rst children before they are parents—and in a subjugated community where parental presence is forcefully sparse, these children are most vulnerable to pa-

32 CLARISA JANSSENS

triarchal ideals. Hannah can differentiate between loving and liking her child when she is the mother. Just like her daughter, when she is the child, her sense of self is so attached to her mother’s adherence to dominant maternity that it prevents a higher level of understanding and empathy between the two (Morgenstern 8). The reader can see this confl ict of ideas when Hannah asks Eva if she ever loved them or played with them, to which Eva responds:

You settin’ here with your healthy-ass self and ax me did I love you? Them big old eyes in your head would a been two holes full of maggots if I hadn’t … I’m talkin’ ’bout 18 and 95 … What would I look like leapin’ ’round that little old room playin’ with youngins with three beets to my name? … Ain’t that love? You want me to tinkle you under the jaw and forget ’bout them sores in your mouth? … what you talkin’ ’bout did I love you girl I stayed alive for you can’t you get that through your thick head? (Morrison 68-69)

Here, Hannah’s socially unique view of motherhood is based solely on her experience as a mother. As soon as her role is switched from mother to daughter, she returned to the child-centric, socially prescribed defi nition of motherhood. She questions her mother’s sacrifi ces—engaging in hard labor usually reserved for men, using the food to save Plum, sacrifi cing her leg to provide for them—because she did not feel the hallmark moth- erhood that the dominant culture tells children they deserve. Perhaps even worse is that Eva is given the rare opportunity as a mother to express her voice, but is muted by the infl uence of child-centric patriarchy. Hannah commits ethical violence against the very woman who separated her body into pieces to ensure her survival. Despite living through single motherhood, social marginalization, and poverty like her mother, Hannah is still unable to grow into a woman and face the many layers of motherhood as the child of that imperfect mother. Even after her mother’s heartfelt testimonial and rare expression of deep emotion, she quickly engulfs herself in domestic work and falls asleep. Hannah is the fi rst character to strictly verbalize her progressive views on motherhood. She is still deeply trapped within dominant ide- als; her only chance at freedom is suffering a terrifi c death like Plum’s.

33 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

Hannah’s death by fi re while tending to conventional female tasks is yet another indicator of the dangers and harms of the values of patriarchal domesticity (Eckard 37–53). Hannah’s death is both beautiful and horrifying. Initially her death is foreshadowed by dreams of beautiful red weddings; when Hannah catches on fi re, Morrison writes, “the fl ames from the yard fi re were lick- ing the blue cotton dress, making [Hannah] dance” (Morrison 75). How- ever, as the neighbors try to save her by pouring water on her, it produces steam, “which seared to sealing all that was left of the beautiful Hannah Peace” (76). Morrison complicates Hannah’s death by paralleling it with Plum’s death, which is packed with olfactory and visual imagery. It then becomes unclear what readers should make of it. Ogunyemi suggests that Hannah’s death is a sort of karma, proving Eva’s wrongdoing. Yet, O’Reilly claims that Hannah’s death is just another example of salva- tion through death of fi re. Both these scholars produce an interpretation that leaves something unanswered in Sula. If we are to follow the logic that the “maternal body is the source of … metaphor to undergird the realities of female experience” then the maternal body becomes a “per- versely unifying symbol” (Eckard 37–53). Specifi cally, what does Han- nah’s disfi gurement reveal about her society, and how does that unite the black women of her community? Hannah’s death is foreshadowed by a dream of a red wedding, a symbol of patriarchal values in itself, yet no groom is ever mentioned. What could this groomless red wedding mean? Surely it must have more purpose than predicting a death by fi re? Hannah’s red wedding dress symbolizes the marriage of a passionate and sexually attuned woman to her patriarchal community; however, a sexually indepen- dent and antithetical mother like this cannot exist. Hannah only attains freedom through death, much like a marriage vow. She is therefore punished by the patriarchy she adheres to, which is ironically the only way she can achieve freedom. The maternal body is destroyed by do- mesticity here. Hannah is married and bound to the very institution that seeks to silence and destroy her. It is also worth considering that the only other wedding in Sula features Sula’s dear childhood friend, Nel, as the bride; and she too experiences destruction of self and an agony “that had no bottom or top, just circles and circles of sorrow” (Morrison 174).

34 CLARISA JANSSENS

Lastly, the most complex of the Peace women is Sula, as her growth as a woman and person is a direct result of her matrilineal legacy. Many critics such as Carolyn Jones attribute Sula’s departure from Bottom and her return as an “other” as a victory in part due to her biblical en- trance. However, it is important to note the diction Morrison chooses by opening Part Two with: “Accompanied by a plague of robins, Sula came back to Medallion” (89). While the symbolism associated with robins is that of redemption, renewal, salvation, and spring, the use of the word “plague” suggests that something is problematic. Any good entity in excess—certainly in such excess that it becomes a plague— is detrimental to the individual and greater community. Nevertheless, with a college diploma on one hand and a long line of white and black sexual suitors, Sula appears to thrive intellectually and sexually. She even unites Medallion in their hatred for her; this hatred is fueled by her sexual union with white men, which is a gross transgression in the black community of Medallion. Armed with liberal white Christian education and values, Sula re-en- ters Medallion and exercises her womanly independence. Regardless of her sexual transgressions, she is not hated until she severs herself from her an- cestral culture by shoving Eva in a nursing home—an act that is absolutely unimaginable in African-American customs (O’Reilly 44). O’Reilly argues that this is where Morrison’s commentary lies: because Sula’s inability to accept the deep and complex layers of motherhood and maternal emo- tion, she chooses to sever herself from her cultural bearing which in turns severs her ability to heal (48). Sula’s only chance to heal herself from her relatively unmothered past was to reconnect with Eva. Yet she fully re- jects her matrilineal legacy in favor of dominant culture that values youth, independence, and uniformity. Sula is deprived of the only relationship that can save her. Shortly after Eva’s admittance to the nursing home, Sula dies alone, taking her dominant cultural values to the grave with her. Sym- bolically and metaphorically, Sula’s untimely death is a commentary on the unsustainability of dominant culture in the greater world. In terms of the greater context of the novel, Sula should not be condemned for reject- ing her family; instead it should be read as another tragedy due to social marginalization and the rejection of the various realities of the maternal experience. The Peace women were only able to preserve their children because of their crippling circumstances, and had “no time” to nurture

35 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

their children in a way that would teach them to love their ancestral lin- eage, and themselves, despite the dominant ideal. The result is a matrilin- eal lineage of “circles and circles of sorrow” of which Eva, Hannah, and Sula all fall victim (Morrison 174).

Sula and a Refl ection on Contemporary Motherhood

The maternal body was the platform in which patriarchy built its pil- lars. Morrison inverts and disfi gures this ideological maternal body to expose a metaphorical platform in order to instigate the critique of pa- triarchal culture. Eva’s sacrifi ces, and the voluntary amputation of her leg, exposes the disturbing extent to which the mother is given sover- eign responsibility of her children’s wellbeing. In the case of women of color and underprivileged women, this form of sovereign responsibility ethically harms women so as to fragment them into pieces (Morgen- stern 11). This form of thinking also fuels maternal transgressions such as fi licide, as women are increasingly valued based on the acceptability of their children. Although Eva’s particular case is an attempt to resist these oppressive forces, the tragedy lies in her motivation that is formed by patriarchy. Lastly, what is perhaps the greatest tragedy of Sula is the child’s inability to identify, empathize, and rationalize her mother’s du- alities, which causes women to be the inculcators of patriarchal sexist thought (hooks 70). I would like to conclude this essay by placing my critique of dominant motherhood and Sula in conversation with contemporary issues of moth- erhood. Even in the twenty-fi rst century, where we have the luxury of experiencing many forms of femininity and masculinity with increasing acceptance, motherhood is still surprisingly homogeneous. Dominant cul- ture today still looks at motherhood in a singular way: the role of mothers is to produce functioning and socially viable children. The gaze of our community today has not softened for mothers; women whose toddlers throw themselves in the candy aisle of grocery stores still receive judg- mental glares. Even more disturbing is our tendency to cannibalize unfi t mothers that media fl ashes on our televisions as bait—if not to judge, then to validate our own imperfect maternal experience. As seen in Sula, no good can result from this judgment, and it is vital to remember that literature often serves as a more accurate refl ection of our reality and the

36 CLARISA JANSSENS

consequences of it. Women and mothers perform the same individual analysis of motherhood to determine where our ethical compasses must point, and slow our human tendency to form to the binaries of good and bad. In order to dismantle oppressive patriarchal motherhood, we must remind ourselves that motherhood is good and bad; joyful and sorrowful; fulfi lling and disappointing.

37 MATERNAL LOVE AND VIOLENCE IN TONI MORRISON’S SULA

Works Cited

Bearman, Steve, Neill Korobov, and Avril Thorne. “The Fabric of Internalized Sexism.” Journal of Integrated Social Sciences 1.1 (2009): 10–47. Web. Eckard, Paula Gallant. Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith. Columbia: U of Missouri, 2002. Print. Farrell, Susan. “ ‘Who’d He Leave Behind?’: Gender and History in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Having Our Way: Women Rewriting Tradition in Twentieth-century America. Harriet Pollack. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 1995. 131–50. Print. Feldstein, Ruth. Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberal- ism. 1930–1965. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2000. Print. Francus, Marilyn. Monstrous Motherhood: Eighteenth-century Culture and the Ideology of Domesticity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2013. Print. Holden-Smith, Barbara. “Lynching, Federalism, and the Intersection of Race and Gender in the Progressive Era.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 8.31 (1996): 31–78. Web. 02 May 2015. hooks, bell. “Feminist Masculinity.” Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. Cambridge, MA: South End, 2000. 67–69. Print. Jones, Carolyn M. “Sula and Beloved: Images of Cain in the Novels of Toni Morrison.” African American Review 27.4 (1993): 615–36. Questia. Web. 02 Apr. 2015. King, Rufus G. “The Narcotics Bureau and the Harrison Act: Jailing the Heal- ers and the Sick.” The Yale Law Journal 62.5 (1953): 736–49. JSTOR. Web. 01 May 2015. Littlefi eld, Marci B. “Black Women, Mothering, and Protest in 19th Century American Society.” Journal of Pan African Studies 2.1 (2007): 53–61. Web. 05 Apr. 2015. Lounsberry, Barbara, and Grace Ann Hovet. “Principles of Perception in Toni Morrison’s Sula.” Black American Literature Forum 13.4 (1979): 126. JSTOR. Web. 10 Apr. 2015. Morgenstern, Naomi. “Maternal Love/Maternal Violence: Inventing Ethics in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.” MELUS: The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 39.1 (2013): 7–29. Web. Morrison, Toni, and Danille Kathleen Taylor-Guthrie. “A Conversation with Toni Morrison.” Conversations with Toni Morrison. Jackson, MS: U of Missis- sippi, 1994. 262–74. Print. Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Print. Nissen, Axel. “Form Matters: Toni Morrison’s Sula and the Ethics of Narrative.” Contemporary Literature 40.2 (1999): 263–85. JSTOR. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.

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Ogunyemi, Chikwenye O. “Sula: ‘A Nigger Joke.’ ” Black American Literature Forum 13.4 (1979): 130–33. JSTOR. Web. 10 Apr. 2015. O’Reilly, Andrea. Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2004. Print. Yee, Shirley J. “Black Women and the Cult of True Womanhood.” Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828–1860. Knoxville, TN: U of Tennessee P, 1992. 40–49. Print.

39 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

AUBREE MLADENOVIC

In the Eye of the Beholder: The Face of Il Gesù

Aubree Mladenovic, class of 2015, graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Art History/Arts Management.

40 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

WRITER’S COMMENTS

The topic for this paper stemmed from Professor Catherine Lusheck’s Baroque Art class and our studies on the rhetoric of the art and architecture of post-Tridentine Rome. Specifi cally, it was the Church of Il Gesù, and the imposing appearance of its façade, that made such an impression on me that I was inspired to explore how and why it could visually express such grandiosity. My research thus began with an in- depth study of early modern architectural theory. I focused on the texts of Vitruvius, Alberti, Serlio, and other classical writers, specifi cally on the human characteristics they attributed to architecture, to support the reading of the façade as a face. I then explored the concept of physiognomy which is deeply rooted in the classical tradition. In physiognomy, features of a face can portray one’s disposition, and it was through this theoretical lens that I argue how the exterior, or face, of Il Gesù, expresses the character of its interior. —Aubree Mladenovic

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

In her excellent essay, “In the Eye of the Beholder: The Face of Il Gesù,” Art History/Arts Management graduate, Aubree Mladenovic convincingly argues that the infl uential, late 16th-century façade of the fi rst Jesuit church in Rome was designed to act as an imposing architectural front meant to be- tray the structure’s—and by extension, the Order’s and its patron, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese’s—most fundamental, humanist values. Grounding her discussion deeply in Renaissance physiognomic and architectural theory, as well as in humanist traditions of portraiture, Aubree extends Leon Battista Alberti’s Renaissance metaphor of a church as an architectural “body” quite literally to its new, Baroque “face.” As the imposing, architectural element designed to refl ect the Order’s classically inspired concerns for stability, balance, and order—and by extension, the Jesuits’ new role in fostering and maintaining these values in post-Tridentine, Catholic Rome—this new de- sign further exemplifi es the central role that art and architecture played in widely disseminating some of the earliest Jesuits’ most profound messages. — Catherine H. Lusheck, Art History/ Arts Management (Department of Art + Architecture)

41 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

In the Eye of the Beholder: The Face of Il Gesù

HE CHURCH OF IL GESÙ IN ROME, Italy (Fig. 1), was one of the most Tinfl uential architectural projects of the Post-Tridentine era. It was the fi rst commission by the Jesuit Order and was patronized by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-89) in 1561. Immediately striking in its ap- pearance, Il Gesù stands as the mother church of the Society of Jesus and a symbol of its growth as one of the most reformed orders that emerged out of the Counter Reformation.1 The strong organization of the Jesuit Order and its devotion to education and conversion inspired a unique building program in order to more fi rmly establish the Order’s presence in Rome. The construction of Il Gesù demonstrates the climate of reform that inspired many changes to the interior designs of subse- quent Roman Catholic churches in Europe, such as the alteration of the nave to accommodate larger assemblies for year-round preaching and the construction of distinct side chapels to allow for multiple masses.2 Completed in 1580 with contributions by Italian architects Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-73) and Giacomo della Porta (ca.1533-1602), the overall design of Il Gesù expresses a unique character. Yet it is largely through the graceful and imposing façade that the character most reveals itself. The expression of character is particularly relevant to the con- cept of physiognomy that emerged in classical scholarship. As a study of how the external features of humans can describe their internal disposi- tions, physiognomy placed predominant attention on facial features for the purpose of reading one’s character: “Taking as a starting-point the existence of a reciprocal relation between body and soul, physiognom- ics dealt with establishing fi xed rules for the reading of permanent traits of character from both the structure of the parts of the body and of the body as a whole.”3 Branching from the concept of physiognomy

1 Loren Partridge, The Art of Renaissance Rome: 1400-1600 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996), 57. 2 James S. Ackermann, “The Gesù in the Light of Contemporary Church Design” in Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, ed. Rudolf Wittkower et al. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1972), 19. 3 Michael Kwakkelstein, Leonardo da Vinci as a physiognomist: Theory and drawing practice. (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 1994), 44.

42 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

and ideas drawn from early modern architectural theory to compare hu- man features with architectural elements, and the moral language around both, I will argue that exteriors can be refl ections of interiors, and that the façade of Il Gesù can be read as a “face” that portrays the character and values of the church behind it. The reputation of the Church of Il Gesù as an undeniable exemplar of new, ecclesiastical architecture in post-Reformation Europe stems from its contextual signifi cance and visual exceptionality. The overall scale of the Church of Il Gesù and the grandeur of its façade refl ect the attempts of the Jesuit Order to attract more worshipers. The church was indeed the largest built after the Sack of Rome and the second largest overall after St. Peter’s Basilica.4 According to Robert Sénécal, the “prac- tice of restoration gained momentum during the period of the Counter Reformation because of the wish of successive popes that Rome should present a decorous face to the increasing number of pilgrims visiting the city, especially for the jubilees of 1575 and 1600.”5 Notably, the year the construction of the façade of Il Gesù was completed, 1575, drew nearly 400,000 pilgrims to Rome for the Jubilee of Gregory XIII.6 This timing suggests a possible incentive for the patrons of the church to organize such a grand architectural project that coincided with a huge infl ux of visitors from around Europe. The excitement that was built up around the Jubilee was reinforced by the desire of the Jesuit Order to make a strong public impression through newly designed ecclesiastical construc- tions and renovations. Art historian Anthony Blunt even suggests that contemporary patrons and their architects sought to express papal ideol- ogy in a more imposing, rhetorical way: “so that their splendor and their religious character may force themselves even on the casual spectator.”7 What better way to make such a statement to a pilgrim or common visi-

4 Clare Robertson, ‘Il Gran Cardinale’: Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992), 181. 5 Robert Sénécal, “Carlo Borromeo’s Instrucciones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae and its origins in the Rome of his time,” Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000): 244. 6 Lorenzo Canova, “1575 The Jubilee of Gregory XIII, Art and Religious Devo- tion after the Council of Trent,” in Rejoice! 700 Years of Art for the Papal Jubilee, ed. Maurizio Calvesi (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1999), 94. 7 Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450-1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 128.

43 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

tor than to present the power of the Jesuit Order, the name of Cardinal Farnese, and the grandeur of Roman architecture all in one imposing stone façade? A detailed visual analysis of the Gesù façade reveals the specifi c, classicizing architectural elements that make its design both impressive, and worthy of a physiognomic reading as the public, humanist “face” of a venerable architectural body. First of all, the harmony of two opposi- tional forces is eloquently expressed in the façade of Il Gesù through a bi- lateral design that simultaneously suggests differentiation and unity. The church’s facade is symmetrical along the vertical axis, yet also asymmetri- cal along the horizontal axis; the width of the façade is thus countered by the steep, vertically split two-story design. This arrangement creates a strong sense of balance, and suggests unity in the meeting of the two axes. Variety is then displayed through the mixing of both rounded and triangular pediment shapes above the sculptural niches and through the replacement of a doorway for an arched window and balustrade on the second story. The harmony created by the arrangement and variation of architectural elements ultimately establishes a central focal point for the façade. The more sculptural ornamentation is restricted to the central area where the horizontal and vertical axes meet as if contained within a circle that extends from the main rounded pediment. The seal of the new Society of Jesus, the Roman style inscription dedicated to Cardinal Farnese, the sculptural niches, and the decorative Corinthian and Com- posite columns are all arranged in this concentrated space. These classi- cally inspired components are direct references to the character of the church that make a greater impression on its beholder. Notable differences between the plans for the façade by original ar- chitect Vignola and the fi nal façade design by Giacomo della Porta reveal how a sense of grandeur was both sought and achieved for the front of the church. Vignola’s plan (Fig. 2), from 1570, is remarkably more sculp- tural than the fi nal design of 1575. While there are still two stories, split by a strong cornice, the sense of verticality is heightened, perhaps a little too much, by the steeper volutes and extension of the edges with full- fi gure sculptures. In general, while Vignola’s façade design appears more elaborate than della Porta’s, it is somewhat less impressive in this elabo- rateness because there is a weaker distinction between each architectural element. This is important because Vignola’s plan suggests the deliberate

44 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

simplifi cation that occurred in the fi nal façade design by della Porta that ultimately allowed for the architectural features to carry more emphasis. One specifi c area that expresses the success of della Porta’s design simplifi cation is in the reduction of ornamentation across the frieze above the Church’s main portals. In Vignola’s earlier plan, numerous sculptures set between the columns crowded the space that would oth- erwise bring attention to the central portals. The simplifi cation of the fi nal façade places greater attention on one of the important visual cues of the church’s grandeur: the reference to the triumphal Arch of Con- stantine in the three entrances.8 All that remains along that horizontal strip are those three entryways, of which the central is the largest. This arrangement creates a more monumental experience out of the entrance to the church. The triumphal arch, which alternates narrow, wide, and narrow entrances, was a classical symbol of stability and harmony9 and a nod to early Roman architecture. The subtle, yet familiar presence of this feature on the façade, by extension, helped to legitimize and heighten the esteem of the Jesuit Order through its celebration of humanist expres- sions of imperial triumph. Furthermore, the impressive architectural program present on the façade of Il Gesù underscores a direct relationship between the physical features of the church’s exterior and architectural plan and elements of its interior. For example, the placement of the pairs of columnar pilas- ters on the façade is of great signifi cance given the spacing between them correlates with the interior structure of the nave and side chapels (Fig. 3). The pairs of pilasters on the second story even frame the ceiling space of the nave, implying a more conceptual representation of the sacred space. Italian Renaissance architect and theorist, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72), claimed that the space between columns was the most impor- tant of openings because of the way the viewer perceives it and makes judgments on its effect as a design.10 It is in the relationship between in- terior and exterior that this importance is demonstrated. Loren Partridge notes that no other church before Il Gesù had so intimately connected

8 Ackerman, 102. 9 John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1963), 17. 10 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. Joseph Rykwert et al. (Cambridge; London: MIT Press, 1988), 30.

45 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

the interior plan with the design of its façade.11 This alignment can also be seen in the deliberate spacing between the windows, doors, and sculp- tural niches which acknowledge the equidistant arrangement of the side chapels inside. The distinction of the side chapels in churches during the Counter Reformation allowed for simultaneous preaching. Thus, the fa- çade of Il Gesù acted as a symbol of the experience one might encounter inside the church, even as it aligned with the new Jesuit Order and its functions. It is this concordance of the façade of Il Gesù and the distinction of its features with its interior structure that relates to the concept of humanist preoccupations with physiognomy. Scholarly interests in physi- ognomics date back to Ancient Greece and Rome where philosophers applied a systematic treatment to interpreting character as a form of rhetoric. The pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, Physiognomonics, suggests the messages man’s proportionality conveys. For example, “an ill-propor- tioned body indicates a rogue, while a well-proportioned frame is charac- teristic of upright and brave men.”12 Aristotle believed the body (i.e., the exterior) and the soul (i.e., the interior) were intimately linked—so much so that the character and form of one affects the character and form of the other.13 When applied to architecture, the distinction of visual ele- ments, and their unifi cation with the whole building mimic the structure of the human body as the sum of its parts. The physiognomic connec- tion between body and soul suggests an intimate relationship between the exterior and the interior that is evident in the design of Il Gesù. First, in order to support this physiognomic reading of the façade of Il Gesù, I will draw from textual examples from Early Modern Italy that describe architecture in relation to the human body, emphasizing their connection in a literal and theoretical framework. In 1462, Pope Pius II, visited the Pienza Cathedral (Fig. 4) during his travels around Italy. His descriptive, fi rst-hand account of the cathedral’s façade exemplifi es his acute awareness of the structure’s architectural elements and he even references them in human terms. According to Pius II:

11 Partridge, 58. 12 Evans, 9. 13 Elizabeth C. Evans, Physiognomics in the Ancient World (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1969), 8.

46 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

[Pienza Cathedral] was modeled on those of ancient temples and richly decorated with columns and arches and semicircu- lar niches designed to hold statues … It had three beautifully proportioned doors, the center one larger than the others, and a great eye like that of Cyclops…The other walls are of less precious material but the stones are squared and well polished with projections like ribs interspersed at regular in- tervals to strengthen the fabric.14

Pius’s reference to the rose window suggests the importance of eye- like shapes and how their arrangement on a surface, or “face,” could potentially make a strong impact on a viewer. Rose windows were ritually placed just above the middle line of a façade.15 This likely relates to the symmetry of a human face; the eyes, more or less, rest slightly above the horizontal midline of the head. Indeed, Pius’s contemporary, Alberti, stated in his treatise On Painting, 1435, that the most signifi cant features of human faces are the planes that constitute them: “Those faces which have the planes joined in such a way that they take shades and lights agreeably and pleasantly, and have no harshness of the relief angles, these we should certainly say are beautiful and delicate faces.”16 In Early Modern Italy, the symmetry and agreeableness of a human fi gure’s face and well-joined parts clearly corresponded with those of a building’s too. For Early Modern humanist Jesuits, and their architects della Porta and Vignola, Roman ideas proved central to their plans. The Roman ar- chitect, Vitruvius, wrote the fi rst known treatise on building around 15 BCE, arguing that symmetry is inherent in the human body and similarly in the construction of temples. Vitruvius claimed that proportionality would not have come about without the discovery of numbers which came from the human fi ngers.17 The famous drawing by Leonardo da

14 Florence A. Gragg, trans. Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II, ed. Leona C. Gabel (New York: Capricorn Books, 1962), 287. 15 Robert Tavernor, On Alberti and the Art of Building (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1998), 103. 16 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spencer (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1956), 72. 17 Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Morris Hicky Morgan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914), accessed May 18, 2015, http://www.gutenberg. org/fi les/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm, 75.

47 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

Vinci, The Vitruvian Man (Fig. 5), 1490, visually demonstrates the classi- cally inspired idea of proportionality in relation to man’s body. Consider- ing the value Roman—and after them, Renaissance Italian—artists and architects placed on the harmony of forms and patterns from nature, it is no wonder that they used the most accessible visual model that dem- onstrated this idea: the human body. Also inspired by Vitruvius, Alberti claimed that the ancients even based the shapes and sizes of columns on the proportions of man’s body: “When they considered man’s body, they decided to make columns after its image. Having taken the measure- ments of a man, they discovered that the width, from one side to the other, was a sixth of the height, while the depth, from navel to kidneys, was a tenth.”18 It was the consonance of parts that Alberti esteemed in good architecture as well. These ideas were echoed nearly one hundred years later in 1554 when Italian architect Pietro Cataneo wrote about the necessity of hav- ing the long, Latin cross plan for a church match the proportions the human body (Fig. 6). He postured that a full fi gure should fi t, according to scale, within the interior space of the church: legs along the nave, arms stretched across the transepts and head nuzzled in the space of the altar.19 Notably, this intentional use of a classical, Roman ideal was seen only “in the case of temples of the gods, buildings in which merits and faults usually last forever.”20 As refl ected in Cataneo’s example, Vitru- vius had established a motive for architects that resonated well into the sixteenth century when ecclesiastical building programs required special treatment to express the value and potency of the Church. Vitruvius wrote: “We can have nothing but respect for those who, in construct- ing temples of the immortal gods have so arranged the members of the works that both the separate parts and the whole design may harmonize in their proportions and symmetry.”21 Thus, the theory behind buildings for the gods—and in the Catholic Renaissance, for the one God—was inextricably linked to the accordance of its elements. Using the human body as a physical model for building ties the two concepts together thus

18 Alberti, On the Art of Building, 309. 19 Vernica Biermann et al, Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present, 89 Es- says on 117 Treatises (Köln: Taschen, 2003), 96. 20 Vitruvius, 73. 21 Ibid, 75.

48 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

justifying a physiognomic reading of the façade of Il Gesù. Considering the parallels drawn between the human body and archi- tecture in Early Modern architectural theory, certain elements of Il Gesù indeed reference a face. For example, the pediments of strong triangular and round shapes act as framing devices not unlike eyebrows. Would the important elements of the façade, such as the entrance and inscription, draw one’s attention if the pediments were not there to encompass them with their high relief and framing arch? Perhaps even the windows or en- trances all suggest the conceptual space within the church just as an eye references a “window to the soul.” The special emphasis created by the pediment shapes reinforces the importance of the exterior architectural features of the façade as a representation of what is inside. The combi- nation of small pediments above sculptural niches and entrances relate with the large triangular pediment at the top that both encompasses the entire central strip of the façade beneath it, and points to the cross atop the church. The way these pediments accentuate features of the façade are in line with the structure of human faces where angles, bones, pro- trusions and even eyebrows all visually frame different parts of the face. The similarities established by early architectural theories about the human body and architecture also resonate in the linguistic treatment of architecture in relation to human characteristics and values. In many discussions of the fi ve classifi cations of columns, terms of moral im- plication such as these are frequently used. For example, in his architec- tural treatise (of which the fi rst book was published in 1537), Sebastiano Serlio wrote about how the Corinthian order (Figure 7) can be “dark,” “confused,” or “crude,” while the Doric order (Fig. 8) is “solid,” “sim- ple,” “soft.”22 In the specifi c case of intaglios, or inscriptions, the term “solid,” for example, would be used to describe a building that was “not weakened by intaglios.”23 He affi rms though that “if the intaglios are

22 Sebastiano Serlio, Tutte l’opere d’architettura, trans. Vaughan Hart et al (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 276. 23 Ibid, 276.

49 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

compartitioned in the way shown above the doorway, this sort of work could never be criticized as being ‘confused.’ ”24 The connection with human characteristics helps clarify and heighten the moral consequences of using such visual elements. Serlio sought to clearly communicate these rules for building to practicing architects:

I shall put before them a common comparison from nature … for example a beautiful, well-formed woman who in ad- dition to her beauty is adorned with sumptuous—but august rather than lascivious—clothing, and she has a beautiful jewel on her forehead and two beautiful and expensive pendants hanging from her ears … However, if many jewels were placed around her temples, on her cheeks, and on other parts superfl uously, tell me please, would she not be monstrous?25

By referencing a woman’s appearance, with obvious implications regarding her potentially “monstrous” character, Serlio again links the vocabulary of human values with the treatment of architecture. More- over, Serlio’s instructions were also wholly aligned with the decrees of the Council of Trent regarding religious art: “Finally all lasciviousness must be avoided; so that fi gures shall not be painted or adorned with a beauty inciting lust.”26 The idea of decorum suggested here is woven into the writings of Serlio who extends it to church architecture. Orna- mentation in architecture acts as a visual cue of the morality of a given structure: too much of it implies an indecorous character and too little of it perhaps gives an impression of austerity. Considering the ornamenta- tion, or accessorizing, of a human as a distinct expression of one’s style, Serlio’s text further supports the claim that an architectural façade, much like a sober, virtuous face in a humanist, Renaissance portrait, held the potential in early modern Europe to express moral attributes through its arrangement and quality of visual elements.

24 Serlio, 280. “Compartition is the process of dividing up the site into yet smaller units, so that the building may be considered as being made up of close-fi tting smaller buildings, joined together like the members of the whole body.” Alberti, On the Art of Building, 8. 25 Ibid, 280. 26 Blunt, 118.

50 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

The subdued decoration of the façade of Il Gesù is in keeping with these theoretical perspectives. Looking at the façade, we might see that perhaps those volutes are like pendants—accessories of a sort—that ref- erence an august establishment. Or maybe it is the solidity of the pedi- ment within a pediment that suggests something beautiful and classically noble yet not ostentatious. Moreover, the apparent blank sides of the façade that frame the entrances are not to be read as plain and uninter- esting, nor is the delicate treatment of column decoration to be seen as fl amboyant. Rather, the modest face of Il Gesù reads harmoniously as a fi ne balance between the subtle ornamentation of the façade and the more expressive iconographic program within the Church (Figure 9). The interior decoration, particularly the paintings in the side chapels, reference “heavenly hierarchy and the life of Christ.”27 Aligning with the Jesuits’ aims to teach and share the devotion of Jesus, the interior of Il Gesù provided a functional yet intimate experience for large masses of people.28 The relatively sparse decoration of the façade thus para- doxically functioned as condensed way to express Jesuit predilections for classically inspired decorum, order and balance on its face. The similarities between architecture and the human body, as struc- tures whose exteriors refl ect their interiors, demonstrate why the con- cept of physiognomy is an appropriate framework for reading both faces, and facades as in the case of the Church of Il Gesù. The moral associations with architectural elements and human features attribute great signifi cance to the particular aims of architects and their patrons to express certain messages of character as clearly and impactfully as possible. Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his treatise, On the Human Body, ca. 1489, that “‘silent’ fi gures had to be as expressive as if they spoke lest the beholder should fail to understand the meaning of the event depicted.”29 Although da Vinci references the depiction of a fi gure in drawing or painting, perhaps a work of architecture can also be considered a “si- lent” fi gure expressed through its visual elements and their accordance with its interior. The reading of the façade of Il Gesù as a face and its communica-

27 Robertson, 194. 28 Ibid, 195. 29 Kwakkelstein, 60.

51 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

tion of character thus requires the clarity and readability granted by its architectural composition. For if the design of the façade indeed por- trays a face, that face must represent a character of the most decorous and attractive nature. The face is decorous in its accordance with clas- sical values of harmony and the reforms of the Council of Trent. This is evident in the infl uence of Roman architectural elements, such as the reference to the Arch of Constantine, and their moral implications, such as the dignity of the pediments. While the façade maintains its nobility through these associations, it pushes its ability to impress along humanist lines through its classical language of balance and order. Considering the Jesuits’ overall aim to appeal to the public, the grandeur and proportions of their signature architectural face was design to draw the beholder to explore what lay inside. The face of Il Gesù ultimately exhibits the perfect union of a decorous piety and an enticing beauty located in early Jesuit preferences for order, balance and stability. Its makers sought to invite people to move inside the church with the gracefully imposing presence of its exterior, even as they simultaneously projected its status as a har- monious and powerful symbol of the Jesuit Order. To gaze upon such a face would not only have been aesthetically pleasing, but one of the most inspiring and enlightening experiences a beholder could have then encountered.

