Sexuality: Masculinity: Homophobia: Multiculturalism

This week we started to read another short fiction novel, The Rain God by Arturo Islas, which similar to So Far From God, is centered on relationships in “La Familia.” Some of the themes include masculinity and sexuality, something Rodriguez focused on in his work. In some ways, as Dr. Perez noted, the novel could be perceived as a medium used to, critique masculinity, the problem that many LBGTQ activist had with Chicano nationalism. Upon reading Padilla’s article, I chose an article called “Multicultriasm Inclusion of Lesbian and Gay literature in Elementary classrooms, which I believe Islas, would have appreciated if he was still alive. The purpose of the article is to raise awareness about establishing new methods to integrate LBGTQ literature in elementary classrooms. In doing so, authors Logan, et. el believe that schools will provide spaces for the queer community offering a multicultural and diverse learning experience which embraces all people no matter what gender and sexuality they are. In short, the authors similar to Islas want to provide spaces for Queer literature in schools. In the Padilla article, we see how she pays homage to Arturo Islas by revealing the painful discrimination he faced due to the themes he wrote about. Padilla, in her article, talks about how long it took for Islas work to get published. Since some of his work was centered on Queerness, sadly people wanted no part in publishing his literary work. This demonstrates how pervasive homophobia is in our society. It shows how Islas work, because it disrupted the hegemonic ideals associated with gender and sexuality, was not worthy enough of being recognized. With this being said, I like the article that I chose, as it talks about leveling the playing field when it comes to Queer literature-removing the stigma and homophobia, taking on multicultural policies in schools that contribute to leveling the playing field.

Logan, S. R., Watson, D. C., Hood, Y., & Lasswell, T. A. (2016). Multicultural Inclusion of Lesbian and Gay Literature Themes in Elementary Classrooms. Equity & Excellence in Education, 49(3), 380-393.doi:10.1080/10665684.2016.1194239

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