Latina Feminist Thought & Popular Culture

cross posted from my Media Justice column

This week I visited Ramapo College of New Jersey to give a presentation on Latina Feminist Thought for their Latino Heritage Month activities. My contacts at the Women’s Center had saw me speak at the CLPP Conference earlier this year, and when they contacted me earlier this semester I was really excited at working with them and their students.

When I think about a lecture/presentation/workshop on the topic of theories it kind of makes me anxious. Theory is something that can be so dense and boring, that I was happy to hear they would love for me to incorporate some aspect of popular culture in my presentation. When I first came to theory I was really intimidated! It was like learning another language to me and I felt dumb, especially when I didn’t know what some of the phrases or terms meant. It was a huge culture shock for me, but something that I was able to overcome and am now a part of creating and building theories and practices.

I had decided to discuss the evolution of Latina Feminist Thought over the past 5 decades in the United States for the purposes of time. Yet, I was struggling with how to incorporate the popular culture aspects. Finally, I decided that I would do two things: 1. Find films for each decade that were important to me in creating my own understanding and identity as a Latina and with a gendered lens, and 2. Include theorists who utilize various forms of media and art to create their theories and move the field of women, gender, Latin@, and ethnic studies forward.

I spent several weeks putting my thoughts together, and spent a good amount of time thinking about my own trajectory as a Latina “feminist” thinker. To be very honest, it was a difficult yet rewarding exercise. Sometimes we don’t often document why or how we come to a particular level of consciousness because when we shift our thinking or widen our lens we get distracted with the new knowledge. Reminding myself to write things down and spend time outlining how I came to certain ideas and understandings is something I still need to do (and encourage the rest of you to do the same especially if you are thinking of graduate school as it will help out a lot!).

Some of the media that I included in the presentation was poetry and how many Latin@s theorize their existence and experiences through poetry and other forms of creative writing. Also included were cartoons and artwork that have been created to share ideas and to make some theories and ideas more accessible in different ways for various communities. Then, of course I had more “traditional” forms of media such as films and the Internet.

What I created was a PowerPoint presentation that I’m really proud of completing. Not only was I proud to complete this in a PowerPoint format, since I’m such a dinosaur I rarely ever use this format, but I also had the opportunity to highlight amazing people in my community and whom I know personally and introduce their work to folks who have yet to hear of them. I included folks who are some of the foremothers of Latina Feminist thought (or using a gendered lens to examine and theorize about our lives and experiences), such as Gloria Anzaldúa, and Maxine Baca Zinn. I also introduced some of my amazing friends and media makers such as Erika Lopez, Sofia Quintero, and Ivan Velez, Jr. (interviews with them for the Media Makers Salon coming soon!). And yes, that’s right I had a whole discussion of including Latino men as being important to theorizing using a gendered lens. What I’m most proud of is to have had the opportunity to include youth media makers in the 2010 decade. I put Espie Hernandez, who was the first person I interviewed for the Media Makers Salon, and her documentary MARIPOSA. Espie’s film makes a really important connection between the topics that we are still discussing and needing to change as a community: gender roles and expectations, sexual orientation, gender expression, and Latino identity. Espie’s documentary and Anzaldúa’s work are in conversation with one another in amazing ways.

Prior to finishing my presentation, I outlined areas that I think Latina Feminist Thought will move towards and some areas that we still need to create spaces to discuss. Several of the conversations that I believe we need to be having and for whatever reason we are not, is including youth in theorizing their own experiences without having to have an adult “approve” or deem appropriate their narrative/testimonio. There was one theorist who I discussed that examines the Internet and how it is used to create activism and community (several reasons to support Net Neutrality), but who also sees several flaws in using the Internet for such work. I shared that this is one area that I find young people’s work being isolated and seen as less than exceptional which is not creating a space for future discussions with them. I also discussed including trans people of Color and examining how we create an atmosphere and environment that makes it difficult for trans people to live safely, share their ideas and experiences, and have the same rights we expect to have for ourselves.

Finally, I discussed how we could theorize about silence. I find that silence is something we are told is bad and negative and as Audre Lorde wrote “your silence will not protect you.” Yet, how is silence something that is very important and that represents us doing some really important and hard work? Let’s admit that thinking is hard work sometimes! Also, how can silence save some of our lives? Silence is very complicated and I think it needs to be examined more seriously and in a comprehensive way.