52 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

Figure 1. Church of Il Gesù, 1561-1580, Rome, Italy.

Figure 2. Design for Il Gesù façade, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, 1570.

53 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

Figure 3. Plan of Il Gesù, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, ca.1564.

Figure 4. Pienza Cathedral, Pienza, Italy, ca. 1460.

54 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

Figure 5. Leonardo da Vinci, The Vitruvian Man, 1490.

Figure 6. Pietro Cataneo, drawing of Vitruvian man in basilica plan, ca. 1554.

55 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

Figure 7. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, detail of Corinthian order from The Five Orders of Architecture, 1562.

Figure 8. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, detail of Doric order from The Five Orders of Architecture, 1562.

56 AUBREE MLADENOVIC

Figure 9. Interior detail of Il Gesù.

57 THE FACE OF IL GESÙ

Bibliography

Ackermann, James S. “The Gesù in the Light of Contemporary Church De- sign.” In Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution, edited by Rudolf Wittkower and Irma B. Jaffe, 15–28. New York: Fordham University Press, 1972. Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. Translated by John R. Spencer. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1956. Alberti, Leon Battista. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, Robert Tavernor. Cambridge; London: MIT Press, 1988. Biermann, Veronica, Alexander Grönert, Christoph Jobst, Roswith Stewer- ing. Architectural Theory: From the Renaissance to the Present, 89 Essays on 117 Treatises. Köln: Taschen, 2003. Blunt, Anthony. Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450–1600. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. Canova, Lorenzo. “1575 The Jubilee of Gregory XIII, Art and Religious De- votion after the Council of Trent.” In Rejoice! 700 Years of Art for the Papal Jubilee, ed. Maurizio Calvesi, 92–103. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Evans, Elizabeth C. Physiognomics in the Ancient World. Philadelphia: The Ameri- can Philosophical Society, 1969. Gragg, Florence A., trans. Memoirs of A Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II ed. Leona C. Gabel. New York: Capricorn Books, 1962. Kwakkelstein, Michael. Leonardo da Vinci as a physiognomist: Theory and drawing practice. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 1994. Partridge, Loren. The Art of Renaissance Rome: 1400–1600. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996. Robertson, Clare. ‘Il Gran Cardinale’ Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1992. Sénécal, Robert. “Carlo Borromeo’s Instrucciones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae and its origins in the Rome of his time.” Papers of the British School at Rome 68 (2000): 241–67. Serlio, Sebastiano. Tutte l’opere d’architettura. Translated by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Summerson, John. The Classical Language of Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1963. Tavernor, Robert. On Alberti and the Art of Building. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1998. Vitruvius. The Ten Books On Architecture. Translated by Morris Hicky Morgan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914. Accessed May 18, 2015. http://www.gutenberg.org/fi les/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm.

58 GRACE BERG

GRACE BERG

Girls Like Us

Grace Berg, class of 2018, is pursuing a degree in English with an emphasis in writing.

59 GIRLS LIKE US

WRITER’S COMMENTS

The capstone project in RHET 130–131: Written and Oral Communication was an assignment to persuasively and bravely confront an issue with which we each could wrap up the year-long course’s topics explored in our ex- tensive speaking and writing. With “Girls Like Us,” originally a speech con- structed in the aftermath of the 2014 suicide of Leelah Alcorn, I used this fi nal project to name Conversion Therapy as the killer it is, knowing that its atrocities are a shared experience between Leelah and myself and that it was named as a cause of her death. As I spent the semester’s fi nal weeks exploring and defi ning the scope of this deplorable practice and arguing for its criminalization, Professor Dempster (as well as the entire class) created the atmospehre and opportunity to allow this essay to be vulnerable and empowered in a topic so often shrouded in shame; and, as even just one narrative breaks the silence, I am forever grateful for the space and oppor- tunity to shed light on this dehumanizing injustice. —Grace Berg

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS Grace Berg’s brave essay, “Girls Like Us,” skillfully integrates pathos and logos, realms of the personal and social. She seamlessly weaves rich narra- tive and refl ection with perceptive analysis of Conversion Therapy, including its abusive methods, historical roots, and devastating effects. Giving voice to collective trauma, Grace shares her own experiences and those of oth- ers who have survived heterosexist so-called “therapies” that damage the body and poison the mind; she reveals the cycle of shame and secrecy that follows which, for some, leads to suicide, “. . . a faintly luminescent EXIT sign fl ickering in the back of a dark theater.” Despite the pervasive nature of the problem, Grace’s argument empowers us by offering pathways to transformation: our need to understand the complexity of sexuality and the importance of banning this practice—now. Brilliantly rendered and fearless, this essay shocks us awake. —Brian Komei Dempster, Department of Rhetoric and Language

60 GRACE BERG

Girls Like Us

WAS SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD before I learned the iconic dance to “Single I Ladies” by Beyoncé, almost a full six years after it became a cultural staple and viral YouTube trend. It’s tragic, I know; but, to be fair, my childhood and early adolescence had left me knowing very little about secular culture at all. My parents are Evangelical Christians and have had a strict parent- ing style to match their “old school” fundamentalist ideology, but the fi rst two of their fi ve children had loosened their parenting methods by the time I became their third pre-teen. After a certain debacle that went down in 2006, featuring a contraband Black Sabbath album (found in my older brother’s bedroom) that served as a catalyst for a summer spent watching seven VHS-tapes called They Sold Their Souls for Rock and Roll (a less-than- riveting “rockumentary” about popular music albums serving as conduits for demonic possession), my parents have been pretty relaxed about the music that their kids choose. Radical rhetoric had done very little for our family; however, the real turning point was the discovery that my dad was really into classic hard rock. Sure, my parents still aren’t crazy about my now-teenage little sister’s previous affection toward Miley Cyrus, but they just let her enjoy the music before their lecture on what should/shouldn’t be “twerked” upon. If I’d wanted to download “Single Ladies” when it came out, they would have taken no offense at all. My seclusion from the beautiful world of secular music and Beyoncé was, at the time, seemingly of my own free will. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have cared if I added some Destiny’s Child to my early collection, but I was determined to only listen to Christian music, Christian podcasts, Christian news sources, and Christian sermons to fi ll my time; because, according to Love In Action ministries, that’s what I needed to do if I wanted to be straight (“Healing the Broken”). Their rhetoric and coer- cive strategizing, ingrained in me after I attended one of their workshops at a church conference, limited my entire worldview to one small bubble of internalized heterosexism. Ex-Gay Therapy (commonly referred to as Reparative Therapy, Conversion Therapy, or Gender-Specifi c Therapy, interchangeably) is a historically longstanding psychological experiment in transforming homosexual people into heterosexuals under the coercion of danger- ous medical procedures, self-hatred inducing behavioral therapy, and an

61 GIRLS LIKE US

endless cycle of spiritual upheaval and repentance. The specifi c type of isolation I experienced, after learning from Love In Action, is colloqui- ally called “Praying the Gay Away” and is, thankfully, the least physi- cally scarring methodology used to increase an individual’s “heterosexual potential” (Rosik 275). In this practice, I was completely immersed in anti-homosexual doctrine and propaganda, kept woefully unaware of anything positive or neutral that could be said of those of us who identi- fi ed as LGBTQ, and repeatedly told that prayer and staunch Christianity could deliver anyone from being a gay adult in the future. (Of course, given the “information” that gay adults are fundamentally incapable of forming lasting relationships in their current state of hopelessness, were intrinsically mentally ill, and only sought to be hell-bound sinners, that was a goal that I had for myself.) If I failed at becoming soundly hetero- sexual, it was my own fault for not trying hard enough … and, as Bible- pounding adults in my life frequently highlighted in their sermons and conversations—God could not and would not accept me into Heaven unless I succeeded. The damage done to me personally, as well as for many other re- cipients of this “treatment,” leads me to the conclusion that Reparative Therapy is not reparative at all; in fact, it is psychologically and physically scarring, promotes the hatred of homosexual people in our culture’s fringe communities, and should be fi nally criminalized in the United States. I mention “fringe communities” because, at its core, isolation func- tions as a major tool in the coercion of the young people seeking conver- sion. Because I had never met a gay person in my life, I believed the “Ex- Gay” speaker (later to be identifi ed as–surprise!–only the most fl aming of homosexuals) who said that “[His] homosexual tendencies were the Devil’s way of killing [his] future children and depriving [his] future wife of a loving husband and leader” (“Healing the Broken”). There was no one in the world telling me (or any of the others in that brief seminar) anything different, so we instantly took this man at his word. After all, he’d changed, hadn’t he? Repair must be possible; or, at least, we had to hold on to the hope that it could be, because we had no other choice. After being conditioned to believe homosexuality is the worst pos- sible option, patients will do just about anything to become heterosexual, including bodily damage to their persons. In this vein, another common Ex-Gay Therapy method is “Aversion Therapy,” kept alive in recent years

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by NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homo- sexuals). These methods of re-orienting sexuality and gender usually in- clude some variation of shock therapy, an ethically dubious throwback to the asylums of the 1930s (One Nation Under God). In a typical session, the patient is shown homosexual imagery—sometimes just a picture of two men or two women shaking hands—while simultaneously being given an electric shock or other unpleasant physical stimulus to their hands, chest, arms, head, and/or genitals. Besides electricity, stimuli can range from nausea-inducing drugs being administered intravenously to practitioners wrapping electric coils (similar to those used in electric stoves) around the wrists to burn the skin. As a result, the patient comes to associate their sexual orientation with tremendous amounts of anxiety, crippling pain, and generalized feelings of helplessness (Green). Often, these patients submit to their series of treatment under the threat of violence or neglect, often threatened by their parents or other trusted adults, as the vast majority of unwilling participants are teenagers who are not yet legal adults. One such individual, now a twenty-some- thing MIT graduate student named Samuel Brinton, recalls receiving this treatment on a missionaries’ compound in northern Florida. In an inter- view with ABC Australia, he recalls the experience of his parents beating him to the point of hospitalization only weeks before being introduced to a strange man, and to Reparative Therapy:

The man told me that all gay people had been rounded-up and killed, and I was the only one left. They didn’t know how I’d slipped through, but I would be killed by the government if I didn’t change … Later, they told me that I had AIDS and was going to die. I was eleven, and I didn’t have AIDS, but I believed that I would die if I didn’t change. It was mental terror. I was in tears at the dining room table every night, praying … Next came what I call ‘The Month of Hell’. I was strapped to a chair … needles pushed into my fi ngers … electric coils wrapped around my wrist … and I would be shocked and burned whenever they showed a picture of two men on the screen … To this day, I still feel excruciating pain when a man touches me, even just in a handshake. (“Gay Conversion USA”)

63 GIRLS LIKE US

This horror story is a tale as old as time, because the heterosexist, discriminatory attitudes and values supporting gender- and sexuality- corrective behavior are deeply rooted in Western culture and history. The most infl uential accounts of Ex-Gay transformative efforts origi- nate from Nazi German concentration camps circa World War II, when homosexuals (like Jewish people and other socially marginalized undesir- ables) were imprisoned in work camps and death camps, some of which conducted bizarre medical experiments on prisoners. As a clear label to guards and Nazi offi cials onsite, gay/bisexual men were given pink tri- angles to wear in lieu of the Jude yellow stars, and lesbians had the black triangle patches relegated to prostitutes and social outcasts. (In that time period, as is often the case today, women were not seen as being sexual beings capable of true perversion, so their sex acts were indistinguishable from simply being antisocial.) Able to pick homosexuals out from among the prisoners, especially gay and bisexual men, the Auschwitz–Birkenau Memorial and Museum records that gays were subject to “conversion” treatments including massive hormone injections, electric shocks, muti- lation of the genitals, and castration performed without anesthesia (Ne- ander). The Journal of Contemporary History states that when Allied forces liberated these camps, homosexuals were the only prisoners who were not freed because same-sex relationships were still illegal in that time pe- riod. Instead, these particular Holocaust victims were sent to local pris- ons to live out their sentences instead of being returned to their grieving families (Giles). As the world recovered from the atrocities under the Third Reich, the war crimes committed against homosexuals were largely ignored. Even as victims of these terrible injustices, gay people were an untouchable subject and unworthy of public recognition or apology; it’s no wonder that, following this history, homosexuals become an under- ground part of societal structures and continue to feel marginalized. In the middle of the twentieth century, “research” continued in an effort to modify gender and sexual orientation. Castration remained a popular punishment for homosexual men, well into the 1950s, but lesbi- ans were typically subjected to hormone experimentation or committed to mental hospitals (Carter). Psychological therapy, including behavioral therapy, gained popularity in the decades to follow. One such therapeutic study, conducted in 1970, was George Reyker’s “Sissy Boy Experiment” that focused on correcting feminine manner-

64 GRACE BERG

isms in young boys between the ages of three and eight (Cooper). Reyker gave instructions for the parents of his young male subjects, all worried about their sons’ effeminacy, to ignore their children whenever they ex- pressed a feminine mannerism, played in “gender-inappropriate” ways, or spoke in a “lofty” tone. When interviewed for CNN earlier this year, the parents revealed how they counted the instances of “sissy” behavior using poker chips. At the end of the day, they gave their sons one beat- ing for every poker chip that he’d collected, often reporting that they left severe welts and scars from the repetition of this punishment (Coo- per). Reykers claimed one subject as a success story, and he still cites the experiment as a successful reorientation of feminine behavior … even though his “success story” patient committed suicide as a direct result of his therapy experience (Cooper). Reyker doesn’t seem to be in a place to judge, either, when you consider that he was recently caught-up in a homosexual sex scandal; apparently, he was critical of homosexuality from a very personal perspective (Savage). The disgust in the gay com- munity over hypocrites like this, those who oppose homosexuality in others but act on it in their personal lives, is an almost universal hatred in an otherwise diverse and complicated subculture: While Reykers claimed to help clients who feared the judgment of God, I doubt he’ll meet God where he’s going. Paradoxically, fundamentalist attitudes against homosexuality on moral grounds, often spurred on by a repressed sexual orientation, only intensifi ed with the growth of the Gay Rights Movement. As the fi ght for LGBTQ rights gained momentum after the Stonewall Riots, histo- rians recorded reparative therapy becoming even more popular within the Christian Right (Carter). The popular majority no longer deemed these measures necessary, especially when homosexuality was declassi- fi ed as a personality disorder in the DSM-II in 1974, but fundamentalist Christians harbored a sentiment of “Be apart from the world!” that was a perfect place for Ex-Gay Therapy to grow. As queer-identifi ed people came out of their closets and into the spotlight, this oppositional force saw their actions as a sign of the End Times and the degradation of mankind; and when HIV/AIDS struck the gay community like a second plague on Sodom in the early 1980s, this religious fervor gained even more traction (Goodman). Even the medical community became incredibly homophobic; in the early days, the fi rst

65 GIRLS LIKE US

“die-in” protests were that of gay men literally dying on the front steps of hospitals that refused to admit them (Goodman). It was a completely unobserved and alien disease at the time, oblit- erating the gay male population for seemingly no other cause than be- cause of their sexual orientation. Larry Kramer, the author of an auto- biographical play called The Normal Heart detailing his experience as the partner of a man who died of AIDS in 1981, has described how most gay men at the time knew at least ten good friends who died of the virus (The Normal Heart). When queer men saw others like them dropping like fl ies for no discernable reason, they fl ocked to ex-gay organizations that claimed to save them from God’s judgement. Even further, some of these organizations promised that God would cure the AIDS of anyone who repented and became heterosexual (One Nation Under God). HIV/AIDS infection rates are much lower now. The World Health Organization estimates a 38% decrease between 2001 and 2013, and the virus is easily manageable with the proper medication, but the idea of avoiding God’s wrath still remains prominent in the fi eld of re-orienting sexuality. As Western culture continues to progress toward equal rights and protections for LGBTQ Americans, conservative church communities be- come more and more isolated in their staunch rejection of these prin- ciples, including their complete distrust of modern scientifi c knowledge. If the modern world, something seen as inherently evil in nature, approves or disapproves of something on the basis of science or rea- son, denial of these ideas is misconstrued as an act of blind faith. As a direct result, practicing ex-gay therapists do not require certifi cation of any kind. (Legally, they get away with this through Religious Exemp- tion laws.) Even just a few years ago, in the twenty-fi rst century, science was reported to me as being the Devil’s temptation to sin and doubt the Bible’s principles (Anderson). Science says that sexual orientation is innate? Well, that doesn’t matter, because the Bible ostensibly says something else. Psychology has long ago rejected the idea that homo- sexuality is a result of child molestation? It doesn’t matter, because Ex- Gay therapists can’t trust any psychologists who state that sexuality is caused by anything un-sinful, so they continue to repeat that mantra to their patients and communities. In this Cartesian circular reasoning, anything that could convince fundamentalist groups of homosexuality’s validation is discredited on the merits of it validating homosexuality in

66 GRACE BERG

the fi rst place, so no one’s mind is changed. Of course, no one’s sexual orientation is changed either, because sexuality is far more complex than a simple act of the will. The emerging science behind sexual orientation is complicated by its very nature, as the theorized causes are more than psychology and more than biology. Saying, “Sexual orientation is caused by genetics,” is like saying, “Star Wars: A New Hope was caused by dinosaurs.” Yes, the remains of dinosaurs and other ancient biological matter are included in modern petroleum, and petroleum was used in the mechanized con- struction of the typewriter that George Lucas used to draft the script of that awesome movie, but it’s much more complicated than that. Similarly, homosexuality is much more complex than a simple genetic code, and it is far too nuanced to be revised by wishy-washy ideas about sin and pen- ance. All of these dangerous therapists, telling children that they were “turned gay” by something dark and evil that they must have blacked- out, have a zero percent success rate. In fact, in all fi elds and methodolo- gies of Reparative Therapy, not a single person has been successful in changing their sexual orientation … most, really, don’t survive the treat- ments long enough to fi nd out. A patient’s will to live is much more easily broken than their patterns of sexual and romantic attraction. As a headline from The Onion put it so fantastically: “Gay Conversion Therapists Claim Most Patients Fully Straight By The Time They Com- mit Suicide.” The satire is spot-on: Conversion Therapy does a really poor job of helping a homosexual person “discover their true hetero- sexual nature” (Green), but it does a positively excellent job of making homosexual people discover the many ways to end their own lives. In a 1993 interview on the subject, two cofounders of Exodus International (the world’s largest collection of Reparative Therapy organizations) dis- cuss how they knew hundreds of patients who had attempted suicide because they felt that they had failed God in remaining gay. Michael Bus- see and Gary Cooper, as founders, knew many men and women who died at their own hands. Other drastic measures were taken, as Bussee remarked in the same interview: “People have cut off their genitals,” he said. “There was one man, recently, who slashed his genitals with a razor blade and poured Drain-O on the wounds, to punish himself. He didn’t want to have one more homosexual thought” (One Nation Under God). The shame that Ex-Gay survivors feel is magnifi ed in the therapy’s ef-

67 GIRLS LIKE US

fectiveness, and thousands of people in these organizations come to the conclusion that God could forgive them of suicide faster than he could forgive their constant and inescapable homosexual attractions. While many advocates of conversion acknowledge the psychological and emotional risks involved, it’s important to remember that none of these harmful messages have a positive result: Even Cooper and Bussee, as of the 1993 interview, announced that they were not actually Ex-Gays. As they travelled across the country to speak in workshops, like the one I attended as a teenager, they “accidentally fell in love” with each other, and are now married with four children (One Nation Under God). While they were certainly not psychologically or emotionally sound as they sought to cure their own homosexuality, it can’t be ignored that the very foundation of Exodus International was laid in hypocrisy. There are few third-party statistics available about the suicide rate among Ex-Gay therapy patients and other adherents to their doctrines, mostly because very few “Ex-Gays” are willing to come forward about their experiences unless they’ve committed to continuing the treatment and believe that it will be successful. And, even if they’re willing to ad- mit to undertaking their past/current treatment in Reparative Therapy, it’s extremely unlikely that a conservative Christian would admit to self- infl icted harm, as suicide is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and is often seen as an unforgivable and cowardly act. In this instance, both of the statistical limits are shrouded in secrecy and shame. I can attest to the fact that psychological effects are incredibly dif- fi cult to discuss, and there are many consequences of my Ex-Gay in- doctrination that will never go away. There are still days, though they become rarer with time, when I feel absolutely disgusted with myself. My sexual orientation and its manifestations, I remember in those moments, are everything that I’d believed was deplorable about the world. And I’ll look at my life and imagine what it could be like if I was straight, imagin- ing what it would be like to be so sure of acceptance and love. After so long believing homosexuals to be incapable and undeserving of love, I still fi nd myself being suspicious and self-fl agellating in response to most forms of emotional intimacy; and even though I have accepted my sexual orientation and proudly identify as a lesbian, I frequently relapse into old habits and watch videos of Ex-Gay sermons on YouTube and other online video forums, sometimes just for the soothing elements of

68 GRACE BERG

my guilt’s familiarity. Some I can almost quote verbatim. Education and separation have allowed me to see the fault in the actions of those who poisoned my self-image and sexuality for all those years, but no amount of information could make the effects disappear completely. My devel- opment and perception of myself is severely, if not permanently, dam- aged by the self-hate that I was taught on Sunday mornings. There are no easy answers to dealing with the outcome of “Praying the Gay Away” for so many years. My experience is not exceptional or extreme among people who faced similar levels of exposure to reparative action; in fact, testimonials would suggest that I’m one of the lucky ones. Not every “convert” learns to cope with their psychological trauma. Every Ex-Gay patient quoted in this paper (Michael Bussee, Gary Cooper, Samuel Brinton, et al.) has made public remarks about their own multiple suicide attempts, brought on by the crippling guilt they’ve felt about their sexual orientation and the depression that followed. Brin- ton, particularly unlucky, copes with a panic disorder so extreme that it caused him to run to the bathroom and vomit after experiencing his fi rst kiss, and he has attempted suicide so often that he keeps a crisis hotline phone number taped on his fridge and has the local hospital on speed dial (“Gay Conversion USA”). Shockingly, even though this “therapy” is ineffective and is proven to cause horrendous psychological damage, it remains legal in most states. Major psychological organizations, such as the American Psychiatric As- sociation and the American Medical Association, have issued statements about it being unethical (One Nation Under God) but disapproval does not equate to criminalization. This still-too-common problem came to public attention last year when Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenage girl, posted a suicide note to a social media site before jumping into oncoming traffi c, just months after beginning Reparative Therapy in “Pray the Gay Away” isolation similar to that which I experienced (Mohney). Suicide, like a faintly luminescent EXIT sign fl ickering in the back of a dark theater, is distracting until you turn around and decide that the show is worth watching until the end. Those of us who want to continue living with our eyes turned to the future, who have been fi ghting our own minds and will continue to fi ght until we lose, fear a fate like Leelah’s. The last line of her long suicide note, all of which was deleted by her

69 GIRLS LIKE US

parents (who buried her as “Joshua,” her assigned name at birth) but was saved forever by her social media followers, is heart-wrenching:

The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fi x it.

That’s exactly what’s happening. President Obama, as of April 2015, has publically declared his disapproval of reparative therapy and has pledged to work for States’ bans against sexual-orientation and gender- identity conversion, responding to a proposal called “Leelah’s Law” that began with a petition that circulated extensively around Tumblr in the wake of Leelah Alcorn’s suicide (Vogel). Not only the Tumblr com- munity, but the wider world and the President of the United States of America looked at Leelah’s death and said, “That’s fucked up.” Now, in the broader scope of saving LGBTQ lives from a similar legacy, the fi rst step in fi nding a solution is to ban the conversion therapy that she faced, that I was fortunate enough to survive, and save thou- sands of girls like us from similar psychological torture: girls who have been told that they are fundamentally incapable of happiness; men who are told that they are the murderers of unborn babies; and people who are told that the only legacy they can leave behind is a suicide note. There are no positive effects, only physical and psychological damage that will plague and shorten the lives of those who seek this treatment, and this abuse has gone on for far too long. We can educate survivors, and we can give them hope for a happy life, but legislation has to step in and do what culture cannot. We can not allow this toxicity to kill more Leelahs. Christian groups, by stripping non-cis (cisgender describing a person who identifi es with the gender assumed of them at birth)/heteronorma- tive people of their identities and destroying their mental and emotional health, have only displayed how fantastically they have missed the point of the Bible with which they beat and kill their neighbors. Even when organi- zations try to “reclaim” the rainbow as a religious (heterosexual) symbol, they do not understand the damage they have already done. Scripture is a

70 GRACE BERG

message of hope, but they are stealing that hope away and instilling fear instead. As the Genesis story goes, God created the rainbow as a symbol of renewal and peace. It appeared to Noah after the Flood, promising that He will never again destroy the Earth and murder its inhabitants for their wickedness; yet, his followers see that symbol on fl ags and murder the ones who bear them, for “wickedness” they perceive in something they do not understand. The vindictive bloodshed of Reparative Therapy will not go unnoticed by God, of that I am sure, and it is high time that it stops fl ooding the Earth with prejudice and violence. It’s been far longer than forty days and nights, and the so-called “wicked” cannot survive much longer.

71 GIRLS LIKE US

Works Cited

Alcorn, Leelah. “Suicide Note.” Lazer Princess. Tumblr, 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. Anderson, Neil T., and Dave Park. Purity Under Pressure. 2nd ed. USA: Harvest House, 1995. Print. Bullock, Allan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Print. Carter, David. Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004. Print. Cooper, Anderson. “AC360 Special Report: ‘The Sissy Boy Experiments’ ” Anderson 360. CNN, 3 Jan. 2015. Web. 05 Apr. 2015. “Gay Conversion Therapists Claim Most Patients Fully Straight By The Time They Commit Suicide.” The Onion—America’s Finest News Source. Onion Inc., 9 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. Giles, Geoffrey J. “ ‘The Most Unkindest Cut of All’: Castration, Homosexual- ity and Nazi Justice,” Journal of Contemporary History 27.1 (1992): 41–61. Print. Goodman, Ellen. “AIDS Is Killing the Sexual Revolution.” Toledo Blade at Google News Archives. 28 Oct. 1986. Print. Green, Robert J. “When Therapists Do Not Want Their Clients to Be Homo- sexual: A Response to Rosik’s Article.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Ab- normal Psychology. 4th ed. Dubuque: McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2007. 291–304. Print. “Healing the Broken.” Love In Action [Now referred to as Restoration Path]. District Blitz Youth Conference. The Duluth Entertainment Convention Center: DECC, Duluth, MN. Apr. 2011. Lecture. Journeyman Pictures. “Gay Conversion USA.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 28 Aug. 2007. Web. 6 May. 2012. “Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).” Who.int. World Health Organiza- tion, May 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. Mohney, Gillian. “Leelah Alcorn: Transgender Teen’s Reported Suicide Note Makes Dramatic Appeal.” ABC News. ABC News Network, 31 Dec. 2014. Web. 07 Apr. 2015. Neander, Biedron. “Homosexual: A Separate Category of Prisoners.” Auschwitz–Birkenau Memorial and Museum. n.d. Web. The Normal Heart. Dir. Ryan Murphy. By Larry Kramer. Perf. Mark Ruffalo and Matt Bomer. HBO, 2014. DVD. One Nation Under God. Dir. Teodoro Maniaci, Francine M. Rzeznik, and Zinka Benton. Documentary. 3Z/Hourglass Productions, 1993. Netfl ix. Rosik, Christopher H. “Motivational, Ethical, and Epidemiological Founda-

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tions in the Treatment of Unwanted Homoerotic Attraction.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Abnormal Psychology. 4th ed. Dubuque: McGraw-Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2007. 274–290. Print. Savage, Dan. American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights About Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics. New York: Dutton, 2013. Print. Vogel, Meg. “Obama Calls for End to Gay Conversion Therapy.” USA Today. The Associated Press, 09 Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

73 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

SUSANNA BASAPPA Cobalamin as a “Trojan Horse” for Targeted Delivery of Chemotherapeutics

Susanna Basappa, class of 2015, graduated summa cum laude with her B.S. degree with a double major in Chemistry and Biology. She is now pursuing an MD/PhD at the Mayo Clinic.

74 SUSANNA BASAPPA

WRITER’S COMMENTS

Enzymes are catalysts that, by lowering “activation energy,” allow chemical reactions to occur with decreased energetic requirements, thereby driving these reactions forward. Many enzymes require more than just their sub- strates to make their products; they may also require co-factors to recruit or position substrates as necessary for catalysis. Cobalamin is one of these cofactors that, by carrying methyl or adenosyl groups, are necessary for proper synthesis of DNA nucleotides, without which cells cannot properly divide. This paper describes how we may take advantage of this require- ment, increased as it is in rapidly dividing cancer cells, to preferentially deliver cobalamin-bound anti-cancer drugs, and thereby reduce the side ef- fects of systemic introduction of similar unbound drugs. Cobalamin-bound drugs act as “Trojan horses,” as cancer cells do not immediately recognize and eliminate these anti-cancer drugs in their need for cobalamin. These “prodrugs” are therefore the next step in developing viable, less resistant chemotherapies. —Susanna Basappa

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Ms. Susanna Bappa’s cogent review of the use of cobalamin (a vitamin) to enhance clinical effi cacy in cancer treatment grew out of a term paper she wrote for our senior-level Inorganic Chemistry course here at USF. Since her primary interests were in biochemistry and medicine, she boldly went straight to the middle of the periodic table and selected cobalt as the ele- ment she would use to bridge the seemingly different realms of the body’s biochemical workings (based on the living or “organic” chemistry of car- bon) with the “non-living” region of the table populated by the transition metals. In this article she fi rst illuminates for the reader how the crucial trace element cobalt helps to sustain our biochemical functioning and she then goes on to explain recent work wherein the cobalt-based endogenous system has been creatively woven into life-saving clinical strategies based on the more exotic chemistry of the element platinum. —Jeff Curtis, Chemistry Department

75 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

Cobalamin as a “Trojan Horse” for Targeted Delivery of Chemotherapeautics

Synopsis

OBALAMIN, also known as Vitamin B12, is a substituted Corrin ring (tetra-pyrole) which contains a d7 transition metal, cobalt. Vitamin C B12 is a water-soluble vitamin, and is one of the only biologically pro- duced and used forms of cobalt, which can only be naturally synthesized by certain types of bacteria and archaea in the form of hydroxocobala- min.1 Cobalamin has four major known forms: the previously mentioned hydroxocobalamin, stable and synthetically mass-produced cyanocobala- min, and adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin, which are two active

forms of Vitamin B12 that act as co-factors to enzymes in multicellular organisms. Specifi cally, adenosylcobalamin acts as a co-factor to methyl- malonyl-CoA mutase (MCM), and methylcoblamin acts as a co-factor to methionine synthase (MTR). Both active forms act as carrier molecules for their substituted ligand adenosyl and methyl groups.1,2

Vitamin B12 is a necessary vitamin, without which pernicious anemia, macrocytosis and potentially even permanent nerve damage may result.1,2 Furthermore, due to cobalamin’s central cobalt atom with displaceable li- gands, hydroxocobalamin can and is used to treat cyanide poisoning, as the hydroxyl group can easily be substituted for by cyanide to form cyano- cobalamin, thereby preventing cyanide from binding cytochrome oxidase and allowing cellular respiration to occur. This then allows for the excess cyanocobalamin to be fl ushed out of the body, preventing death from cya- nide.3 In short, cobalamin is a dynamic nutrient, due in part to its cobalt metal center and consequently its coordination chemistry. Recent studies indicate that cobalamin derivatives are being devel- oped such that they may also be used as carrier molecules for targeted cytotoxic cancer treatments. Commonly used drugs carried by cobala- min include platinum-based drugs such as cisplatin; however, these drugs often produce multiple negative side-effects, such as kidney lesions.4,5,6 Consequently, other ligated drugs and small molecules are now being tested for their preferential delivery and cytotoxicity to cancer cells. No- table among these is nitric oxide, NO, which forms nitrosylcobalamin

76 SUSANNA BASAPPA

when ligated to cobalamin, and is an important signalling molecule that can induce apoptosis in cancerous cells.7,8,9,10,11,12 How can cobalamin, a vitamin, allow for use and development of cancer-treating drug deriva- tives like nitrosylcobalamin and platinum-ligated cobalamin? How can these drugs treat different forms of cancer? Novel, recently developed methods of treatment, as well as the theory behind the mechanisms in- herent in the delivery of this treatment, are described as follows.

