IN TRANSIT: TRAVEL AND MOBILITY IN LATINA ART AND LITERATURE BY ARIANA A. RUIZ DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Richard T. Rodríguez, Chair Professor Robert Dale Parker Associate Professor Susan Koshy Associate Professor Mimi Thi Nguyen Associate Professor Mary Pat Brady, Cornell University ii Abstract The myth of American travel and mobility has long shaped ideas of nation and national identity. In postwar cultural production, to move freely is to enact rights governed by U.S. citizenship. Mobility is thus an embodied social, cultural, and political exercise that informs the production of an ideal national subject. Yet, access to and participation in mobile practices is deeply fraught around issues of difference. This project therefore considers Latina engagement with the promise of travel and mobility, drawing attention to the limits of citizenship and complicating the homogenizing tendencies of Latino identity formation. While other scholars primarily focus on Latino mobility through the lens of subjugation and migrant labor, my analysis attends to generational cultural shifts and changing socio-economic conditions. Throughout the study, I focus on the work of Latina artists like Helena Maria Viramontes, Cristina Henríquez, Michele Serros, and Erika Lopez to show how Latinas adopt various modes of travel and mobility that refute fixity in order to forge cross-cultural affiliations on local and global scales. My work sees Latina movement not simply as reenacting U.S. mobility, but also as a complex raced and gendered action anchored in particular political and cultural realities. Reading Latinas’ engagement with postwar mobility-cum-citizenship, In Transit considers how rearticulations of space and time serve to challenge exclusionary practices from within and beyond Latino communities. By considering Latina mobility at various geographic, temporal, and cultural scales, this project complicates Latino literary and cultural theory which tends to separate texts as either resistant or assimilationist. Instead, I see Latinidad as less tied geographically to the U.S. and more about the interplay of gender, class, race, sexuality, space, and time. I provide readings of cultural texts that represent Latinas on “unexpected” paths, thus responding to and reimagining travel down routes heretofore untaken. iii To the memory of Diego Guzman, Jesus Ramos, and Roberto Ruiz iv Acknowledgements I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with such a supportive and inspiring committee as Richard T. Rodríguez, Robert Dale Parker, Susan Koshy, Mimi Thi Nguyen, and Mary Pat Brady. Thank you for the guidance and mentorship you all provided during the dissertation process. Ricky, your unwavering support was instrumental to the completion of this project. I am grateful for the kindness, care, and attention you provided to my many drafts, as well as to me. Many of the concepts that I examine in this project are a result of thoughtful conversations I had with members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign community. I am particularly appreciative of Fiona I.B. Ngô, Gordon Hutner, Alejandro Lugo, Stephanie Foote, Dianne Harris, and Nancy Castro for their encouragement and engagement with my ideas. I am also grateful to the Department of English, the Department of Latina/Latino Studies, and the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities for the space to share my work. In LLS, I especially thank Jonathan X. Inda, Julie Dowling, Alicia P. Rodriguez, David Coyoca, and Laura Castañeda for their encouragement. It was at Illinois that I also got the opportunity to reconnect with friends from Inglewood, Claudia Sandoval and Ana Soltero. They made this academic year all the more fruitful and full of long sessions of therapeutic laughter. The adjustment to Illinois was a learning process to say the least, yet I was lucky to have Natalie Havlin and Celiany Rivera-Velázquez to show me the ropes. I am immensely privileged to have them in my life. For the dinners, sleepovers, band practices, and late-night movie editing lessons, I am eternally thankful. Likewise, I am fortunate to call Derek Attig, Ashley Hetrick, Melli Velazquez, and Carina and Xochitl Quiroz family. You all made Chamabana home. To Amanda Zink, Heather Salus, Constancio Arnaldo, Isabel Quintana Wulf, Long Bui, Ben v Bascom, and Lisa Ortiz, thank you for your friendship and patience when hearing me talk about my project on numerous occasions. My arrival to Champaign-Urbana would not have happened without my mentors at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I especially give thanks to Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Juan Poblete, Brij Lunine, Larry Trujillo, Elisa Diana Huerta, and Gloria Chacón. While in Santa Cruz I had the pleasure to meet some of my nearest and dearest life-long friends including Erin