Jotería Studies

Jotería Studies Habib, Samar. Introduction to Islam and Homosexuality, edited by The etymology and significance of the term jotería is Samar Habib, xvii–lxii. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. important to understanding the relatively new but Kugle, Scott Siraj al-Haqq. “Sexuality, Diversity, and Ethics in the growing academic field known as jotería studies. The Agenda of Progressive Muslims.” In Progressive Muslims: On term jotería derives from the colloquial Spanish-language Justice, Gender, and Pluralism, edited by Omid Safi, 190–234. term joto (sissy, faggot), one of three pejorative terms (the Oxford: Oneworld, 2003. others being puto and maricón) for gay men in Mexico and Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Introduction to The Innocence of the Devil, in Mexican and Chicanx (a gender-neutral version of by Nawal El Saadawi, vii–xlv. Translated by Sherif Hetata. Chicano/a; also, Latinx) communities in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. According to Robert Buffington (1997), the term joto Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Men, Women, and God(s): Nawal El resembles a bastardized past participle of the word joder Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics. Berkeley: University of (to fuck), but Buffington suggests the word derives not California Press, 1995. from joder, but from Jota (Cell Block J) of the Lecumberri Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. “Tribadism/Lesbianism and the Sexualized federal penitentiary—in existence from 1900 to 1976—in Body in Medieval Arabo-Islamic Narratives.” In Same Sex Love Mexico City, where prison authorities kept effeminate and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn, 123–141. men isolated from the rest of the prison population New York: Palgrave, 2001. starting in the early part of the twentieth century. Prisoners in Cell Block J were called jotos, Buffington Mansour, Elham. Anā hiya anti. Beirut: Riad el-Rayyes, 2000. Translated and edited by Samar Habib as I Am You posits, and the word became synonymous with homosex- (Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press, 2008). uality; yet, the word existed before this period. Although Massad, Joseph A. Desiring Arabs. Chicago: University of Chicago for some jotería is a stand-in for the US umbrella term Press, 2007. queer, jotería has a cultural, linguistic, and political specificity not captured in queer. Given the Mexican Saadawi, Nawal El. The Innocence of the Devil. Translated by Sherif Hetata. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. and US Chicanx origins of the terms joto and jotería, other Originally published as Jannāt wa-Iblīs (Beirut: Dār al-Ādāb, Latinx folks sometimes feel excluded by the nomenclature, 1992). but this is changing as people engage with it and as the Samman, Hanadi al-. “Out of the Closet: Representation of field decolonizes and becomes more inclusive. It is hard to Homosexuals and Lesbians in Modern Arabic Literature.” pinpoint an exact year when the field of jotería studies was Journal of Arabic Literature 39, no. 2 (2008): 270–310. created, given the long trajectory of queer Chicanx and Samman, Hanadi al-, and Tarek El-Ariss. “Queer Affects: Latinx folks engaged in scholarship and cultural produc- Introduction.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, tion. However, the development of the Association for no. 2 (2013): 205–209. Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS) in 2011, Sirees, Nihad. Ḥālat shaghaf. Beirut: Dār ʿAṭiyya li-al-Nashr, its first conference in 2012, and the publication of a 1998. special issue of Aztlán on jotería studies in 2014 were Whitaker, Brian. Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the critical, formative events in the growth of the field. Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Resignification of Jotería Daniel Enrique Pérez argues that jotería studies “can be considered a critical site of inquiry that centers on nonheteronormative gender and sexuality as related to mestizo subjectivities” (2014, 144). For Xamuel Bañales, Jotería Studies jotería studies is a decolonial project; he argues that contrary to the “reclaiming of fag or other terms like dyke EDDY FRANCISCO ALVAREZ JR. and queer, the resignification of Jotería … is part of a Assistant Professor, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies decolonial collective movement—an emerging political Portland State University, Portland, OR term that challenges Western thought” (2014, 156). The influential Chicana lesbian scholar Gloria Anzaldúa (1942– JORGE ESTRADA 2004) helped launch the academic usage of the term jotería Visiting Assistant Professor, Women’sandGenderStudies Department in her classic work Borderlands/La Frontera: The New State University of New York, Oneonta Mestiza (1987) when she wrote, “People, listen to what your jotería is