Mysteries of a Xicana Feminista.

[letrasvarias]

IN LAK'ECH - HALA KEN

Yo soy otro tú

Tú eres otro yo

Saludo maya

(via letrasvarias)

[blundergato]

Tú eres mi otro yo. Si te daño a ti, me daño a mi mismo. Si te respeto a ti, me respeto a mi mismo. — You are my other me. If I harm you, I harm myself. If I respect you, I respect myself.

-Mayan concept “In Lak'ech” (You are my other me)

[craftypalette]

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one…

Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros (via craftypalette)

[aeriamamaduck]

About the truth, if you give it to a person, then he has power over you. And if someone gives it to you, then they have made themselves your slave. It is a strong magic. You can never take it back.

from ‘Woman Hollering Creek’ (via aeriamamaduck)

[susanaaamaria-blog]

He said he would love me like a revolution, like a religion.

Woman Hollering Creek and other stories, Sandra Cisneros (via susanaaamaria)

[polystoned]

I’d never made love in Spanish before. I mean not with anyone whose first language was Spanish… ¡Ay! To make love in Spanish, in a manner as intricate and devout as la Alhambra. To have a lover sigh mi vida, mi preciosa , mi chiquitita, and whisper things in that language crooned to babies, that language murmured by grandmothers, those words that smelled like your house, like flour tortillas, and inside of your daddy’s hat, like everyone talking in the kitchen at the same time, or sleeping with the windows open, like sneaking cashews from the crumpled quarter pound bag Mama always hid in her lingerie drawer after she went shopping with Daddy at Sears. That language. That sweep of palm leaves and fringed shawls. That startled fluttering, like the goldfinch or a fan. Nothing sounded dirty or hurtful or corny. How could I think of making love in English again? English with its starched r’s and g’s. English with its crisp linen syllables. English crunchy as apples and stiff as a sailcloth. But Spanish whirred like silk, rolled and puckered and hissed.

Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek.

That beautiful Saturday afternoon feeling~

(via polystoned)

[monaeltahawy]

I Am So in Love I Grow a New Hymen - Sandra Cisneros

Terrorists of the last 

decade. Anarchists who fled 

with my heart thudding on the back

bumper of a flatbed truck,

Nelson Algren impersonators.

Joe Hill detonators. Los-mas-

chingones-de-los-mas-chingones-

politically-correct-Marxist-tourists/voyeurs.

Olympic gold, silver, bronze love-

triathlons and several blue

ribbon, runner-ups to boot.

Forgot, forgotten, forget.

Past tense and no regrets.

No doubt you’re Villa

and I’m Pershing’s dizzy troops.

No doubt I’m eucalyptus and you

a California conflagration. No doubt

you’re eucharist. Euclidean geometry.

World War !!’s Gibraltar strait, 

the Chinese traders of Guangzhou.

Zapatistas breakfasting at Sanborn’s.

Sassoferrato’s cobalt blue.

Museo Poldi Pezzoli’s insurance rate.

Gaudi’s hammer against porcelain plates.

Ay, daddy, daddy, I 

don’t give a good goddamn. I 

don’t give

a good

god

damn.

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Should any fool mishandle that wild geography of your body, how it rides a red running current like any good wolf or witch, well then just bleed, boo.

[carmenbmancha-blog]

The new trend: Plastic bag bating suits to emphasize how small/skinny women can get. 

