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The Theatrical Politics of Chicana / Chicano Identity: from Valdez to Moraga

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The Theatrical Politics of Chicana / Chicano Identity: from Valdez to Moraga Aberystwyth University The Theatrical Politics of Chicana/Chicano Identity: from Valdez to Moraga Jacobs, Elizabeth Published in: New Theatre Quarterly DOI: 10.1017/S0266464X06000601 Publication date: 2007 Citation for published version (APA): Jacobs, E. (2007). The Theatrical Politics of Chicana/Chicano Identity: from Valdez to Moraga. New Theatre Quarterly, 23(1), 25-35. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X06000601 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Aberystwyth Research Portal (the Institutional Repository) are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Aberystwyth Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Aberystwyth Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. tel: +44 1970 62 2400 email: [email protected] Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 Elizabeth Jacobs The Theatrical Politics of Chicana / Chicano Identity: from Valdez to Moraga Critical opinion over the role of popular culture in relation to ethnic and cultural identity is deeply divided. In this essay, Elizabeth Jacobs explores the dynamics of this relationship in the works of two leading Mexican American playwrights. Luis Valdez was a founding member of El Teatro Campesino (Farmworkers’ Theatre) in California during the 1960s. Originally formed as a resistance theatre, its purpose was to support the Farmworkers’ Union in its unionization struggle. By the early 1970s Valdez and the Teatro Campesino were moving in a different direction, and with Zoot Suit (1974) he offered a critique of the race riots that erupted in East Los Angeles during the summer of 1943, the subsequent lack of reasonable judicial process, and the media misrepresentation of events. Valdez used setting, music, slang, and dress code among other devices to construct a sense of identity and ethnic solidarity. This provided a strong voice for the Chicano group, but at the same time a particular gendered hierarchy also distinguished his aesthetic. Cherríe Moraga’s work provides a balanced opposition to that of Valdez. Giving up the Ghost (1984) helped to change the direction of Chicano theatre both in terms of its performativity and its strategies of representation. Elizabeth Jacobs explores how Moraga redefines both the culturally determined characterization of identity presented by Valdez and the media representation of women. She also utilizes theatrical space as a platform for a reassertion of ethnicity, allowing for the innovation of a split subjectivity and radical lesbian desire. Giving up the Ghost, Jacobs argues, provides a trenchant critique of communal and popular culture discourses as well as a redefinition of existing identity politics. IN THE following essay I explore the relation owners in New Mexico, the urban working between Mexican American identity politics classes of the Southwest and Midwest, and and popular culture through the lens of two the increasingly radicalized student groups plays. Firstly I read Zoot Suit (1974) by Luis across the country. The politics of these dif- Valdez as a reflection of the politics of the fering groups initially coalesced around a Chicano civil rights movement of the 1960s consensus of socio-politico and cultural con- and 1970s, particularly in its gendered repre- cerns. These included arguing for such basic sentation of identity. I contextualize my read- rights as just representation in government ing of the play in terms of its radical critique and the courts, fair treatment from the police of historical events as well as some of the and the military, a decent standard of living, more dominant concerns of the Chicano and bilingual and bicultural education. movement. I then go on to read Cherríe The organizations established to press the Moraga’s Giving up the Ghost (1984) as a existing authorities and to achieve these aims counter-discursive critique of Zoot Suit’s included the UFW (the United Farmworkers’ political configuration. As I go on to show, Union), the United Mexican American it is important to place Moraga’s text in this Students (UMAS), and the Movimiento context in order to explore more fully its dis- Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) in ruption of Chicano theatrical canons as well California, the Alianza Federal de Mercedes as dominant narratives of identity proposed (Alliance of Free City States) in New Mexico, during the movement decades. the Mexican American Youth Organization The Chicano movement grew out of an (MAYO) and La Raza Unida Party in Texas, alliance of diverse groups including farm and the nationwide Mexican American Legal workers in California and Texas, land grant Defence and Education Fund (MALDEF).1 ntq 23:1 (february 2007) © cambridge university press doi: 10.1017/s0266464x06000601 25 