UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title “Can joo belieb it?”: The Racial Politics of Chican@ Linguistic Scripts in U.S. Media (1925- 2014) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1q37q210 Author Hinojos, Sara Veronica Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara “Can joo belieb it?”: The Racial Politics of Chican@ Linguistic Scripts in U.S. Media (1925-2014) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Chicana and Chicano Studies by Sara Veronica Hinojos Committee in charge: Professor Dolores Inés Casillas, Chair Professor Cristina Venegas Professor Mary Bucholtz Professor Anna Everett June 2016 The dissertation of Sara Veronica Hinojos is approved. _____________________________________________ Cristina Venegas _____________________________________________ Mary Bucholtz _____________________________________________ Anna Everett _____________________________________________ Dolores Inés Casillas, Committee Chair April 2016 “Can joo belieb it?”: The Racial Politics of Chican@ Linguistic Scripts in U.S. Media (1925-2014) Copyright © 2016 by Sara Veronica Hinojos iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was brought to you by the endless support of the Chicano Studies Institute (CSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). They financially assisted in realizing my travels to archives, conferences, and research equipment for my first research project until the last chapter of the dissertation, a special thank you to Carl Gutierrez-Jones, Theresa Peña, Laura Romo, and Raphaëlla Nau. To the Center for Black Studies Research (CBSR) at UCSB for funding my final archival trip, especially to Diane Fujino and Mahsheed Ayoub for all your work. I am grateful for the National Science Foundation (NSF) University of California Diversity Initiative for Graduate Study in the Social Sciences (UC DIGSSS) program that was instrumental in my transition into graduate school, thank you Mary York. Finally, to my home department Chicana and Chicano Studies for believing in my research and work ethic especially for the endless teaching opportunities and block grant funding so I may focus on my writing; specifically, to Katherine Morales, Joann Erving, Sonya Baker, Shariq Hashmi, and Mayra Villanueva. There are plenty of benefits to teaching but one drawback is the time it took from my research project. In the same vein, I am thankful for the opportunity to teach the hundreds of students who decided to major and take a class in our historic department; I would not trade in those experiences. I would have nothing to present or write about if I did not have the assistance and nerdy curiosity of the endless librarians who cared enough to respond to my emails and welcomed me to archives. To all the librarians in the International Languages Department at the Central Library in Los Angeles for assisting me with their microfilm collection of La Opinión, an enormous thank you to Leahkim Gannett, Librarian for Communications, Film & Media Studies, Theater & Dance, Writing Program at UCSB for guiding me to 1920s- 1940s fan magazines that gave light to an entire chapter and for referring me to two other archives in Southern California that shaped the core of my dissertation. Specifically, the Writers Guild Foundation in Los Angeles for their film and television scripts thank you to Joanne Lammers, Managing Director of Library and Archives; and to Martin Gostanian, Supervisor of Visitor Services at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills for dusting off Chico and the Man analog tapes and for printing media industry magazine articles pertaining to Freddie Prinze, Scatman Crothers, and Chico and the Man, without-even-asking. At UCSB, I am thankful for the graduate training I received in seminars and teaching assistantships from the Sociology, Feminist, Black, Media, and Chicana and Chicano Studies departments. A special thank you to Jacqueline Bobo, Lisa Parks, Janet Walker, Stephanie Batiste, and my all time favorite, Salvadoreño, Jota, Immigrant, Oral Historian, who taught me to use my words wisely, speak my mind, and check the footnotes, Horacio Nelson Roque Ramírez. In the Chicana and Chicano Studies department, there is one person who I did not take a seminar with or was a teaching assistant for, but I learned an incredible amount of survival and fashion tips from la madrina Aída Hurtado. Millones de gracias for all the mentoring opportunities from the department newsletter, colloquium, fashion research project, and when the department hosted MALCS at UCSB. To, honestly, the best dissertation committee with a sense of humor, and strong nerdy powers, Anna Everett, Mary Bucholtz, Cristina Venegas, and Inés D. Casillas. Thank you iv Anna for your early feedback on my dissertation in a seminar paper on Sofia Vergara and her “accent” for your course Textual Analysis and for your research on race and Black digital media technologies. Mary, thank you for teaching African American Vernacular English and Culture and