Beard, David Schmiderer, and Angie Mendez. These people keep me sane, hear me whine, and always cheer me on. I am indebted to Maria Mata and Irene Serna for opening their hearts and home to me. I think warmly of the Friday night dinners, and years of emotional sustenance they provided. Similarly, I have nothing but the most heartfelt appreciation for Erica Ruiz and Christian Estrada who gifted me the experience of a ridiculous, complex, and beautiful friendship. This must be the place. It was also in Santa Cruz that I met Gerardo Sandoval. Gerardo stubbornly made sure I saw this through and I thank him for being one of my most ardent supporters, teaching me to take risks, the late night phone calls, for Lita, and so much more. Sí. Finally, gracias to my family in Inglewood, California: Jorge, Margarita, Zury, Juan, Lucky, Max, Oly, Roxy, Karla, and Rosaura. To my parents, Jorge and Margarita Ruiz, thank you for the love (even when it is tough love) that continues to inspire. My brother, Juan, who is far wiser than his years provided some of the most sage and calming advice especially during the home stretch of the dissertation. And Zury—you are my best friend and I am so fortunate to get to call you my sister. Thank you for sharing your creativity and imagination with me. This dissertation is as much an accomplishment of Margarita and Zury as it is mine. Their sincerity, diligence, and kindheartedness kept me going and are models of how to live and love. vi Table of Contents Introduction Dissonance: On Alternative Latina/o Cultural Formations…..........................…………………...1 Chapter 1 Pilgrimage: Returning Home…………………………………………………………………….16 Chapter 2 Displacement: Haunting, Memory, and Resistance in Latino/a Los Angeles…………………...46 Chapter 3 False Starts: Stalls, Breakdowns, and Roadkill……………………………….............................83 Chapter 4 Diversion: The Brown Atlantic…………………………………………………………………114 Bibliography..…………………………………………………………………………………..148 1 Introduction Dissonance: On Alternative Latina/o Cultural Formations There are a few things you should know about San Antonio-native Molly Vasquez, the protagonist of the film Pretty Vacant (1996). Her “priorities” are her (1) band Aztlán-a-Go-Go, (2) zine Ex-Voto, and (3) impending place in rock ’n’ roll history. Written and directed by Jim Mendiola, Pretty Vacant follows the fictional character’s pursuit of these interests while she evades her family’s annual trip to Mexico. Molly believes she is on the verge of a major musical discovery and is frustrated at her father’s unyielding request that she join them on this “pilgrimage to the motherland” (Mendiola, Pretty Vacant). While proclaiming a deep admiration for the people and their history, Molly does not find Mexico appealing. Her social life is in the here and now of the 1990s San Antonio music scene and not in what she assumes will be a boring family expedition. The sense of immediacy anchoring her in San Antonio is further solidified by the discovery she makes during research for issue five of Ex-Voto. Having experimented with film for issue four, Molly wants to dedicate the issue to her cut-and-paste roots and focus the issue on music. In particular it would be a special edition dedicated to U.K. punk band the Sex Pistols’ infamous 1978 show in San Antonio. While doing work for this project Molly finds a musical artifact with the potential to change punk history. Molly arrives at Randy’s, the nightclub that hosted the Sex Pistols, and is allowed to look around. Although the Sex Pistols performed there over a decade ago, divine intervention makes it so Molly finds what appears to be a set-list for their show. The camera pans down as if to reflect Molly’s eyes scanning the sheet of paper. Hastily written Sex Pistols’ songs are numbered and listed in pen. Yet, scribbled in pencil below number twelve’s “Anarchy in the U.K” are the words “El Kranke.” This song is heavily associated with legendary conjunto-accordionist 2 Esteban “Steve” Jordan. Thus, if in fact the paper Molly retrieves from Randy’s is the Sex Pistols’ playlist then she’s uncovered the Sex Pistols gone Chicano—what Michelle Habell- Pallán refers to as the Sex Pistols’ “Tejanoization” (167). Molly likens this musical encounter to another seminal U.K. punk band, the Clash, and their reggae-inspired sound that was “a direct reflection of their exposure to the Caribbean diaspora and its musical expression there in London” (Mendiola, Pretty Vacant). Similarly, Molly’s theory is that the Sex Pistols encountered Esteban Jordan’s “El Kranke” on the radio as they made their way through Austin and toward San Antonio. Listening to the “Jimi Hendrix of the Accordion” (as Jordan is called) inspired the Sex Pistols to consider covering the song at Randy’s. Molly goes to great lengths to assert this theory by creating a map of musical migration that stretches out across the Atlantic.