Introduction 1

Notes Introduction 1. For a more in- depth discussion of patriarchy and nationalism, see Kim’s analysis of the argument of Gates (2005, 16) and Garcia (1997). 2. Omi and Winant (1986) trace the historical development of privilege tied to white- ness but also foreground discussions of race to contest claims that only those in power— that is, those considered white— can be racist. Omi and Winant argue that whenever the construct of race is used to establish in and out groups and hierarchies of power, irrespective of who perpetrates it, racism has occurred. In “Latino Racial Formation,” De Genova and Ramos-Zayas (2003b) further develop the ideas of history and context in terms of US Latinos in their argument that US imperialism and discrimination, more than any other factors, have influenced Latino racializa- tion and thus contributed to the creation of a third pseudoracial group along the black/white continuum that has historically marked US race relations. The research of Omi and Winant and De Genova and Ramos- Zayas coincides with the study of gender, particularly masculinity, in its emphasis on the shifting nature of constructs such as race and gender as well as its recognition of the different experiences of gendered history predicated upon male and female bodies of people of color. 3. In terms of the experience of sexuality through the body, Rodríguez’s memoir (1981) underscores the fact that perceptions of one’s body by the self and others depend heavily on the physical context in which an individual body is found as well as on one’s own perceptions of pride and shame based on notions of race and desire. For a complete discussion of the effect of intersection of race and class on the body see the chapter “Complexion.” 4. In the 1950s the US government invested in “character studies,” in which anthropologists studied other cultures of interest to the United States in an attempt to better understand their societies for foreign policy purposes. The work of Adams (1957) and Lewis (1961) emerged at this time as founding texts on Latin American families and gender roles. While Adams focused on Central American nations— Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras— Lewis concentrated on Mexico and Puerto Rico. Adams’s research, published in 1956– 57 for the Pan American Sanitary Bureau of the Regional Office of the World Health Organiza- tion, described Nicaraguans as having a “loose familial structure” due to dislocation resulting from loss of land. Similarly, Lewis constructs masculinities in Mexico and Puerto Rico as a function of poverty. Lewis’s study focuses largely on the aggression of Mexican men and their need to establish a position of power in familial and 174 ● Notes social hierarchy. The following quote from Lewis’s work appears often in anthro- pological discussions of Mexican men and machismo: “In a fight, I would never give up, or say, ‘enough’ even though the other was killing me. I would try to go to my death smiling. This is what we mean by being ‘macho,’ by being manly” (1961, 30). Much study of Latin American masculinity has focused on poor men, and so Latin American masculinity becomes synonymous with poverty, and vice versa, in the US imaginary. Recent scholarship has sought to understand Latin American and Latino masculinities in a more nuanced way. This scholarship examines Latin/o American masculinities not only within the framework of social class and sexuality but also from a transnational perspective in its attempt to broaden the scope of what we understand to define Latin American and Latino male identities. Gutmann’s work (1996) contributes to masculinity studies in that, first and foremost, it establishes that there is no one universal, not even one consistent Mexican, definition of the meaning of the term macho. Likewise, Mirandé found similar results among Chi- cano men in his study (1997). The main difference between the ethnographic work of Gutmann and Mirandé is that Mirandé worked with a heterogeneous class sample while Gutmann worked in one working- class community. In both Gutmann and Mirandé’s data, overall men preferred the term hombre as a signifier of a heterosexual masculinity that is both respectful of women and independent of the control of others. In Mirandé’s study, however, some men identified the term macho as a positive attribute associated with nationalism and caring for the family (1997, 67– 69). Lancaster asserts that machismo exists as a pervasive force: “Machismo is resilient because it constitutes not simply a form of ‘consciousness’ not ‘ideology’ in the clas- sical understanding of the concept, but a field of productive relations” (1994, 19). While transnational practices and global economies indeed strongly influence constructions of masculinity in Latin America as I have demonstrated, transnational politics and economies particularly impact Puerto Rican society due to its status as a US territory. Indeed in the introduction to his study, Ramírez argues that upon coming to the United States to study anthropology as an island- born Puerto Rican adult, he learned that in the United States, machismo is a phenomenon that is considered pathological, resulting from “underdevelopment” in places like Puerto Rico (1999, 1– 2). Ramírez traces the origins of machismo, the development of masculinity, and the specific social and historical context of masculinity in Puerto Rico. He argues that sociological and economic factors impact how men experience masculinity in terms of bodily practice as well as social interaction. 