Firefly and Latina Diversity

Posted by Mandy

My parents were classy beautiful Latin people. They grew up in the 30’s, a time when you looked clean, you were pressed; you looked people in the eye; you were gracious, no matter how much money you did or didn’t have. Those were the values I went into the world with. –Gina Torres, portrayer Zoe Washburne in Firefly/Serenity

Being born in Brazil made me who I am. –Morena Baccarin, portrayer of Inara Serra

As a second-generation Chilena Americana of a Pinochet-era immigrant mother, I am constantly amazed by the frequency with which I am interrogated about the legitimacy of my Latina identity. I am told that I do not “look” Latina, I do not “speak” like a Latina, my accent does not “sound” as though it belongs to a Latina. The implication being that I am simply trying to “pass” as a Latina, though for what reason, I cannot say. I did not realize that so many people were trying to achieve admittance to a group particularly targeted for banishment from this country in a time when "looking Latin@" is equated with "looking illegal" ("Arizona...").


In her article for VidaAfroLatina, Ivy Farguheson reflects on the many instances in which her race has been challenged:

They question our heritage, our legitimacy. Our Latino-ness, as it were. And the problem continues if you don’t have an accent and don’t look like what people think “Latinos” should look like.

So, what should I look like if I want to appear indisputably Latina? At times, the feeling that I don’t belong, notably as a result of primarily White people questioning whether or not I really belong to the race of my ancestors, becomes too difficult to deal with. I consider dying my hair black, getting a perm, I darken my eyebrows, put on thick, dark red lip liner and large, golden hoop earrings. I smack gum and refer to people as “mamí” and “papí.” I wear bright colors, skirts, and high heeled shoes.

I become a walking stereotype, and I look no more Latina than usual, for my usual appearance, no matter what it is, is Latina for I am Latina.

...the truth is most U.S. Latinos, especially in the Southwest, don't see skin color.

And the reason is simple.

Within Latino families, there can exist a variety of different skin tones. From the very fair-skinned to the very dark, families are comprised of members who may not even look like they're related but they all share the same blood and family history.
-Marisa Treviño

Anthony Quinn as "Zorba the Greek."
He was born Antonio Rodolfo Oaxaca Quinn in Chihuahua, Mexico.

There exists an immense rage related to this issue of having to “fit in” to White perceptions of what Latin@s should look like.

I recently tried to explain what I refer to as “the rage” to a White colleague. How can I explain that I am angry because my mother and tio were so mistreated when they first came to this country that the only place they could safely live was on the Yakima Indian Reservation? When cohorts express disgust at the new policies going into effect in Arizona surrounding the “illegal immigrant problem,” how am I to explain that I literally agonized over dropping out of school to become a lobbyist for Latin@ rights as a result of these new laws? What words can I use to discuss the turmoil during the summer of 2008 when I tried to figure out whether it would be better for the Latin@ community if I applied for a PhD or a law degree?

The rage is expressed so beautifully though still undefined in Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo:

A part of me wants to kick their ass. A part of me feels sorry for their stupid ignorant selves. But if you've never been father south than Nuevo Laredo, how the hell would you know what Mexicans are supposed to look like, right?

There are the green-eyed Mexicans. The rich blond Mexicans. The Mexicans with the faces of Arab sheiks. The Jewish Mexicans. The big-footed-as-a-German Mexicans. The leftover-French Mexicans. The chaparrito compact Mexicans. The Tarahumara tall-as-desert-saguaro Mexicans. The Mediterranean Mexicans. The Mexicans with Tunisian eyebrows. The negrito Mexicans of the double coasts. The Chinese Mexicans. The curly-haired, freckled-faced, red-headed Mexicans. The jaguar-lipped Mexicans. The wide-as-a-Tula-tree Zapotec Mexicans. The Lebanese Mexicans. Look, I don't know what you're talking about when you say I don't look Mexican. I am Mexican (352-353).

So how does Firefly, the (far, far too) short-lived but much appreciated Joss Whedon space Western, fit into all this? Well, for starters, take a look at this picture of the show's female cast members.

(Left to right) Jewel Staite, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, and Gina Torres

As the caption explains, the lady in the blue dress is the gloriously sexy, dark-skinned Gina Torres. To her right stands the classically beautiful fair-skinned Morena Baccarin. While Torres is often referred to as a “strong Black woman” in the Whedonverse, and Baccarin called a “wispy White woman,” both are Latina (Torres is Cuban/Puerto Rican, Baccarin is Brazilian). Together, they demonstrate how impossible it is to accurately define “what a Latina looks like.” As Ivy Farguheson explains:

You cannot tell every Latino by our looks or our names. You can only know us by learning about us and listening to our unique stories.