Cobalamin Structure

Cobalamin is a highly substituted tetrapyrrole corrin ring that contains a cobalt metal center, and carries a variable axial ligand for delivery to tar- get sites. The macrocycle is asymmetric, with different methyl, acetamide and propionamide side chains, one of which terminates in an adenosyl group that associates with the cobalt atom as an electron withdrawing group in a “base-on” (bound) or “base-off ” (protonated and removed) conformations. Furthermore, certain coordination numbers favour spe- cifi c oxidation states, such that 6 ligands are typically bound to Co(III), 5 ligands for Co(II) and 4 ligands for Co(I).1 First described by X-ray crystallography in 1954 by Dorothy Hodg- kin, cobalamin was one of the most complex molecules described at that time. Notably, its corrin ring greatly resembles the porphyrin ring of heme, and even that of chlorophyll, which implies a common deriva- tion or convergent evolution of this useful structure. Cyanocobalamin was the fi rst type that was identifi ed by this method, as seen in Figure 1, while subsequent studies indicated the existence of hydroxycobalamin, adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin.13,14 Other substitutions such as nitrosyl and platinum-based drugs, dis- cussed below, are also possible. For platinum drug delivery via cobala- min, cyanocobalamin is used such that the lone pair on the nitrogen of the cyano ligand binds the platinum complex, rather than the two metals binding directly, potentially creating an electron bridge.4,5,6 For nitrosyl- cobalamin, the replacement of the HO group of hydroxycobalamin with NO- allows for its ligation.10,11

77 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

Function

Of the four most common types of cobalamin, only two have well char- acterized biological function: adenosyl and methylcobalamin. Hydroxy and cyanocobalamin function primarily for the purpose of allowing con- version to the active vitamin forms only when necessary for use. The active forms of cobalamin are known to be co-factors for enzymatic reactions. Specifi cally, they are carrier molecules that allow for closer binding of enzymes, like methionine synthase, to the axial ligand of use, such as the methyl group. The use of these co-factors thereby allows for signifi cantly decreased activation energy of the substrates brought into greater physical proximity. Typically, methyl transferases catalyse heterolytic cleavage of methylcolbalamin’s Co–C bond via nucleophilic displacements. Other forms of cobalamin, such as adenosylcobalamin, are used for radical generation following cleavage of a larger axial ligand via homolytic fi ssion performed by mutase or eliminase enzymes.1,2,13 For the substituted cobalamins of interest, namely cobalamin that carries platinum, as well as nitrosylcobalamin, the functions of the axial ligand are similar to those of the primary four types of cobalamins with typical substitutions. For platinum-bound cobalamin, cisplatin, a well- known anti-cancer drug, is commonly ligated to the cyano group of cya-

nocobalamin. Similar to the uptake of nitrosylcobalamin, Pt(II)-CN-B12 allows for the targeted delivery of this cytotoxic drug preferentially to cancer cells due to greater cobalamin requirements of cancerous cells, whereupon it can be released in order to induce its well-documented apoptotic and necrotic effects.4,5,6 Similarly, upon uptake into cancer cells, the NO- ligand of nitrosyl- cobalamin can be liberated, allowing for a targeted delivery of this infl am- matory mediator. Nitric oxide (NO-) is known for its anti-infl ammatory effects, and more importantly, for its ability to decrease cellular metabolism and to induce activation of apoptotic mechanisms via inhibition of cer- tain cell survival signalling mechanisms, such as the Apo2L/TRAIL path- 7,8,9,10,11,12 way. In this manner, both nitrosylcobalamin and Pt(II)-CN-B12, as well as other similarly substituted cobalamin derivatives may be considered prodrugs that act as “Trojan horses” and become cytotoxic when taken up by rapidly growing cells, like cancer cells, that would normally use biologi- 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 cally active Vitamin B12 to otherwise promote their survival.

78 SUSANNA BASAPPA

Activity of Pt-Bound Cobalamin

Platinum is a well-known anti-cancer agent, due to its soft acidic nature that gives it a high affi nity for binding to sulphuric compounds, and more importantly, sulphuric amino acids.4,5,6,15 One of the most well-known and commonly used platinum-containing cancer drugs is ciaplatin, which has a stereoisomer, transplatin—both are composed of Pt(II) bound to two amine groups and two chlorides. Transplatin, however, is not typical- ly noted for its chemotherapeutic cytotoxicity; the focus for platin cancer drugs remains on the cis isomer. The geometry of cisplatin is almost perfectly square planar, and when bound to cobalamin, forms a bond exclusively with the nitrogen of a cyano group on cyanocobalamin, creat- ing an electron bridge.6 This is seen through IR spectroscopy, for which Ruiz-Sanchéz reports to be one weak CN vibrational band at 2193cm-1, and by 195Pt NMR, which had only one signal at 2120ppm, and which resembles that of cisplatin.5 Release of platin involves reduction of the Co(III) center of cyano- cobalamin into Co(II), since the Pt(II) center is electron withdrawing and therefore mitigates the electron donation of the cyano group to cobala- min. Notably, the tumor microenvironment of most cancers is hypoxic, and is therefore a reducing environment, rendering optimal release of cisplatin from a cobalamin prodrug.6 Cisplatin is commonly used to successfully treat testicular, ovarian, bladder, lung and stomach cancers; however, platinum-based drugs also involve the risk of cytotoxicity to normal, healthy cells.15 Specifi cally, active cobalamin is typically transported into cells via transcobalamin II transport protein (TCII) and cell surface receptor (TCII-R), which medi- ates endocytosis of the molecule and is typically overexpressed in cancer cells. This means that while platinum-bound cobalamin may be taken up by cancer cells in larger quantities, it may also be taken in by other, healthy cells as well.5 Platinum is not normally native to humans, and is mostly encountered through diet and the environment, although it is only minimally absorbed by the lungs and intestines. When taken in high doses as with chemotherapy, however, platinum may accumulate in the kidneys, bones and the hair cells of the ear, and can induce lesions in the effected tissue, as well as hearing loss and tinnitus.16 Therefore, while platinum based drugs are viable methods of treating cancer, it is advan-

79 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

tageous to introduce prodrugs that preferentially release their cytotoxic platinum to the specifi c cancerous targets, rather than systemically. When treating cancer, there is also the risk of the development of resistance to specifi c drugs such as cisplatin. If cancer stem cells are not killed, then it is possible that those cells might develop methods of eliminating platinum without dying from apoptosis. However, cisplatin’s method of action in the body is usually and quickly fatal to cancer cells. Notably, cisplatin acts by forming a complex with DNA, as shown in Fig- ure 2, such that it induces a bend or a “kink” in it, destabilizing the bases surrounding the cisplatin and preventing replication. This is typically ac- + complished by the hydrolysis of cisplatin to form [Pt(NH3)2ClH 2O] that binds to the negatively charged DNA, via a nitrogen of adenine or guanine. Further hydrolysis of the other chlorine ligand allows for further binding to a second adenine or guanine, thereby preventing bind- ing of RNA polymerase. The DNA-platin complex is recognized by a high-mobility group DNA repair enzyme, which, if it cannot be fi xed, halts transcription, such that the region of DNA cannot be replicated and cells cannot divide. Eventually, this leads to apoptosis or necrosis (in either case, death) of the cancer cells to which the cisplatin has been introduced (Figure 2).15

Activity of NO- Substituted Cobalamin

Characterization of NO -Cbl, by Hassanin et al., has shown via UV-Vis spectroscopy that a high peak band at 514cm-1 can be observed with excitation, and that the most likely structure in an aqueous solution, as in - the body, is NO Cbl•15H2O. Further X-ray diffraction has shown that the Co-N-O bond angle is between 117.4-121.4o, indicating a bent ge- ometry of the axial ligand. Since low spin NO -Cbl(III) has a lone pair on the nitrogen, it is projected to be bent about a 120o angle, as compared to NO-Cbl(II), which is thought to be linear. Between this data and the previous knowledge that the coordination number predicts the oxidation number of the cobalt atom, it was assumed that NO-Cbl has a Co(III) center.10 On the other hand, in a previous study by Bauer in 1998, as- sociation of NO to hydroxycobalamin was shown to cause a shift in the 3 2+ absorption spectra from Co + (λmax = 530) to Co (λmax = 500) with the formation of nitrosylcobalamin, while the IR vibrational frequency was

80 SUSANNA BASAPPA

observed to be 1652 cm-1, which also indicates a bent geometry.7 It may be noted, however, that the study by Hassanin et al. indicates that the NO-Cbl is in a protonated base-off conformation, which may explain this disparity between geometry and oxidation state.10 As with platinum-bound and other cobalamins, nitrosylcobalamin is transported into cells via TCII and TCII-R mediated endocytosis. Due to π* back-bonding of the nitrogen to the cobalt, NO- is a strongly bound ligand that only releases under certain conditions.11 However, in an aqueous environment, NO-Cbl has been shown to dissociate quickly at a low pH, as is common in certain types of cancer.18 Bauer showed that NO was preferentially released under acidic conditions around pH 4.9, and indicated a theoretical maximum of one NO released per one molecule of cobalamin with fi rst-order kinetics. At relatively higher pH closer to physiological ranges of living cells (between 6 and 7.4, with a normal physiological range of 7.3–7.4), release of NO was minimal, and nearly absent under more basic conditions.7

Cancer cells are also known to have a relatively higher Vitamin B12 requirement, due to rapid and uncontrolled growth that is characteristic of neoplastic cancerous cells. However, because NO- is an endogenous- ly produced and easily scavenged (even by hydroxycobalamin in times of excess), it is easier for healthy cells to eliminate excess NO-.7,8,9,10,11,12 Subsequently, NO-Cbl uptake and NO- release is preferential in cancer cells, and has minimal negative side effects in non-cancerous cells, which might make it a less dangerous, if less aggressive, treatment for less ag- gressive cancers. Specifi cally, NO- is known to inhibit IKK, a kinase involved in ac- tivating the NF-ĸB pathway that normally induces cell survival, though S-nitrosylation of Cys-179. Reynaert et al. also indicate that NO- can di- rectly inhibit NF-ĸB from binding to DNA and activating cells survival genes by S-nitrosylation of the Cys-62 of that protein.19 Therefore, during Apo2L/TRAIL activation that has the potential to produce both cell survival (NF-ĸB) and apoptotic (caspase) signals and enzymes, the introduction of NO- via NO-Cbl has been shown to promote apoptosis, as shown in Figure 3, in the cancer cells in which it is uptaken and the NO- released. Furthermore, NO-Cbl may induce the expression of further Apo2L/TRAIL receptors, indicating a potential positive feedback loop. This is especially relevant for otherwise resistant

81 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

cancer cells that overexpress survival signalling proteins like Bcl-2, as NO delivery is suffi cient to overcome these survival signals. This there- by indicates that NO-Cbl might prove to be a viable treatment by itself, or in combination with other anti-cancer drugs. 7,8,9,10,11,12, 19

Discussion

Cobalamin is a ubiquitous and necessary molecule that is used by the body to transport methyl and adenosyl groups such that enzymes can induce reactions necessary to cell division, and therefore perpetuation of life. A lack of cobalamin in the diet results in pernicious anemia, which is fatal if not corrected.1,2 As one of the only forms of cobalt used by living organisms, cobalamin is a unique molecule, and is of great interest for its capacity as a carrier molecule. Recent efforts in cancer therapy have been made in order to allow for better targeting of cytotoxic chemotherapies to tumor cells preferentially, such that negative side effects such as organ failure and damage to other, healthy cells is reduced. Two such drugs of interest are nitrosylcobala- min7,8,9,10,11,12 and platinum-bound cobalamin, especially cisplatin-cobala- min.4,5,6 These may be termed “prodrugs,” as they act as Trojan horses: they are taken in by cancer cells of high cobalamin requirement, and are preferentially released in conditions most permissible to and characteristic of the hypoxic, reducing and acidic conditions of tumors.6,7,11 However, due to the endogenous nature of the NO- released from nitrosylcobala- min, it may be said that while cobalamin-transported cisplatin may be more effective at killing cancerous cells, NO- delivered in a similar way may be a preferable treatment with fewer negative side effects. Future studies may prove to be benefi cial to support the use of ni- trosylcobalamin as a regular chemotherapeutic. In addition, it is hoped that further studies will test targeted delivery of other small molecules, especially those endogenously produced and eliminated such that only a transient treatment is introduced that damages only cancerous cells. In these ways, novel cobalamin-transported chemotherapies, and perhaps targeted treatments for other diseases, can be developed such that the burden of disease can be reduced in affl icted patients.

82 SUSANNA BASAPPA

Figure 1

The tetrapyrrole corrin ring of cobalamin is shown as discovered by Dorothy Hodgkins, with a Co(III) metal ion center that binds the four central facing pyrole nitrogens, the adenosenyl nitrogen extending from the highly substi- tuted corrin ring, and a cyano group. The cyano substitution indicates that the isolated cobalamin is in the form of cyanocobalamin, a highly stabilized molecule.14

83 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

Figure 2

The cisplatin-DNA complex, with the hydrolysed cisplatin shown in red, the destacked, kinked DNA in aqua, and the high mobility group enzyme in gray with a yellow active site.15

84 SUSANNA BASAPPA

Figure 3

A fl ow chart of the action of cis-platin on cells (optimally only cancerous cells if therapy is targeted as with cyanocobalamin-delivery).17

85 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

Figure 4

The primary mechanism for NO-Cbl inhibition of IKK, which prevents the activation of NF-ĸB induced cell survival. Apo2L/TRAIL signalling, following IKK inhibition, results in caspase activation and subsequent apoptosis of can- cerous cells.20

86 SUSANNA BASAPPA

References

1. Herbert, V. (1988). Vitamin B12: Plant Sources, Requirements, Assays. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 48, 852-858. 2. National Institutes of Health: Offi ce of Dietary Supplements. (2011). Vitamin B12: Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet. Bethesda, MD. Retrieved from: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/ 3. Hamel, J. (2011). A Review of Acute Cyanide Poisoning with a Treatment Update. Critical Care Nurse, 31(1), 73-82. 4. Ruiz-Sánchez, P., König, C., Ferrari, S., & Alberto, R. (2011). Vitamin B12 as a carrier for targeted platinum delivery: in vitro cytotoxicity and mecha- nistic studies.Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry 16, 33–44. doi 10.1007/ s00775-010-0697-z 5. Ruiz-Sánchez, P., Mundwiler, S., Spingler, B., Buan, N.R., Escalante-Seme- rena, J.C., & Alberto, R. (2008). Syntheses and characterization of vitamin B12-Pt(II) conjugates and their adenosylation in an enzymatic assay. Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, 13(3), 335-347. 6. Mundwiler, S., Spingler, B., Kurz, P., Kunze, S., & Alberto, R. (2005). Cyanide-Bridged Vitamin B12-Cisplatin Conjugates. Chemistry: A European Journal, 11, 4089-4095. 7. Bauer, J.A. (1998). Synthesis, characterization and nitric oxide release pro- fi le of nitrosylcobalamin: A potential chemotherapeutic agent. Anticancer Drugs. 9(3), 239-44. 8. Bauer, J.A. Lupica, J.A., Schmidt, H., Morrison, B.H., Haney, R.M., Masci, R.K., Lee, R.M., Di Donato J.A., & Lindner, D.J. (2007). Nitrosylco- balamin Potentiates the Anti-Neoplastic Effects of Chemotherapeutic Agents via Suppression of Survival Signaling. PLoS One, 2(12), e1313. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001313 9. Chawla-Sarkar, M., Bauer, J.A., Lupica, J.A., Morrison, B.H., Tang, Z., Oates, R.K., Almasan, A., Di Donato, J.A., Borden, E.C., & Lindner D.J. (2003). Suppression of NF-ĸB survival signalling by nitrosylcobalamin sensitizes neoplasms to the anti-tumour effects of Apo2L/TRAIL. The Journal of Biological Chemistry. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M306111200 10. Hassanina, H.A., Hannibala, L., Jacobsen, D.W., Browne, K.L., Marquesf, H.M., & Brascha, N.E. (2009). NMR spectroscopy and molecular model- ling studies of nitrosylcobalamin: further evidence that the deproton- ated, baseoff form is important for nitrosylcobalamin in solution. Dalton Transactions, 3, 424–433. doi:10.1039/b810895a

87 COBALAMIN AS A “TROJAN HORSE”

11. Pallares, I.G., & Brunold, T.C. (2014). Spectral and Electronic Properties of Nitrosylcobalamin. Inorganic Chemistry, 53, 7676-7691. doi: 10.1021/ ic500986x 12. Tang, Z., Bauer, J.A., Morrison, B.H., & Lindner, D.J. (2006). Nitrosylco- balamin Promotes Cell Death via S Nitrosylation of Apo2L/TRAIL Re- ceptor DR4. Molecular and Cellular Biology, 26(15), 5588–5594. doi:10.1128/ MCB.00199-06

13. Buckel, W. (2007). Cobalamin Coenzymes and Vitamin B12. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0000666.pub2 14. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkins. (2010). Chemical Heritage Foundation. Retrieved from: http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resourc- es/chemistry-in-history/themes/molecular-synthesis-structure-and-bond- ing/hodgkin.aspx 15. Trzaska, S. (2005). Cisplatin. Chemical Engineering News: Special Issue, 83(25). 16. WHO Regional Offi ce for Europe. (2000). Platinum. Air Qual- ity Guidelines (2nd ed.). Copenhagen, Denmark. Retrieved from: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_fi le/0015/123081/ AQG2ndEd_6_11Platinum.PDF 17. Wang, D. & Lippard, S.J. (2005) Cellular processing of platinum antican- cer drugs. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 4, 307-320. doi:10.1038/nrd1691 18. Fukamachi, T., Chiba, Y., Wang, X., Saito, H., Tagawa, M., & Kobayashi, H. (2010). Tumor specifi c low pH environments enhance the cytotoxicity of lovastatin and cantharidin. Cancer Letters, 297(2), 182-9. doi: 10.1016/j. canlet.2010.05.010. 19. Reynaert, N.L., Ckless, K., Korn, S.H., Vos, N., Guala, A.S., Wouters, E.F.M., van der Vliet, A., & Janssen-Heininger, Y.M.W. (2004). Nitric oxide represses inhibitory ĸB kinase through S-nitrosylation. Proceed- ings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(24), 8945–8950. doi: 10.1073/ pnas.0400588101 20. Lupica, J.A., Bauer, J.A., Chawla-Sarkar, M., Morrison, B.H., Tang, Z., Oates, R.K., Almasan, A., Didonato, J.A., Borden, E.C. and Lindner, D.J. (2004) Effects of nitrosylcobalamin on NF- B survival signaling and antitumor activity of Apo2L/TRAIL. Proceedings for the American Association of Cancer Research, 45.

88 BRITTANY TINALIGA

BRITTANY TINALIGA “Omo, oppa! I saranghae you so much! Fighting!”: Unpacking the Korean-Pop Fandom Language

Brittany Tinaliga, class of 2015, graduated cum laude with a major in Communication Studies and a minor in Public Relations.

89 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

WRITER’S COMMENTS

I initially chose to research on the function of a language being spoken within a specifi c nationality or race. However, feeling adventurous, I took a different route and examined a fandom culture—in this case, the K-pop fandom. The concept of “styling the other” through language and its implications drove me towards examining this particular group. K-pop fans are critiqued for their language choices since they are not only fans of music but of a culture. Professor Leung guided me in laying out rigorous research methods. I combed through a plethora of naturally occurring fan discourse throughout online forums/social media sites for certain words frequently used by fans—some of which included Korean words. I then interviewed a fan about her personal fan language use/experiences and her views on fan lingo usage. I received data from over one hundred fans about K-pop fan communication and how they rate the appropriateness of this language use. —Brittany Tinaliga

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Brittany Tinaliga’s paper on Korean pop music fan language is a unique take on the concept of the appropriation and re-entextualization of a specifi c register of language. Through robust qualitative and quantitative data, Brittany shows how K-pop fans of non-Korean heritage style their language online and in person to perform a unique identity that celebrates their participation in a sub-culture and imagined community. Brittany’s use of crowd-sourced survey data allowed her entry into online communities all over the world, and her insider position in this community also provided access in collecting rich interview data, going above and beyond what was expected of her in our course paper. I was so impressed with her application and extension of our course concepts and theories, but most importantly, with how enthusiastic she was about this project, even as she was wading through all her survey data responses. Her piece is a fantastic example of how starting a research project from one’s personal interests, experiences, and queries culminates into a product that is academically rich and rigorous. —Genevieve Leung, Department of Rhetoric and Language

90 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Abstract

Led by the framework of meta-discourse analysis, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis, the goal of this study was to gain an understanding of the function of fans using Korean-pop fan lingo and the perceived appropriateness of its use. In this study, the fan community and their actions are referred to as the “fandom.” In order to answer the research question, a mixed methods approach was taken; the results indicated that fans used fan lingo and words when stylizing the Korean language, when expressing fan identity and expertise, when showing participation in fan culture, and when equivalents to the lingo didn’t suffi ce due to meaning and impact. These results were then compared and contrasted to past literature. The fi ndings reinforced the idea that language use is guided by our language ideologies. Furthermore, K-pop fans overall viewed their Korean language use as a positive agency in promoting the culture rather than a negative practice. This development of a K-pop fan language can be viewed as positive, although a negative side may be that the fan language allows for the appropriation of the Korean language. K-pop fans are arguably not just fans of a music genre but also of a minority culture, which sets them up for critique especially when they participate in language borrowing.

Keywords: lexical borrowing, language appropriation, slang, fandom, Korean-pop

91 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

“Omo, oppa! I saranghae you so much! Fighting!”: Unpacking the Korean-Pop Fandom Language

Methodology

ULTURAL APPROPRIATION is an issue that has constantly been the Ccenter of heated discussion—appropriation of dress, symbols, and for the focus for this study, the appropriation of language. Language appropriation occurs when words, phrases, or certain language elements are adopted into another group. These language elements (e.g., single words) are taken out of their original context and used as a verbal fashion of sorts outside of their actual culture—the danger being that appropriation can remove the original cultural meaning. With the growing popularity of Korean pop (also known as K-pop) internationally, the use of certain Korean words and phrases are being adopted into the discourse of non-native speakers, usually in a public performance or when interacting with others to show solidarity. There are slang words that have become common lingo among fans that are beyond the knowledge of non-fans. The purpose of this study is to determine how language appropriation and emergent slang created by non-Korean speaking fans function. Additionally, this study will examine the implications of the practice of language appropriation and its effect on Korean culture.

Researcher’s Stance

This particular topic garnered my interest because of my own identity as a K-pop fan. As a regular blogger within the K-pop fandom, I never really noticed the new language I acquired over time. The idea of compiling lingo into a dictionary of sorts for fans was an idea I entertained for a while; but after learning a plethora of sociolinguistic research concepts, I realized I could take this fan dictionary idea even further. Fandom language, in general, is surprisingly understudied, despite its prevalence in the online sphere. With this interest in mind, I decided upon conducting a study surrounding a fandom I am intimately acquainted with.

92 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Speaker Authenticity and Expertise

Brenner, Burns, and Ewald (2014) examined the discourse practice of male NFL fans. The “fan speech” the participants used expressed their knowledge of football and showed which team they aligned with. When taking on coach speech, they used simple dialogue, encouraging phrases, and criticism, while also using football lingo. They also used the coaches’ and players’ names to refer to the game and its elements. When taking on the commentator role, they would speak with an air of expertise, but would not adhere to the appropriate “turn-taking” pattern. Similarly, expertise was a function of talk in Leppänen’s (2007) ar- ticle focusing on Finnish youth language and their use of English. This study looked at various contexts, with one of them being joint video game play using a console system. Within this context, the use of Eng- lish functioned as a way to establish authority in conversation. Reyes’ (2005) article pertaining to Asian American youth and their appropriation and use of African American slang also touches on the element of expertise and authority. In this study, they were considered authentic slang speakers, depending on what region they resided in and whom their friends were.

Showing Participation in a Culture and Displaying a Desired Identity

With specifi c respect to slang, Danesi (2010) conducted a study surrounding slang and its general functions. One of the fi ndings was that slang allows individuals to make sense of how they see the world. It allows individuals to present a certain identity when interacting with others. With slang specifi c to groups, they participate in what is referred to as “groupthink,” which is how they view the world. Furthermore, there is a connection among slang, identity, and rea- soning. Our reasoning is shaped by our identity, and slang comes from elements of our identity. How we see the world and those who live in it can certainly be affected by what we participate in. Showing participation in a generational culture was examined in Corrigan’s article (1984), which examined the use of the slang word “totally.” The previous generation used this slang word to belittle those not adhering to a standard, as an

93 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

expression of celebration, and as an assurance check. When looking at various generations of slang, all in all, slang is looked at as a way to say what is important, what the norms are, and what activities are expected. Slang words like “totally” encompass a generation and its cultural aspects. It allows one to be expressive, while simultaneously directing one’s actions. Slang can be utilized to express a generational identity, as well as the underlying expectations in a nationalist and cultural context. Büscher, D’Hondt, and Meeuwis (2013) study examines the residents of Goma, Congo, who assign multiple indexes to the Lingala language, which is well outside their primary knowledge. It is important to see this in the context of the Rwandan–Congolese politics. The border symbolizes an ideology of separation between those who lived there fi rst—the “true” Congolese—and their invaders. Goma residents needed a way to show their true Congolese status; for Goma residents, the use of the Lingala language functioned as a link to their inner sociolinguistic capital, which affi rmed their identity of being Congolese. Lingala is the language of the Kinshasa and speaking it in a public environment equates to them affi rming their identity as an “authentic” Congolese person. This appro- priation reinforces the Lingala language to strength, in addition to urban modernity, which can be tied to the idea of styling the other. This concept of “styling the other” refers to how people use certain language elements in their discourse with the purpose of emulating a group that they are usually not a member of, which merely refl ects their subjective view of how that group speaks (Rampton, 2013). Just as Goma residents used slang in order to perform a desired identity, Lepännen’s (2007) study examines how gamers, fan-fi ction au- thors, and bloggers express their identity. The gamer lingo in Lepännen’s (2007) study found the prevalent frequency of English words. The use of English made interaction and game functions smooth, while allow- ing gamers to identify with game characters and fellow players. Another area that Lepännen examined was a corpus of fan written fi ction; the study found that switching languages allowed the story to be enhanced through the interesting character dynamics. It authenticated the charac- ter’s world and settings put forth by the author. By creating multilingual friendly fan-fi ction, the writer is able to take part in a broader social world. Looking at weblogs, the function of a writer’s use of language shifting was examined. For example, a blogger

94 BRITTANY TINALIGA

actively utilized English when she was capable of speaking in Finnish, demonstrating language shift. Her blog entries tend to be entirely in English with little Finnish. The use of English creates an intimate link with other bloggers where she is confi dent in expressing herself and to communicate with others with different linguistic backgrounds. Much like the citizens, gamers, and writers in Lepännen’s study, Bul- garian English learners of various ages expressed comparable functions of slang. Charkova (2007) had Bulgarian English learners partake in a study where they were tested on English slang. They were asked about their thoughts toward sources, motives, and ways for utilizing the Eng- lish language as slang. The two motives they found prevalent for using the English language as slang was as follows: (a) to identify with a speech community with other English learners, and (b) to feel as if they are part of a youth culture that is ultimately formed by the media and the English language (Charkova, 2007). As opposed to the younger participants, the older group’s motive was more about using slang to access a different culture shaped by media. Unlike their younger counterparts, they did not use slang for integrative or expressive purposes. Overall, English slang allowed both groups to pass into the global youth culture. In regards to global culture, Kim’s (2015) article examined the Korean-pop fandom. The researcher found that fans partake in a “participatory culture,” in which the K-pop fandom conducts donation activities in order to project a positive image. This culture puts forth efforts to be socially responsible in view of the public eye. These fan groups were found to be especially fi xated on the competitive aspect of the amount and novelty of the donations. Youth discourse studies in the following article yielded similar results in regards to showing participation in a desired culture. Reyes’ (2005) article concerning Asian American youth also mentioned the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to show participation in the urban youth culture. The researcher found that it was also a way in which they separated youth from adults. The youth participants were mostly accepted as being part of the urban culture when they used AAVE. It was apparent that there was a separation between youth and adults when they had no knowledge of the lingo, or were not validated as participants.

95 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Another instance of boundaries being a function of language is seen in an article by Jaspers (2011), which looked at teenagers in a Belgium school and their use of the Antwerp dialect. They noted that established citizens would use the dialect to create a boundary between them and newcomer immigrants, who usually had poor Dutch fl uency. They con- cluded that appropriation of the dialect did not form an understanding between white and non-white students; since there were only some ele- ments of the dialect utilized, the use of their primary tongue was still present, and there was no consistency in the dialect’s features they would choose to utilize. Overall, there seemed to be tension between choosing to use the dialect or their home-language, as institutions expect them to speak proper Dutch—although their social class and education makes it hard to adhere to because they run the risk of overdoing it, and not using enough of their primary language. With choosing to adopt the dia- lect, they must take on the stigma given to those not fl uent in the home language. While taking on a dialect allowed them to put forth a certain identity, it also worked to create an “in” group versus an “out” group.

Styling the “Other”

The article by Brenner et al. (2014) touches upon male NFL sports fans discourse. The researchers found that the participants would take on different identity roles depending on whom they aimed their utterances towards. When speaking to the TV, they would take on the linguistic expressions of fans and coaches. Similarly, the function of taking on certain discourse elements to project an identity was examined in Leppänen’s (2007) study. He examined the indexical function of using English in Finnish hip-hop lyrics, fi nding a mix of English and Finnish in the lyrics, which indexes a desired hip-hop identity. Finnish hip-hop is indexed as linked to Anglo American hip-hop, while simultaneously Finnish lyrics indicate that there is a unique Finnish hip-hop scene. The act of indexing what the lyricists believe to be Anglo American hip-hop is seen as a way of embodying a stereotypical view of the genre. Another study examining the use of English found that a function of usage was to create certain personas. Charkova’s (2007) study on Bul- garian English learners revealed that one of the younger participants’ overall purpose was to integrate English slang in order to present a

96 BRITTANY TINALIGA

respectable image. In this study, the younger group indexed English slang with being respected, which could be attributed to their view that English speakers are seen as prominent fi gures. The desire to mirror a prominent fi gure was similarly a topic of in- terest in Morales and Lovric’s (2015) study on the K-pop and K-drama fandom within Spain and Latin America. One aspect of the study in- volved asking for narratives from male K-pop and K-drama fans about their relationship with Korean pop culture, as well as their interactions with others. Many of the participants mentioned that there was much to be admired about the “superior” ethics, morals, and respectfulness of Koreans. This could perhaps signal a desire to also emulate these perceived Korean values. Furthermore, they expressed that the absence of hyper-sexuality in K-pop—often seen in Western music—is a major reason for why they are drawn to this music style. This could be a way for the participants to distance themselves from the Western music culture that they do not identify with and do not wish to express as part of their own identities.

Language Impact and Special Meaning

One of Charkova’s (2007) fi ndings indicated that the younger group’s integration of English slang allowed them to more aptly express themselves, suggesting that other languages may not have suffi ced. This is seen in Jaspers’ (2011) study, where Belgian teens’ use of the Antwerp dialect was connected with intense emotions, a loss of control, aggression, slurs, body fl uids, and sexuality. This perhaps meant that their natural dialect did not quite get the right amount of intensity or meaning across. Within De Decker’s (2012) article, most chat room data indicated that Flemish users would utilize English words as what they coin a “luxury loan” (De Decker, 2012, p. 347). This means that users would usually choose to use English word(s) even if there was an actual term they could use in Dutch. It is important to note, however, that Dutch re- mained the main language spoken. Most instances of lexical borrowing involved substituting single English words into Dutch sentences as op- pose to inserting multiple English words. Researchers noticed that while they seemed to slightly know the English language, they didn’t seem to

97 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

be fl uent users. English terms that occurred most often were adjectives and few verbs, which aided in their expression of things and individuals. Notably, teenagers were found to adjust certain English terms so that they were less English and more Dutch in lexical nature. This shows overall how language is not static, but dynamic.

Description of the Study and Research Question

As shown above, present studies surrounding language appropriation and slang specifi c to certain groups are largely limited to ethnic groups and a few other groups focused on certain interests. The present literature neglects the modern interest groups formed today around topics such as music genres. When looking for articles examining discourse specifi c to fans in general, literature was limited to sports, TV shows, and university students. Current literature relating to the K-pop fandom does not touch on topics specifi cally about the use of fan language. This current research is signifi cant because appropriation is usually seen as a negative and disrespectful practice. This study will further examine how adopted words, phrases, and slang actually work within this fan group. The practice of borrowing choice words as an accessory can be seen as problematic toward actual Korean speakers, since they are a minority group. It would be important to see how Korean language appropriation and slang functions for in- ternational fans, as well as what the implications of these practices are. Thus, this study is guided by the following research questions:

RQ1: What is the function behind emergent slang and language appropriation by Korean-pop fans?

RQ2: What is the perceived appropriateness of using lingo and Korean words in fan discourse?

98 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Method

A mixed methods approach was taken in this study. I utilized quantitative, qualitative, and online source corpus for a larger result pool. Meta- discourse analysis, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis (CDA) were the analytical frames used across the data. Meta-discourse looks at conversation about discourse, while discourse analysis looks at language-in-use or everyday talk, and CDA examines discourse as a social practice in light of ideologies. Specifi cally, the quantitative and qualitative portions used a meta- discourse and CDA lens, as I had participants discuss how discourse functioned and a critique of language appropriateness. I examined the online sources using the discourse analysis lens, as I was more interested in the actual conversation content.