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 22 Feb 2011 IP address: 144.124.16.28 To this end several plans were also drawn other cities a year later. These events, repre- up, including El plan de Santa Bárbara (1969), senting one of the many miscarriages of jus- MEChA’s educational programme, and El tice in Chicano history, profoundly affected plan Espiritual de Aztlán (1969), arguably the the community of the East Side barrios. In the movement’s most radical statement concern- Sleepy Lagoon trial, which one character in ing issues of Chicano identity and land rights, the play describes as ‘the largest mass trial in and earlier than this the groundbreaking El the history of Los Angeles county’, twenty- plan de Delano (1965), a stated proclamation two youths were tried on sixty-six charges, of rights by the United Farmworkers’ Union. wrongfully indicted for the murder of an- Initially, Luis Valdez and his theatre group other gang member, Jose Diaz, and sent to Teatro Campesino (Farmworkers’ Theatre), prison. were closely linked to the farmworkers’ struggle in California, and their satirical skits, Legacy of the Sleepy Lagoon Trial known as actos, focused solely on farm labour problems. By 1967 this bond was The riots, which emerged as a result of the severed, firstly by the leader of the farm- trial, consisted of the mass beating and strip- workers, César Chávez, who made it clear ping of young Mexican Americans wearing that the Farmworkers’ Union did not support zoot suits by groups of US servicemen exud- Valdez’s leanings towards Chicano national- ing patriotic fervour. Conversely, general ism, and secondly by Valdez himself, whose opinion as to what had occurred almost own ambitions led him to move away from unanimously blamed the riots on Mexican the struggles associated with farmworkers American youth.2 Sometimes called cholos, and towards other sites of oppression. but more often pachucos, they were character- As the Chicano movement gained momen- ized by their sense of alienation from main- tum, activism from other quarters suggested stream America, most obviously by their use that the content of the plays had to be ex- of a hybrid slang known as calo, by their panded, and Valdez was also aware that the tattoos – and by their distinctive suits. vast majority of Chicanos lived in cities and These characteristics expressed the com- that it was this urban-based audience who plexity of Chicano identity at a transitional were most likely to be sympathetic to his historical moment. During the 1930s the con- form of cultural expression. tinued migration of Mexicans into the United In Los Angeles the politics of the times States contributed to the creation of a distinc- were characterized by organizations such as tive barrio culture in Los Angeles, particu- the Brown Berets, the Chicano Moratorium larly in Belvedere and Boyle Heights, which Committee, and the Centro de Acción Social became important settings for the definition Autónomo, or CASA, by student walkouts, of Chicano identity.3 These areas were also or ‘blowouts’ as they were called, and by distinguished by racial restrictions, class mass protests such as the Chicano Mora- barriers, poor and congested housing, and torium Against the Vietnam War. It was also police repression. Encountering such racial during this period that Valdez began to play discrimination only strengthened the quest for a pivotal role in the formation of Chicano a sense of identity among Mexican American identity politics, founding the theatre group youth, and in effect provided a unique con- TENAZ and contributing a prolific dramatic text for the development of the zoot suit and output, though it was Zoot Suit which be- the pachuco gang.4 came his most commercially successful play The representation of the pachucos by to date. Valdez in Zoot Suit clearly conforms to this Returning to a decisive phase in the perspective. The lead figure, ‘El Pachuco’, is Mexican American experience for its sources, a constant presence and serves as a commen- Zoot Suit depicts the Sleepy Lagoon murder tator on the action, providing the incarcer- trial of 1942 and the subsequent ‘zoot suit ated gang leader, Henry Reyna, with inner riots’ that erupted in East Los Angeles and strength during his trial and subsequent soli- 26 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 22 Feb 2011 IP address: 144.124.16.28 tary confinement. El Pachuco’s opening concrete evidence, an all-white jury indicts speech, delivered in a mixture of calo and seventeen gang members for first-degree English, clearly articulates his central impor- murder during courtroom proceedings that tance to the forthcoming action and, together were clearly racially biased. with the directions for the stage settings, sets In the play this is most obviously reflected the tone of the play and foreshadows much in the uncompromising efforts of the prose- of the action: cution to stigmatize and pathologize the defendants.
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