5. In terms of the economy, Watson and Shaw’s recent work (2011) argues that economic contexts shape gender constructions, specifically citing unemployment and foreclosures (2– 3). Evidence of the impact of economies on Latino bodies abound in media portrayals of immigrants, stressing the unstoppable wave of job- stealing immigrants entering through the Mexican border on the one hand but rendering Latino immigrants as a feminized labor force on the other. While it is beyond the scope of this introduction to provide an exhaustive list, the following texts provide critical interventions to queer Latino studies in gen- eral and masculinity studies in particular: Balderston and Guy, Sex and Sexuality in Latin America (1997); Bergmann and Smith, ¿Entiendes¿ Queer Readings, His- panic Writings (1995); Chávez- Silverman and Hernández, Reading and Writing the Notes ● 175 Ambiente: Queer Sexualities in Latino, Latin American and Spanish Cultures (2000); Molloy and Irwin, Hispanisms and Homosexualities (1998); Foster, Sexual Textuali- ties: Essays on Queering Latin American Writing (1997); Sifuentes- Jáuregui, Trans- vestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature: Genders Share Flesh (2002); and Gaspar de Alba Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities (2003). 6. Some important creative interventions authored or coauthored by women writing the gang experience include Murray’s Locas (1998), Ruíz’s memoir Two Badges (1997), and Sanchez’s and Rodríguez’s Lady Q (2008), Anders’s film Mi Vida Loca (1993) also captures female gang life. Chapter 1 1. This analysis of MACHOS parts from the writings on gender and performance of Butler, Carlson, and Schechner. Butler (1990) posits gender as a wide- ranging and shifting construct shaped by social factors as well as psychological ones with the aim of revealing the inherent hierarchies and power structures underpinning the ways in which individuals perform gender. Performance studies scholars Carlson and Schechner argue that performance itself encompasses a range of actions and critical viewpoints, particularly where there is a consciousness of doubleness— that is, where actors compare their own actions to a potential idea (Carlson 2004, 5). Schechner identifies a symbiotic relationship between performance and anthropology in which performance theory is useful for training anthropologists in their craft while anthropology can teach performance studies scholars to understand actions within the context of social systems (1985, 25). Given the performative context of MACHOS in which women perform as male characters based on ethnographic inter- views, these two critical points undergird the development and analysis of the piece. 2. Sandoval- Sánchez examines ways that theater and ritual performance embody both a process of Latinization, in which the dominant culture appropriates Latino cultural performance to its own end through subordination, and latinidad, in which Latinos have agency in the shaping of performance as a political act of self- determination (1999, 15). With respect to masculinity, his analysis of West Side Story reveals the ways in which popular culture shapes non- Latinos’ perceptions of individual men. Likewise Arrizón traces Latina theater from a transnational perspective in her argument that Latina theater is a political activist project, couching her analysis in border theory and transgression as ways of articulating difference (1999, 2– 28). More recently, Paredez expands Latina performance analysis using the case of fallen Tejana singer Selena as a text through which Latino/as are able to articulate and negotiate identity as a panethnic project (2009, 1– 30). For Sandoval- Sánchez, Arrizón, and Paredez, Latino/a performance constitutes an activist moment for Latino/a subjects to exert agency and act in their own interests. 3. Kaufman notes that though masculinity is associated with many positive attributes such as strength, courage, rationality, and sexual desire, these traits have become distorted and lead to a rejection of any trait remotely associated with femininity, resulting to a need to articulate maleness as a corrective to such distortion (2007, 34). MACHOS is concerned with interrogating this distortion. 176 ● Notes 4. Former Teatro Luna artistic director and director of MACHOS, Paz earned her PhD in performance studies at Northwestern University, one of the pioneering programs in the field. Northwestern’s program philosophy combines the making of art with analysis of the interaction between art and its surrounding community as well as articulating artistic projects through community activism (Schechner 2006, 24).

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