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Current Identity: CONFUSED

As the culmination of the quarter/session is coming and the final paper is due in a matter of days, I have been reflecting on everything we’ve been reading and discussing.  I am in a current state of identity crisis.  The first couple of readings emphasized how women were being marketed to be thin, frail, Eurocentric beauties to be socially accepted.  If you diverged from this you could also be marketed, in Dove campaigns, as an acceptable “other”.  Both groups had to fit a certain perimeter though.  They were still very beautiful (flawless skin, able bodies, voluptuous/skinny bodies, feminized, etc).  The theme was exploitation of the definition of what it meant to look like a woman.  Everything we see has some sort of impact onto our lives.  We learn how we are socialized and eventually perpetuate what is feed to us.  “The Future of Childhood in the Global Television” emphasizes how television perpetuates gender roles and divisions for young viewers.  They essentially sustain bas values of consumerism, lack of respect for transitions, and an over preoccupation for sex and romance while neglecting/erasing the presence of lower class/minority children.  The fixation of western beauty, heterosexual relationship, wealth, and whiteness is present in many of the tv shows target for children.  This then translate in the internal colonization and internalized colorist behavior the children adopt.  My crisis came when I started thinking who did I get to where I am at? Were my identities something planted in me that I “realized” I identified with, or was it something I truly had in me without the language to identify it with?  Have I been socialized to act this way or have I grown comfortable in my own skin to be this way? How can control the tv content my future children have so it won't affect them and is that even humanly possible? Right now I think I have more questions than answers.  I am more confused than I have been before but I know that with all these questions, I will reflect and meditate and eventually produce an answer that makes sense. 

[carmenbmancha-blog]

“Hit me baby one more time!” or “Hit me with your best shot.  Fire away”

[future-urban-collective-blog]

Imani Cezanne - “Heels” #SpokenWord #Poetry #ButtonPoetry @ButtonPoetry https://fucmedia.com/imani-cezanne-heels-spokenword-poetry-buttonpoetry-buttonpoetry/

[carmenbmancha-blog]

“ You should shine brighter. You should get more special. You should love yourself enough to not let a woman in heels emasculate you. “

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Authentic Self vs. Dramatic Self: Is there a difference?

It might just be me reading something in the text or something but I completely disagreed with the article “Drama and Gossip”.  The author proposes that characters in tv shows use theaticality as a form to find and define themselves as a response to gossip culture.  He frames his argument around Foucault’s theory of “technology of self” which refers to how a person transforms themselves to reach a certain goal whether its happiness, purity, wisdom, etc.  They essentially create a persona to help others see a story they are trying to personify.  It also introduces the idea of “knowing oneself” and “taking care of oneself”.  In the quest to define who you are, you eventually have to try new things to know if you like them or not.  So performance becomes a part of discovery and self care.  The author posits that these dramatic self discovery acts are a counteraction against the internet gossip culture by offering a space of therapy to viewer and thus challenging it.  It critiques the internet for giving anxiety over expressing “true identities”.  By framing a moment that is normally intimate and vulnerable as a lively, spontaneous, and vivacious defining point, tv shows are challenging the intrusive way that the internet is framing identities. 

My problem with the article is that it is ultimately saying that the character is one sided.  They must do something SO dramatic to show the audience to recognize their other sides rather than embracing how multi-faceted everyone is.  By framing certain traits as outside the box, they are inherently negating and oppressing that characteristic.  For example, when Betty indulges her sexuality when she’s abroad, she realizes that she hates being a housewife.  This is framed in a way that she should be ashamed of her other identity when most women at some point of their lives reminisce of other points of their lives.  The dramatization of the scene emphasizes that she is not a young single gal in the city but a married woman with kids.  But if that’s how you see yourself, why cant that be your identity? Why does it have to be a false narrative of who you are.  She can still have single gal traits but still be married.  If the articel argued that everyone is a multifaceted being, then I totally agree but if it argues that we should see character as unilateral, i completely disagree. 