saying” (85). This widely cited command has been taken seriously by jotería scholars, artists, and activists An academic field evolving at the intersection of as confirming that they have something valuable to say and Chicanx, Latinx, queer of color, and transgender that their experiences need to be heard. Between 1987 and studies. the Aztlán special issue in 2014 (the so-called jotería studies GLOBAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, AND QUEER HISTORY 863 Jotería Studies dossier), a vibrant body of work was published using the [1983]), The Last Generation (1993), and Virgins, term and helping to form the field. In the dossier, Anita Guerrillas, and Locas: Gay Latino Men Write about Love Tijerina Revilla and José Manuel Santillána (2014) outline (2001; edited by Jaime Cortez), Tomás Almaguer’s essay tenets of jotería identity and consciousness, which include “Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual Identity radical queer love, commitment to multidimensional social and Behavior,” and fiction by Michael Nava, John Rechy, justice, and rejection of racism and colonization. Francisco and Terri de la Peña are part of the legacy of jotería J. Galarte, writing about trans inclusion in jotería studies, studies, as are women-of-color feminist texts by Audre asserts that “the challenge for jotería studies is to be Lorde, bell hooks, Emma Pérez, Chela Sandoval, and attentive to the lived realities of trans* Chican@ folk and to others. tatiana de la tierra’s poetry, photographs, and consider how this can inform and challenge how we editorial work, and Carla Trujillo’s Chicana Lesbians: The understand varying assemblages of race, gender, sexuality, Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991) and Living and nation” (2014, 233). Chicana Theory (1997) are included among the founda- Importantly, not everyone doing queer and trans tional influences of jotería studies. More recently, queer-of- studies work at the intersection of Chicanx/Latinx studies color theorists, such as Leonel Cantú, José Esteban Muñoz, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, Juana María Rodríguez, is comfortable saying they are engaged in jotería studies. Richard T. Rodríguez, Catrióna Rueda Esquibel, and Rita In part, this is due to the lack of legibility of the term in Urquijo-Ruiz have also contributed to the expanding field. mainstream academic circles, including in queer studies. Rigoberto González’s Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Another reason is that that field is grounded in border Mariposa (2011) is also an influential text. However, it was consciousness and may be attributed to Mexican or the publication of the dossier that helped to name, curate, Chicano communities specifically. For some, the use of and shape the field, as well as to provide legibility, primarily the pejorative term jotería as a term of empowerment is within the North American academy. still a challenge. Although these scholars choose not to use jotería to describe their work, their contributions are part As jotería studies scholars join the faculties in US of the intellectual lineage that nonetheless contributes to universities, more students are exposed to the field. an understanding of the field. Currently, jotería studies is taught in Chicanx, Latinx, and queer studies, sociology, and education courses, to name a Jotería studies is a political project and scholarly field few. Students may find an entire undergraduate or vibrantly evolving at the intersection of Chicanx, Latinx, graduate course on jotería studies, or instructors who queer of color, and transgender studies concerned with the include readings on the syllabi or use a jotería pedagogical histories, identities, scholarly works, and artistic and activist approach in their classes at the University of Nevada, practices of queer Chicanx and Latinx people. In the jotería Reno; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Portland State studies dossier, editor Michael Hames-García defines jotería University; the University of Oregon; Oregon State studies as “identifiable but not yet fully formed” (138). University; the University of Michigan; the University This collection of essays put jotería studies on the map and of California, Davis; the University of California, Santa is regarded by scholars and educators as a foundational Barbara; the University of California, San Diego; the pedagogical, historical, and theoretical text, containing University of Minnesota, and some of the California State essays on topics ranging from jotería activism to spirituality, Universities, among others, where some of the innovators identity, aesthetics, pedagogy, and trans studies. They serve in the field are teaching or in graduate school. Artists and as an entry into the field and leave room for others to activists are central to jotería studies, as

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