Note: Latina is used to refer to Latin women, while Latino refers to Latin men. Latin@ includes both an a and an o at the end, referring to Latin folks of both genders. It is not a typo :)

Works Cited

"Arizona governor signs immigration bill." CNN. 24 Apr. 2010. 3 June 2010 http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/23/obama.immigration/index.html

Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo. New York: Vintage, 2002.

Farguheson, Ivy. “A Latina by Any Other Name Sounds Just as Dulce.” VidaAfroLatina 31 Jan. 2009: online ed. 3 June 2010 http://vidaafrolatina.com/A_Latina_by_Any_Other_Na.html

Torres, Gina. "Bio & Contact." Gina-Torres.com. 2010. 3 June 2010 http://www.gina-torres.com/about/

Treviño, Marisa. “For Latinos ‘being white’ is more a state of mind than skin tone.” Latina Lista. 1 June 2010. 3 June 2010 http://www.latinalista.net/palabrafinal/2010/06/for_latinos_being_white_is_more_of_a_sta.html

Weltman, Wladimir. "Morena Baccarin: Brazilian Born Alien." The Rio Times 25 May 2010: online ed. 3 June 2010 http://riotimesonline.com/news/rio-entertainment/morena-baccarin-brazilian-born-alien/

Latinos & Immigration in America- Event

Posted by Mona

Latinos & Immigration in America
A Discussion about Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law
& Upcoming Legal Challenges

Guest Speaker
Thomas A. Saenz
MALDEF President and General Counsel

Panelists:
Jorge Barón, Director of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Luis Fraga, Professor University of Washington
Pramila Jayapal, Director of OneAmerica
Shankar Narayan, ACLU
Rebecca Smith, National Employment Law Project

Moderator:
Dan Ford, Latina/o Bar Association of Washington

Wednesday, June 2, 2010
7:00p.m-9:00p.m.
Town Hall
1119 8th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101

Kindly RSVP to Fé Lopez at fe.f.lopez@lbaw.org

The need for national immigration reform has never been greater. On April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 which requires law enforcement to question people about their immigration status during everyday police encounters and criminalizes immigrants for failing to carry their "papers."

MALDEF President Thomas Saenz will speak on MALDEF's legal challenge to the Arizona law and on the pressing need for immigration reform. Following Saenz’s speech, a panel of speakers, moderated by Dan Ford of the Latina/o Bar Association of Washington, will join Saenz to discuss these issues as well as the recent incident involving the beating of a Latino man and the use of racial slurs by a Seattle police officer.

Thomas A. Saenz
MALDEF President and General Counsel
Thomas A. Saenz is President and General Counsel of MALDEF. Previously, as Counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Saenz honed his leadership skills by serving on the four-person executive team to the mayor, where he provided legal and policy advice on major initiatives. Saenz had previously practiced civil rights litigation at MALDEF for 12 years. During that time, he was a leader in the successful challenge to California's unconstitutional Proposition 187, and he led numerous civil rights cases in the areas of immigrants' rights, education, employment, and voting rights. He gruaduated summa cum laude from Yale University, and he received his law degree from Yale Law School.

Sponsored by:
Schroeter Goldmark & Bender
Latina/o Bar Association of Washington

Co-Hosted by:
CASA Latina
Columbia Legal Services
El Centro De La Raza
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
OneAmerica
Seattle University School of Law
University of Washington School of Law

The Silencing Nature of the "Downer" Vibe

Posted by Theryn

A couple of weeks ago my graduate cohort viewed a debate between Michael Eric Dyson and Tom Horne, Arizona superintendent of public instruction. Their debate aired on Anderson Cooper 360 on May 13, 2010. The Dyson/Horne debate was about why Arizona public schools should no longer continue an ethnic studies curriculum. Coming on the heels of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 anti-immigrant measure that requires law enforcement to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect of being and undocumented immigrant, House Bill 2281 prohibits schools from offering courses at any grade level that advocate ethnic solidarity, promote the overthrow of the US government, or cater to specific ethnic groups (Mother Jones, Retrieved on May 31, 2010). According to Motherjones.com, the House Bill 2281 was passed largely because Horne's personal distaste for the Tucson Unified School District's Chicano studies program, which out of 55,000 only 3 percent of the district's students actually participate. During the debate, when Horne was asked about his public responses to the elimination of ethnic studies programs, he kept repeating that ethnic studies preaches “a race obsessed philosophy, a downer philosophy” that in turn transforms otherwise peaceful students into angry militants whose rage threatens public safety and is essentially un-American. Now, for most of the students in my cohort, Horne sounded ridiculous. My colleagues were laughing, outwardly guffawing, shouting at the screen while cheering on Dyson’s rigorous interrogation of Horne’s statements. It all became quite a spectacle, albeit fun, but somewhat spectacle none the less because…

