Back in the day, I used to be a major “Gleek,” a term used for big fans of the television show Glee. Though the show ended two years ago, I began to binge watch it again on Netflix. Recently, I re-watched the episode of the show in which the Latina character, Santana, comes out as being lesbian to her (“traditional”) abuela. The reason I’m bringing this topic up is because while I was reading this week’s assigned readings, that very scene was freshly playing in my mind.
What I took from this week’s readings was that Chicanos must use their nationalism as a means for mobilization and organization; yet, in order for them to mobilize and organize, Chicanos must first embody la familia, or la raza, arrangement, even if la familia has been romanticized. In the past, during the Chicano movement of the late ’60’s, la familia was seen as traditional. It was romanticized as being a heteropatriarchy in which the Chicano family was comprised of a strong husband-father that supportef the loving wife-mother, both of whom supported their kind children. Comsquently, if this Chicano family romance becomes disrupted in any way, la familia would become defective, and in turn, the impact la familia has on the Chicano cultural nationalist sentiment would become disrupted as well.
What could disrupt this romanticized notion of the nuclear Chicano family, you say? Well, anyone who is believed to be antifamilia, of course. Someone who is antifamilia would be someone who is not heterosexual nor a man who has strong machismo traits. Many people, like the poet Abelardo Delgado, believe that machismo is needed in order for la familia to function within the Chicano culture because machismo allows heterosexual men to be able to run his house, to control his women, and to direct his children. Without machismo, the idea of la familia would dismantle. Delgado claims that women are not able to run a household on their own. In other words, they are not able to embody both the mother and father roles. If women try to, they run the risk of becoming “feme-macho” by liberating themeselves from men. Although he does not state it exactly, I did get the idea that perhaps Delgado was making negaitive comment against not only independent women, but homosexual women as well since they usually liberate themselves from men and tend to have this idea of the feme-macho label.
Now, going back to that episode of Glee I was referring to earlier, when Santana told her abuela that she is a lesbian, the abuela became disappointed in Santana and ended up disowning her own granddaughter. I question whether the writers of the show made the only Latina character gay on purpose or not because it sure demonstrates Delgado’s agrument. Although Santana does not have a family of her own, she is still considered someone who is antifamilia because when she does have a family, it will not be run as a heteropatriarchy.
By comparing the readings with the episode of Glee, I became aware of how much we have grown as a society today. La familia has changed a lot since the Chicano movement of the late ’60’s, even though many people today still wants to keep things traditional. However, one question I have to ask is whether the Chicano nationalism has been affected by how la familia is today?
Okay, I am going to begin my comment with saying I just finished binge watching Glee right before the semester started so, I know exactly what you are talking about when Santana told her grandmother she was a lesbian and how she became disappointed in her. At that point they had showed almost every Latino parent, grandparent, tio and tia around that age group because they had grown up with the hetero-patriarchy mentality. Having grown up with that mentality they believe that men are in charge and women speak when they’re spoken to, they take care of their family and teach their daughters the same so it becomes a cycle. Luckily, somewhere in this new generation we begin to have women who say “no” to the stay at home mom job or all of that and go out to making their own careers and do what they want to do. And while it’s no disrespect to the mothers who do stay at home (my mother did this for 16 and a half years) I believe it’s a stand to show that women are more than that. I think it also says a lot about the men in this generation as well because some men decide to be the stay at home dad and others praise their wife. By the end of the series of Glee Santana got married To Brittany and had her grandmother at their wedding which shows that some people from past generations are realizing this new mentality.
Although I do not watch Glee, this scenario of coming out to the grandmother has a powerful narrative of machismo. In Next of Kin we Rodriguez points out that the Chicana/o movement was fueled by the desire to draw attention to the issue of how “the United States often found Mexican American families ‘dysfunctional'”, and how “the assumptions made by these social scientist and their authoritative claims to objectivity” were damaging Chicana/os. Seeing how women are held responsible for reproducing gender norms, it is through this narrative of machismo that we can see a grandmother refusing to come to terms with granddaughter’s failure to meet the hetero-normative standard.
I have never watched Glee but I feel like I’ve seen this scenario in other television shows so I understand the message. To answer your question I feel that Chicano/a nationalism has been changed by the idea of la familia that is found today. Compared to when Chicano/a nationalism first started it seems that things are much more accepted now. In my opinion, Chicano/a nationalism has changed in a positive way and has become more accepting of all members of the Chicano/a community.
In regards to whether the Chicano nationalism has been affected by how la familia is today, the overall tone of Chicano nationalism is evolving and LBGT can relate most to women. The boundaries are being pushed so that individuals can freely be expressed. Especially because there’s a transition of the household from the patriarch to matriarch families, with the increase of single-mother households. I come from a single family mother working two jobs and I was given numerous example of how women were treated as a second class citizen. I asked my friend how he saw his coming out experience as a Latino male, he told me that when he came out, his family was not worried about his sexual orientation. However, they were concerned about, “maintaining his gender role traditional expectations as a latino man,” because they wanted some “normalcy,” with his queer identity. But he realized that he wanted to obtain normalcy with his queer identity, by being who he was and out, and normalizing it within the family unit. His balance of spheres is difficult but he has been successful at obtaining his true self regardless of the typical Chicano nationalist.