I have noticed that one trend that will get an aspiring Mexican American writer is to say you are gay. And you will get more attention. I read some article about a new writer whose name I forgot and the one point the Harvard article pinpointed was that he was gay and Chicano which are really two words that don't go together. Gay because any racial group can be a homosexual but not all racial groups can be Chicanos. And if anybody knows, Chicanos do not want to be identified as gay because most are not. So it is disingenious to try to lump both together when the majority don't want to be labeled in the popular Hollywood or Academia esqueness. Now if that is what is getting published, shame on the publishers for pushing that genre onto a community that believes in children, reproduction, legacy of blood and the beauty of the female body.
Normal Mexican Americans like women and considering US born Mexican Americans are of desert Apache to Mescalero to Yuma heritage, the love of women or polygamy was is part of the male cultural heritage for the simple reason more offspring kept expanding the group. And the women agreed to that cultural norm because unlike southern Mexicans who move north, Apaches and other Northern Mexicans were not Catholocized so the ideal of monogamy is not in my cultural lineage. We view women as having the ultimate power because they choose who to mate with and that is the ultimate power of the female line, even if they are old. Even the older ladies can reject the older men.
Thus to try to focus on Mexican Americans as gay ignores the vast Mexican American community that is anything but gay and are interested in normal struggles and questions of life with womanizing on the side. By accepting more gay writers, the publishers are identifying what is Mexican American in print and that is very dangerous. They are also saying that only gay narratives are worthy of publication whereas the others are not valuable lives worth mentioning or considering for analysis or acceptance. In the academic circle of Mexican American Studies, there is an overimposition of gay and feminist writers which amounts to one conclusion only: the hatred of macho culture. Gay and feminism in Chicano academic (if you can call it that) circles dominates the curriculum that people who fought for such fields of study feel excluded because the gays and female haters have taken over with complicity of the White academic world for they facilitated those hirings and curriculum imposition at the expense of 90% population that is not gay nor feminist. Gays can push their lifestyles but if a heterosexual male writer talks about wanting to have multiple women he is shun. Or if he counters feminist any male hatred he is called all the negative labels available and I don't have a problem with that but let me get my voice out. Gays should stay with their gay community because their lifestyle is important than race and so should feminist because they believe gender is more important than race which I disagree with both. Yet because they are accepted by the White circles as their tokens, their self centered lifestyles become sacred but ask us normal Mexican Americans and we'll laugh.
I don't want to be known as liking men nor as pro women at the expense of my gender because I don't see the gays or the feminist advocating on my behalf and my needs. Those people don't speak for me and I'm not politically correct nor religious, I believe my own mind and don't believe in a popularity contest. And because I haven't been annointed by the gay White literary circle my writings continue to go unnoticed but they are out there pushing for normal Mexican Americans who are trying to survive all these impositions who are only self centered.
Julian Camacho
Well I certainly don't think your writings go unnoticed, but it has been rare for gay Mexican Americans to come out to their community or the general public because of the macho stereotypes that permeate the culture. The fact is that at least 10% of the American population identifies as gay, including Mexicans, Germans, African Americans, Jordanians or whatever the background. I think that you have a compelling but misguided voice. People do not choose to be gay, they just are. I know that it is popular to advance writings of gay Americans of late, but consider how long their voices have been stifled. Paying attention to other points of view does not mean you are jumping on the train. But at least you can look at it as it passes by.
ReplyDeleteYou suffer under rather outrageous delusions and notions about gays, Apaches and Mexicans, and human beings in general, and come across much like (for example) a wife-beater who has been beating his wife so long that he sees it as "normal", regardless that his wife (or girl-friend), his neighbors, or the law disagree. You sound like a druggie only interested in his "fix", in this case your fix is your proclivity to be totally inward looking, much like the druggie. And you state as much with your lack of concern about "popularity contests", which indicates to me that you may be unconsciously aware that you are painting yourself into a philosophical corner. Typical culturally backward machista.(and, machista MEANS cuturally lacking). Never mind the gays, Apaches and Mexicans for a moment-and your rather undeserving and laughable appropriation of the descriptive "normal"-you seriously lack a "firewall" of humane thinking which might prevent you from making such totally unjustified comments about your fellow beings. You really lack EMPATHY, and like many in that condition you make up excuses for such crude thinking, if "thinking" it can be called. Either your folks neglected proper up-bringing for you, which may not have been their fault, or you failed to pay attention (which may not be your fault, either). Think carefully about this, as well: CYNICISM (such as yours)comes to us as "TRENDY"--and trendiness is part and parcel of the propaganda effort by this dismal pretense at "democracy" under which we US'ers are forced to live. I have observed machistas in our Chicano Social Movimiento now for decades, and they bring what you bring to the table: a lack of concern about women, children, elders and certainly about GLBTQ's. Your self-designation as Apache Mexican is interesting,,as is your obvious, to me, anti-intellectual position. There is wisdom everywhere in the world, and it is FREE--all one must do is pay attention. I will visit your blog from time to time to see if you are making progress. Mine is XLOWRIDER TIMES PANCHO VILLLA. Saludos from Antonio
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