Since that time, there have been two instances were women of color have come under direct fire for sharing their truth. In the first case, I was told that the method of my truth sharing was “like getting kicked in the gut” by my professor. Then in another class a Native American woman argued with a fellow white cohort who is known for her ignorance of the complexities of racial discourse but constantly tries to debate racial issues often making highly problematic comments that go unchallenged. In each case, there were shocking silences on the part of the rest of the class. Now, while it is true that cohorts spoke to one another outside of class and show solidity for the women of color in different venues like Facebook or by phone and in the latter case, the professor did try and slow the torrent of errors from the white woman toward the Native woman, the majority of white people did not respond to the women in class the way they did to Micheal Erik Dyson’s critique of Horne on screen. Why is that?

Many of my cohorts and I have expressed feeling exhausted by the year’s worth of work and are greatly anticipating the close of the quarter, but is everyone too tired to support the subjectivities of women of color in class while supporting the distant subjectivities of the Brown people we engage with textually? My guess is that the “kicked in the gut” remark made by my professor lends a clue to what may be going on. Simply, the “downer philosophy” Horne name as the reason for his disdain for ethnic studies programs has found its way into the classroom astride the truths of women of color and becomes too much to handle and too threatening to the sense of social order. As long as the critique of colonialism, white supremacy and heteropatriarchy is made by the far away Brown male expert vs. the in-house woman of color, the “downer” consequence of marginalized people’s rage can be laughed off instead of engaged, ignored instead of interrogated as a result of in-house white supremacy.




References

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/13/must-see-ac360-az-ethnic-studies-discussion/

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/ethnic-studies-banned-arizona

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgvOdD5bVsg

Arizona- Everyone’s Injustice

Posted by Priya

Today I was privileged to participate in making my voice heard on main campus during a demonstration in Red Square. Organized by the UW chapter of MECHA, a few hundred students gathered to oppose the myriad of racist Arizona initiatives and spread awareness about the effects these laws have on all of us. Some of the phrases being chanted included "education not deportation," "Si Se Puede" and "Mr. Obama, please don't deport my mama!" The location of the protest was appropriate, as not only is Red Square one of the most frequented areas on campus, it is also right outside of UW President Mark Emmert's office. Armed with megaphones, a diverse group of speakers, including students, Seattle Public School teachers, and UW employees provided words of inspiration, rage, and passion. The crowd consisted of a sea of mostly brown faces, an uncommon occurrence on a campus where Caucasians make up 50% of the undergraduate student population, and even more of a percentage when graduate students, staff and faculty are taken into account. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) this population was largely missing from the demonstration. The president of the UW Black Student Union chapter spoke at the march, representing BSU's support and showing solidarity for both the cause and MECHA. She summed it up when she quoted Dr King during her speech: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

This is exactly why everyone should be concerned with what is happening in Arizona, because it is a reflection on all of us, whether we fit the targeted description of "illegal" or not. We can't just think about this as someone else's problem, and breathe a sigh of relief because this time the group we identify with has been overlooked- we must realize that our group could be next. As UW African American Studies professor John Walters used to say in his classes, the success of the civil rights movement could not have achieved the success it did without the participation of "good black people, good brown people and good white people…" I am reminded of white participants such as Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who were murdered in Mississippi in 1964 while registering black voters during Freedom Summer. Just because I am not of Latin descent doesn’t make me feel any more disconnected to this issue. This is my issue, because when my friends or family or colleagues or cohort are targeted, then I am as well. When I stood there in Red Square today, amongst a predominantly Latin population, I did not feel like an outsider because our outrage and desperation to do something and make our voices be heard was a commonality that bonded us. And in that brief moment, I actually felt connected to a UW campus community for once.

Photos courtesy of MEChA de UW: