Escaping the Chicano Patriarchy: Chicana and Queer Chican@
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ESCAPING THE CHICANO PATRIARCHY: CHICANA AND QUEER CHICAN@ IDENTITY STRUGGLES IN THE CHICAN@ NOVEL AND IN AMERICA by Joseph J. Vigil, B.A. A thesis submitted to the Graduate Council of Texas State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with a Major in Literature December 2013 Committee Members: Jaime A. Mejía, Chair Daniel Lochman Sergio Martinez COPYRIGHT by Joseph J. Vigil 2013 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSIONS STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgment. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work I, Joseph J. Vigil, authorize duplication of this work, in whole or in part, for educational or scholarly purposes only. DEDICATION I dedicate this work to Alicia and Richard “Boomer” Mendoza, my greatest hopes and among the ones I write this thesis for. Follow your paths, and form your own identities, no matter what may try to stop you. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis took much longer to write and required many more lonely hours at my desk than I had anticipated. Without the inspiration, encouragement, and prodding of several people, I wouldn’t have had the stamina to finish it. Innumerable thanks to: Paul Baiza-Vigil for never doubting that I would be successful in the completion of my master’s program or this thesis. I can never replace your constant love and encouragement. And I can never thank you enough in one lifetime. My parents, Joseph P. and Esperanza M. Vigil, for instilling a never-ending drive and pride in me, without which I would have quit long ago. Dr. Jaime A. Mejía for making this dog hunt. Your mentorship throughout my time at Texas State has made all the difference. Thank you for sticking with me and pushing me to the vision you knew I could reach. ¡Ándale al PhD! The professors who have shaped me the most at Texas State: Dr. Paul Cohen, Dr. Vickie Smith, Dr. Daniel Lochman, and Dr. Octavio Pimentel. All the Chican@ authors and theorists who have come before me and laid down the work for me and others to build upon. I count myself fortunate to be in the company of astounding, brave people, both living and deceased. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................. v ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................viii CHAPTER I. OPPRESSION AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF RACE AND SEXUALITY ....1 Chican@s, Chicanas, and Queer Chican@s ................................................1 To Serve Man...............................................................................................4 Lingering Chicana Oppression.....................................................................7 Escaping the Tribe .......................................................................................9 Life and Literature .....................................................................................14 Literary Identity Pathways .........................................................................22 Implications................................................................................................24 II. INTEGRATING HER WAY TO HERSELF....................................................28 González’s and Viramontes’s Young Chicanas.........................................28 Chicana Beginnings and Divergences........................................................30 Toward Coatlicue.......................................................................................38 Coatlicue’s Guides .....................................................................................45 Way Stations and Ways of Life .................................................................56 Conclusions ................................................................................................71 III. ENDANGERED QUEER NARRATIVES......................................................75 Early Receptions ........................................................................................75 Leaving Home............................................................................................80 The Taint of Heterosexualism....................................................................85 A Separated Life ........................................................................................88 An Isolated Self..........................................................................................93 Telling the Truth ........................................................................................99 vi Telling Our Stories Our Way ...................................................................104 IV. ELEMENTS OF EDUCATING ....................................................................111 Teaching Beyond the Curriculum ............................................................111 What .........................................................................................................112 How ..........................................................................................................114 Why ..........................................................................................................122 And Beyond .............................................................................................126 APPENDIX A ..................................................................................................................128 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................................131 vii ABSTRACT While efforts have been made to include Chican@ literature into the North American canon, works by Chicanas and queer Chican@s remain underrepresented. Meanwhile, Chicanas and queer Chican@s themselves still face racial, gender-based, and sexual oppression from dominant, hegemonic American social forces and from some heterosexist male members of their own ethnic group. This thesis is an exploration of how Chicana and queer Chican@ authors present within their novels their struggles to form and assert autonomous identities. It also serves as a discussion of how these ethnic subgroups have historically faced such identity formation obstacles. This examination leads to a suggested pedagogy that will engage and promote the academic success of such oppressed individuals, thus ensuring their representation in the educational field and aiding in their identity formations despite the limiting cultural expectations that they constantly face viii CHAPTER I Oppression at the Intersections of Race and Sexuality One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only remember that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner … and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth. (DuBois, qtd. in Duncan-Andrade 593) I have not yet unlearned the esoteric bullshit and pseudo-intellectualizing that school brainwashed into my writing. (Anzaldúa, “Speaking” 79) Chican@s, Chicanas, and Queer Chican@s As a Chicano student and educator who has witnessed historical and contemporary racialized suppression of my people’s voices, I aim to bring Chican@ literature further into the academic forefront.1 As a queer Chicano, I also aim to critique Chican@ literary and cultural studies and, in the process, strengthen my rhetorical voice which is in danger of being subsumed by the dominant social and intellectual forces of the academy.2 Yet, if I write merely as an oppressed individual, I am guilty of self- reduction and of denying my intersectionality, which rhetorician David L. Wallace defines as the concept “which argues [that] we must get beyond binary notions of identity” (5). He goes on to credit queer theorists as “hav[ing] argued for a notion of identity as multiple and operating in complex interactions that [for example] make being an Asian American different from being an Asian American woman and different still from being an Asian American lesbian” (6). 1 Considering this matter of a more complex intersectionality, I must acknowledge that I occupy sites of oppression (as a member of American “minority” groups) and of power (due to my education and gender). Obviously, I can create this work because I have the privilege of studying for a master’s degree at a recognized university, yet I nevertheless feel the need to create this work due to my oppressed status as a member of “othered” ethnic and sexual groups. I thus urge readers to bear in mind that this thesis is not simply an outcry from the margins of literary studies. It is also an investigation in which I aim to examine my own complex intersectionality (thereby holding myself complicit in maintaining dominant systems of oppression) and offer a fair and honest evaluation of multiply oppressed Chican@s’ positions in literature, academia, and American society. I anticipate that employing