Participants

For the quantitative portion, 115 participants from 33 countries took part in an online survey. Most participants resided in the Philippines (30.4%, n=35), followed by the United States (13.9%, n=16), and Malaysia (9.6%, n=11). Most of the participants were female at 95.7% (n=110) with males at 4.3% (n=5). Their ages ranged from 11 to 39, with the average age ranging between 16 to 19 years old. Of the participants, 93% (n=107) claimed no fl uency in the Korean language, while 3% (n=8) claimed fl uency. Additional information revealed that the majority of fans had been involved in the K-pop fandom between 1 to 4 years at 53% (n=61), fol- lowed by 5 or more years at 35.6 % (n=41), and lastly, less than 1 year at 8.7% (n=10). Most fans claimed to listen to Bangtan Boys, solo artists, and Korean hip-hop. Following the qualitative portion, I interviewed one non-Korean speaking participant with the pseudonym of Taeyeon. She is a 17-year- old female, who revealed that she is of Filipino descent and did not claim fl uency in Korean. Lastly, the online corpus analysis involved three sources: allkpop. com, Soompi.com, and Koreaboo from Facebook. The user comments came from participants who were non-native speakers of Korean. Ad- ditionally, all these sources were open for use in multiple countries.

99 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Procedures

For the online survey, I distributed a survey link across various social media sites (e.g., Facebook and Tumblr) asking for participants. A disclaimer in the survey informed participants that their identities would remain anonymous. I used questions suited to answer my research questions. For the interview portion, I used convenience sampling by going through my own social media to ask for participants. An interview pro- tocol was compiled prior and led the direction of the interview. I in- terviewed my participant at locations of her choosing for roughly fi fty minutes of data. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed for reoccurring themes. Lastly, I chose three online news sources to screenshot conversa- tions from—allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo. The rationale behind these resource choices was their popularity amongst the online K-pop fan community. I examined three signifi cant events that occurred in the K-pop industry: (1) Kris, an ex-member of EXO suing S.M. En- tertainment for contract nullifi cation, (2) B.A.P. suing and leaving TS Entertainment, and (3) Ladies’ Code members EunB and RiSe passing away from a car accident. These were chosen because the articles for the events had fan comments that spanned across six months, lasting from May to December 2014, which allows us to see any consistency in the results. These events also garnered strong responses from fans. Additionally, these sources are used by fans from various countries, allowing for a diverse pool of participants. A total of 25 news articles and posts relevant to the three topics were examined (see Appendix).

Survey Data

To answer the research question about fan language functionality, participants were initially asked what they perceived the function of inserting fan lingo and Korean words into fan discourse entailed. The most prevalent answer was that there was a special meaning or impact of fan lingo and Korean language that an equivalent just wouldn’t suffi ce (i.e., it’s trying to communicate meanings we don’t have words for, or no exact equivalent in our own language). The next most occurring answer was that using the fandom language allowed them to participate in the

100 BRITTANY TINALIGA

fandom culture (e.g., to feel like you’re part of a community). Next was to show expertise and authenticity as a fan (e.g., to feel like a language master) or to express a desired identity (e.g., we are known as K-pop fans and not a fan of British bands). Lastly, it was the function of styling the Korean language (e.g., we feel like we’re a little bit Korean, too). The next section of the survey provided the participant with twelve K-pop fan lingo and Korean words commonly used in fan discourse. They were asked for its meaning, its synonyms or antonyms, its use in a sentence, and their experiences with the word or phrase. For the pur- poses of this paper, only the perceived appropriateness and the function will be discussed. When asked about the word oppa 오빠 (a term of endearment for an older brother), the most prevalent functions mentioned were that the word had a special meaning or impact (45%, n=43), followed by the functions of stylizing Korean language and to participate in fandom culture (both 14.9%, both n=14). Next, they were asked about the term “OTP” (an acronym meaning “one true pairing”). The top response was that it had a special meaning or impact (58.6% , n=17) with the next top response being the partici- pant hasn’t used the term (17.2%, n=5). This was followed by the func- tion of participation in fan culture (6.9%, n=2). Otoke 오토케 (a term meaning “What to do?”) yielded the following responses: the term had a special meaning or impact (39.5%, n=15), the term is used to stylize Korean language (23.7%, n=9), and the term is used to show the user’s expertise (10.5%, n=4). Unnie 언니 (a term of endearment for an older sister), yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (38.2%, n=13), the term is used to stylize Korean language (23.5%, n=8), and used to participate in fan culture (17.6%, n=6). Sasaeng 사생팬 (a term to describe crazy, dangerous fans) yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (62.5%, n=20), the term is used to participate in fan culture (12.5%, n=4), and shows fan identity (12.5%, n=4). Saranghae 사랑해 (a phrase meaning “I love you”) yielded the fol- lowing responses: the phrase has special meaning or impact (31.7%, n=13), the phrase is used participate in fan culture (26.8%, n=11), and the phrase is used to stylize Korean language (19.5%, n=8).

101 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Omo 오모 (a term meaning “Oh my”) yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (43.8%, n=14), the term is used to show the user’s expertise (12.5%, n=4), and the term is used to stylize Korean language (6.3%, n=2). Daebak 대박 (a term meaning “awesome”) yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (45.9%, n=17), the term is used to participate in fan culture (18.9%, n=7), and the term is used to show the user’s expertise (16.2%, n=6). Andwae 안돼 or Andeyo 안돼요 (terms expressing negativity, “no”) yielded the following responses: the phrase has special meaning or im- pact (34.6%, n=9), the term is used to show the user’s expertise (15.4%, n=4), and the term is used to express fan identity (15.4%, n=4). Wae 왜 (a term asking “Why?”) yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (38.9%, n=14), the term is used to stylize Korean language (27.8%, n=10), and the term is used to express fan identity (13.9%, n=5). Stan (a term meaning “fan”) yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or impact (59.4%, n=19), the term is used to express fan identity (15.6%, n=5), or participant hasn’t used the term (15.6%, n=5). The last provided word was bias 비앗 (a term meaning “favorite”) and yielded the following responses: the term has special meaning or im- pact (65.3%, n=32), the term is used to participate in fan culture (12.2%, n=6), and the term is used to express fan identity (12.2%, n=6). Across all the data, the reasoning that fan lingo and Korean words have special meaning or impact was consistently the most prevalent among the responses. The other functions (to express fan identity, to show the user’s expertise, to participate in fan culture, and to stylize Ko- rean language) occasionally occurred within participants’ responses. On the following page is a table displaying my data fi ndings.

102 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Function Frequency Percentage

Special impact or meaning 34 38.2% Participate in fan culture 23 25.8% Expertise and authenticity 17 19.1% Display desired identity 12 13.5% Styling the Korean language 3 3.4%

Table 1. This table displays the function of Korean-pop fan lingo and Korean words in fan discourse. This data was gathered from 89 responses from non- Korean speaking fans. The chart is arranged with items in descending or- der, with the most prevalent function at the top of the chart.

Next, I asked participants what they perceive the overall appropri- ateness is of using fan lingo and Korean words in fan discourse. A re- sponse of “1” indicated the participant felt it was completely inappropri- ate and a response of “6” meant they felt it was completely appropriate. Out of the responses, 31.8% (n=107) of the participants chose a level of 6, which indicates “completely appropriate.” Notably, the choic- es of levels 3 and 4, 24.3 % and 21.5%, respectively, were not too sig- nifi cantly far from the top statistic indicating that most participants felt it was between “mildly to completely appropriate.” The next occurring levels were 5, 2, and 1 (15%, 6.5%, and 1%, respectively). Not too many participants felt strongly overall that using fan lingo and Korean lan- guage was completely inappropriate, which was level 1. However, the fact that these levels were chosen at all shows that there are individuals with these sentiments. The charts are all skewed right, meaning most responses indicated that use of fan lingo and Korean terms is usually seen as being totally appropriate (level 6). Notably, however, the terms omo and wae seemed to have a signifi cant amount of participants who were leaning towards lin- go use being inappropriate. Note that the inconsistency of the number of replies for each term is due to the participants’ voluntarily choosing to not provide a rating of appropriateness for certain words or phrases.

Charts 1–12. The following charts display the appropriateness of using fan lingo and Korean words. The data was gathered from 115 responses from non-Korean speaking fans, some of whom chose to abstain from answering.

103 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Chart 1. oppa 오빠 45 40 35 30 25 20 15

Number of Responses 10 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 2. “OTP” 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 3. otoke 오토케 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

104 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Chart 4. unnie 언니 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 5. sasaeng 사생팬 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 6. saranghae 사랑해 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 Number of Responses 10 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

105 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Chart 7. omo 오모 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456 Level of Appropriateness

Chart 8. daebak 대박 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456 Level of Appropriateness

Chart 9. andwae 안돼 or andeyo 안돼요 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456 Level of Appropriateness

106 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Chart 10. wae 왜 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 11. bias 비앗 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20

Number of Responses 15 10 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

Chart 12. stan 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Number of Responses 5 123456

Level of Appropriateness

107 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Interview Data

The transcribed interview was coded for emerging functions of fan lingo and Korean words. Please refer to the following legend to better understand the symbols and their functions:

Symbol Symbol Meaning

:: Colons indicate prolongation of the immediately prior sound. The length of the row of colons indicates the length of the prolongation.

((coughs)) Double parentheses contain descriptions rather than transcriptions.

- A dash indicates a truncated or cut-off word.

(.) A period within parentheses indicates a pause, usually less than one second.

(3) A number within parentheses indicates a pause, usually in seconds.

> sentence < “Greater than” and “less than” angle brackets in this order indicate that the talk between them is rushed or compressed. = The equals sign shows that there is no discernible pause between two speakers’ turns or, if put between two sounds within a single speaker’s turn, shows that they run together. hhh This indicates an inhalation of breath. . A period indicates an intonation signaling fi nality.

Legend 1. This legend displays the function of the transcription symbols used in the interview with Taeyeon.

108 BRITTANY TINALIGA

When Taeyeon was asked about what she noticed about the fans’ usage of Korean words during instances online. She stated the following:

T: u::m I actually have a blog on tumblr tha:at is called otokeoppa which is ((cough)) what should I do older brother hhh and u::m I have noticed that other people sometimes use oppa also cause it’s a-it’s a cute term (Lines 93-6)

Later, when asked why she employs the Korean phrase oppa in her discourse instead of English, she reasons the following:

T: it doesn’t sound as cute if you say (.) hey older sister or older brother (Lines 330-1)

These responses point toward a language ideology she holds about what is valued in a language. In this case what is valued is the sound of the language, or its perceived beauty. This fi nding demonstrates Ramp- ton’s defi nition of “styling the other,” since she states that using certain fan lingo and Korean words allows her to emulate what she believes the language sounds like—in this case, “cute.” The next emerging function was to show one’s identity as a fan, in addition to authenticity and expertise. When interviewed about whether it was appropriate to use the term daebak, Taeyeon responded as follows:

T: I think it’s fi ne it’s (.) it shows that yo::u (.) you’ve watched enough like k-dramas to know what it means (Lines 543-4)

Her response shows the value in sounding like she has watched “enough” K-dramas. Being a fan of K-pop perhaps entails more than just being exposed to Korean music, and involves other aspects of their culture. It implies that showing expertise in the language in dramas helps express one’s authentic identity as a K-pop fan. Additionally, using these words allowed her to feel connected to other fans and to various aspects of the culture. After she was asked about the function of using different languages in her discourse her response was the following:

109 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

T: it shows tha::t (.) you know something about a certain culture and then hhh not in a (.) it kind of makes you feel like (.) >if you’re talking to another group< that (.) everyone kno- since everyone knows what you’re saying= (Lines 168-71)

T: =that you feel mo::re u::m >close to the group< but then if you use it (.) to::o towards people who don’t know the word (.) (Lines 174-5)

While she was able to show her expertise, she was also able to create mutual understanding with fellow fans so that she could properly par- ticipate in fan culture. Another function that came up was the necessity for certain lingo within fandom discourse due to its special meaning. When asked about the appropriateness of the using the word sasaeng, she responded with the following reason:

T: um I think it is because when you (.) when you think of sasaeng >it’s just like< (1.1) the defi nition is just crazy fan (Lines 606-7) T: =but then if you would say it in like English it would be like (1) it wouldn’t have the same kind of (1.5) level. (Lines 611-2)

This implies that there is a certain meaning for fan lingo and Korean words that have no other equivalent with quite the same impact. Overall, the following functions of K-pop fan lingo emerged: to style the other, to show fan identity and authenticity, to allow for participation in fan- dom, and to be able to express the special meaning of the lingo that has no other impactful equivalent.

Online News Source Comments Data

I examined roughly 500 comments from each event from each source— allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo—totaling 4,231 comments. I combed through the screenshots for frequency of fan lingo and Korean words. The purpose was to witness how fan lingo and Korean words are actually used within fan discourse, as well as determine whether the use of language was signifi cant and strategic, if at all.

110 BRITTANY TINALIGA

First, it was important to investigate the actual prevalence and use of fan lingo and Korean words to determine its use in real time, as well as whether or not its use seems systematic, if at all. Table 2 (below) pro- vides a general picture of the amount and percentage of fan lingo and Korean words found in comments across news sources about certain K-pop events.

B.A.P. leaving Ladies’ Code Kris leaving EXO TS Entertainment EunB and RiSe Die

132 of 502 129 of 500 51 of 502 allkpop.com (26.3%) (25.8%) (10.2%)

97 of 500 34 of 219 45 of 504 soompi.com (19.4%) (15.6%) (9%)

73 of 500 57 of 507 13 of 507 Koreaboo (14.6%) (11.2%) (2.6%)

1,502 Total 1,226 Total 1,513 Total Comments Comments Comments

Table 2. This table displays the total number and percentage of fan lingo and Korean language use across news article comments. The data was gathered from allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo.

111 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

In the following tables, specifi c lingo and Korean words are more closely examined for frequency of use. The fi rst K-pop fandom event examined was Kris leaving EXO and suing S.M. Entertainment. Com- ments from this event totaled 1,502 and spanned from May to August 2014. After quantifying fan lingo and Korean words that were used in fan comments across the three K-pop news sources, the more frequent terms and phrases were compiled in tables below:

allkpop.com soompi.com Koreaboo

oppa 오빠 oppa 오빠 Idol(s) 22 of 132 (16.7%) 22 of 97 (22.7%) 56 of 73 (76.7%)

Idol(s) “We are one!” “We are one!” 19 of 132 (14.4%) 18 of 97 (18.6%) 26 of 73 (35.6%)

andwae 안돼 or “We are one!” oppa 오빠 andeyo 안돼요 14 of 132 (10.6%) 21 of 73 (28.8%) 22 of 132 (16.7%) Fighting or Fighting or galaxy_fanfan hwaiting 화이팅 hwaiting 화이팅 13 of 97 (13.4%) 22 of 132 (16.7%) 18 of 73 (24.7%) Fighting or Trainee(s) EXOtics hwaiting 화이팅 12 of 132 (9%) 15 of 73 (9.6%) 9 of 97 (9.3%)

Table 3. This table displays the total number and percentage of fan lingo and Korean language use pertaining to Kris’ departure from S.M. Entertainment in 1,502 news article comments. The data was gathered from allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo.

112 BRITTANY TINALIGA

As displayed in the data, few of the sources had specifi c fan lingo or Korean words come up in comments half of the time or more. How- ever, the term “idol(s)” did occur over half of the time in the Koreaboo comments. Across all three sources, “idol(s),” “We are one,” “oppa,” and “fi ghting or hwaiting” were consistently present, showing that the lan- guage of K-pop fans use have certain meaning and is purposefully and systematically used in their discourse. The second K-pop event examined was the group B.A.P. leaving TS Entertainment. The 1,226 comments examined spanned between the months of November to December 2014. The following top frequencies of fan lingo and Korean language were found:

allkpop.com soompi.com Koreaboo

Fighting or Idol(s) BABYs hwaiting 화이팅 14 of 129 (10.9%) 57 of 57 (100%) 20 of 34 (58.8%) Fighting or Fighting or hwaiting 화이팅 BABYs hwaiting 화이팅 10 of 129 (7.8%) 16 of 34 (47.1%) 36 of 57 (63.2%)

BABYs Idol(s) Idol(s) 6 of 129 (4.7%) 12 of 34 (35.3%) 25 of 57 (43.9%)

Trainee(s) wae 왜 Comeback(s) 6 of 129 (7%) 4 of 34 (11.8%) 19 of 57 (33.3%)

Comeback(s) oppa 오빠 oppa 오빠 5 of 129 (3.9%) 2 of 34 (5.9%) 7 of 57 (12.3%)

Table 4. This table displays the total number and percentage of fan lingo and Korean language use pertaining to B.A.P.’s departure from TS Entertainment in 1,226 news article comments. The data was gathered from allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo.

113 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

In contrast to the fi rst event examined, there were more instances of particular fan lingo being used in more than half of the fan comments. With the Soompi.com and Koreaboo sources, the terms “fi ghting or hwaiting” occurred more than half of the time. Also, the term BABYs came up in all of the comments containing fan lingo in the Korea- boo source. Across three sources, the terms “BABYs,” “comeback(s),” “fi ghting or hwaiting,” “idol(s),” and “oppa” appeared frequently and con- sistently. The next set of comments totaled 1,513 and were posted in Sep- tember of 2014. They pertained to the tragic deaths of Ladies’ Code members EunB and RiSe. The following frequencies of fan lingo and Korean language were yielded:

allkpop.com soompi.com Koreaboo

Idol(s) unnie 언니 unnie 언니 12 of 51 (23.5%) 20 of 45 (44.4%) 4 of 13 (30.8%)

bias 비앗 Idol(s) bias 비앗 8 of 51 (15.7%) 9 of 45 (20%) 2 of 13 (15.4%)

Fighting or Comeback(s) Anti hwaiting 화이팅 6 of 51 (11.8%) 2 of 13 (15.4%) 6 of 45 (13.3%)

unnie 언니 bias 비앗 Idol(s) 3 of 51 (5.9%) 5 of 45 (11.1%) 2 of 13 (15.4%)

SONE wae 왜 LAVELY 2 of 51 (3.9%) 3 of 45 (6.7%) 1 of 13 (7.7%)

Table 5. This table displays the total number and percentage of fan lingo and Korean language use pertaining to Ladies’ Code EunB’s and RiSe’s passing in 1,513 news article comments. The data was gathered from allkpop.com, soompi.com, and Koreaboo.

114 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Overall, the comments for this event had fewer instances of lingo and Korean words used in fan discourse compared to the other events. As indicated above, instances of fan lingo and Korean words used in fan comments never surpassed more than half. The common terms that came up across the sources were “bias 비앗,” “idol(s),” and “unnie 언니.” Examining the fan comments as a whole, I found that a few of the statistics indicated that fan lingo and Korean words were occasionally employed, while others appeared a signifi cant amount of times in com- ments. Furthermore, each specifi c event had certain terms that came up consistently across the different news sources, which shows selectivity in language use.

Discussion of Findings

The recorded frequencies of fan lingo and Korean words derived from the three K-pop news sources showed that their use was not arbitrary and was actually selective according to the event. Across the three sources, the same fan lingo and Korean terms occurred consistently according to the event. This suggests that the fans go through a careful process of what term is actually appropriate for the given context of the event or occurrence. For example, with the events about the males, Kris and B.A.P., the term oppa was seen more in discourse specifi cally because the term refers to males. For the Ladies’ Code tragedy, however, unnie was frequently inserted, as it refers to an older sister. The transcribed and coded interview data derived from my interview with the female K-pop fan yielded the following results. When asked for commentary on Taeyeon’s reasoning behind using Korean words in dis- course, she states that she does it for its “cute” quality. The function of sounding a certain way also came up within the quantitative study. In the portion of the study where participants were provided with various fan lingo and Korean words, one of the frequent reasons pro- vided explaining its function was that it sounded a certain way (e.g., cute, cool, Korean). This was the case for terms like omo 오모, otoke 오빠, oppa 오빠, unnie 언니, saranghae 사랑해, and wae 왜.

115 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Survey participants reasoned that using fan lingo and Korean words allowed them to sound a certain way. Usually the case is that fans wish to emulate their Korean idols. This points to the concept of language ideologies—what sounds beautiful and what language is considered use- ful. It also ties back to the concept of styling the other, where the fan has an idea of how native Korean speakers sound aesthetically and phoneti- cally, and try to emulate that. These fi ndings are similar to Reyes (2005) where they wanted to show a tough persona, which they attribute to AAVE; the fi ndings are also similar to Buscher et al. (2013) where the Congolese are equated with sounding strong. Lastly, the fi ndings can be tied back to Madrid- Morales and Lovric’s (2015) study in regards to the K-pop and K-drama male fans perceiving Koreans as especially moral and upright, which are traits they desired to match. Additionally, the stark innocence of K-pop and K-dramas is something they would attribute to themselves. Another code derived from the interview is the idea of inserting Korean words to display expertise and legitimacy as an authentic K-pop fan, in addition to displaying one’s identity as a member of the K-pop fan community. The function of performing one’s identity matches up with Buscher et al. (2013), Charkova’s (2007), Danesi’s (2010) fi ndings that speaking a certain language is a way of performing a desired identity. For a few of the Korean words, the participant reasoned that she utilizes them to show her knowledge and the extent of her linguistic repertoire. Using lingo that only other fellow K-pop fans know shows solidar- ity. Similar fi ndings were seen in the quantitative portion of this study. The functions of expertise and fan culture were mentioned frequently for terms like oppa 오빠, OTP, otoke 오빠, sasaeng 사생팬, and unnie 언니. Generally, they reasoned that inserting these terms in their discourse made them closer to other fans, while also showing their knowledge of the Korean language. This is similar to Charkova’s (2007) fi ndings where certain words used to refer to others in a community functioned to cre- ate a culture. Often, being a K-pop fan may also mean that the fan watches Kore- an dramas as well. Using Korean words and fan lingo shows the identity of the fan as someone who has been exposed to enough of the language through dramas that they are now more of an “expert.” This function

116 BRITTANY TINALIGA

of displaying expertise goes along with the research of Brenner et al. (2014) and Leppänen (2007), who respectively found language switching as functioning to show expertise in sports and gaming. It also relates to Jaspers’ (2011) study where it is a way of creating a separation between the “out” group and the “in” group. Kim’s (2015) study is also similar in that the fans take part in a competitive “donation culture” in a collective fashion to create positive public sentiments for their fan group. The fi rst fi nding was that the participant felt that fan lingo and Ko- rean words have a certain impact and meaning special to K-pop fans. The participants emphasized that in certain situations it simply would not be enough to use the English equivalent of a certain Korean word or fan term. The quantitative data refl ects this fi nding immensely. Across all given lingo terms, the reasoning that it held special meaning or impact was consistently the most prevalent. These fi ndings demonstrate how fandom language is a unique phenomenon and how language can be a vital way to create solidarity and understanding within a fandom. These coincide with fi ndings in Jaspers (2011), as they would usually switch languages in moments of intense emotions and De Decker (2012) who found that switching helped with expressing certain things better. Lastly, when asked about the appropriateness of appropriating fan lingo and Korean words, the participants state that it’s not meant to be offensive and is instead a positive thing. It is important to note that throughout the interview when asking this question about language use appropriateness, Taeyeon doesn’t mention any possible negative set- backs of appropriation. Data from the quantitative study refl ected the same fi ndings. As indicated by the graphs that are all skewed left, with most responses refl ecting a level 6 and less leaning towards a level 1, a great majority of participants feel that using fan lingo and Korean words in their discourse was totally acceptable. Most of the reasoning behind this was that it was a progressive and fun practice and that there was nothing wrong with it. Notably, terms like omo 오모 and wae 왜 had a number of individuals that were leaning towards it not being acceptable. Some of the existing literature states that there is an existing tension be- tween maintaining the use of the primary language and not overdoing it

117 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

with the acquired language. This did not seem to be a problem in the gathered data, which is cause for interest.

Conclusion

The data from this study demonstrates that language use is guided by our language ideologies, which are usually formed through institutions, media, stereotypes, and culture. Language is also an integral means in forming an imagined community that works to connect K-pop fans globally. Additionally, my data overall expressed fans’ views that their use of the Korean language is a positive thing meant to spread the culture. Understandably, there can be both negative and positive implications of the emergence of this new K-pop fan language. On the one hand, the production of new languages made from a mix of various languages is a progressive thing in light of the concept of language ecology. However, others may feel like some of the fandom language is merely appropriation of a minority language. K-pop fans are placed into a unique position as they are more than just fans of music but also fans of a minority culture and borrowers of this minority language. This sets the non-Korean speakers up for critique. Future research should seek out more participants (especially more males) for a more diverse pool. It would also be ideal to ask native Ko- rean speakers what their stance is on language borrowing as this study merely looked at one side of the issue.

118 BRITTANY TINALIGA

References

Brenner, K., Burns, K., & Ewald, J. D. (2014). Talkng to, for and about the TV: An analysis of NFL fans’ discourse. Buckingham Journal of Language & Linguistics, 715-45. Büscher, K., D’hondt, S., & Meeuwis, M. (2013). Recruiting a nonlocal language for performing local identity: Indexical appropriations of Lingala in the Congolese border town Goma. Language In Society, 42(5), 527-556. doi:10.1017/S0047404513000651 Charkova, K. D. (2007). A language without borders: English slang and Bulgarian learners of English. Language Learning, 57(3), 369 416. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00420.x Corrigan, D. M. (1984). “Totally” slang: A study of communication activity. etc. A review of general semantics, 41(1), 82-94. Danesi, M. (2010). The forms and functions of slang. Semiotica, (182), 507-517. doi: 10.1515/semi.2010.069 De Decker, B., & Vandekerckhove, R. (2012). English in Flemish adolescents’ computer-mediated discourse: A corpus-based study. English World-Wide, 33(3), 321-351. doi:10.1075/eww.33.3.04ded Jaspers, J. (2011). Strange bedfellows: Appropriations of a tainted urban dialect. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(4), 493-524. doi:10.1111 j.1467-9841.2011.00502.x Kim, J. O. (2015). Reshaped, reconnected and redefi ned: Media portrayals of Korean pop idol fandom in Korea. Journal of Fandom Studies, 3(1), 79-93. doi:10.1386/jfs.3.1.79_1 Leppänen, S. (2007). Youth language in media contexts: Insights into the functions of English in Finland. World Englishes, 26(2), 149 169. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.2007.00499.x Madrid-Morales, D., & Lovric, B. (2015). ‘Transatlantic connection’: K-pop and K-drama fandom in Spain and Latin America. Journal Of Fandom Studies, 3(1), 23-41. doi:10.1386/jfs.3.1.23_1 Rampton, B. (2013). Styling in a language learned later in life. Modern Language Journal, 97(2), 360-382. doi:10.1111/j.1540 4781.2013.12010.x Reyes, A. (2005). Appropriation of African American slang by Asian American youth. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 509-532.

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Appendix

Alim17. (2014, September 2). [UPDATE] Ladies’ Code member EunB revealed to have passed away in a car accident + two members in critical condition. Allkpop. Retrieved from http://www.allkpop com/article/2014/09/breaking-ladies-code-member-eunb-revealed to-have-passed-away-in-a-car-accident CallMeN00NA. (2014, May 14). [Update] Kris hired Hangeng’s former law fi rm to fi le contract termination from SM. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/05/14/chinese-media reports-that-exos-kris-asked-for-contract-termination/ CallMeN00NA. (2014, September 3). Ladies’ Code’s EunB’s funeral to be held on September 5, updates on other members’ conditions Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/03/ ladies-codes-eunbs-funeral-to-be-held-on-september-5-updates-on other-members-conditions/ CallMeN00NA. (2014, September 5). Sojung recovering after successful surgery, no changes in RiSe’s condition. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/05/sojung-recovering-after successful-surgery-no-changes-in-rises-condition/ Deedeegii. (2014, September 2). Ladies’ Code members Sojung and Rise currently undergoing surgery following car accident. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/02/ladies-code members-sojung-and-rise-currently-undergoing-surgery-following car-accident/ Deedeegii. (2014, September 2). [Update: Rise out of surgery] Polaris Entertainment releases offi cial statement with details regarding Ladies’ Code car accident. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www soompi.com/2014/09/02/polaris-entertainment-releases-offi cial statement-with-details-regarding-ladies-code-car-accident/ Deedeegii. (2014, September 3). Ladies’ Code’s agency reveals more details on fatal accident: “Involved vehicle was a rental, driver is experienced road manager.” Soompi. Retrieved from http://www soompi.com/2014/09/03/ladies-codes-agency-reveals-more-details on-fatal-accident-involved-vehicle-was-a-rental-driver-is experienced-road-manager/

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Deedeegii. (2014, September 3). Ladies’ Code’s “I’m fi ne thank you” reaches No. 1 on music charts, EunB’s lifelong wish belatedly granted. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi com/2014/09/03/ladies-codes-im-fi ne-thank-you-reaches-no-1-on music-charts-eunbs-lifelong-wish-belatedly-granted/ Deedeegii. (2014, September 4). Ladies’ Code’s Sojung still unaware of EunB’s passing + Ashley and Zuny to give eulogy at funeral. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/04 ladies-codes-sojung-still-unaware-of-eunbs-passing-ashley-and-zuny to-give-eulogy-at-funeral/ Deedeegii. (2014, November 27). TS Entertainment reveals it has yet to receive formal complaint regarding B.A.P.’s lawsuit. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/11/27/ts entertainment-reveals-it-has-yet-to-receive-formal-complaint regarding-b-a-ps-lawsuit/ Deedeegii. (2014, November 29). Daehyun’s former vocal trainer speaks out in B.A.P.’s defense in midst of lawsuit reports. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/11/29/daehyuns former-vocal-trainer-speaks-out-in-b-a-ps-defense-in-midst-of lawsuit-reports/ Deedeegii. (2014, December 29) B.A.P. opens up a fancafe to communicate with fans in the midst of lawsuit. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/12/29/b-a-p-opens-up-a fancafe-to-communicate-with-fans-in-the-midst-of-lawsuit/ Halves in unison. (2014, September 2). [Breaking] Ladies’ Code’s EunB passes away from car accident, other members injured. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/02 breaking-ladies-codes-eunb-passes-away-from-car-accident-other members-injured/ Jun2yng. (2014, May 15). Reports claim SM violated EXO-M Kris’ basic civil rights. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi com/2014/05/15/reports-claim-sm-violated-exo-m-kris-basic-civil rights/ Jun2yng. (2014, September 6). Ladies’ Code Sojung making a quick recovery, had been aware of EunB’s passing prior to surgery. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/06 ladies-code-sojung-making-a-quick-recovery-was-aware-of-eunbs passing-prior-to-surgery/

121 K-POP FAN LINGO AND KOREAN LANGUAGE APPROPRIATION

Jun2yng. (2014, November 26). [Updated w/ offi cial statement] All 6 B.A.P. members allegedly fi le lawsuit against TS Entertainment. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/11/26 breaking-all-6-b-a-p-members-allegedly-fi le-lawsuit-against-ts entertainment/ Jun2yng. (2014, December 5). B.A.P. responds to TS Entertainment’s statement, refutes claims made by agency. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/12/05/b-a-p-responds-to-ts entertainments-statement-refutes-claims-made-by-agency/ Jun2yng. (2014, December 5). TS Entertainment releases offi cial statement addressing issues raised in B.A.P.’s formal complaint. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/12/05 ts-entertainment-releases-offi cial-statement-addressing-issues-raised in-b-a-ps-formal-complaint/ Koreaboo. (2014, May 14). Breaking News: SM Entertainment has reportedly confi rmed with TV Daily that EXO-M Kris has fi led a lawsuit for early termination [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook com/koreaboo/posts/10152474395956412?reply_comment id=10152475732351412&total_comments=1 Koreaboo. (2014, May 14). Cover Story: EXO-M’s Kris has revealed that he is seeking early termination from his contract with SM Entertainment [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/koreaboo/photo /a.10150706620541412.456728.229023931411/101524744677664 2/ Koreaboo. (2014, September 6). Breaking news: Ladies’ Code RiSe has passed away at 10:10 AM [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/koreaboo/posts/10152761030236412 Koreaboo. (2014, November 26). Breaking: B.A.P. has fi led a lawsuit against TS ENT for contract nullifi cation [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/koreaboo posts/10152959280661412 Sablo. (2014, September 4). Ladies’ Code’s Kwon RiSe clings to life after car accident, EunB and Sojung’s mothers offer their support. Soompi. Retrieved from http://www.soompi.com/2014/09/04 ladies-codes-kwon-rise-clings-to-life-after-car-accident-eunb-and sojungs-mothers-offer-their-support/

122 BRITTANY TINALIGA

Serendipity. (2014, May 14). Exo’s Kris seeking to nullify contract with SM Entertainment. Allkpop. Retrieved from http://www.allkpop com/ article/2014/05/chinese-media-outlet-reports-that-exos-kris is-seeking- to-terminate-his-contract-with-sm-entertainment Serendipity. (2014, November 27). B.A.P. reported to have fi led to nullify their contract with TS Entertainment. Allkpop. Retrieved from http://www.allkpop.com/article/2014/11/bap-reported-to have-fi led-to-nullify-their-contract-with-ts-entertainment

123 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

VALERIA VERA

Migrant Women’s Experiences of Abuse in U.S. Detention: A Self-Narrative Gendered Critique of U.S. Immigration Detention Policies and Practices

Valeria Vera, class of 2015, graduated cum laude with a B.A. degree in International Studies. She majored in Global Politics and Societies and minored in Latin American Studies. An earlier version of this essay won USF’s Ralph Lane Peace and Justice Essay Award.