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Constructing the perfect WHITE Cosmo girl

In the article "Inventing the Cosmo Girl", the author emphasizes the fact that Helen worked to create an idealistic working woman. Helen wanted to elevate the social status of working women through their relationship through men, focusing on their sexuality, masking it as girl power. At first I sort of understood this method. Like the saying goes, "fight fire with fire". I thought that in order to combat sexism, an over exaggeration of sexuality is a way to fight it. However, last night for my Chicana/o class we watched the documentary "No mas bebes". The movie examines the unwanted, unknown, and illegal sterilization that happened to mostly women of Latin descent in the county USC hospital. A portion of the documentary focuses on how the doctor who whistle blew first set multiple letters to influential people telling them what was happening. Since he was only a Resident and lacked structural proper, he looked for people who were in a position of power to expose the hospital and doctors. One of those letters was sent to Helen Hurley Brown. She liked the others ignored the letters. Because they did not fit into the white women narrative of reproductive rights which focuses on the right to choose, she did not take action. She essentially promoted white feminism, discarding the other. To be honest, I was entirely shocked. During the time, women of color fought for visibility and a voice. So the silence from Cosmopolitan of the mutilation and destruction of the brown body fits the narrative of advertisers and ultimately white feminism. The ironic part is that it's still persistent today. One example would be the whole Miley/Taylor/Nicki Minaj fiasco. Although Nicki probably didn't have a larger scheme, she was commenting on how she was rendered powerless and invisible despite having one of the most viewed, replicated, and influential videos of the year. She spoke of a personal problem as oppose to a systemic one. The intrusiveness of Taylor and Miley showcase white feminism hen and now with the tendency of silencing the brown body with a false sense of unity and "girl power". Ultimately the audience plays into this and perceives the brown body as dangerous and a threat thus depicting them as problematic and/or ghetto.

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Perfect Red Lips

At work today, I came across this video.  it honestly left me tear for the courage and strength these women have.  They are able to stand in front of a camera and give a makeup tutorial.  Most of the makeup tutorials are produced by young women with near flawless skin who already mirror accepted forms of beauty.  They produced beautiful faces that many try to emulate, including myself.  These women were products of unfortunate and violent attacks, their faces mutilated but not destroyed.  It is truly inspiring to see how these women accept that despite their faces were destroyed and  no longer fit into accepted forms of beauty, they still fight to not only have their beauty validated but their experiences. By producing a video of makeup, they assert that despite having unprecedented beauty, they are alive and moving forward.  In addition, they emphasize the fact that this can happen to anyone just like "finding the perfect shade of red".  They comment on the accessibility of acid that can be used to reproduce violent attack like the ones they have endured. 

On the other hand, I feel as if I am giving a "backhanded" compliment. By saying comments like these, I am abiding to stereotypical modes of beauty and anyone that diverges from it are "inspirational".  I am sure that this is an act of healing for these women rather than possessing political agendas.   I think they are coming to terms with what happened to them because most of these violent acts are committed by someone who is close to you.  They have to deal with the fact that someone they loved acted against them.  My dilemma is should these acts be regarded as "inspirational" or should we have another word for it entirely.  One that acknowledges their struggle and their visibility rather inherently setting up a comparison with the norm and the outsiders.

[carmenbmancha-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MhbULUd-KE)

[carmenbmancha-blog]

Because I am Worth it!

Because I am worth it, I refuse to participate in the war against my body (Steninem).  I refuse to obsessed with improving my looks by buying makeup. I will buy makeup to please myself, as an artistic representation of who I see myself as.  I refuse to wage a war against food to have a “desirable” body (Fairclough).  I refuse to let Kylie Jenner’s lips question my own.  I refuse to let Cosmo convince me to use my own sexuality to please my partner rather than myself (Oullette).  I refuse to participate in the mass marketing hegemony that tells me that if I buy this product then I will find the perfect man and my life will be complete.  I refuse to succumb to the attributed “boxes” but instead try to form my own that accepts all my flaws as perfections.  I refuse to allow anyone to put me down.  I refuse to listen to the little voice in my head that I am not good enough rule my life.  I refuse to be part of the mass oppression that tells us that in order to be happy and successful, we must be skinny, European centric beauties.  I refuse because I am worth it.  Words of self preservation n a world that is constantly marginalizing everyone.