Below is the slide show that I compiled that you can check out and share if you’d like. I created a Latina Feminist Thought Tumblr page for folks to manage and submit anything they like to the page and encourage you to do the same!

This week I visited Ramapo College of New Jersey to give a presentation on Latina Feminist Thought for their Latino Heritage Month activities. My contacts at the Women’s Center had saw me speak at the CLPP Conference earlier this year, and when they contacted me earlier this semester I was really excited at working with them and their students.

When I think about a lecture/presentation/workshop on the topic of theories it kind of makes me anxious. Theory is something that can be so dense and boring, that I was happy to hear they would love for me to incorporate some aspect of popular culture in my presentation. When I first came to theory I was really intimidated! It was like learning another language to me and I felt dumb, especially when I didn’t know what some of the phrases or terms meant. It was a huge culture shock for me, but something that I was able to overcome and am now a part of creating and building theories and practices.

I had decided to discuss the evolution of Latina Feminist Thought over the past 5 decades in the United States for the purposes of time. Yet, I was struggling with how to incorporate the popular culture aspects. Finally, I decided that I would do two things: 1. Find films for each decade that were important to me in creating my own understanding and identity as a Latina and with a gendered lens, and 2. Include theorists who utilize various forms of media and art to create their theories and move the field of women, gender, Latin@, and ethnic studies forward.

I spent several weeks putting my thoughts together, and spent a good amount of time thinking about my own trajectory as a Latina “feminist” thinker. To be very honest, it was a difficult yet rewarding exercise. Sometimes we don’t often document why or how we come to a particular level of consciousness because when we shift our thinking or widen our lens we get distracted with the new knowledge. Reminding myself to write things down and spend time outlining how I came to certain ideas and understandings is something I still need to do (and encourage the rest of you to do the same especially if you are thinking of graduate school as it will help out a lot!).

Some of the media that I included in the presentation was poetry and how many Latin@s theorize their existence and experiences through poetry and other forms of creative writing. Also included were cartoons and artwork that have been created to share ideas and to make some theories and ideas more accessible in different ways for various communities. Then, of course I had more “traditional” forms of media such as films and the Internet.

What I created was a PowerPoint presentation that I’m really proud of completing. Not only was I proud to complete this in a PowerPoint format, since I’m such a dinosaur I rarely ever use this format, but I also had the opportunity to highlight amazing people in my community and whom I know personally and introduce their work to folks who have yet to hear of them. I included folks who are some of the foremothers of Latina Feminist thought (or using a gendered lens to examine and theorize about our lives and experiences), such as Gloria Anzaldúa, and Maxine Baca Zinn. I also introduced some of my amazing friends and media makers such as Erika Lopez, Sofia Quintero, and Ivan Velez, Jr. (interviews with them for the Media Makers Salon coming soon!). And yes, that’s right I had a whole discussion of including Latino men as being important to theorizing using a gendered lens. What I’m most proud of is to have had the opportunity to include youth media makers in the 2010 decade. I put Espie Hernandez, who was the first person I interviewed for the Media Makers Salon, and her documentary MARIPOSA. Espie’s film makes a really important connection between the topics that we are still discussing and needing to change as a community: gender roles and expectations, sexual orientation, gender expression, and Latino identity. Espie’s documentary and Anzaldúa’s work are in conversation with one another in amazing ways.

Prior to finishing my presentation, I outlined areas that I think Latina Feminist Thought will move towards and some areas that we still need to create spaces to discuss. Several of the conversations that I believe we need to be having and for whatever reason we are not, is including youth in theorizing their own experiences without having to have an adult “approve” or deem appropriate their narrative/testimonio. There was one theorist who I discussed that examines the Internet and how it is used to create activism and community (several reasons to support Net Neutrality), but who also sees several flaws in using the Internet for such work. I shared that this is one area that I find young people’s work being isolated and seen as less than exceptional which is not creating a space for future discussions with them. I also discussed including trans people of Color and examining how we create an atmosphere and environment that makes it difficult for trans people to live safely, share their ideas and experiences, and have the same rights we expect to have for ourselves.

Finally, I discussed how we could theorize about silence. I find that silence is something we are told is bad and negative and as Audre Lorde wrote “your silence will not protect you.” Yet, how is silence something that is very important and that represents us doing some really important and hard work? Let’s admit that thinking is hard work sometimes! Also, how can silence save some of our lives? Silence is very complicated and I think it needs to be examined more seriously and in a comprehensive way.

Below is the slide show that I compiled that you can check out and share if you’d like. I created a Latina Feminist Thought Tumblr page for folks to manage and submit anything they like to the page and encourage you to do the same!

Sunday Night Common Sense

Here I share with you what the definition of "Crunk Feminism" is from The Crunk Feminist Collective's Mission Statement. Never heard of it? Now you have!

Crunk Feminism is the animating principle of our collective work together and derives from our commitment to feminist principles and politics, and also from our unapologetic embrace of those new cultural resources, which provide or offer the potential for resistance. Crunk(ness) is our mode of resistance that finds its particular expression in the rhetorical, cultural, and intellectual practices of a contemporary generation.

Beat-driven and bass-laden, Crunk music blends Hip Hop culture and Southern Black culture in ways that are sometimes seamless, but more often dissonant. Its location as part of Southern Black culture references the South both as the location that brought many of us together and as the place where many of us still do vibrant and important intellectual and political work. The term “Crunk” was initially coined from a contraction of “crazy” or “chronic” (weed) and “drunk” and was used to describe a state of uber-intoxication, where a person is “crazy drunk,” out of their right mind, and under the influence. But where merely getting crunk signaled that you were out of your mind, a crunk feminist mode of resistance will help you get your mind right, as they say in the South. As part of a larger women-of-color feminist politic, crunkness, in its insistence on the primacy of the beat, contains a notion of movement, timing, and of meaning making through sound, that is especially productive for our work together. Percussion by definition refers to “the sound, vibration or shock caused by the striking together of two bodies.” Combining terms like Crunk and Feminism, and the cultural, gendered, and racial histories signified in each, is a percussive moment, one that signals the kind of productive dissonance that occurs as we work at the edges of disciplines, on the margins of social life, and in the vexed spaces between academic and non-academic communities. Our relationship to feminism and our world is bound up with a proclivity for the percussive, as we divorce ourselves from “correct” or hegemonic ways of being in favor of following the rhythm of our own heartbeats. In other words, what others may call audacious and crazy, we call CRUNK because we are drunk off the heady theory of feminism that proclaims that another world is possible. We resist others’ attempts to stifle our voices, acting belligerent when necessary and getting buck when we have to. Crunk feminists don’t take no mess from nobody!

Have a question? Contact us at crunkfeminists@gmail.com

On my mind: Harm Reduction

I've been thinking about harm reduction lately. I had a training with an organization I work for last weekend and we were asked how to facilitate a discussion on HIV prevention and education with youth who buy into an oppressive and stereotypical patriarchal ideology where men are more powerful and women less powerful. There was a lot of silence, and a lot of questions.

I started to think about harm reduction. We know harm reduction as "meeting people where they are at" and realizing that each person makes the best decision for them at that time in their life. Self-determination; agency as the feminists like to say. As an educator and activist, I choose to respect where people are as I hope others respect where I am at as we move through a situation or seek assistance or community.

I said that in such a situation where young people think, for example, that women should not have condoms because that's a man's responsibility, that harm reduction may not just be so far to the "left," that being progressive also can be meeting people where they are even if they are at the other/opposite end of the "left." You know, a similar argument that there are multiple forms of feminisms not just one form. Can there can be multiple forms of harm reduction not just one?

Now, I'm not one to do this often in my other forms of activism, but I do recognize that work within the HIV community and field, there are spaces that I am an outsider and the message will not be received by me in ways by insiders. I also realize that it may be possible to implement a harm reduction approach for someone who believes a male dominated society is the "right" society. If I am in front of a group that values that perspective, I think I may be able to meet them there and break down ideas of masculinity, what does it mean to be a provider, what kind of stress that puts on young boys and men? How does this intersect with HIV risk and decreasing such risks?

Can harm reduction work in that way too? Or are we keeping harm reduction as one specific form of activism and work? I really want to know what others think.