124 VALERIA VERA

WRITER’S COMMENTS

This began as a project of curiosity, and it will continue to be. It began by observing the gaps in the media and academia regarding violations made against the bodies of migrant women in U.S. detention centers. This project is a compilation of feminist academic research, personal observations, and listening to my “feminist blinkers” (thank you, Cynthia Enloe and Annick Wibben); the thesis was also certainly guided and nurtured through the University of San Francisco’s mission of social justice. My goal in this project is to share the stories that were shared with me. It was made for and by admirable and resilient women survivors, who re-lived their stories in the hope of paving the way for other women. My goal is to continue asking questions and listening to the voices and perspectives that have been shad- owed by the system of control. Laws are dynamic, therefore, the dominant narratives must also be dynamic. —Valeria Vera

INTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Valeria Vera wrote her undergraduate honors thesis in my International Studies course in the fall of 2014. She chose the topic at the height of the United States migration crisis when thousands of children from Central America were streaming over the border and seeking asylum. Though the international ramifi cations of exploding migration traffi c worldwide has expanded in the public’s consciousness thanks to the new crisis in Europe in 2015, the story behind the news is far more complex. Vera’s thesis examined an under-explored dimension of migration, namely the abusive treatment of migrants deemed “illegal” and detained by federal agents and local police in the United States. Her paper shows how a bourgeoning private detention industry as well as a sense of impunity among agents in the fi eld has led to a rampant culture of abuse and neglect towards women and children who have been detained while seeking to migrate. —John Zarobell, International Studies

125 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

Abstract

The abuse of migrant women in U.S. detention is the result of the sys- tematic effort to criminalize undocumented immigrants in the United States. This paper seeks to bring light to the specifi c human rights viola- tions occurring inside the confi nes of U.S. immigration detention that were uncovered through interviews conducted with fi ve Latin American migrant women. Such abuses were perpetrated by U.S. law enforcement offi cers: local and/or federal police, private prison guards, public prison guards, and Border Patrol agents. These stories of violence experienced by each woman—whether physical, medical, psychological, or sexual— are presented through their own self-narrative and refl ection. What were these specifi c violations? Why do they need to be brought to light? What are the relationships between the criminalization of undocumented im- migrants, the platform of national security the United States has adopted domestically since September 11, police brutality, and the current pris- on-industrial complex? Approached with a gendered, feminist-informed theory and Michel Foucault’s carceral system and punishment theory, this paper attempts to link such pressing questions and provide alternatives to how we can work with these vulnerable communities to support them as they move forward seeking justice, dignity, rights, and citizenship in a country that continues to deny them their very humanity.

Keywords: U.S.-Mexico border, immigration policies, abuse of migrant women, U.S. detention, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

126 VALERIA VERA

Migrant Women’s Experiences of Abuse in U.S. Detention: A Self-Narrative Gendered Critique of U.S. Immigration Detention Policies and Practices

“La sabiduría de la experiencia es necesaria, no se aprende en ningún libro; esta experiencia vale.” —L.E. Bazan

“ Violence against women and other vulnerable groups is not … a ‘natural’ consequence of ‘patriarchal culture.’ Rather, it is indicative of the absence of a functioning state that can ensure law and order, basic services, and socio-economic development, together with the construction of a political system that rewards sectarian and ethnic politics. — Nadje Al-Ali and Nichola Pratt, What Kind of Liberation?

N SEPTEMBER 30, 2014, the Mexican American Legal Defense and OEducational Fund issued an open complaint letter to the Depart- ment of Homeland Security in response to allegations of ongoing sexual abuse perpetrated by prison guards and staff since August 2014 at the Karnes County Residential Center in Texas. It demanded that the neces- sary protective and investigative measurements be implemented to pro- tect all women and children detained. It stated that:

Karnes Center guards and/or personnel [were] removing fe- male detainees … for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts in various parts of the facility … calling detainees their “no- vias,” or “girlfriends”… and requesting various sexual favors in exchange for money, promises of assistance … and shelter if the women were released … and … kissing, fondling and/ or groping female detainees in front of other detainees, in- cluding children.

But sexual violence in the Karnes facility is neither an isolated case nor a novel one. When we study violence against migrant women, sexual-

127 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

ized violence has resulted as a commonly and systematically established phenomenon rather than as an anomaly. Such violence against migrant women has mostly been documented as violence perpetrated by partners, employers, or those individuals who know these women to be vulnerable because of their non-status, such as “coyotes” and other migrants with whom they journey north. Not all migrant women are apprehended dur- ing or after arriving in U.S. territory, but those who are can fi nd them- selves detained in a facility, immediately released to their country of ori- gin, or briefl y detained until voluntarily deported (the scope of this paper is limited to Latina migrants crossing the U.S.–Mexico border). Missing from the literature of detention and violence against migrants (women), however, is the role of U.S. law enforcement offi cers. As a direct outcome of the attacks of September 11 and the sub- sequent scramble for national security, the U.S. border has become in- creasingly militarized with a policy-enforcement system whose duties and purpose have become the criminalization and dehumanization of “oth- ers”—undocumented individuals, people of color, and Muslims. The es- tablishment of such an environment of dehumanization normalizes the abuse and exploitation of these “others,” contributing to the creation of a culture where impunity reigns. As the prosecutor who led the fi rst rape- conviction case of two Border Patrol offi cers in Texas in 1982 stated, “it is really diffi cult to win civil rights cases against law enforcement offi cers. They have a lot of power” (Falcón, 2000). Militarization, as studies of war and gender demonstrate, is the adoption of militaristic values. It is “a sociopolitical process … by which the roots of militarism are driven deep down into the soil of a society” (Enloe, 2004, p. 219–20), the exacerbation and expression of power, hierarchy, domination, obedience, the use of force (Enloe, 2007). This deeply rooted patriarchal masculine domination legitimizes violence. In the wake of the attacks of September 11, the border has become in- creasingly militarized to its present-day deployment of over 22,000 bor- der patrol agents (18,000 covering the Southwest border alone in 2013); drones, such as the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, whose wingspan stands at 27 feet and has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan; wireless camera-equipped robots (Coyne and Hall, 2013; Wagstaff, 2014); and an additional 3.7 billion dollars added to the already-proposed 13 billion dollars for Customs and Border Protection alone, which the Department

128 VALERIA VERA

of Homeland Security (DHS) requested for FY 2015 “to deal with the current (immigration) crisis, with 39.4 million dollars [of that sum] com- mitted to air surveillance—including funds meant for 16 additional crews to operate and maintain drones” (DHS). Operation Jumpstart, for ex- ample, deployed 6,000 national guard members—who “are trained to kill and are not properly trained in civilian affairs, particularly those related to the unique border region”—to border states with the goal of lawfully arresting individuals alongside Border Patrol (Border Action Network, 2008, p. 14, 28). Crossing into the United States is no longer a civil crime but a felony (Williams, 2008, as cited in Androff and Tavassoli, 2012). Cockburn (2007) claims that war “legitimizes male violence” (Cock- burn, 2007, p. 228). The soldier, even if he or she is not actively in war, is taught that their goal is to kill. When the border has become “like a war zone” (AFSC, 2013), the attitudes it fuels are those of violence against men and women, and human rights violations. In 1995, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing that “U.S. Border Patrol agents [had been] committing serious human rights violations, including unjusti- fi ed shootings, rape, and beatings,” reaffi rming the fact that the offi cers allegedly perpetrating such crimes received “virtual impunity for their actions,” even in the face of evidence from multiple victims. In 1996, the linkages between security and border militarization were studied by Timothy Dunn who concluded that human rights violations had become unique to the borderlands region as “widespread human rights violations [are] committed by military and security forces, key elements of which have often been trained and advised by U.S. military, security, and intel- ligence personnel” (Dunn, 1996, p. 4). Sylvana Falcón’s 2001 piece, “Rape as a Weapon of War,” follows the stories of multiple women sexual violated and raped by U.S. border offi - cials. She details the story of two Guatemalan women, Norma Contreras and Luz Lopez, and their abuse by on-duty offi cer Luis Santiago Estevez. Estevez stopped and took them to his patrol car, where he “lifted up [Norma’s] dress, pushed her legs open, pulled aside her underwear and stuck his fi ngers in her vagina. [Then, he instructed] Lopez to undo the buttons on her jumpsuit and [he] put his hands inside her top and felt her breasts” (Falcón, 2001, p. 40). This can be further seen in Julia Light’s piece:

129 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

Their ordeal continued when the agent brought them to the offi ce for processing. Lopez said he took her to the back room, told her to strip, turned her against the wall, and con- tinued to sexually assault her … [Then,] while the supervisor stood watch at the front door, the patrol agent followed her into a bathroom and … groped her and forced his fi ngers into her vagina. (Light, 1996)

Estevez was eventually prosecuted, receiving a 24-year sentence for counts unrelated to the sexualized violence against the two migrants. He appealed, and served only months from his original conviction. While it was found that on the border “between 80 and 90 percent of migrant women have suffered sexual violence” (Ruiz–Marrujo, 2009, p. 31) and that “rape has become so prevalent that … some women con- sider it ‘the price you pay for crossing’ ” (Ruiz–Marrujo, 2009, p. 31), it is clear that “violence is one means by which dominant groups establish, sustain, and legitimize their privilege” (Ruiz–Marrujo and Lopez Pulido, 2010). Rape is in fact the most effective way to “devastate notions of [the] self ” and the identities of its survivors (Henry, 2011, p. 9). This is because the knowledge of these actions established by the dominant groups are also victimized in their (mis)construction. Both “accepted truths” and the atrocities that have infl icted extreme forms of suffering on marginalized individuals (women) are reconstructed by those in pow- er (men). By negating realities of injustice, pain, male domination and privilege, women are further controlled and a greater silence is forced upon them. The problem is not only that they have no voice to express their stories, but also that there is no acknowledgement of their suffer- ing. When the abuse is deeply rooted in the already fl awed immigration and border-enforcement policies, the method of control of such a sys- tem becomes even more powerful and dangerous as it becomes institu- tionalized. Specifi cally in the United States, this institution is immigration detention. Immigration detention is conceptualized through the carceral meth- od of control in the United States: “We [in the United States] live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850” (Legend, 2015). Criminalizing and incarcerating undocumented migrants (to be

130 VALERIA VERA

discussed further in the fi ndings sections) as it seeks to protect “the nation” from terrorism, a threat which undocumented immigrants al- legedy play a large part of. In such a system of control, the story of what happens, to whom, and why—the “truth”—become obscured and overshadowed by an image controlled by those in power. In the case of migrant women, those in power seem to be militarized masculine white supremacists. All of the aforementioned scenarios and dominating cultures give rise to pressing questions to challenge the deprivation of the voices representing the scenarios, the realities, voices that do not threaten the power in place. Though under-reported and in the margins, the rape and individual traumatic experiences of migrant women’s sexual abuse—including those of the women found at the Karnes Center in Texas—stand to testify that these events are not unique, or the “case of a few bad apples” (Falcón, 2009). How, then, do these women who have lived these experiences—these migrant women whose language, status, color, and education poses a barrier—project their voices loud- er than the oppressive and dominating institutions? Can these women rewrite the story? How can these women, subalterns, speak? Do they want to? Additionally, if on the border, these women experience atroci- ties similar to sexualized violence, what do migrant women face behind closed doors? What does it mean to be a migrant woman in detention? This paper is an attempt to inquire and expose the effects of the aforementioned systematic oppressions from a different angle, one that is missing from academia and largely from the media. This paper investi- gates the practices within the confi nement of the carceral institution of U.S. detention and the migrant women it detains. The carceral complex and its criminalization of migrant women, its impunity, and the silences with which it operates create a false memory, a false reality, and a false image of migrant women and the experiences they have while in de- tention. As the research presented here further uncovers, the violations committed upon their bodies, the abuse inside U.S. detention can take the form of physical, medical, or psychological violations, amounting to the trauma previously developed through their histories of abuse in their country of origin (a powerful migration push factor) and their journey north. Through a gendered-feminist research approach, this paper seeks

131 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

to present the narratives of fi ve migrant women as they refl ect on their experiences in U.S. detention. Specifi cally, the abuse each experienced in it and in their encounters with U.S. law enforcement—local and/or federal police, private prison guards, public prison guards, and Border Patrol Agents.1 A feminist researcher’s job is to stay informed, critical, political, and also self-refl ective (Enloe, 2004; Wibben, 2011: 110), chal- lenging “traditional” or established notions of war, violence, and gender roles. Incorporating the dialogue of migrant women as they tell their own stories is the only way to affi rm their realities, their memory, their history, and the torture-like conditions experienced in U.S. detention. This paper urges its reader to “see,” challenge, and deconstruct pre- conceptions and knowledge of the dominant discourse, and to build bridges towards the humanity and understanding of the marginalized woman migrant and the fl awed, corrupted, and abusive conditions U.S. enforcement policies permit.

Managing Immigration Through Crime: Detention and Punishment

The United States detains 34,000 undocumented individuals every single day (Endisolation.org, 2014). Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose task is to enforce federal laws governing border control, customs, trade, and immigration, owns about 40% of these 34,000 beds not owned by the private sector (ICE, 2014). CIVIC (Community Initia- tives for Visiting Immigrants in Confi nement), an organization devoted to visiting immigrants in detention, states every year “over 400,000 peo- ple disappear and are bought and sold in the United States.” They are not referring to what is conceived to be “human traffi cking” or “sex traffi ck- ing” of persons, but instead are referring to the 34,000 individuals who must be detained every day and whose expenditures amount to 5 billion taxpayer dollars annually. However, the environments in these detention centers and facili-

1 In no way do the arguments presented here deny, undermine, or ignore that all migrants, regardless of gender, age, or sexual orientation or sexual identity experience abusive realities, marginalization, or victimization. Nor do my arguments generalize that all U.S. law enforcers will or do engage in the perpetration of such violence.

132 VALERIA VERA

ties where immigrants are held—especially those of private contrac- tors—are the absolute worst. This is a result of what Jennifer Chacón, a law professor, believes to be the U.S. procedural system’s attempts at “managing immigration through crime.” Since having “lost sight of the legal distinctions that separate the criminal from the civil realm” (2009, p. 48). Chacón is directly responding to the massive violations that take place in two specifi c instances: mass-hearing court proceedings and the increasing presence of immigrants “detained” in prisons, not jails, meaning that they are treated on the same criminal level as a rapist, a murderer, or a high-profi le drug lord. This occurs primarily through the use of mass-hearing court proceedings which deny immigrants their due process. For immigrants who have been detained, court is the only mechanism that can grant them their freedom by assigning them a bond that will allow them to fi ght their case from outside detention, or by deciding whether their case will be approved or not. Yarazeth2 and Imelda were granted bonds, but their court hearing was a much smaller hearing. Yarazeth’s sister, who has been detained in Texas for over ten months now, was denied her asylum in a mass hearing, sending her back to the degrading conditions of detention, where she continues appealing her asylum case. If detention is where immigrants await their case decisions and removal, nothing can be inferred of this self-eating beast that profi ts from the confi nement of human beings (not “aliens”) but that deten- tion serves as a place to punish. Ayelen, an asylum seeker from Mexico, refl ected on being treated “like criminals.” Also on the reasons why such abuse is so widespread:

[T]he criminalization of the immigrant is a huge business, especially targeting Latinos as they cannot hide us anymore; so they make a big business out of holding them there [in de- tention] for months at a time. Dehumanizing people is a way to assure control, to assure you will not lose power.

Her experience as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence, as a victim

2 All names have been changed to preserve the safety and respect the wishes of each interviewee

133 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

of ethnic and language discrimination in the United States, and as an undocumented individual for over a decade, further demonstrates the extent to which the carceral system, which Michel Foucault describes in his work Discipline and Punish, punishes for the purposes of controlling, subordinating, and reinforcing a system of power. This carceral system which is “not only the institution of the prison, with its walls, its staff, its regulations and its violence” (Foucault, 1975. p. 271), but extends its surveillance through a system of the normalization of proper conduct and identity, identifying those who do not fi t as anomalies, or “others;” in the case of undocumented migrants (particularly since September 11), as criminals. Similarly, the state, as the institution in power, controls dis- course and has the ability to apply mechanisms of “discipline.” When applied practically, in this case immigration detention, these practices transcend in the lived experiences of the migrant women whose stories are shared in the following section.

Empowered Migrant Women: Refl ective Stories of Experiences in U.S. Detention

“Tenemos que ir a la ofi cina de Nancy Pelosi, pararnos afuera, y demandar que haga algo. Por qué si sabe, nosotros le hemos dicho de las hieleras y ella negó desde un principio que sabía, y que ese tipo de cosas no podían estar pasando,” 3 encouraged Lucia in response to Yarazeth’s comments on the hielera (literally trans- lated as “cool box”) and el hoyo (“the hole”).

Yarazeth: Bronchitis and Panic Attacks

Yarazeth, in her early 30s, is a small, indigenous woman originally from a small village in Honduras. She was released from detention around Sep- tember 2014 after being detained for ten months in a mixture of private and public detention centers. “Ellos creen que todos se vienen porque uno quiere venirse del país de uno pero en mi caso no es … o sea si yo me vengo es por mi amen-

3 “ We have to go to Nancy Pelosi’s offi ce, stand outside, and demand that she do something. Because she knows, we’ve told her about the hieleras and she denied knowing from the very beginning, that she was not aware and that such actions could not really be happening” (Lucia’s observation)

134 VALERIA VERA

aza de muerte.” 4 Yarazeth was forced to migrate, escaping a violent and abusive partner. She sought asylum, a protection that would allow her to remain in the United States without being forced to return to Honduras, where she feared she would die if she were to return. Yarazeth’s relationship with her former partner started off really nicely. She really felt like it was love. She was around twenty-two, recently received her undergraduate degree, and worked as a third-grade teacher when she met him. When he suggested they move in together, Yarazeth was eager to start her new life with him. He took her to Honduras’ capi- tal, Tegucigalpa, far from her village of San Pedro Sula and her family. In their new home together, he became aggressive, racist, and violent. He didn’t feed her or give her much water, and she was forced to sleep on the cold concrete fl oor. He cut off all of her contact with the outside world and kept her locked inside the house. During this time, Yarazeth became pregnant on two occasions. When she was about six months pregnant during both pregnancies, her partner’s beatings led her to abort. The second time, she carried twins. The fi rst time she crossed she was immediately apprehended on the border and taken to an hielera, detained for three days, coerced into sign- ing an order for voluntary deportation. “Estuve como en tres diferentes hieleras … 3 o 4 días; no hablamos con ofi ciales, con juez, ni nadie, y ya después nos sacarón … Nos mandarón para Honduras como el 4 de diciembre.” 5 She was never in- formed of her right to seek counsel or their consulate and request an immediate asylum case, violating their due process and their right to pro- tection. On February 1, 2014, she left Honduras for the second time, not knowing that it would take her two months before she found herself on U.S. territory. This time, she spent weeks held for ransom on two dif- ferent occasions: fi rst by the Zetas in the south of Mexico and then by the Gulf Cartel on the area between Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas. While held by the cartels she experienced sexual harassment and cruel

4 “ They (U.S. government/offi cers) think that we come because we want to leave our own country, but that’s not true for me… I left because I was threatened with death.” 5 “ I was in three or four different hieleras for 3 or 4 days; we didn’t speak with any of- fi cers, or judge, nobody, and then we were released … sent back to Honduras, where we arrived around the 4th of December [2013].”

135 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

conditions, such as spending nights outside and traveling from place to place, walking through the forests and mountains, leading her to develop bronchitis. In her second apprehension by U.S. Border Patrol, Yarazeth refused to sign voluntary deportation and was thrown into an hielera with lower temperatures than the fi rst time and, even though, she begged to receive medical attention for her bronchitis, she was denied any. After about 10 days in the hielera she was transferred to Laredo, Texas, where her bronchitis and overall health worsened tremendously as she contin- ued to be denied medical assistance. As she put it: “Estuve un mes consecu- tivo, mandaba nota, y nunca me sacarón al hospital.” 6 A month later, Yarazeth was transferred to West County in Richmond, California, where she was assigned a doctor who overlooked her medical fi le and prescribed her “what he wanted,” or what she deemed as the wrong dose because:

A raíz de que el doctór me dió 120mg., creo que me ha perjudicado… En veces estóy acostada, y me palpita de repente el corazón, me duele mucho la cabeza, siento que me ahogo. Yo sentía que yo me quemaba. Siento como algo bien feo, no se si es de que me tenían tanto tiempo encerrada alla o de lo que me dio el doctor. El hizo lo que él quería. Él quería que yo recallera. Digamos que yo me hubiera morido y a él le hubiera valido. El me dijo “aquí” es una casa y hay reglas.7

What did the doctor mean by the detention center being “[his] house and there [being] rules?” As other narratives will further demon- strate, Yarazeth’s medical neglect of her bronchitis and being wrongly prescribed, which she believes was responsible for her current severe depression and panic attacks, are not an isolated case. Punishment in hieleras is not either.

6 “ I was there for one whole month, wrote written requests, but was never taken out to the hospital.” 7 “ Whatever he prescribed began giving me sudden headaches, made my heart beat rapidly all of a sudden. I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel like I was burning, I don’t know if it’s because I was locked up for so long or because of what he prescribed, but I’ve felt like I can die and it scares me so much; because I could have died and he wouldn’t have cared. ‘This is a house and there are rules,’ he said.”

136 VALERIA VERA

Imelda: Anemia, Physical Abuse, and Silence

Imelda is a Honduran woman also from San Pedro Sula. She is 35 years old and a single mother of seven children, all of whom are currently cared for by their uncle in Honduras, where Imelda worked as a house- keeper for a local politician. She fl ed to the U.S. after witnessing a violent murder that put her life at risk and forced her into hiding for months.

Él estaba a un lado de mi cuando llego el otro y le dió el primer golpe con un machete. Aveces me pregunto como no me pego a mi … pero estaba paralizada, no sabía que hacer. Cuando le dio el segundo golpe, yo ya estaba cubierta en sangre y empecé a corer … cuando pare y mire atrás vi que el hombre me estaba persiguiendo a mi también, traía el machete en la mano. Entonces entre a una tienda y le pedí al que trabajaba ahí que me ayudara, le rogué por mi vida y por la de mis hijos, por quienes yo tenia que vivir y ver por ellos.8

Her children needing to be clothed, fed, and supported in their edu- cation (the eldest is fourteen, the youngest three), she decided to migrate to a place where she thought she would fi nd safety. It was the hardest thing she has ever had to, she refl ected, a journey of suffering and fear where (notoriously on The Beast9) one has to “make themselves blind, deaf, mute. Those you see being shot, hear being abused (women), or the screams after someone gets thrown off the train … you force yourself to unsee, to pretend it didn’t happen.” When she fi nally reached the Arizona border, Imelda paid a coyote to

8 “ He was next to me when the [other] man came up behind and—with the man next to me—struck the fi rst blow with a machete. Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t get hit, how the machete missed me … I was paralyzed, I didn’t know what to do, when I saw the second blow, I was already covered in blood and started running. When I looked back, I realized the man was chasing after me with the machete in hand. I tried to get a store-keeper to give me shelter, to help me hide, I begged him for my life in the name of my children, who I had to live and stay alive for.” 9 The Beast, La Bestia, is a high-speed freight cargo train that migrants use to journey north through Mexico. Many jump on it while it is running to get on. Cartels control specifi c areas it runs through and its passengers have to pay the cartels themselves the demanded bribe otherwise they will be thrown off to die. Imleda said this bribe, which she had to pay 9 times throughout, was 100 dollars.

137 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

take her across the river amongst a group of about 24 men and 5 women. As they walked across the river, with her belongings in a plastic bag held over her head and her only her underclothes to shield her body, Imelda recalls being sexually assaulted by the coyote. After the group crossed, the coyote divided them in two and left one behind as he accompanied anoth- er forward into the U.S. under the pretension he would return but never did, leaving Imelda alone with three men to decide whether to return to Mexico or trek across Arizona desert alone. Unwilling to give up, Imelda and the three men chose the latter and were lost for a week, during which time she fell in a hole in the desert and injured her right leg, losing her abil- ity to independently walk and eventually being discovered by Border Pa- trol. “We were caught on a Sunday. I was lying down on the ground when immigration came. I had no more strength. They warned me that I better not get up … but I told them I couldn’t, I had no strength. They took me to the hielera.” Imelda was held for four days. An offi cer in the hielera warned her if she planned on staying in the United States she had to walk right and not disturb anyone with any medical requests. “They set up a bunch of hurdles to avoid taking me to the doctor, which they said would complicate my case. They told me to be brave, but how could I? It was my foot, my leg, where I press all my weight. We were treated so badly.” Imelda was transferred four times over one year and vividly re- members the treatment she received at each different detention center. California City Detention fed their detainees rotten food—oatmeal with larvae, bread green with mold. West County Detention Center in Rich- mond, California, was her last stop but by then, her health and body had signifi cantly deteriorated and her health suffered extremely. She col- lapsed to the ground as she made her way to the bathroom10 one day:

I was unable to get up but conscious enough to remember be- ing on the ground while one offi cer began kicking my legs and stomach, telling me to get up, that I was faking it. While the offi cer, Rodriguez, kept kicking me and yelling at me to ‘stop faking it’ because they were not going to take me anywhere,

10 Bathroom breaks were every hour and a half or so, and they (the 120 women or so detained alongside Imelda, one of which was Yarazeth) were given three min- utes to go to the bathroom

138 VALERIA VERA

the doctor came and said that I was not faking it. He took my blood pressure and said he could barely feel my pulse. They took me to the hospital for one night. I had anemia.

Vilma: Hieleras and Detention Guards’ Physical Abuse

Vilma, the third interviewee, is from Guatemala and was the third per- son whose story included the reality of the hielera. Vilma’s story reveals most about what this punishment is and its implications upon individu- als, most alarming since she was pregnant while detained. Vilma migrated into the United States with her fi ve-year-old son, José, who is a U.S. citizen. This was her second time crossing and the sec- ond time she had to leave behind her eleven-year-old daughter in Gua- temala, in fear of the almost certain danger a young girl migrating north would be exposed to. The fi rst time she crossed was nine years ago when she sought to escape the abuse of her daughter’s father. This time, she was also fl eeing Guatemala after being violently harassed by a local gang who was hired by José’s father—who continues to reside in the United States. He was responsible for their deportation in the fi rst place, as he reported Vilma to the authorities. “Era una carcel,”11 José shared as he listened in to Vilma’s refl ec- tion on the hielera. “They put the air conditioning on as high as they could while we were given a strip of blanket they said was aluminum but wasn’t … I still don’t know the material, but it wasn’t enough. We all [about 20 people] would huddle together,” said Vilma. “Our water came from the faucet and our toilet was in the cell. We had no privacy. In those seven days, we never showered and never brushed our teeth. We had a terrible stench.” The freezing temperatures made them both sick. Vilma had a stom- ach fl u and José a fever. When she begged offi cers to take him to the hospital they ignored her for a whole day and night. José didn’t receive help until the following morning when the offi cers “felt like it.” Both re- call how all children in their hielera were always crying from sickness, cold, or hunger. “We received one sandwich each every four to fi ve hours; Jose would cry and tell me he was so hungry he could eat ten sandwiches; to

11 “It was a jail.”

139 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

ask for more … [we] were miserable. And I was pregnant.” Imelda recalls that while in the hielera she was treated and talked to worse than dogs. Offi cers threw food at her and her fellow detainees, mocked, laughed, and screamed out “Why are you in my country? You are all wetbacks, you’re all pieces of shit.” Immigration authorities often respond terribly if a detainee complains:

We placed several complaints [when already in West County] and the only thing we would get out of it was worse punish- ment from the same offi cer we complained about. Once, an offi cer told a woman to get out of the room because they were going to inspect it, but the woman didn’t speak English and so didn’t understand, and the offi cer—who did speak Spanish—knew that. She grabbed the woman and yanked her out of the room, throwing her against a wall and then hit her. The woman didn’t say anything because she was scared. If you complain, they take it out on you and it’s worse. The worse punishment was el hoyo, a punishment room where you were isolated for a week or 10 days, where they only let you out for one hour every two days so you can shower. “It’s our house and these are our rules,” the offi cers would always say.

Reported Violence and Impunity

Women Victims of Sexual Abuse in Detention

Of the personal stories shared by migrant women for this paper, none included being personally victimized by sexualized violence. However, through published reports it has become evident that sexualized violence perpetrated by prison guards and offi cers is widespread in detention cen- ters and hieleras in the same way that it has been present for the migrant women who cross the border. When the Mexican American Legal Defense issued its open letter to the Department of Homeland Security in August 2014 it received a monu- mental response as it was the fi rst public report demanding a response from authorities upon the gendered atrocities occurring in detention by of- fi cers and guards in uniform. With such masculinities, patriarchy, militariza-

140 VALERIA VERA

tion, and war theories institutionalized in the practice of immigration and border enforcement, the practices in immigration detention transcend our ideas of reality. The open letter goes as far to claim that the detention cen- ters provide an environment that facilitates such sexual abuse. The Karnes Center’s staff is predominantly male, and has access to the detained at any time, day or night. If children are over 13 years old, they are separated from their mothers and have separate living and sleeping cells. MALDEF adds that neither ICE nor DHS have written policy that mandates zero tolerance towards sexual abuse and sexual harassment; nor do they have a means of approaching, preventing, detecting, or responding to sexual abuse in their agency’s policy. Providing a larger perspective, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report in 2011 of the United States with a map of compiled sexual abuse complaints by detention center and state. Highlighting the number of “sexual abuse complaints since 2007” the list concluded that there were more than 200 allegations between 2007 and 2010 (ACLU, 2011). The Karnes Center is not on the list, as it did not exist at the time. However, Texas proved to be the state with most allegations with a total of 56, California with 17 allegations. West County—where Yarazeth and Imelda were detained—was not mentioned.

Fig. 1. The map above, generated by data from the ACLU, demonstrates the higher number of abuse incidents in Western states.

141 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

Of additional interest is a report from the Government Account- ability Offi ce (GAO) to Congress published in December 2013 advis- ing “additional actions could strengthen DHS efforts to address sexual abuse.” Whereas the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act was created to prevent and eliminate sexual abuse in prisons and detention centers, the GAO report proves this act has failed to implement safety procedures and eradicate the issue. More specifi cally, while the act requires that de- tention centers hold the proper tools for responding to and approaching any allegations and providing support for those who have been violated, the deregulation and underreporting of sexual assault allegations by ICE or prison offi cials proves the inconsistency and failure to comply to the law. For example, the GAO report stated the DHS hotline or call center to which detainees were directed for help was often not answered or the voicemail was full. This prevented detainees from receiving access to which they are entitled and limited their ability for their voices to be heard, perpetuating the culture of silence that allows for this victimiza- tion of migrant women.