having me in your class, for encouraging and believing in my methods, and your groundbreaking research on language, race, and gender that teaches us all new forms of analyzing words and speech. To my favorite Colombiana Cristina Venegas thank you for serving on my Masters committee, our directed reading course where you shared your knowledge of television studies, and your endless writing advice. Finally, to my academic mother Inés. There are not enough words in this dissertation to begin to explain how grateful I am that you agreed to be my advisor. As your student and teaching assistant I have learned so much about work ethic, survival, and learning through laughter. I am extremely lucky to have you as an advisor but most importantly as a mentor. Thank you for introducing me to other academics especially other strong Chicanas and Latinas at the various national conferences we attended together, for being brutally honest about academia, your endless feedback and time on my research, and giving me the tools to survive the ivory tower. Thank you to the Casillas-Csordás family for letting me share you. I am most grateful for you. I am fortunate enough to make familia in the department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. I want to thank specific graduate students and our humble graduate student office, South Hall 1724. Whatever crisis I experienced was always solved after going into the grad office because there was always someone there to offer advice and various forms of solving problems. We laughed, cried, gossiped, ate, graded, finished section readings, danced, and most importantly it served as a springboard to our friendships. I have learned so much from all of you and thank you for always listening. Thank you, Michelle P. Baca, Tomas Avila Carrasco, Cristina Serna, Eddy Francisco Alvarez, William Calvo Quiroz, Carisa Cortez, Amber Rose Gonzalez, Adrianna Santos, Nicholas Centino (academic brother), Marla Ramirez (academic sister), Jessica Lopez Lyman, Madga Garcia, Janett Barragan Miranda, Juan Sebastian Ferrada (academic brother), Marina Chavez, Melissa Flores, Natalia Villanueva Nieves, and Adanari Zarate (academic sister). A special shoutout to our writing group Marla, Janett, and Sebastian thank you for your time, constructive criticism, and for believing in my work; also to Maryam Griffin and Jade Devon Petermon for the brighest, keeping it real, Women of Color roommates and colleagues I could ask for. Finally, I want to thank the Hinojos-Villegas family. Thank you for your support, even though academia is foreign to us and for getting upset, but then getting over it, when I did not show up to family events because of work. I love you and thank you for giving me the best inheritance I could ask for, a sense of humor, from both sides. To my hardworking parents, Ramon Diaz Hinojos and Guillermina Hinojos Villegas, I finished school for all of us; and my third parent my opinionated and fabulous sister Monica Elizabeth Hinojos. To the legacy of tio Efren Villegas who had dreams of attaining a Ph.D., was an advocate for education, and left us all a collection of 1960s-1970s records and books. To Kwinton Deon Fulbright, thank you for your encouragement and worrying about my research as much as I do; your support and love never goes unnoticed. v SARA VERONICA HINOJOS Email: [email protected] http://culturahinojos.weebly.com/ EDUCATION & ACADEMIC TRAINING June 2016 Ph.D. in Chicana and Chicano Studies Black Studies Doctoral Emphasis University of California, Santa Barbara “‘Can joo belieb it?’: The Racial Politics of Chican@ Linguistic Scripts in U.S. Media (1925-2014)” Committee: D. Inés Casillas (Chicana and Chicano Studies), Cristina Venegas (Film and Media Studies), Mary Bucholtz (Linguistics), and Anna Everett (Film and Media Studies) June 2011 M.A. in Chicana and Chicano Studies University of California, Santa Barbara “Re-Visions of Chico and the Man: Chicanos and 1970s Television” August 2004-May 2008 B.A. in Chicano Studies and Sociology Pitzer College, Claremont, CA August 2006-December 2006 Semester Abroad: Cultural and Language Immersion Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy June 2007-August 2007 Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program Claremont Graduate School, CA RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS Popular Culture, Gender and Media Studies, Chicana/o and Latina/o Media Studies, Language Politics, Humor Studies, and Sound Studies PUBLICATIONS 2016 Sara V. Hinojos. Review of Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film, by Shilpa S. Davé. Journal of Asian American Studies. Forthcoming “Latinos and New Media,” In Encyclopedia of Latino Issues Today, Eds. Felipe Ortego y Gasca, Magdaleno Manzanarez, Alexandra Neves, Gilda Baeza Ortego, (ABC-CLIO Greenwood Press). Under Contract D. Inés Casillas and Sara V. Hinojos. “Sabado Gigante as Transnational Text.” In Companion to Latina/o Media, Eds. D. Inés Casillas and María Elena Cepeda. New York: Routledge. vi Under Second D.