Impunity

On November 28, 2014, the United Nations Committee Against Torture published a list of observations every two years, based on data provided by the specifi c country being “observed.” As a member of the Com- mittee Against Torture, for which the United States is a ratifi ed State Party since 1994, this is routine. In its report, the committee expressed its concern over the policies and attitudes detainees were met with and acknowledged the existence of sexual abuse towards detained migrants. While the committee cannot force any investigation or compel the Unit- ed States to investigate or to change its practices, publication of such observations and concerns has brought further attention to human rights violations. The Kino Border Initiative’s published 2013 document “Document- ed Failures: The Consequences of Immigration Policy on the U.S.-Mexico Border” reported the wide range of violations that exist in this regula- tory process of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and in its treatment of immigrants, both apprehended or in detention. It found that “different sources reveal systematic failures of Border Patrol Agents

142 VALERIA VERA

to follow their own regulations and procedures with respect to civil and human rights, detention standards, and professionalism” (Kino, 2013, p. 26). The wide range of abuses committed by the Border Patrol Agents, it states, are undocumented as a result of insuffi cient enforcement poli- cies and agencies’ failures to require the documentation of incidents, even when migrants are “injured or killed by a CBP agent” (Kino, 2013, p. 28). Of the deported migrants interviewed in their report, 7.3% claimed they were not allowed to contact their consulate by U.S. immigration au- thorities despite their request (Kino, 2013, p. 28), and despite the fact that they have the right to make and be granted such a request. Finally, after multiple of recommendations, the Kino report advises that “additional training should be provided to CBP agents” and standards of professional conduct set; that Operation Streamline should be suspended as it has been responsible for the hyper-criminalization of individuals and is responsible for the current boom in detention facilities; and that CBP agents should be required to publicly report all incidents as well as its protocol for inves- tigating such incidents (Kino, 2013, p. 33). The CBP Inspector’s Field Manual highlights in detail the protocol criticized by Kino. In its 343 pages, the IFM has only one subsection (Section 2.7) titled “Reporting Signifi cant Incidents.” It begins by advis- ing that since “the Offi ce of Field Operations program … is so highly visible, [it] is an obvious target of those seeking publicity” and that an offi cer “should anticipate national media attention and [be] prepare[d] to act promptly and properly in emergency situations” such as “strikes, demonstrations … threats of terrorist activities … bomb threats … as- saults upon offi cers, and natural disasters” (Miller, 2003, p. 7). Contrary to what the title of the manual highlights, there is little to no instruction throughout the manual on the process of reporting any crimes committed against undocumented immigrants found or apprehended on the border or which department holds jurisdiction over this. Besides institutional impunity that is granted by inadequate laws, an- other factor that contributes to the impunity of the Border Patrol agents is the overall fear, lack of knowledge, and powerlessness of their victims. As Anna O’Leary (2009) points out, “in the case of undocumented mi- grants, violations of their rights remain undisclosed by the simple fact that victims are repatriated or deported and they have little or no oppor- tunity or incentive to denounce their offenders” (p. 91). Even if they did

143 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

denounce their offenders, as both the Human Rights Watch report of 1995 and the individual survivor women (those who have reported and taken their case to court) have further demonstrated, the corruption at work of individual agents and within the agency’s system are also greatly responsible for institutionalizing impunity:

Disciplinary actions meted out to a particular agent often de- pend more on that agent’s relationship with his or her super- visor than on the seriousness of the abuse committed. A sev- en-year veteran of the Border Patrol stated, “in about seventy percent of the offense categories, the punishments can range from verbal reprimand to dismissal. And there’s certainly cro- nyism in how it’s handled.” (Human Rights Watch, 1995)

As a government prosecutor stated in 1982 after successfully convicting two Border Patrol offi cials of rape in Texas, “it is really diffi cult to win civil rights cases against law enforcement offi cers. They have a lot of power.” The impunity and power that U.S. offi cials and law enforcers hold directly contributes to the systematic degradation of migrant wom- en in detention. The United States has created fl awed enforcement and immigration policies that have unintentionally victimized many migrants. When Michel Foucault theorizes that the prison system is a place for punishment, he also demonstrates that a government that seeks to deprive people of their liberty legitimizes their use of power over oth- ers and uses that same power to construct threats to protect its interests. Such a state uses violence to ensure that power. Using the United States as a case study, the state’s legitimization of its own power has normal- ized the abuse suffered by migrant women inside detention centers. This dehumanizes these individuals to the extent that the state no longer sees their abuse as illegal or tortuous, but rather as a necessary deed in en- suring control and exercising its sovereign power. As President Obama expressed in his plans to enforce detention through a tougher platform, “[migrants’] release [from detention centers] pose a national security con- cern by encouraging further immigration” to other Central American im- migrants (Detention Watch Network, 2014). The fallacy is that migrant imprisonment will limit further migration because fear of detention will discourage other migrants from journeying into the United States. Thus,

144 VALERIA VERA

the United States normalizes its expansion of detention and the terrible conditions. Imelda and the women she shared her room with in West County understood the inner workings of the prison complex as a place for the control of power, the domination of a one-sided narrow discourse, and oppression of the “other.” It was their everyday life. She recalls the abuse her bunkmate received as she welcomed Imelda back when she returned to her cell from the hospital, where she had spent the night being treated for her anemia.

She asked me, “How are you?” That’s all she said. The of- fi cer on duty was in a bad mood. She replied to “what does it matter to you if she’s good or bad, it’s none of your busi- ness” and she replied, “I care because I care for her …” They wrote her [Olga] up and the report said that Olga had thrown herself at the offi cer and tried … to hit her. So she was pun- ished for 10 days in the hole. But none of it was true; it was the other way around. The offi cer was the one who threw [Olga] down into the ground and [violently] handcuffed her. We fi lled out a complaint when we saw the report and I tes- tifi ed about what had happened. They said they would do something, but they never did. And they just transferred her to Yuba straight from the hole.

From physical and psychological abuse to offi cers abusing the migrant women they detain, impunity has become accepted in the attitudes and ideologies adopted by the system and its law enforcement.

Conclusions

“That’s the story I have had to live in the United States. I have been laughed at, mocked, and mistreated. If I were returned to [Honduras], I wouldn’t come back,” lamented Imelda. But the situation Imelda had to endure and suffer through, and continues to fi ght to overcome is not isolated from that of which other migrant women have had to endure and suffer in detention centers. Such abuses are allowed in a culture that has adopted policies such as the criminalization of immigrants, exempli-

145 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

fi ed through mass incarceration and private prison industrial complex plaguing the nation. Beginning on the U.S.-Mexico border, migrant women suffer abuse that adds to the trauma they have already suffered. Agents often cross the border without inspection. Consider, for example, the abuse of Juanita Gomez, Luz Lopez, and Norma Contreras (who were detained in freez- ing rooms). They suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of offi - cers, or were tortured into signing “voluntary deportation” orders, send- ing them back to their country of origin. This could place migrants in very real danger—especially risky if their country of origin is Honduras, Guatemala, or even Mexico—all of which are in a state of undeclared internal war. When I began the investigation for this paper, I encountered many obstacles that prevented relevant information from being uncovered. Im- migration scholars, who have been doing work on the border for years, admitted they were unaware of current research on the abuses against migrant women in detention, which concerned the curious feminist with- in me. This made the “silence” surrounding the topic much more power- ful. Because I was already aware of the existence of sexualized violence perpetrated by U.S. law enforcers in the southern U.S. border, I was mo- tivated to continue to question why more information was not available. Furthermore, as post-September 11 events have led to greater efforts to secure the United States as a nation, the scramble to construct the image of the new “other” further created issues for immigrants without agency. Linking the effects of such heightened border security—the militariza- tion of the U.S.-Mexico border—with feminist theory demonstrated that a serious situation existed even with limited evidence available. Thus, stepping away from academia, I was able to fi nd that the prac- tical issues were deeply rooted in the system that seeks not just to crimi- nalize, but to punish, this being the carceral system, a system that fuels detention and seeks to control and legitimize its abuse. Furthermore, it can be reasonably concluded that the United States’ extended power has manifested into new forms of tyranny as it seeks to reform, control, and criminalize all those who reach its geographical boundaries, its nation. Included are those individuals who are in grave need of protection. Giv- en the deeply rooted silence that surrounds the experiences of abuse suf- fered by migrant women, only they can lead the dialogue that academia

146 VALERIA VERA

has failed to nurture. It is only through the perspectives of the women migrants themselves—whether they had been detained or not—that an understanding of the realities that exemplify the systematic dehumaniza- tion and punishment migrant women and migrant populations inside detention face can be reached. The more women who shared their stories, the more I understood how critical it was for them to lead this conversation—for the sake of truth, knowledge, their identity, and the future. The sharing of their indi- vidual stories became the most important factor. U.S. immigration enforcement policies, intentionally or not, have had terrible and degrading consequences on all migrants. In particu- lar, though, migrant women are victimized in many different ways. The abuse they suffer inside detention is appalling. It is torture. The stories of violence and abuse in detention centers contributes to the migrant women’s security dilemma. These women are being pun- ished and criminalized by a state that has become tyrannical in its use of force, overstepping all boundaries of the human body and human dignity. The journey migrant women make has taken a large toll on their lives, and the last thing they need is additional violence: what they need, in fact, is to be granted the dignity all human beings deserve, and that be- gins with being granted a safe place to reside free from fear, danger, and persecution. As these women seek a stable future, they also need closure over past persecution and traumas they have and continue to suffer. This includes circumstances experienced in their country of origin, during their migrating journey, as undocumented women in the United States (including, but not limited to, abuses in the work force, racism, language barriers, lack of access to medical or psychological resources, lack of economic opportunities). Migrant women (and all migrants) deserve to live their lives without fear of oppression, discrimination, or persecution. They deserve opportunities to be heard, to be included, the acknowl- edgement that they are survivors instead of guilty for the violence they have experienced. This will also radicalize their former notions of wom- anhood, empowerment, and as agents in social change. Unless the border region begins to regulate its own protectors and punish those protectors’ violation of authority, censuring its militaristic culture, the abuse of vulnerable communities will continue to occur. The injustice of these abuses, it is my hope, will continue to gain exposure as

147 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

activists and migrants begin to unite. However, the fi rst step in doing so will be, as Wibben and Enloe (2004) argue: we must “listen, listen, and listen”; we must take the narratives of women who have been silenced for so long into account and understand their realities and experiences, for “there is always more than one point of view and more than one story to be told” (Wibben, 2011, p. 2). Through understanding the nar- ratives of migrant woman, “we [will] not only investigate but also [re] invent [the] order of the world” (Wibben, 2011, p. 2) that allows these abuses through the linkages between war, militarization, and patriarchy. That is not to say, though, that abuses will be eliminated. Through nar- rative and challenges to such power that has made the security of one group dependent on the insecurity of another (Wibben, 2011, p. 4), we might be able to better protect women and understand that this is im- perative. Ending these crimes will be a step toward bringing dignity and justice to migrant women and other migrant populations in the United States, as well as a solid foundation on which to build an offense against the institutionalized state dominating discourse and power: thus also attacking the systems of incarceration and the systems that currently threaten the safety and dignity of all people of color who continue to be discriminated against by the militarized, white, masculine supremacy in the United States. Migrant women as a group, whether still detained, currently await- ing their status cases to be resolved, already deported, or who now hold “legal” status as U.S. citizens, collectively seek multiple things. Among these, and maybe the most pressing as was empirically derived from the interviews conducted, is the opportunity to rebuild and sustain their lives. Can this happen in the United States? It cannot happen in their coun- try of origin because their lives are threatened there. Another of these things which migrant women seek is the ability to reclaim their human value, dignity, and identity. As they continue to advance and fi ght in their day-to-day lives, and as the United States deliberates over future (and current) immigration policies (particularly with Obama’s executive ac- tion, the proposed DAPA bill set to potentially grant citizenship up to 5 million parents of U.S.-born children, and the continued efforts to detain and deport as many undocumented individuals as possible, prioritizing those who entered the United States after January 1, 2014 (Lee, 2014), the majority of whom have fl ed due to persecution and instability in the

148 VALERIA VERA

past few months and years in their country of origin), it is imperative that the voices and experiences of these migrant women are engaged and even encouraged (not drowned out by others in power, those who control the discourse) to lead the dialogue if what we seek is to truly change the system. While the question of justice will never cease to pose a challenge (can justice ever truly be achieved in the face of such atroci- ties?), it is nonetheless imperative that the voices and experiences of abuse that migrant women have been subjected to under the power of U.S. law enforcers be heard and accounted for because: 1) only they have lived it, 2) they have been silenced for too long, and 3) it is the only way to ensure that “truth” and “knowledge” are not distorted by those in control of the discourse.

149 MIGRANT WOMEN’S EXPERIENCE OF ABUSE IN U.S. DETENTION

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Dunn, T. J. (1996). The militarization of the U.S.–Mexico border, 1978-1992: Low- intensity confl ict doctrine comes home. Austin: CMAS Books, University of Texas at Austin. Elshtain, J. (1987). Women and war. New York: Basic Books. Endisolation | CIVIC: Ending the isolation of men and women in U.S. im- migration detention. (2014, October 7). Retrieved from http://www. endisolation.org Enloe, C. (2007). Globalization and militarism: Feminists make the link. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefi eld. Enloe, C. (2013, April). Lecture conducted at the University of San Francisco. Flores, T. (2015). The Continuum of Violence and Peace. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://practicalmattersjournal.org/issue/5/practicing- matters/the-continuum-of-violence-and-peace Falcón, S. (2001). Rape as a weapon of war: Advancing human rights for wom- en at the U.S.–Mexico border. Social Justice Journal, 28(II), 31-50. Retrieved from http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/archive/84_28_2/84_03Falcon. pdf Forest, J. J., Howard, R. D., & Moore, J. C. (2014). Homeland security and terrorism readings and interpretations (Second ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Medical Pub. Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Pan- theon Books. Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse: Inaugural lecture at the college de France, 1970. In R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader (pp. 51-78). Boston, Mass.: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Henry, N. (2011). War and rape: Law, memory, and justice. Abingdon, Oxon: Rout- ledge. Human Rights Watch (1995). Crossing the line: Human rights abuses along the U.S. border with Mexico persist amid climate of impunity. Human Rights Watch, 7(4). Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1995/ Us1.htm INCITE! -Immigration Policing & Border Violence. (2015). INCITE! -Home. Retrieved February 28, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.incite-national. org/index.php?s=109 Kelly, L. (1988). The continuum of sexual violence. In Surviving Sexual Violence (pp. 46-60). Oxford: Polity Press. Kelly, L. (2000). Wars against women: Sexual violence, sexual politics, and the militarised state. In Jacobs, S. M., Jacobson, R., Marchbank, J. (Eds.), States of confl ict: Gender, violence, and resistance (45-65). London: Zed Books. Lee, E. (2014, November 20). Everything you need to know about Obama’s executive action. Retrieved from http://thinkprogress.org/immigra-

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tion/2014/11/20/3594882/everything-you-need-to- know-about-obam- as-executive-action/ Legend, J. (2015, March 4). [Radio broadcast]. New York: Democracy Now! Lyall, J. (2014, June 24). “Welcome to hell:” The border patrol’s repeated abuse of children. Retrieved from http://www.huffi ngtonpost.com/james-lyall/ welcome-to- hell-the-borde_b_5527967.html Mueller, C., Hansen, M., & Qualtire, K. (2009). Femicide and new forms of protest: The international caravan for justice. In K. Staudt, T. Payan, & Z. Kruszewski (Eds.), Human rights along the U.S.–Mexico border: Gendered violence and insecurity (pp. 125-149). Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Obama, B. (2014, November 20). Remarks by the president in address to the nation on immigration. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the- press- offi ce/2014/11/20/remarks-president-address-nation-immigration O’Leary, O, A. (2009). In the footsteps of spirits: Migrant women’s testimo- nios in a time of heightened border enforcement. In K. Staudt, T. Payan & Z.A. Kruszewski, Human rights along the U.S.–Mexico border: Gendered violence and insecurity. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Preston, J. (2007, May 15). U.N. offi cial says he’s been denied access to U.S. immigrant jails. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/ us/15deny.html?_r=0 Reinl, J. (2014, August 19). Challenging US ‘rocket docket’ child removals. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/ challenging-us-rocket-docket- child-removals-2014818114748856379.html Ruiz–Marrujo, O. (2009). Women, migration, and sexual violence. In K. Staudt, T. Payan & Z.A. Kruszewski, Human rights along the U.S.–Mexico border: Gendered violence and insecurity. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. Ruiz–Marrujo, O., & Lopez Pulido, A. (2010). Dismantling borders of vio- lence: Migration and deportation along the U.S.–Mexico border. U.S. Catholic Historian, 28(4), 127-143. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/ journals/us_catholic_historian/summary/v028/28.4.marrujo.html Sjoberg, L., & Gentry, C. (2007). Mothers, monsters, whores: Women’s violence in global politics. London: Zed Books. Smith, S. D. (2006, June 6). ‘Operation Jump Start’ puts 2,500 guardsmen on southern border in June. United States Department of Defense (defense. gov). Retrieved May 10, 2013, from http://www.defense.gov/News/ NewsArticle.aspx?ID=16109 Spivak, G. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271-313). Macmillan Education: Basingstoke.

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U.S. Census Bureau. (2014, May 28). 2012 Statistical Abstract. Retrieved No- vember 3, 2014, from https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/ geography_environment.htm U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2014) Retrieved from http://www. dhs.gov/about-dhs U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2014). Stats and summaries. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from http://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/media- resources/stats U.S. Government Accountability Offi ce (2007). Homeland security: Informa- tion on training new Border Patrol agents. Retrieved from http://www. gao.gov/new.items/d07540r.pdf U.S. ICE. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.ice.gov/about Vettamala, M. (2015). Can the subaltern speak- Summary. Retrieved October 20, 2014, from https://www.academia.edu/3644590/Can_the_Subal- tern_Speak-_Summary WHO (2014a) Health topics: Violence. http://www.who.int/topics/violence/ en/ WHO (2014b) Factsheet: Violence against women. http://www.who. int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/ Wibben, A. T. R. (2011). Feminist security studies: A narrative approach. New York: Routledge.

153 WARI FEATHERWORKS

MADELINE WARNER

Modes of Visual Communication: The Role of Wari Featherworks in Constructing an Iconography of a Ruler

Madeline Warner, class of 2015, graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Art History/Arts Management. She was a member of the Saint Ignatius Institute.

154 MADELINE WARNER

WRITER’S COMMENTS

In my Art of the Americas seminar taught by Professor Emily Breault, we used the objects in the pre-Columbian art collection of the de Young Muse- um as the basis of our research projects for the semester. I selected a feath- ered tabard made by the Andean culture of the Wari people as my focus, and used this object as a point of departure for engaging with the culture that made it. What began as an inquiry into one single object grew into an exploration of the larger cultural meaning of such objects and their imag- ery. I looked closely into how such objects functioned and created meaning through their visual language that was in dialogue with the social, political, and religious contexts of their culture of origin. My goal was to recreate the life of this feathered tabard in order to attempt an understanding of its purpose and value in its original context and for its makers. —Madeline Warner

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

I am thrilled to see Madeline Warner advance her work on the important pre-Columbian feather-work on-view at the de Young museum. The object of study is a feather tabard: a broad fi eld of cloth adorned with a multitude of feathers collected from Amazonian birds located hundreds of miles from the site where the garment was made and later discovered. Madeline con- fronted head-on the challenges of original research, as the tabard had not previously been studied in-depth. She began with close visual analysis of the tabard and she then deeply engaged the historiography of Wari culture and of pre-Columbian feathers and textiles. In this essay, Madeline delivers new and fascinating insights into Wari iconography. — Emily Breault, Department of Art + Architecture

155 WARI FEATHERWORKS

Modes of Visual Communication: The Role of Wari Featherworks in Constructing an Iconography of a Ruler

RT OBJECTS SURVIVE AS FRAGMENTS of a larger visual whole. Deprived Aof the vibrant contexts within which they fl ourished, these objects linger as static and dead having been removed from the animating visual traditions which gave them meaning and power in their former lives. Hence the art historical maxim: “Art does not exist in a vacuum,” an idea that underscores the importance of reconstructing the original context of artwork to understand how they functioned in the lives of their creators. Objects from outside the domain of Western Europe present an extra challenge, as we must approach them from behind the barriers of language and culture. The Inca Empire prospered from the mid-15th to the 16th century—the same time the Italian Renaissance was at its height —yet the Inca remained more elusive to the western mindset, and their art has not been afforded the same level of inquiry as their Quattrocento counterparts. This essay will attempt to combat the idea of the impenetrability of pre-Columbian art, through the examination of a particular object and the exploration of it in the larger contexts of its social, political, and spiritual cultures. The object in question is the Feather Tunic (Accession Number: 1996.48) from the San Francisco de Young Museum (fi g. 1).1 The de Young labels the object as a tunic; however, Heidi King distinguishes a “tunic,” which is sewn together on the sides to create a closed garment with arm-holes, from a “tabard,” which is a similarly constructed garment but the sides are left unsewn— an open-sided tunic.2 The latter of the two is true of the de Young garment, making it incorrectly labeled in the museum as a tunic. This feathered tabard comes from the south coast of Peru, and is most likely a product of the Wari culture created sometime in the range of the eighth to the sixteenth century CE.3 When hanging fl at, the tabard is rectangular and about four feet by fi ve-and-a-half feet in size. There 1 Please see bibliographic note at the end of this essay 2 Heidi King, “Feather Arts in Ancient Peru,” In Peruvian Featherworks, ed. Heidi King (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 10. 3 Museum label for ‘Feathered Tunic,’ San Francisco, CA, de Young Museum, September 2, 2014.

156 MADELINE WARNER

is a vertical seam running down the center of the garment, where no feathers are attached, and the brown fabric support is visible. This is the seam that would have draped over the wearer’s shoulders, allowing the tabard to cover both the front and back of his body. Perpendicular to this seam is a one-foot-long horizontal slit in the middle of the tabard— the garment’s neck hole. The adorning feathers are tied together in horizontal rows and then sewn to the fabric support, starting from the middle and moving out towards the edges (fi g. 2). The successive rows slightly overlap one another, much like the overlap of shingles on a roof, and the resulting texture resembles the plumage of real birds. The tips of all the feathers are cut into squares, allowing for the precise lines and right angles of geometric designs. The formal design of the tunic is symmetrically planned to split in half, mirroring itself along the main vertical seam. A bright yellow central fi eld is accented by a geometric border of light green, light blue, orange-red and dark brown colors and a neckline of alternating blue and red feathers. The border is about 10 inches in width and surrounds the whole tabard. Separated from the main yellow body by a band of brown feathers, this border boasts a diversity of color and consists of a mix of diagonal steps and interlocking geometric scroll motifs. The Wari feathered tabard from the de Young Museum was part of a larger cultural framework in which objects and their materials highlighted the wealth and power of their owners. Clearly a garment of status, this tabard was likely a part of the Wari visual tradition of linking leaders with powerful supernatural forces. This linking visually endowed leaders with the power to mediate between cosmological realms, thus legitimizing their rule. Feathers were a rare and valuable material in ancient Andean times, even ranked higher than gold. Reserved solely for the elite,4 their primary use was to adorn and ornament festive/ritual attire and accompanying objects.5 These feathers provided a striking iridescence, and their use as a material for clothing created a silky texture and a plush garment— qualities standard woven fabrics could not achieve.6 As aforementioned, feather garments were synonymous with high 4 Heidi King, op. cit., 10. 5 Kenneth M Kensinger, introduction to The Gift of Birds: Featherwork of Native South American Peoples, ed. Ruben E Reina et al. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), xx. 6 Heidi King, op. cit., 11.

157 WARI FEATHERWORKS

status in the Andean world.7 Examinations of surviving works show that the feathers they used represent 1.6% of the bird species present in South America.8 The Andean wearers and makers of these feathered garments preferred the intense, saturated hues of tropical bird plumage most commonly found in parrots and macaws from the eastern Amazon basin. The bright, vibrant colors of these feathers could not be replicated with dyes,9 and the native coastal birds of the area had more muted colored feathers not usually used in the production of Andean featherworks.10 This penchant for tropical bird feathers required their transport west from the rainforest to the coastal workshops.11 Importing these materials from such far and inaccessible locations not only emphasized their importance, but also underscored the power of the wearer who was able to orchestrate the necessary labor forces and trade routes to obtain the feathers and create such lavish garments. In addition to the brightly hued feathers, the coastal peoples may have also obtained live birds from the tropical rainforest.12 In their reports on the “New World,” Spanish explorers from the early 16th century noted the large quantities of plucked feathers and live birds that were sent from the east as tribute to the Inca rulers.13 It is probable that this trade network was in effect long before the Spanish documented it, and it most likely extended to other cultures—such as the Wari—preceding the Inca. Art Historian Elizabeth P. Benson suggests that some birds may have likely been kept as pets, as parrots and macaws are easily tamable and have the capacity to mimic language. This is a quality that Benson anticipates would have been highly amusing, and may have even been regarded as supernatural to their human companions.14 She goes on to cite archaeological fi ndings that show birds were sometimes buried in 7 Susan E. Bergh, “Tapestry-Woven Tunics,” in Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, ed. Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012): 174. 8 Kenneth M Kensinger, op. cit., xix. 9 Heidi King, op. cit., 11. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 12. 12 Kay Candler, “Featherworking in Precolumbian Peru: Ancient Plumage,” in The Gift of Birds: Featherwork of Native South American Peoples, ed. Ruben E Reina et al. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), 8. 13 13 Heidi King, op. cit., 12. 14 Elizabeth P. Benson, Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997): 69.

158 MADELINE WARNER

what can be described as miniature mummy bundles.15 Mummy bundles were often signs of elite status: the more social capital a person had in their lifetime, the more elaborate his mummy bundle and burial site were after his death. These mummy bundles were often wrapped in layers of luxurious woven tunics and—if the person was of an elite status—he was wrapped with feathered garments as well. To include birds in this tradition highlights their importance in the Andean world through the high level of honor accorded to them even after death. The de Young feathered tabard has been attributed to the Wari, a culture that fl ourished during the Middle Horizon (600 CE–1000 CE) and was centered in the southern highland—the Ayarucho Valley of modern-day Peru (fi g. 3).16 The Middle Horizon was the fi rst Andean period dominated by two interconnected empires: the Wari and the Tiwanaku.17 The two cultures shared distinctive religions and iconographies, but they were also quite different from one another.18 Evinced by its open architectural plan, the city of Tiwanaku may have functioned as a pilgrimage site similar to the earlier city of Chavín.19 Conversely, the Wari were a much more militant and exclusive people, as depicted though the high, thick walls which dominated the architecture of their imperial city.20 The Wari ruled over a large territory and absorbed many diverse peoples into their empire and under their infl uence.21 They built multiple, geographically scattered, administrative and military settlements all connected by a vast system of roads and terraces, which was both functional and a grand display of power.22 “All roads lead to Wari” is an accurate way to describe how the network of routes converged on the imperial city. While providing a means of transportation, these roads also reinforced the Wari as powerful rulers who were centrally 15 Ibid., 74. These wrapped, bird mummies have been found in several sites along the coast of Peru. 16 Rebecca R. Stone, Art of the Andes: From Chavín to Inca (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012), 127. 17 Ibid. 18 Katharina Schreiber, “The Rise of an Andean Empire” in Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, ed. Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012): 32. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 31. 22 Rebecca R. Stone, op. cit., 127.

159 WARI FEATHERWORKS

important to the territories under their control. As a centrifugal culture, it follows that the Wari arts were predominantly portable objects, which would have allowed for a wide dissemination of their iconography and its message.23 Textiles were the Wari’s primary artistic activity. Their precedence is refl ected in other extant Wari art objects, such as metal and ceramic works, that evidence a similar, fl at, patterned treatment.24 Before launching into a full exploration of the complicated topic that is Wari textiles, it is important to fi rst look at the origins of this textile tradition. In the Andes, textiles preceded fi red ceramics by thousands of years.25 The coast and highlands of this area are incredibly dry, and because of this inhospitable climate an agricultural tradition never developed.26 The Humboldt Current, which fl ows along the Atlantic coast of modern-day Peru, was the primary source of food. The bounty of the sea eliminated the need for a ceramic tradition, and instead these cultures relied on nets, sparking the development of a textile tradition.27 These early textiles were made of cotton, were hand-woven using a technique called “twining,” and evidenced a representational imagery rich in symbolic meaning.28 Ann Pollard Rowe affi rms the importance of these early textiles, stating that in geographic areas where textiles are made by hand, their creation process ranked second only to food production in occupational and economic importance.29 These early textiles, such as the condor snake textile fragment from the site of Huaca Prieta in the Chicama Valley (ca. 3100–1500 BCE), reveal an early interest in the characteristic Andean denial of effi ciency (fi g. 4). This indicates the preliminary importance of textiles in the Andes and the extraordinary labor that went into making them. Scholars of Andean art call this the phenomenon of “technical transcendence,” where, in the words of Professor Emily Breault, “aesthetic ends justify diffi cult means.”30

23 Katharina Schreiber, op. cit., 32. 24 Rebecca R. Stone, op. cit., 160. 25 Emily Breault, “The Pre-Ceramic Period: Chavín de Huantar,” (lecture, Art of the Americas, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, September 25, 2014). 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Susan E. Bergh, op. cit., 159. 30 Ibid.

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Wari textiles in the form of tunics are the culture’s most common surviving artifacts and also their most complex.31 John Murra comments on the importance of textiles for the Inca: “No political, military, social, or religious event was complete without textiles being volunteered or bestowed, buried, exchanged, or sacrifi ced.”32 This description is accurate also to the Wari and the central role textiles played in their culture. The process of weaving a tapestry by hand was, and still is, incredibly labor- and resource-intensive throughout.33 Their textiles evidence a penchant for geometric abstraction that was both beautiful and inaccessible to the uninitiated.34 For the knowing viewer they were a “fascinating world into which the ancients poured intellectual energy.”35 There was a pervasive interest for the Wari, in what can be called the wholeness of their objects: both sides of tapestries were fi nished, so that there was not a “front” or “back” of the textile (Bergh compares this to the European technique of tapestry weaving where one side is clearly “unfi nished”).36 Textiles were always woven to shape on the loom, but they were never cut down to size. The Wari, among other Andean cultures, considered cutting to be an act of incredible disrespect towards the textiles, or the “noble cloths” as they referred to them.37 A unique system of “distortion” characterizes Wari textile design,38 a technique which no other culture, or even other forms of Wari art, exhibits.39 This process is a systematic, rule-bound method of distortion of forms that accounts for the illegible imagery of Wari textiles.40 This deliberate way of transforming their imagery distinguishes the Wari interest in a process of “mental gymnastics” both for the creator and the viewer. This method was meant to, in the words of Bergh, “disguise and mystify [the textile’s] sacred imagery” and/or to provide a “delightful intellectual exercise” for elite viewers.41 Bergh notes a general trend towards the standardization of Wari 31 Ibid. 32 Quoted from Ibid. 33 Ibid., 160. 34 Ibid., 159. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 160. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 181. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 183

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tunic imagery that can largely be grouped into two general categories: “profi le-face and stepped-fret tunics” (fi g. 5) and “winged attendant and sacrifi cer” tunics (fi g. 6).42 The fi rst category of common tunic imagery is derived from the repeating profi le-face and stepped- fret motifs that comprise many Wari tunics. Bergh suggests that these tunics have clear military associations and, in some cases, “the motif seems to relate to confl ict and death, some of it cosmically sanctioned.”43 The other category of tunic imagery is the “winged attendant and sacrifi cer.” While the stepped-fret and profi le-face was a much more legible image pair, the imagery making up these tunics is largely incomprehensible due to the Wari’s system of distortion. The sacrifi cing fi gure is consistently depicted holding a sort of weapon and a human trophy head. The more benign attendant fi gure is shown in profi le with one knee bent, holding a staff and wearing a headdress with an elaborate wing sprouting from his back. Both fi gures have been depicted in dozens of different iterations with a “bewildering” degree of variety.44 While the “profi le-face and stepped-fret” tunics were probably worn by important members of Wari society, the “winged attendant and sacrifi cer” tunics were reserved for only the most elite— most likely the Wari state lord himself. This information is surmised from examinations of the physical makeup of the different tunic types. “Profi le-face and stepped-fret” tunics comprise, on average, seven miles of thread; “winged attendant and sacrifi cer” tunics, on the other hand, are of the greatest quality and they may contain up to eighteen miles of thread in a single garment.45 The “winged attendant and sacrifi cer” was clearly an incredibly important pair of images to the Wari, and were intimately related to their cosmological beliefs. They were closely associated with the Wari’s principle divine fi gure, known as the “Staff Deity.” The Wari Empire left behind a major cache of iconography depicting this being (fi g. 7), who is

42 Ibid., 165 43 Ibid., 163. 44 Ibid., 165. 45 Ibid., 167.

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identifi ed by the prevalent depiction of a frontal-facing fi gure grasping staff-like implements in each hand. The being is usually depicted alongside his two smaller companion fi gures—a winged, staff-bearing attendant and a sacrifi cer.46 The Staff Deity is visually marked as supernatural through his decidedly non-naturalistic depiction: two vertically divided eyes, a fanged mouth, a frontal posture, a staff in each hand (a Middle Horizon symbol for divine sovereignty),47 and streamers emanating from his head with varying animal head terminus motifs. As a central fi gure of their “state religion,” Wari art handles the staff- deity image with remarkable consistency and uniformity.48 This would have allowed for easy legibility and dissemination of the image to the different territories under the Wari’s control. The head of the Staff Deity fi gure is always surrounded by a band of interlocking frets that often comprises the border of his tunic (fi g. 8).49 This motif was consistently used across a variety of manifestations of the Staff Deity (fi gs. 9, 10). Curiously, the motif is often present in Wari art objects that do not depict the Staff Deity outright, but do depict his attributes (such as the head streamers and animal head terminus motifs) (fi g. 11). This signals that the interlocking fret motif might have been used in Wari visual vocabulary as a short-hand notation for the Staff Deity, referencing his presence and powers even when he himself was not explicitly portrayed. The Staff Deity’s interlocking fret motif sounds curiously close notes to the interlocking scroll motif in the border of the de Young feathered tabard (fi g. 12). Their visual similarity, as well as their similar placement on the tabard’s border, seems more than coincidental. This imagery could perhaps be referencing what would have been the well-known visual vocabulary of the Staff Deity. By wearing tunics with this motif, Wari elites may have been attempting to, in the words of Anita Cook, “cast themselves as surrogates for the Staff Deity in some way.”50

46 Anita G. Cook, “The Coming of the Staff Deity,” in Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, ed. Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012): 103. The Staff Deity fi gure is most prevalent in Wari ceramics and textiles, but has also been found in metal ornaments, carved into stone, and on musical instruments. 47 Susan E. Bergh, op. cit., 161. 48 Anita G. Cook, op. cit., 105. 49 Ibid., 106. 50 Ibid., 120.

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The evidence for this claim is strengthened when thinking back to the “winged attendant and sacrifi cer” tunics, which literally clothed their wearer in imagery of the Staff Deity’s attendant fi gures. This would have, by extension, allowed the wearer to be associated with the Staff Deity, thus constructing visual links between an abstract cosmological force and an elite human fi gure in the Wari culture. It is not implausible to suggest that this practice was extended to their feathered tabards as well. The de Young tabard is also not the only extant example of Wari feathered tabards employing the interlocking fret border motif (fi gs. 13, 14). The larger surviving body of similar objects allows for the proposition that the use of this motif in the de Young tabard was not an anomaly; rather, this particular tabard was part of a larger tradition of Wari feathered tabards employing the interlocking fret motif to key its viewers to the relation between the fi gure wearing the garment and the Staff Deity. For any study involving the Wari and their art as it relates to their cosmology, a basic understanding of the larger Andean cosmological context is necessary. In her essay, Anita G. Cook defi nes the term ‘cosmology’ as a cultural way of “explain[ing] how the world came into being, how it functions, and how people ... relate every-day events to causality.”51 There are two central ideological pillars that form the crux of Andean cosmology and are crucial to this essay’s argument. Firstly, in Andean cosmology, death was linked to fertility.52 Secondly, the world of this cosmology was considered to be made up of three tiers of space: the upper world of the future and the divine; the middle, present, world of humans and the earth; and the lower (inside) world of the past and the home of the ancestors.53 From these two central ideas comes the belief that creation was engendered by the fl ow of energy between spatial tiers—and what ensured this fl ow was sacrifi ce.54 Sacrifi ce allowed for this cycle of continuous creation and ensured the reproductive capacity of the earth—death generated life.55 Cook calls

51 Ibid., 103. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 109. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid.

164 MADELINE WARNER

this concept the “life-death continuum.”56 The Wari were acutely aware of this concept, and for them it took the form of an otherworldly spirit who was responsible for the fecundity and fertility of their land and people.57 This spirit was the Staff Deity: the transformer of energy who both created and destroyed life.58 Clearly a powerful being, the locus of the Staff Deity power lay in his ability to move between cosmological realms, ensuring the fl ow of energy in order to sustain the life-death continuum. The Wari incorporated this power visually into their depictions of the Staff Deity image. An identifying attribute of this deity was the streamers emanating from his head. Each of these streamers ended in a motif such as an animal head (snakes, birds, jaguars), an ear of maize, the tip of a tumi knife (a rounded knife used in Andean rituals of sacrifi ce), or a feather (see fi gs. 7, 9, 10).59 These “terminus motifs,” as Cook calls them, all serve mediating roles between the different realms of Andean cosmology.60 Snakes symbolize the lower, felines the middle, and birds the upper realm of the world.61 The presence of tumi knives alongside ears of corn, serves to highlight the reciprocal nature of death and fertility—and the Staff Deity, from whose head they literally sprout, ensures their continuous cycle. Before examining this idea further, this essay will briefl y return to the subject of feathers and look at the important role they played in the visual dynamic between the Staff Deity and Wari elites and rulers. To reiterate and expand upon the previous discussion, the importance of feathers as a material operated along three different, yet interconnect, tracks. As earlier stated, their aesthetic value was paramount, as they allowed for lavish colors and a striking iridescence that could not be replicated with other media. Feathers also had the ability to communicate the power of their wearers. They were valued (in a monetary sense) more highly than gold, and their procurement required the orchestration of diverse trade

56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., 105. 58 Ibid., 112. 59 Ibid., 106. 60 Ibid. 61 Carole Fraresso, “The Sweat of the Sun and the Tears of the Moon: Gold and Silver in Ancient Peru,” in Peru: Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon, ed. Victor Pimentel (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2013): 142.

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routes and labor forces. Finally, a new point may be added to this list: feathers had a potent symbolic value that contributed immensely to their importance as a material. Birds, having the ability to fl y, were thought to have access to the upper world of the gods and future time, and their image symbolized that upper realm of Andean cosmology.62 Susan Bergh has even suggested that the Wari associated birds with the highest status members of their society. She posits that elites may have been given the titles of mallku (condor) or huamani (falcon).63 Feathers, as the physical substance of birds, absorbed these meanings and were therefore a highly charged material. Their symbolic power would have easily transferred to an object such as the de Young feathered tabard, and in turn, to its wearer. The interlocking fret motif was a Wari symbol clearly saturated with meaning and linked to their principle cosmological force—the Staff Deity. So, the act of rendering this motif with the symbolic material of feathers must have amplifi ed and elaborated its meaning ten-fold. Harmonizing the power of feathers within a reference to the Staff Deity would have been an incredibly powerful image in the ancient Andean time. The question still remains as to why this imagery was so important and why the Wari went to such lengths to link their rulers with the Staff Deity and his powers. The Wari Empire fl ourished against an historical backdrop colored by natural disasters and chaos.64 This was an era when fl oods, frosts, earthquakes, and droughts were all very real and threatening realities of the world, and the Wari’s political success was based on their ability to adapt to these environmental disasters.65 Scholars have suggested that the Wari’s quick rise to power and longevity was predicated on a belief that their nobility had the ability to mediate between human and divine affairs.66 This idea was no doubt fueled by the carefully curated and standardized iconography worn by Wari lords. This adornment associated them with the Staff Deity, implied their ability to intervene in the life-death continuum and helped to tip the balance in

62 Ibid. 63 Susan E. Bergh, op. cit., 174. 64 Ibid., 189. 65 Rebecca R. Stone, op. cit., 159. 66 Susan E. Bergh, op. cit., 188.

166 MADELINE WARNER

their people’s favor.67 This was a powerful form of ideological control in which the Wari communicated their ability to blunt the destructive forces of nature and ensure its reproductive capacity.68 Objects, even if they are fragments of a larger whole, make statements about the physical, social, and cultural worlds of their makers.69 The Wari created a unifi ed system of visual language that was both complex and self-referential. Everything had meaning for the Wari. This concise yet malleable system of visual language is perhaps best considered in light of the fact that the Wari never developed a written language.70 They relied heavily on images to “communicate and disseminate information and ideas.”71 We may never know the exact meaning of the motifs and symbols that made up the Wari’s coded visual language, but we do know that these images were undoubtedly meaningful to those who created, viewed, and wore them. Knowing the extent of this importance allows for further inquiry into Wari visual culture—an area that is ripe for exploration. Keeping in mind the larger context surrounding Wari art objects, the imagery moves far beyond aesthetics, and the great extent to which it is saturated with symbolic meaning can be seen. Objects such as the de Young feathered tabard were steeped in a powerful visual culture where everything had meaning. The symbolic, monetary, and aesthetic values of feathers are brought together in this tabard in a visual form

67 The Wari employed spondylus shell to the same propagandist means. This was a precious material, similar to feathers, which Wari elites imported from Ecuador’s coastal waters. Because it came from the sea, spondylus shell was conceived of as “the ultimate source of water that cycles through the cosmos,” and it was a material that had controlled the seasonal rains of the region. Many Wari art objects were covered with a mosaic of spondylus shell inlay, including many small-scale fi gures of Wari elites. The shell fi gures are sometimes pierced at the top, suggesting their use as a necklace or pendant—something meant to be worn and displayed (not dissimilar to featherworks). This is another instance where Wari elites employed a material with symbolic cosmological powers to convey an idea of their power over nature. A full address of the Wari’s use of spondylus shell is a topic beyond the scope of this essay. For a more complete discussion see Susan E. Bergh’s essay “Inlaid Metal Ornaments,” in Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, ed. Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo (London: Thames & Hudson, 2012): 217–231. 68 Katharina Schreiber, op. cit., 33. 69 Kenneth M. Kensinger, op. cit., xix. 70 Andrea F. Vazquez, “Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes,” Wari Teacher Guide (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012): 3. 71 Ibid., 12.

167 WARI FEATHERWORKS

that references the Staff Deity: the one responsible for sustaining the fl ow of the life-death continuum. Multiple dimensions of the Wari visual culture converge into one object, and together become a unifi ed image of the terrestrial and spiritual power of the lord who wore it. In turn, a carefully curated iconography of a Wari ruler is culminated. The Wari did not create anything that stood alone, as each object of art seems to, in one way or another, draw from a single source and manipulate it in different ways. It is the same visual language that is repeated throughout their art, present in different ways and in different forms, yet still pulls from the same source —the Wari culture’s reservoir of visual knowledge.

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Bibliographical Note

1 This note serves to discuss the bibliography of three areas of Andean historiography that are relevant to this essay: the W ari (Huari) culture, Andean textiles, and featherworks and birds in the ancient Andes. In her survey Art of the Andes: From Chavín to Inca (2012), Rebecca R. Stone (also Stone-Miller) speaks to the history and arts of the Wari culture, situating them within a chronological timeline of Andean art. The most comprehensive study of the Wari people is the work of Susan E. Bergh in her publication, Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes (2012). This publication contains essays written by different scholars focusing on a wide array of topics, including a general history of the Wari people and their architecture, cosmology, and textiles. Bergh is an established academic authority on the Wari, and she was responsible for curating the accompanying exhibit on Wari art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The same publication featured the essay, “The Rise of an Andean Empire,” by Katharina Schreiber—a clear yet complex survey of the history of the Wari as a highly militant people. Anita G. Cook contributed “The Coming of the Staff Deity” to the collec- tion, focusing on Wari cosmology and the main deity that comprised the Wari state religion. Andrea F. Vazquez published an educational guide on the Wari that accompanied the same 2012 exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This volume also included two essays by Bergh that concentrated more intently on Wari arts. “Tapestry-Woven Tunics” addressed the complex topic of Wari textiles. Bergh’s text surveys the production process, imagery, and formal elements that distinguish Wari textile arts from—and situate them in—their An- dean context. Rebecca Stone-Miller has also added a publication to the scholarship on Andean textiles with her work To Weave for the Sun: Ancient Andean Textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1995). She speaks directly to ideas that governed textile design and creation in the Andes and specifi cally to the Wari culture. It is here that she coins the idea of “technical transcendence,” a critical feature of such textiles and their larger implications as embodiments of cultural prowess. Simeran Maxwell wrote his article, “All That Glitters is not

169 WARI FEATHERWORKS

Gold: Textiles of Ancient Peru,” for the National Gallery of Aus- tralia’s exhibition Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru (2014). Heidi King’s writings dominate the bibliography on ancient Andean feather- works. Her recently published catalogue, Peruvian Featherworks (2012), is a wealth of information, covering a wide array of topics, including historical use, methods of creation, methods of preservation, and iconographic discussions of Peruvian featherworks. She contributed the essay “Featherwork” to Bergh’s previously mentioned book, Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes (2012). King was responsible for curating the exhibits Radiance From The Rain Forest: Featherwork In Ancient Peru (2008) and Feathered Walls–Hangings from Ancient Peru (2013) at the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art. Esther Pasztory contributed an article on feath- ers, “Rare Ancient Featherwork from Peru,” to the American Journal of Archaeology (2008). The article was written to accompany King’s 2008 feather exhibition, and is a general survey of the production and importance of featherworks to their Andean cultural contexts. Ruben E. Reina and Kenneth M. Kensinger co-edited a collection of essays from various scholars, anthropologists, and ornithologists entitled, The Gift of Birds: Featherwork of Native South American Peoples (1991). This older text is a wealth of information on the use of feathers in the art of native South American peoples. The essays cover topics from the decorative and ritual use and symbolism of feathers, to their more practical uses in tools like arrows or which specifi c birds were prized most highly for their feathers. Elizabeth P. Benson contributed her book, Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America (1997), to the oeuvre of literature on pre-Columbian featherworks. Her book focuses on the symbolic, spiritual, and mythological signifi cance of birds in the ancient Andes, rather than exclusively on feathers.

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Bibliography

Benson, Elizabeth P. Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. Bergh, Susan E. “Inlaid Metal Ornaments.” In Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, edited by Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo, 217–231. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. _____. “Tapestry-Woven Tunics.” In Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, edited by Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo, 156–191. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Breault, Emily. “The Pre-Ceramic Period: Chaví n de Huantar.” Lecture, Art of the Americas, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, September 25, 2014. Candler, Kay. “Featherworking in Precolumbian Peru: Ancient Plumage.” In The Gift of Birds: Featherwork of Native South American Peoples, edited by Ruben E. Reina and Kenneth M. Kensinger, 1–15. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. Cook, Anita G. “The Coming of the Staff Deity.” In Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, edited by Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo, 103–121. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum. Museum label for ‘Feathered Tunic.’ San Francisco, CA. September 2, 2014. Kensinger, Kenneth M. Introduction to The Gift of Birds: Featherwork of Native South American Peoples, edited by Ruben E. Reina and Kenneth M. Kensinger, xviii–xxi. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. King, Heidi. “Feather Arts in Ancient Peru.” In Peruvian Featherworks, edited by Heidi King, 9–43. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Maxwell, Simeran. “All That Glitters is not Gold: Textiles of Ancient Peru.” In Gold and The Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru, Exhibition catalogue. National Gallery of Australia, 2014. Pasztory, Esther. “Rare Ancient Featherwork from Peru.” In American Journal of Archaeology, no. 112.4 (October 2008): 1–6. Schreiber, Katharina. “The Rise of an Andean Empire.” In Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes, edited by Susan E. Bergh and Luis Jaime Castillo, 31–45. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Stone, Rebecca R. Art of the Andes: From Chaví n to Inca. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Stone-Miller, Rebecca. To Weave for the Sun: Ancient Andean Textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1995. Vazquez, Andrea F. “Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes.” In Wari Teacher Guide. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012.

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Appendix

Figure 1. ‘Feather Tunic,’ 8th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Feathers sewn to woven cotton fabric, 121.9 x 170.2 cm. de Young Museum, San Francisco, California. Reproduced from http://art.famsf.org/feather-tunic-199648. Accessed September 17, 2014.

Figure 2. Detail of the feathered-string knotting for ‘Feathered Hanging,’ 7th–8th century. Peru. Wari. Feathers on cotton, camelid hair. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Reproduced from http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/feath- ered-walls/making- feather-panels. Accessed November 11, 2014.

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Figure 3. Map of Wari and Tiwanaku cultural infl uence. Licensed under CC BY 2.0. Reproduced from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huari-with-tiahuanaco.png. Accessed November 12, 2014.

173 WARI FEATHERWORKS

Figure 4. Textile fragment and reproduction of design, Condor-Snake, ca. 3100–1500 BCE, Huaca Prieta, Peru. Photograph by Junius Bird, 1961, Peabody Museum of Natural History. Reproduced from ArtStor, http://www.artstor.org. Accessed November 11, 2014. This textile fragment once depicted a condor with a snake in its stomach. The color that allowed the image to be visible has long faded, but we still know the subjects of the textiles due to the way the textile was woven. The designs were not applied to the top of the fi nished product (as with embroidery), but instead were implicit in the way they were woven: the warps and wefts pulled in different directions, physically imbedding the design into the very fi bers of the textile.73

Figure 5. ‘Tunic,’ 7th–11th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Woven cotton and camelid fi bers, 109.9 x 119.7 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Reproduced from http://www.artic. edu/aic/collections/artwork/85520. Accessed November 12, 2014.

73 Emily Breault, op. cit.

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Figure 6. ‘Tapestry-Woven Tunic with Sacrifi cer,’ 7th–11th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Woven camelid fi ber and cotton, 202.6 x 112 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. Reproduced from http://artandseek.net/2013/06/26/at-the-kimbell-a-civilization- discovered/#sthash.uGjnLoJv.dpuf. Accessed November 12, 2014.

Figure 7. ‘Urn with Staff Deities,’ 7th–11th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Ceramic and slip. Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima. Reproduced from http://wari.kimbellart.org/exhibit/gift-food-drink/urn-staff-deities. Accessed November 11, 2014

175 WARI FEATHERWORKS

Figure 8 (details of Figure 7). Detail of interlocking fret motif surrounding the staff deity’s head and on the border of his tunic. ‘Urn with Staff Deities,’ 7th–11th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Ceramic and slip. Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima. Repro- duced from http://wari.kimbellart.org/exhibit/gift-food-drink/urn-staff-deities. Accessed November 11, 2014.

Figure 9. ‘Jar,’ 7th–10th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Ceramic and slip, 21.4 x 16.6 x 11.2 cm, Fowler Museum at UCLA. Reproduced from ArtStor http://www.artstor.org. Accessed December 7, 2014.

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Figure 10. ‘Wari Cup,’ 7th–11th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Ceramic and slip. Pontifi cia Universi- dad Catolica del Peru, Lima. Reproduced from http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index. ssf/2012/11/the_cleveland_museum_of_art_br.html. Accessed December 7, 2014.

Figure 11. ‘Bowl,’ 6th–9th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Ceramic and slip. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Reproduced from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of- art/1979.206.385. Accessed November 11, 2014.

177 WARI FEATHERWORKS

Figure 12 (details of Figure 1 and Figure 8). Comparison of the border of the de Young feathered tabard and the border of the staff deity’s head. Both have the same interlocking fret motif.

Figure 13. ‘Tabard,’ 7th–10th Century CE, Peru, Wari. Feathers sewn to woven cotton fabric, 142.2 x 132.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Reproduced from http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2008/radiance-from-the-rain-forest/ photo- gallery. Accessed December 3, 2014.

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Figure 14. ‘Tabard,’ 7th–15th Century CE, Peru, Wari or Chimú. Feathers sewn to woven cotton fabric, 101.6 x 101.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Reproduced from http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2008/radiance-from-the-rain-for- est/photo- gallery. Accessed December 3, 2014.

179 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

AMBER FLOYD A “Dream” Deferred: An Exploration of the Scarlet Title “Undocumented”

Amber Floyd was a member of the Martín-Baró Scholars Program (2014–2015). She is now attending Trinity Washington University.

180 AMBER FLOYD

WRITER’S COMMENTS

The idea behind “A ‘Dream’ Deferred” was inspired by my boyfriend and his family, who are undocumented immigrants. More specifi cally, I was intrigued by Brigitte, one of my boyfriend’s younger sisters. Brigitte was the valedictorian of her high school class but was unsure as to how she would be able to pay for college due to her lack of citizenship. Being so close to something that I didn’t understand piqued my interest to become educated on the subject. As a Martín-Baró Scholar, we were assigned to write about a public policy that affected impoverished communities. This created the perfect opportunity for the creation of “A ‘Dream’ Deferred.” I began my research with general and less reliable resources in order to gain a broad sense of the Dream Act and its components. As I delved deeper into the world of immigration law, I collected information from peer-reviewed articles, newspapers, and renowned journals. I outlined various arguments that I wanted to represent and selected evidence from the research to support those arguments. I also felt that it was imperative to include an excerpt about Brigitte herself. In its culmination, “A ‘Dream’ Deferred” is an exploration of current immigration law that far exceeded my expectations. —Amber Floyd

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

One of the more challenging assignments in the Martín-Baró Scholars Program calls upon students to write an essay in a Rogerian mode. Carl Rogers, of course, was best known in the realm of Psychology, but his insights into empathic communication also apply to Rhetoric and Composi- tion as well. Students were asked to research a topic about which they held profound beliefs and then look deeply, without condescencion, or indeed a Ciceronian dismissiveness, at another “opposing” viewpoint. Students were then asked to marshall evidence that would support not just their side but another’s as well. Amber clearly did an outstanding job of respectfully including and reporting the complexity of this political situation without compromising her beliefs, and her paper is all the more powerful for it. I very much appreciated that Amber included the voices and poignant examples of her friends, whose lives are clearly impacted by our nation’s myopic approach to education and immigration policy. Amber also, I must say, delivered a very powerful speech based on this same research that used Langston Hughes’ poem not as epigraph but as a powerful conclusion. —David Holler, Rhetoric and Language Department

181 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

Abstract

The Dream Act is very complex and contains many subcategories and components. This paper, although it may touch on these ideas, only serves to explore the educational component of the act. This paper will fairly report the arguments of those against the act as well as those in fa- vor of the act. It will then address the common values that are shared by both sides. This paper does not serve to prove that some people should be denied the right to higher education based upon their lack of effort or motivation. However, it does serve to prove that those who do dem- onstrate determination, motivation, and initiative should not be denied access to higher education as a result of being labeled with the status of “undocumented.”

Keywords: Undocumented immigrants, Dream Act, citizenship, higher education, teenage immigrants

182 AMBER FLOYD

A “Dream” Deferred: An Exploration of the Scarlet Title “Undocumented”

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

—Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

HE UNITED STATES government defi nes the Dream Act as “common- T sense legislation drafted by both Republicans and Democrats that would give students who grew up in the United States a chance to con- tribute to our country’s well-being by serving in the U.S. Armed Forces or pursuing a higher education” (Miranda). According to Professor Caleb Kim of Loyola University Chicago, the Development, Relief, and Edu- cation for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, was introduced in order to “pro- tect undocumented students from deportation and to provide them with a safer learning environment via a legal pathway for citizenship” (55). The Dream Act was created in hopes that students who were brought to America by their parents illegally would be safe from deportation, given the opportunity to receive an education and eventually be on the path to obtaining legal citizenship (Kim). The act was fi rst introduced on August 1, 2001, by Illinois Demo- cratic Senator Dick Durbin and former Utah Republican Senator and current President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch (Herszenhorn). The act has not yet received enough votes from Congress in order to become a law.

183 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

One of the most recent votes occurred in 2010. The bill received 41 Sen- ate votes against, 55 votes in favor, and 4 Senators chose to abstain from voting—60 were required to pass (Herszenhorn). The bill had been pre- viously passed by the House of Representatives—with a vote of 216 to 198, including 8 Republicans in favor and 38 Democrats opposed—and required the same authorization from the Senate (Dwyer). Arguments against the passage of the Dream Act contain many ele- ments. One of the components being that the act promotes unjust ideals. Duhita Mahatmya of George Mason University writes that although the act promotes the needs of the children, it also undermines the well-being of the family as a whole. Mahatmya explains this best when she writes, “the Act promotes the rights of children over their parents, discourages family stability and unity, and impacts family interdependence negatively” (79–80). Mahatmya further explains by stating that there is an inequality when it comes to the blame that is placed upon immigrant parents compared to their children. The children are seen as American Dreamers who deserve the benefi ts of the act while their parents are undeserving of any help and are considered criminals. This in turn reinforces the stereotypes that often surround immigrant adults (Mahatmya). Mahatmya further argues that the act provides no regard for the circumstances of the other family members and simply focuses on the condition of the Dreamer. There are no incen- tives or resources provided for the remaining family members who may be experiencing hardship. The Dreamer, on the other hand, may be able to re- ceive waivers or other resources to help them if their family is experiencing hardship and the Dreamer is being adversely affected (Mahatmya). Mahat- mya argues that this sends the message that the remaining undocumented family members are unworthy of American support. Another argument that is often posed regards the American economy. Freelance writer and editor Todd Beamon argues that as a result of the pas- sage of the Dream Act, benefi ciaries who gain legal residency would then qualify for federal programs such as Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or food stamps, and federal health insurance exchang- es. As a result, the federal defi cit would then increase by between $5 billion and $20 billion from the years 2021 to 2061 (Beamon 10). In utilizing these resources, the new residents would be taking away from Americans who could utilize the resources. Additionally, opponents believe that taxpayers would be forced to subsidize student loans for students who qualify for the

184 AMBER FLOYD

Dream Act. Former Republican Senator Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, New York, expresses this belief by saying that he “simply cannot justify spend- ing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to pay for tuition for illegal immigrants when so many law-abiding families are struggling to meet the ever-increasing costs of higher education for their own children” (“New York Senate rejects ‘Dream Act’ ”). The common belief is that it is diffi cult enough for Americans to afford to put their child or children through col- lege. Increasing taxes in order to help subsidize funding for immigrants to go to college would only create another burden for American families to bear. This will most likely be the result if the Dream Act is passed and im- migrants are allowed to attend college at a more affordable rate. The fi nal argument against the Dream Act that I will present concerns the colleges and universities themselves. Beamon writes that if the Dream Act is to be passed, then college institutions will be forced to reconcile “how to address the standard issues in educating low-income populations; and how to maneuver a plethora of state regulations governing tuition and fees, along with any new duties imposed under the proposed federal law” (10). If the act is passed, institutions would then be forced to adjust in a way that benefi ts the students and provides them with the best way to learn regardless of their socio-economic background. Institutions will also have to decide whether or not they will make tuition affordable for all of their students, immigrants specifi cally, or whether to change the price of tuition at all. Beamon further explains that community colleges specifi - cally would be impacted the most as a result of a great infl ux of students enrolling in order to receive an education at a more affordable rate. Each of these issues would greatly affect the institutions who would receive recipients of the act and may take years to address and eventually solve. Many of the students who would be affected by the Dream Act were brought to America as young children and have spent the majority of their lives within the United States. They have learned to assimilate, consider themselves to be a part of the American culture, and are often fl uent in English as well as their native language. Unfortunately, some of these students are not even aware of the fact that they are undocument- ed until they try to get a driver’s license, try to get state identifi cation, or try to attend college. They spend the majority of their lives thinking that they are American citizens with cultural ties to their native country. Regardless of whether they are involved within their community, work

185 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

hard academically, or have remarkable talent, these students are unable to pursue higher education. Kim explains that “Under current immigration law, undocumented students’ academic accomplishments and lengths of residency in the United States do not justify their violation of immigra- tion law and cannot be cited as mitigating factors during deportation proceedings” (56). Essentially, regardless of how long someone has been in America or whether they were brought here as a child, current immi- gration laws state that they are not considered to be American and their unlawful presence is not justifi able. Furthermore, if these students were to be accepted into college, they would then face the obstacle of fi nding fi nancial support since they do not qualify for any federal funding nor in-state tuition rate due to their lack of citizenship. As a result, students often fi nd themselves at a stalemate when exploring the avenues of how they can receive a higher education. According to Kim, about 5.5 million children under the age of eigh- teen live in households labeled undocumented. Approximately two million of these children are students, and of this number only about 65,000 grad- uate from high school each year. Of this 65,000 who are able to overcome adversity in order to graduate, only about 10% are able to attend college and receive a higher education. This inability to attend college is often due to their lack of American citizenship. Kim best explains that “undocu- mented students’ residency status is solely determined by their parents’ im- migration status. If their parents are undocumented immigrants, students do not have a pathway to obtain legal residency status even though they may have lived most of their lives in the United States” (55). Essentially, if a student’s parents are undocumented, rather than the student having their own residency status, they are unable to receive legal residency nor attend college regardless of how long they’ve lived within the United States. Kim further explains this situation by stating that as a result of being unable to attend college and therefore being unable to achieve the American dream, many of these students drop out of school before they reach graduation. Some of the students who drop out may also become involved in illegal activity (Kim 55). Those who see no possibility in achieving their dreams for the future in turn live their lives without hope. The Dream Act can be the hope for these students. Why should it be okay for someone who slacks in school and barely passes their classes to be able to attend college but a valedictorian with an

186 AMBER FLOYD

honors diploma cannot attend college because she was born outside of the United States? There are students in college who live by the model of “Eat, sleep, rave, repeat.” Some go out every Friday and Saturday night to clubs or to the “party of the week.” Others party during the week and then don’t bother to wake up for class the next morning. This type of behavior is considered the “typical college life.” This kind of behavior is condoned and often expected from college students. But when one takes a step back and includes those who have the status of being undocumented within the United States, a different picture is painted. In numerous high schools across the United States there are many undocumented seniors who have fought in order to be among the top of their class. Many of these students already face and overcome adversity daily in being undocumented. Some of them juggle having a job in order to help provide for their families as well as keeping up with their school work. Others may serve as the caretaker of siblings, parents, or other family members while participating in extra- curricular activities and volunteering. So many of these students overcome situations that many affl uent Americans would not even be able to fathom. Regardless, a countless number of them still remain dedicated to their edu- cation and work hard in school despite their diffi cult circumstances. These students continuously prove that they are beyond willing to do whatever it takes in order to better themselves and their families. With the issue of citi- zenship aside, if one of these students were to be placed beside an Ameri- can student who has not been as involved and does not have as high grades as the other, there should be no question as to who is better “qualifi ed” to receive a higher education. So then why should a choice forced onto many of these students by their parents—immigrating to America illegally—be the determining factor when it comes to a human being, who has proven to be worthy, being able to receive a higher education in order to better themselves? A high school senior, Brigitte R., is the valedictorian of a Milwaukee high school’s graduating class of 2015 with a grade point average of 4.13. She was born in Peru, the second youngest of four children. Her fam- ily immigrated to America when she was fi ve years old. When her fam- ily originally immigrated to America, they had visas. However, when the visas expired the family did not have enough money to renew them. As a result, the children grew up not being able to stay at one residence for an extended period of time for fear that they may one day be found by

187 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Regardless of their various adversities, Brigitte’s parents applied for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and were able to send each of their children to one of the best private schools in Milwaukee free of charge. Upon completion of middle school, Brigitte was the valedictorian of her class. Throughout high school, she participated in various community service programs and projects. She was a member of Milwaukee’s Youth Health Service Corps, a community service program for students in pursuit of medical careers, for all four years of high school. She completed her high school’s honors program, was a member of the Smart Team, and was even initiated into the National Honors Society. Brigitte plans to be an accounting major and is not yet sure about which college she will attend in the fall. The largest amount of aid that she was offered was $24,890 from Cardinal Stritch University. The amount evens out to about $6,222 a year. Stritch’s tuition is about $25,920 a year. When asked whether she felt citizenship should matter when it comes to college eligibility, Brigitte replied:

I don’t think that citizenship should play as big as a factor as it does today. Most, if not all, undocumented students apply- ing for college had no part in deciding whether they wanted to be “illegal,” but were brought at a young age by their par- ents hoping to give them a better life. I feel that it’s wrong to blame students for a decision that they had no choice in. Some, including me, spend basically their whole lives dedi- cating hours in school to avoid what their parents had to go through and to make a better life for themselves. In a way, I feel like we are fi lled with all these false brilliant ideas and dreams about what we could become and do because when our junior and senior years come, we are left with little or no help because we are not eligible for government aid, making it diffi cult to attend college. This is why many cases result in undocumented students not attending college, resorting to a negative lifestyle, or only being able to attend a technical college.

One of Brigitte’s main points is this: “[Immigrants] should be chosen solely because someone believes and sees success in them. Shouldn’t everyone want smart and dependable professionals regardless of race, ethnicity, citi-

188 AMBER FLOYD

zenship, etc.?” Brigitte, along with others, fi rmly believes that college eligibil- ity should be determined based upon ability and willingness to work hard. The issue of citizenship should not be taken into account when it comes to the right to an education. Regardless of the positive and negative issues regarding the act, both sides fi nd themselves with a few similar values. Both sides of this issue want what is best for America and the people living in it. They also share the same concern of how the Dream Act will affect America in its entirety. Both sides believe in everyone being able to contribute to society and that all people of America have a duty and responsibility to take into account the well-being of America. In regards to the act, both sides address how it will affect the American econ- omy and both sides want everyone to contribute to promoting the economy. Both sides also agree with the fact that everyone has the right to an education. They also agree that receiving an education will help provide the opportunity for a better life for all people. Finally, they also agree that it is not their intent to promote any stereotypes regarding immigrants and their families. To sum up, it is in the best interest of America, the Dreamers, and their families for the Dream Act to be passed and become law. Although the oppos- ing view poses very interesting and valid arguments against the passage of the act, when examined holistically, the benefi ts outweigh the drawbacks. In receiv- ing an education, the Dreamers will then be able to work jobs that provide a much greater pay and therefore be able to contribute more to the economy. Also, by working jobs with more pay, they will be able to give back to their fam- ilies domestically and abroad. Finally, and most importantly, the Dreamers are among America’s next generation of leaders. Educating them will only help to ensure the future quality of this great nation. Former Republican Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, best summarizes this argument with the question: “Is he better off going to college and becoming a neurosurgeon or a banker or whatever he might become, and becoming a taxpayer, and in the process hav- ing to apply for and achieve citizenship, or should we make him pick tomatoes? I think it’s better if he goes to college and becomes a citizen” (Huckabee qtd. in Miranda). America should no longer allow the brilliant minds of these student to remain unlocked simply because they carry the label “undocumented.”

189 A “DREAM” DEFERRED

Works Cited

Beamon, Todd. “Just Dreaming?” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education 29.6 (2012): 9–11. Print. Dwyer, Devin. “House Passes DREAM Act for Illegal Immigrants, Senate Poised to Vote.” ABC News. ABC News Network, 8 Dec. 2010. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. Herszenhorn, David. “Senate Blocks Bill for Young Illegal Immigrants.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Dec. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2015. Kim, Caleb. “Lost American DREAM Of Undocumented Students: Under- standing The DREAM (Development, Relief, And Education For Alien Minors) Act.” Children & Schools 35.1 (2013): 55-58. CINAHL Complete. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. Mahatmya, Duhita, and Lisa M. Gring-Pemble. “DREAMers and their Fami- lies: A family impact analysis of the DREAM act and implications for family well-being.” Journal of Family Studies 20.1 (2014): 79-87. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. Miranda, Luis. “Get The Facts On The DREAM Act.” The White House. The White House, 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. “New York Senate Rejects ‘Dream Act’ for Illegal Immigrant Students.” Fox News. Fox News Network, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2015. R., Brigette. Personal interview. 9 Mar. 2015. “Text of Republicans’ Principles on Immigration.” The New York Times. 30 Jan. 2014. The New York Times. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

190 ELIZABETH FRAY

ELIZABETH FRAY Relational Dialectics and Management Strategies Between Blue-Collar Parents and Adult Children on Divergent Career Paths

Elizabth Fray, class of 2015, graduated with a degree in Communication Studies. She is now working for Swords into Plowshares, a San Francisco-based non-profi t organization.

191 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

WRITER’S COMMENTS

As the number of fi rst-generation college students grows, so too does a generational divide among working class or blue-collar families. Young adults today navigate vastly different social and economic landscapes than that of their parents, which may in part lead to divergent career identities. In this paper, I aimed to explore the ways in which values and expectations surrounding career choices are communicated (or not) in blue-collar fami- lies. Specifi cally, I focused on a father and son whose experiences, I believe, exemplify the dialectic communication patterns found among these families. Coming from a similar background myself, I had long watched the tensions and management strategies detailed in my research unfold within my own family—although it was the theoretical foundation presented in Professor Thorson’s course that fi rst allowed me to see them as such. It is my hope that this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the way socioeco- nomic class may affect communication, values, and career options, as well as encourages discussion about its effects in the university setting and beyond. —Elizabeth Fray

INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS

Pulling from Dr. Kristen Lucas’s research on occupational narratives, Ms. Fray’s theory-based, empirical case study on children’s decisions to diverge from their family’s preferred career path is an exemplary illustration of the wide array of research taking place among family communication scholars. In her manuscript, Ms. Fray illustrates the complex connections between occupational identity and family communication, specifi cally pointing out the communicative challenges faced by children when they do not intend to follow in their parent’s occupational footsteps. The depth of under- standing and level of analysis offered in Ms. Fray’s manuscript is among the best I have seen in the thousands of undergraduate research papers I have reviewed and advised. I am extremely proud of Ms. Fray, her work, and pleased that her research was chosen for this celebrated publication. —Allison Thornson, Department of Communication Studies

192 ELIZABETH FRAY

Relational Dialectics and Management Strategies Between Blue-Collar Parents and Adult Children on Divergent Career Paths

Abstract

This case study uses a dialectical perspective to examine what, if any, relational contradictions are present in career-based communication be- tween blue-collar fathers and adult sons, and how they are managed. To investigate this topic, two in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a father-son dyad. Using Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) grounded theory approach of constant comparison, I found that the two primary dialectics were openness-closedness, and career mobility-repro- duction, which were primarily managed through neutralization strategies. Results and implications for future research are described.

Keywords: relational dialectics theory, blue-collar discourse, mobility-reproduction dialectic, dialectic management, family communication, grounded theory approach of constant comparison

193 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

Introduction

VER THE PAST DECADES, the number of fi rst-generation college stu- Odents has increased (Covarrubias & Fryberg, 2014; Wang, 2014); many of them the children of blue-collar families (Lubrano, 2004; Lu- cas, 2007a, 2007b, 2011). Despite increased economic and professional success, these individuals often experience dialectic tension, guilt, and ambivalence due to membership in two confl icting class systems (Co- varrubias & Fryberg, 2014; Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007a). As a result, in- tergenerational members of a blue-collar family may experience unique communicative diffi culties. Although much research regarding blue-col- lar value structures and communicative practices has been conducted in the organizational communication realm (Gibson & Papa, 2000; Jablin, 2001; Lamont, 2000), only some scholars have explored its impact within family relationships (Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007a). Guided by the rela- tional dialectics theory, the aim of this case study was to explore how, if at all, blue-collar fathers and their white-collar sons negotiate dialectic tension surrounding career discourse. The following paragraphs high- light career discourses within blue-collar families, review research that has been conducted on family communication surrounding relational dialectics, and outline the nature of relational dialectics.

Blue-Collar Characteristics

As the United States continues its transition to a postindustrial economy workforce demands continue to adapt, as do the people they affect. The blue-collar workforce, which includes many goods-producing sectors such as mining, construction, and manufacturing, has been declining since the 1950s (Lucas, 2007b; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2003). Although more than 25 percent of the labor force remains employed in blue-collar positions, many jobs have shifted to information- and service-based fi elds, such as com- puter networking and customer service (Lucas, 2007b). Additionally, a col- lege degree has become an increasingly necessary prerequisite for many jobs that offer advancement, benefi ts, and security. This shift has been expressed as both a welcome change in favor of more diverse employment opportunities, and as unsettling loss of stable, skilled, physical careers (Lu-

194 ELIZABETH FRAY

cas, 2007b). For people anticipating a secure, blue-collar job, the decreasing availability of options can negatively affect their self-esteem and career satisfaction. Aside from the economic implications, these changes have had far-reaching effects on blue-collar families. Research has shown that children in these families are socialized differently than their middle- and upper-class peers (Lucas, 2007b; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2003). According to Lucas and Buzzanell (2003), blue-collar values revolve around “liv- ing close to family, making distinct the line between employment and personal life, and choosing people over position and relationships over money” (p. 6). They found that narratives of heroism within a mining community centered around characters that were hard working, honest, loyal, determined, and took pride in their handiwork. Blue-collar par- ents—who work for hourly wages, defer to bosses, and whose time is controlled by the speed of the assembly line—raise their children in ways that emphasize respect for authority and compliance with orders. In con- trast, white-collar parents, whose jobs offer more autonomy, raise their children to develop skills such as decision-making and critical thinking (Lucas, 2007a). In fact, individual reward, recognition, and monetary bo- nuses were completely absent from the stories in contrast to the values of white-collar workers. This indicates that blue-collar families and com- munities are socialized in a specifi c way, which Thomas (1989) interprets as a “coping mechanism” for their lack of career opportunities and de- cision-making power. These behaviors include viewing work as a means to an end, rather than central to personal identity; switching between jobs of equal skill; and valuing status hierarchies of seniority and skill level (Thomas, 1989). Lucas and Buzzanell (2003) offer an alternative interpretation, suggesting that the communities simply share different value systems than those promoted in dominant discourses of success and career satisfaction.

Family Discourse Regarding Career

While most of the discussion so far has focused on career and organiza- tional communication, these fi ndings have a major impact on family social- ization and communication. Research has shown that children’s eventual career choices are heavily infl uenced by family discussions and expecta- tions, which is known as anticipatory socialization (Gibson & Papa, 2000;

195 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

Jablin, 2001; Lamont, 2000; Lucas, 2007a, 2007b; McAlpine, 2008). As they grow, children and adolescents experience anticipatory socialization by in- tentionally and unintentionally gathering information about careers that they ultimately use to make decisions about their own personal career tra- jectories (Jablin, 2001; Lucas, 2007a). According to Jablin (2001), the main sources of this information are family members, educational institutions, peers, media, and part-time work experiences. Furthermore, many people credit their families of origin as having a signifi cant infl uence on their career choices. Therefore, families—and family communication—have a signifi cant impact on blue-collar children’s eventual career choices (Jablin, 2001; Lucas, 2007a, 2007b; McAlpine, 2008). This impact is unsurprising, considering that families are often the fi rst place children become social- ized in the values, roles, and traditions of their parent’s occupations— which they may in time adopt as their own (Lamont, 2000). Another means by which children become acculturated to a spe- cifi c fi eld of work is through social reproduction (Lucas, 2007a, 2007b; McAlpine, 2008), which can refer to either holding the same occupation as a parent, or holding a job within the same socioeconomic index as a parent (Lucas, 2007a; McAlpine, 2008). That is to say, children are often concentrated in occupations “close” to those of their parents, and are es- pecially prevalent in fi elds such as self-employment, fi refi ghting, and fac- tory work, as well as white-collar occupations such as law, medicine, and politics (Lucas, 2007a). Social reproduction may be evidenced in patterns of college success. An analysis of college transcripts of students whose parents had either graduated or attended college, or never attended col- lege, found that students whose parents had attended or graduated from college were more successful (Lucas, 2007a). This indicates that fi rst generation college students—often from working-class families—have a more diffi cult time successfully completing college, which is usually a requisite for further success in a postindustrial, white-collar job market. Therefore, they are somewhat hindered from achieving social mobility through patterns of social reproduction (Lucas, 2007a).

Divergent Identities

Still, research has shown that many children of blue-collar families do not become blue-collar workers themselves (Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007b;

196 ELIZABETH FRAY

Lucas, 2011). Instead they experience upward social mobility through white-collar career trajectories. Although generally viewed as a positive development, these adults often experience diffi cult feelings of class mo- bility-based ambivalence, which occur when an individual identifi es with two or more social statuses (Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007b; Lucas, 2011). In some instances, entering the white-collar, middle-upper class world is equated with a rejection of family and community, that is intertwined with broader working-class values and beliefs as to be indistinguishable (Lucas, 2011). Covarrubias and Fryberg (2014) found often that fi rst-generation college students experienced feelings akin to that of survivor guilt for hav- ing opportunities that their parents and extended families never had. The different value systems embedded in each social class can serve as points of dialectic tension between intergenerational members of a family (Lucas, 2007a). For example, Lucas (2007a) found that the work- ing-class mother of a banking executive expresses both pride and ambiv- alence toward her daughter’s professional accomplishments. Although it is clear that this area of study yields rich data (Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007a, 2007b, 2011), limited research has focused on the possible impli- cations on family function and communication. As the U.S. economy continues to shift away from manufacturing and production in favor of service- and information-based jobs, the population of working-class children entering white-collar professions will continue to grow. While some research aims to understand how early family-based communication affects career trajectory (Gibson & Papa, 2000; Jablin, 2001; Lamont, 2000; McAlpine, 2008), little is known as to what dialectic tensions are present among parents and adult children on divergent career paths, and how they manage those dialectics.

Relational Dialectics Theory

To better understand relational dialectics within blue-collar families, this study drew upon relational dialectics theory (RDT). RDT addresses the process of often simultaneous contradictions experienced by individuals in a relationship (Baxter, 1990). Necessary to this theory are two basic concepts of process, or the aspect of change, and contradiction, or the confl icting forces (Baxter, 1988; 1990). Contradictions are created when internal, confl icting forces cause relationships to be in a constant state of

197 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

fl ux, known as dialectical tension (Baxter, 1988; 1990). The three primary contradictions as outlined by Baxter (1990) include autonomy-connec- tion, openness-closedness, and predictability-novelty. These contradic- tions are described in the following paragraphs, highlighting their use in family communication.

Dialectic Contradictions

The autonomy-connection dialectic concerns an individual’s desire for a close, integrated bond with the relational partner, while maintaining a separate personal identity (Baxter, 1990). Too much reliance and time spent together begins to erode individual identity, which can cause re- sentment. Conversely, resentment and dissatisfaction also occurs when the connection is weak. This dialectic is evident in the communication between a stepparent and stepchild (Baxter, Braithwaite, Bryant, & Wag- ner, 2004), as well as in the communicative practices of abusive families (Sabourin & Stamp, 1995). The predictability-novelty dialectic focuses on an individual’s desire for stability and assurance within a relationship, while desiring a degree of novelty and spontaneity (Baxter, 1990). She found that participants in romantic relationships placed an emphasis on the importance of predictability. The openness-closedness dialectic centers around an individual’s confl icting desire to be transparent and share personal information, with a desire for privacy and protection of some personal information (Bax- ter, 1988, 1990). This dialectic is present in parents who have lost their children, who report uncertainty in knowing what and how much to re- veal about their loss (Toller, 2005), and children report differences in their perceptions of what to share and what to keep private with their stepparent and their non-residential parent (Baxter et al., 2004). Although much research focuses on the three primary relational dia- lectics (Baxter, 1988, 1990; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996), some research has explored the dialectics of social class and mobility (Lucas, 2007a). For example, Lucas (2007a) found that children of blue-collar parents were exposed to messages that both encouraged social mobility and so- cial reproduction, in what she called a theme of mobility-reproduction dialectical tension. On one hand, adult children recalled that their parents encouraged mobility, or to “do better than we did,” while on the other

198 ELIZABETH FRAY

hand, promoting reproduction, or to “do like we did” (Lucas, 2007a). Messages encouraging social mobility were usually verbal expressions to “work hard,” “go to college,” or “don’t work in the mines.” However, while verbal messages of reproduction included statements such as “col- lege isn’t necessary,” Lucas (2007a) found that messages of reproduc- tion were most commonly communicated through omission. Parents did not explicitly say, “Don’t go to college”—rather, it may have not been discussed or promoted as a viable option. Because these messages were often presented simultaneously through both verbal statements and omissions, they indicate the presence of a dialectical contradiction (Lu- cas, 2007a).

Dialectic Management Strategies

Research has shown that individuals in a relationship manage these dia- lectics through: selection, separation, neutralization, denial and refram- ing (Baxter, 1988, 1990; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996). Selection indi- cates that both parties are aware of the contradiction and seek to solve it by selecting one state as dominant. For example, a romantic couple grappling with autonomy-connection may choose to break up, making autonomy the dominant state (Baxter, 1990). To use separation, a relationship pair must be aware of a contradic- tion, and choose to manage it by separating the contradicting elements by time or topic (Baxter, 1990). Cyclic alternation refers to separation based on a specifi c time, such as designation of a “girl’s night out” to denote autonomy. Topical segmentation, however, refers to separation based on an activity, such as a sports league frequented by only one member of the relationship (Baxter,1988, 1990). According to Baxter (1990), separation through either cyclic alternation or topical segmentation are the most commonly used strategies to manage dialectic tension in a relationship, though they do not necessarily yield the most positive results. Another form of dialectic management is neutralization, in which compromising the intensity of each contradicting state dilutes the ten- sion (Baxter, 1990). This is accomplished through either moderation or disqualifi cation. Moderation results in “diluted openness” or “diluted closedness” during conversations, while disqualifi cation denies the sig- nifi cance of the tension through statements such as “I’m just going

199 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

through a phase” (Baxter, 1990). Denial, as explained by Baxter and Montgomery (1996), is character- ized by efforts to obscure or deny the presence of a contradiction, often without initial awareness of the contradiction’s existence. For example, seeking to deny or willfully ignore a sense of monotony in a relationship often creates a stronger reaction against it in the future. The fi nal strategy identifi ed by Baxter (1988) is reframing. This is characterized by a shift in the perception of the contradiction, in which it is no longer at odds with the contrasting state. For example, instead of viewing autonomy as the opposite of connection, an individual may re- frame it as an enhancement of connection (Baxter, 1990). Overall, these management strategies suggest that in blue-collar families’ communica- tion about career options, dialectic contradictions occur as a result of mobility-reproduction discourses.

Proposed Study

Children of blue-collar workers are less likely to perform well in higher education and may experience lower levels of career satisfaction despite upward social mobility (Lucas, 2007a). These “straddlers,” or white- collar professionals raised in blue-collar families, experience confl icting feelings about their identity that affect relationships with family mem- bers (Lubrano, 2004). Because fathers tend to have a stronger infl uence on career choice (Lamont, 2000), the divergent nature of “straddlers” decisions may negatively effect communication between the father and child. Together, these strains may result in confl icting feelings surround- ing the father-child relationship. However, little research has addressed blue-collar discourses within the realm of family communication (Lu- cas, 2007b), instead focusing on its relevance to occupational or orga- nizational communication (Gibson & Papa, 2000; Jablin, 2001; Lamont, 2000; Lucas, 2007a; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2003). As such, the purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how blue-collar parents and their white-collar adult children navigate and manage dialectic contradictions within their relationship. Thus, the present study was guided by the fol- lowing research question:

200 ELIZABETH FRAY

RQ1: What, if any, relational dialectics are present in career-based com- munication between blue-collar fathers and adult sons, and how are they managed?

Method

To explore the presence and signifi cance of dialectic tensions and man- agement in a father-son relationship, this study was approached from the interpretive paradigm using qualitative methods. According to Creswell (2013), this approach allows researchers to interpret others’ meanings about the world, and thereby make it visible. To understand this experi- ence, I used a case-study method, which allowed me to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular issue (Creswell, 2013), namely, the commu- nicative tensions between a “straddler” and his blue-collar father.

Participants

Participants of this case study were selected through convenience sam- pling and the ability to meet the following criteria: (a) an adult who self- identifi es as working in a “blue-collar” industry and (b) his or her adult son/daughter, who does not identify as working in a “blue-collar” fi eld. Participants were a father-son dyad representing two generations of one family; Richard, a 62-year-old father, and Cole, his 24-year-old son. Rich- ard grew up in the Midwest, and upon graduating high school, served a three-year enlistment in the Army. Afterward, he moved to Northern California and began working in construction. After nearly 30 years of union employment, he transitioned into semi-retirement and currently co-owns a small construction company. Cole grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and completed his un- dergraduate degree at a small, private university in Southern California. He returned to the Bay Area and is currently pursuing an advanced de- gree at a local university, with the intentions of working in the computer science fi eld. Both father and son identify as White, and pseudonyms are used throughout this study for privacy purposes.

201 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

Procedures

To answer the research question, I conducted an in-depth, semi-struc- tured interview with each of the two participants. The interviews oc- curred at locations of the participants choosing, to ensure both comfort and confi dentiality. To ensure consistency and breadth of information, an interview protocol was developed and used as a guide (see Appendix A). Prior to the interview, an explanation of informed consent was pro- vided to the participants, and the researcher obtained their verbal con- sent. Interviews lasted between 21 minutes and 33 minutes. Prior to data analysis, audio recordings were transcribed and checked for consistency to ensure accuracy, resulting in 11 single-spaced pages of transcripts.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was conducted using a procedure consistent with Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) grounded theory approach of constant comparison. This method allows for the researcher to determine relevant categories as they emerge during data analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Specifi - cally, preliminary categories of dialectic tension and management were constructed during a primary reading of the transcripts while listening to the participant’s interview. I noted the emergence of themes, patterns, or phrases that both indicated the presence of a dialectic tension, as well as the ways in which it was managed. During subsequent readings, I used both open coding and axial coding to draw connections between categories and narrow them to develop core themes. The analysis con- tinued until I developed two categories of relational dialectics present, and one theme refl ected dialectical management between the father-son dyad. Finally, the participants reviewed the transcripts and my interpre- tive fi ndings. Validity of the results was confi rmed without challenge.

Results

Participants were asked how, if at all, they experienced and managed dialectic tension surrounding career discourse and familial expectation. The following results indicated that in addition to the presence of an

202 ELIZABETH FRAY

openness-closedness dialectic, SMD’s mobility-reproduction dialectic was prevalent as well. However, contrary to previous research indicating a strong communicative presence of confl ict, contradictions, and guilt among upwardly mobile children of blue-collar families (Covarrubias & Fryberg, 2014; Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2007a, 2007b; Lucas & Buzzanell, 2003; Wang, 2014), neither participant reported experiencing these feel- ings, nor indicated memorable tension within their relationship. Instead, their most common strategy for dialectic management was neutraliza- tion. While not all results align with previous RDT research, they do sup- port and expand the mobility-reproduction dialectic, adding to the grow- ing body of literature concerning working-class communication patterns.

Openness-Closedness Dialectic

Both participants characterized their mutual communication as being more centered on utilitarian, or technical speak, rather than emotional discussions. Research has shown that blue-collar families often focus on objective, material topics in their daily communication (Lucas, 2007b), and are comfortable with a level of closedness regarding “personal’ in- formation.” In the following example, Richard qualifi es Cole’s employ- ment as personal or peripheral information, stating:

He never told me about the job he has now, but apparently [his mother] knew something about it. He doesn’t talk to me about it, so I fi gured it didn’t come up or it wasn’t worth men- tioning, and I didn’t ask him. I don’t pry. (p. 5, lines 138–140)

Richard appears to respect Cole’s privacy, and further perpetuates closedness by not attempting to solicit any information that is not readily given. However, this behavior may hinder his desire for openness and a deeper relationship with his son, which is expressed in the following example:

Well I’m not close with him in some respects … at least when he was younger, and I kind of feel bad about that. I think I have a better relationship with Cole now. Everyone has a little bit of bitterness here and there in their life … I’m not real

203 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

talkative about personal stuff, I guess. I guess that’s how guys are, that’s a fair statement. (p. 1, lines 10–12)

Though Richard believes he and Cole currently have a “better rela- tionship,” he would prefer it to be closer. According to Baxter (1990), closeness is often achieved through the sharing of personal information with another individual. However, Richard’s reticence surrounding “per- sonal stuff,” and his acceptance of this trait as inherently masculine, acts to impede this desire.

Social Mobility-Reproduction Dialectic

The mobility-reproduction dialectic is often found in blue-collar parents’ communication toward their children regarding career choice (Lucas, 2007a). Statements promoting mobility are verbally expressed through tangible or emotional support, and easily recalled. For example, Richard explains that he encouraged Cole to “do whatever makes him happy,” and not limit his career opportunities to blue-collar labor “just because I did it.” These messages advocate for increased career choice and oppor- tunity, exemplifying the mobility aspect of the dialectic. Its contradiction lies in simultaneous messages of social reproduction, wherein parents encourage their children to follow in their path. In one instance, Richard recalls telling Cole about a union apprenticeship program:

I guess I just knew I should just mention it to him maybe … If you’re good at it, then the company will hire you and treat you right. They will be very good to you if you know what you are doing. You take care of them and they will take care of you. (p. 5, lines 132–135)

Here, Richard promotes the social reproduction dialectic by suggest- ing a career through his union. Implicit in this statement is the belief that a “good” job does not necessarily require a college degree, which is one of the many subtle socializing values imparted to children of blue-collar workers. Notably, most statements of social reproduction are communi- cated through omission (Lucas, 2007a). For example, Cole explains:

204 ELIZABETH FRAY

Even to this day we don’t really—he didn’t come up and say, “how are you doing in going forward with college.” He was like, “Hey, I hear your motorcycle isn’t running. What’s up with that shit?” I was like, “you know it’s got this bat- tery thing, I’m not sure what’s going on.” He was like, “Oh I know what’s going on.” It’s almost like communication revolves around technical issues and problem solving. (p. 1, lines 13–17)

This statement demonstrates the lasting impact of omission in nevertheless conveying expectations and promoting social reproduction. By removing certain discourses through repeated omission, Cole was able to discern that it was not important or expected of him, despite Richard’s claim that he encouraged Cole to “do whatever makes him happy.” This explains how the mobility-reproduction dialectic functions, as contradictory forces encouraging both social mobility and reproduction.

Neutralization as a Management Technique

Despite divergent career identities, participants recollected minimal ex- amples of disagreement surrounding career paths. This aligns with neu- tralization as a technique for dialectic management, in which confl icting tensions are diluted through moderation (Baxter, 1990). Instead of con- fl ict, both father and son seemed to correlate difference in career trajec- tory with generational trends, rather than socioeconomic opportunity. Regarding his career expectations for Cole, Richard explained:

He seemed like he was more into the computer stuff than get your hands dirty kind of stuff, and that’s what he really wants to do … I always like being in a union, and a strong union, and we had a fairly strong union. I guess that’s not how the world works anymore. You know, most blue-collar workers don’t have a lot of power. But I don’t think people his age re- ally think about unions that much. (p. 2, lines 31–34)

205 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

In this example, Richard expresses satisfaction with his career and membership in the union, while noting its decreased relevance and appeal to the younger generation. He explains, “That’s where the whole world is going, you have to have a degree or experience or something, you know.” Cole echoes this idea of inevitable career divergence by stating:

Going to a public college-prep high school, where you go to college after high school-like, that’s the route. So in my mind, I was like, ‘my dad had a great job.’ It’s well-paying, you get good benefi ts, and there’s nothing bad about it, but there is still this sort of feeling that that’s not the direction that I’m supposed to be going in my generation. We go to college. That’s more what I was thinking. I was thinking, yeah I’ll go to college for engineering, you know, not as a technician or a hands-on guy, but in engineering for an academic degree. So that’s why I think I was not going to pursue the appren- ticeship, just because of the schooljsd. Everybody goes to college, it’s like an extension of high school by default. (p. 1, lines 33–41)

In these examples, Richard and Cole echo similar thoughts regarding Cole’s divergence from a blue-collar career. While some children of blue-collar workers received strong messages of career expectation or reproduction (Lucas, 2007a, 2007b), neither participant could recall memorable examples of this occurrence. Additionally, neither recalled specifi c instances of disagreement or discord surrounding career trajectory. While unexpected, these fi ndings may be indicative of a blue- collar parent’s tendency to avoid personal or political discussions with children (Lucas, 2007b). The “diluted openness” and “diluted closeness” that characterizes neutralization (Baxter, 1990) may also account for the openness-closedness dialectic explored in this section. Further, the specifi c socializing messages Cole received from his family may have aided his ability to navigate different social classes without a loss of identity.

206 ELIZABETH FRAY

Discussion

This case study is aimed at examining the presence and management of relational dialectics within blue-collar families, in which the adult child has pursued a white-collar, postindustrial career. Through two semi-structured interviews with a father-son dyad, three distinct themes emerged to characterize the dialectic aspects of their relationship. I found that the two primary dialectics were openness-closedness, and career mobility-reproduction, which were primarily managed through neutralization strategies. Participants reported closedness through a lack of discussion about their personal lives, though the father did express a desire to develop a “closer” relationship. Second, the mobility-reproduc- tion dialectic was demonstrated through the verbal encouragement of social mobility, and the more subtle promotion of reproduction through omission. Finally, results showed that neutralization was the most com- mon method for managing the dialectic tension, as neither participant could recall memorable instances of tension in their relationship. This study adds to the fi eld of relational dialectic theory by expand- ing previously identifi ed dialectical tensions (Baxter, 1988, 1990; Bax- ter & Montgomery, 1996; Sabourin & Stamp, 1995; Toller, 2005), and providing further evidence of the social mobility-reproduction dialec- tic introduced by Lucas (2007a). It also contributes literature to the un- derstudied fi eld of blue-collar family communication (Lubrano, 2004; Lucas, 2011, Lucas & Buzzanell, 2003) by examining the relationship between blue-collar parents and “straddlers,” or adult children who have adopted white-collar professions. However, this study also has many limitations. Results were obtained through a case study which limits the transferability of the fi ndings. In fact, some results did not support previous research, indicating that re- sults may be specifi c to the family in this study. This divergence from previous research may also signal a need for further inquiry, to better un- derstand the breadth of communicative experiences within blue-collar families. Considering the limitations, future research should seek to ex- pand data surrounding blue-collar communication, and further explore the social mobility-reproduction dialectic. Overall, the present study serves as a starting point for future research surrounding relational dia- lectics in blue-collar family communication.

207 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

Appendix A: Interview Guide

Interviewee: Son

1. Can you start by telling me a little about yourself? 2. Growing up, did your father ever talk about his job? What sort of things did he say about it? Were they positive or negative? How did this shape how you felt about that profession? 3. Profession aside, what did your father say that let you know what his expectations were for you after high school? 4. Think of the fi rst time you felt pressure from your father about choosing a career path. What did he say? How did you respond? 5. Can you think of another time you felt pressure from your father about choosing a career path? What did he say? How did you re- spond? 6. Repeat as necessary. 7. Think of the fi rst time you disagreed with your father about your career path. What was said? 8. Can you think of another time you disagreed with your father about your career path? What was said? 9. Repeat as necessary. 10. How do you talk to your friends and colleagues about your career? How is it different from how you talk to your father? 11. What types of advice do you have for other people in similar situa- tions? 12. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

208 ELIZABETH FRAY

Interviewee: Father

1. Can you start by telling me a little about yourself? 2. When your son was growing up, do you recall talking about your job? What sort of things did you say? What did you want your son to know about it? 3. Profession aside, what did you say to your son to express what your expectations were for him after high school?

4. Think of the fi rst time you suggested a career path to your son. What did you say? How did he respond? 5. Can you think of another time you suggested a career path to your son? What did you say? How did he respond? 6. Repeat as necessary. 7. Think of the fi rst time you disagreed with your son about his career path. What was said? 8. Can you think of another time you disagreed with your son about his career path? What was said? 9. Repeat as necessary. 10. What sort of stress do you experience when you talk to your son about his career as opposed to other family members? 11. Over time, how have you managed that stress? What do you say, or not say? 12. Has that stress changed over time? How so? 13. What types of advice do you have for other people in similar situations? 14. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

209 RELATIONAL DIALECTICS AND BLUE-COLLAR DISCOURSE

References

Baxter, L. A. (1988). A dialectical perspective on communication strategies in relationship development. In S. Duck (Ed.), Handbook of personal relation- ships: Theory, research and interventions (pp. 257–273). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Baxter, L. A. (1990). Dialectical contradictions in relationship devel- opment. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 69–88. doi: 10.1177/0265407590071004 Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and dialectics. New York: Guilford Press. Baxter, L. A., Braithwaite, D. O., Bryant, L., & Wagner, A. (2004). Stepchildren’s perceptions of the contradictions in communication with stepparents. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21, 447–467. doi:10.1177/0265407504044841 Covarrubias, R., & Fryberg, S. A. (2014). Movin’ on up (to college): First- generation college students’ experiences with family achievement guilt. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, doi:10.1037/a0037844 Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among fi ve ap- proaches. (3rd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Gibson, M. K., & Papa, M. J. (2000). The mud, the blood, and the beer guys: Organizational osmosis in blue-collar work groups. Journal of Applied Com- munication Research, 28, 68–88. doi:10.1080/00909880009365554 Jablin, F. M. (2001). Organizational entry, assimilation, and disengagement/ exit. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organiza- tional communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 732–818). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lamont, M. (2000). The dignity of working men: Morality and the boundaries of race, class, and immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lubrano, A. (2004). Limbo: Blue-collar roots, white-collar dreams. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Lucas, K. (2007a). Anticipatory socialization in blue-collar families: The social- mobility reproduction dialectic. Conference Papers – International Communica- tion Association. Lucas, K. (2007b). Discourses of downturn: Socializing blue-collar kids for postindustrial careers. Conference Papers – National Communication Association. Lucas, K. (2011). The working class promise: A communicative account of mobility-based ambivalences. Communication Monographs, 78(3), 347–369. do i:10.1080/03637751.2011.589461

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Lucas, K., & Buzzanell, P. (2003). “… But that’s what you call Sisu”: Blue-collar discourse of work, career, and success. Conference Papers – International Com- munication Association, 1–33. doi:ica_proceeding_11526.PDF McAlpine, T. (2008). Wasting your intelligence, using your education: How a discourse of waste and use permeates students’ discussions of appropriate post-college choices. Conference Papers – National Communication Association. Sabourin, T. C., & Stamp, G. H. (1995). Communication and the experience of dialectical tensions in family life: An examination of abusive and nonabusive families. Communications Monographs, 62(3), 213–242. doi:10.1080/03637759509376358 Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory proce- dures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Thomas, R. J. (1989). Blue-collar careers: Meaning and choice in a world of constraints. In M.B. Arthur, D. T. Hall, & B. S. Lawrence (Eds.), Hand- book of career theory (pp. 354–379). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Toller, P.W. (2005). Negotiation of dialectical contradictions by parents who have experienced the death of a child. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 33(1), 46–66. doi:10.1080/0090988042000318512 Wang, T.R. (2014). “I’m the only person from where I’m from to go to college”: Understanding the memorable messages fi rst-generation college students receive from parents. Journal of Family Communication, 14(3), 270–290. doi:1 0.1080/15267431.2014.908195

211 WRITING FOR A REAL WORLD

Call for Submissions Writing for a Real World Issue Fourteen

We announce our call for submissions for our fourteenth annual Writing for a Real World anthology, which will be published in Spring 2016. Undergraduate writing completed during the 2015–2016 academic year is welcome. WRW reviews not only essays and research papers but also scientifi c, business, and technical reports.

The deadline for submitting work is Wednesday, May 18, 2016. Students may submit two pieces written throughout the academic year.

First, please carefully review our guidelines: https://gnosis.usfca.edu/wrw/

Then enter your two best papers at the same website.

Please be sure to remove your name from the manuscripts.

Complete back issues of Writing for a Real World can now be found on USF’s Digital Collections here: http://www.usfca.edu/library/dc/wrw

Notifi cations take place during Summer 2016.

Manuscripts will be edited and put into layouts during the Fall 2016 semester in the Writing for a Real World Editing Workshop (RHET 325/ ENGL 325), a 2- or 4-unit course taught by WRW’s Faculty Editor, David Holler ([email protected]).

Each published writer will receive two copies of the journal and an individual award; winners and their guests will be invited to an awards reception in Spring 2017.

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