Reading assignment for Wednesday, April 18, 2012. Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. Your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.
Cherríe Moraga, A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness (163 – 199)
What is your response to Moraga’s positions on President Obama’s election, marriage equality and transgendered people? What do you see her as arguing for or against?
Do you agree that there’s a lack of political and social movement in the present day? If you see social movement, where do you see them? Who are the leaders? Has Moraga missed “something” in her discussion of “back in the day.” What do you think her vision of Aztlán is and how does your generation of people of color fit into it?
Do you see universities the same way Moraga does? What role do you see universities as having in your life? In the lives of your communities? As sites of social change? What do you imagine the difference between Stanford (where Cherríe Moraga teaches), UC Berkeley (whose Ethnic Studies department she discusses) and Loyola Marymount are?
What vision, if any, of Chicana / women of color feminism does Moraga’s work offer?
More on Xicana Codex.
As Cherrie Moraga so clearly describes, Marriage Equality is not an easy position to take a stance on. On the one hand, especially as queer Chicana, Moraga loathes the government legislating against anyone on the basis of color, gender, sexuality, etc. I think that fundamentally, she agrees that everyone should have the same rights as anyone else, regardless. But at the same time, especially as an activist who came of age in the 60s and 70s, Moraga can keenly sense how dangerous it is for minorities to assimilate to mainstream ideals. Not because they don’t deserve access to the same lifestyle as the mainstream, but because there is something seriously wrong with the mainstream and its cultural hegemony. I think that queer people, because of their immediate placement outside dominant culture just based on who they are, can be an instrumental tool in pushing the boundaries of what our society accepts as “normal”. What I believe, and what I think Cherrie Moraga would agree to, is that it should not so much be an issue of gay marriage as it should be an issue of marriage. By that I mean the cultural insistence that marriage between two people is the only valid, legitimate form of commitment. As Moraga says, radicals should push from the far left so that even if they have to make concessions, they’ll still end up with progression. In my opinion, what queer radicals should really be calling for is an obliteration of the constraining definition of a legitimate relationship. That in actuality, the only problem with any type of relationship (polyamory, open relationships, etc) that does not fit these parameters (given all the participants are content in their relationships) is that the rest of society is telling them there’s a problem. We need to extend the horizons of thought about what is normal and what is acceptable, instead of trying to fit into the pre-existing, oppressive models of “normal”.
The most memorable chapter that I enjoyed was, Still Loving in the (Still) War Years / 2009 and within that chapter I really liked “Sign on the Dotted Line” and “Keeping Queer Queer.”
Within “Sign on the Dotted Line,” Cherrie discusses the gay marriage campaign a huge issue in today’s society. I want to say that I liked this section because of its relevance and how much support it has gained over the years. She discusses her opinions in which she believes in gay marriage and she does not shy away from her strong stance. This is a great quality, however I didn’t like how in the section she called out non-supporters such as former president George W. Bush. She can express her opinion without criticizing others for not sharing the same beliefs. Within this section I liked how she referenced same sex marriage as a feminist of color. They both have similar hardships.
Within “Keeping Queer Queer” I liked how Cherrie puts her own perspective and her own personal story in the mix. She discusses a time where she felt she was a man trapped in a women’s body and to me I feel it is brave and the audience can relate. I liked how in every section Cherrie narrates as if she is speaking to the audience directly. I love how she uses ‘I’ and tells personal stories of herself it’s a great twist to books of facts.
I do believe that there is a bit lacking in political and social movements. Not in their overall quantity, but in their overall effectiveness. Granted that I don’t follow the news as I should, there are issues that I see that are being protested against but the effectiveness, I believe, is lessened by the separate organizations that ultimately want the same things, but fail to work collectively. Seeing Moraga reference the boundless historian, Howard Zinn, allows me to see her influences and how she has worked with him in a way by reading his work and implementing his ideas despite his identity as a whitle heterosexual male, the type that is often found governing minority societies.
Having learned more and more about the United States’s past and current advocacy for economic privatization in the latter years of high school and up to now, has allowed me to see my stay in a private school in a certain perspective that is hard to explain to my peers. I agree with some of the views Moraga has on universities especially since one of the things I’ve remembered very well, as explained by my brother, is that higher education schools like LMU are primarily businesses. And I can clearly see it in the ads, e-mails, paychecks, candy prices, and such that I experience at this school. My mother once reminded me that the school will try what it can to “keep my in school” to keep my business even if I can’t readily pay tuition. My family’s condition in terms of how we meet my needs to the school, and compared to my friends here, is an almost daily reminder that puts me in a stressful and complex position. The more I see of the school and the social media the students interact with makes me believe less and less in the idea of a place like this as a “site of social change.” But I do believe that LMU, being in the city that it is, continues in its potential for diversity.
The section where Cherrie discusses California’s educational system really struck a nerve in me. When I read “It is not accidental that the state’s willingness to sacrifice the education on the next generation comes at a time in California history where people of color are now the majority,” this really bothered me. Is the government really trying to prevent us (minorities) from achieving a higher education? I haven’t been able to keep up with this issue because I don’t watch the news, but I know the education system is in a lot of trouble especially at the public university level. It doesn’t make sense to me why the state would not want to invest in our future leaders. Is this a way of only keeping rich students in schools because they can afford it? I have a cousin at CSUN, who has protested against budget decrease and tuition increase. Now I worry for my sister who is graduating high school and will be attending CSUN in the fall. It’s really sad and disturbing how expensive education is.
I don’t think that are universities are tools to erase what we learned in our earlier years of education. I think that universities allow students to expand and fill in the missing parts of what they have previously learned. To me the best part of a university is choosing and taking the classes that interest you instead of how we were given classes to take earlier in our education. We still have the general courses that we all have to take but after that we can choose any class that we want. To me personally it has allowed me to pursue more knowledge about my history than I could ever accomplish in high school. I think that if people want to get married than they should be able to. I think that people should have the same rights. I don’t think that its fair that someone that isn’t married can’t go to the hospital to make decisions for their loved ones or any other rights that married couples can do.
Moraga brings up different problems in todays society, and while most of them have to do with education, the way it is acquired and what is done with it, she also discusses on the main source behind what education is today, our government system. She suggests that people of color have become the majority, especially in the education field, however, she argues that “’white-minority rule’ is being systematically institutionalized by right-wing Republicans” and that the “white (Middle) Americans that ‘silent majority’ now neither silent nor comfortably the majority” — are actively organizing to “regain their country” as their forefathers did whereas the people of color, “the silenced majority” in her theory, remain marginalized (p 167).
What really stood out to me in this section was her argument on attaining equity especially in the education system, an issue of great necessity according to Moraga. She says “Barack Obama’s conciliatory politics may have won him office, but they have yet to win advancements in social equity for the neediest in this country” more specifically referring to those students of color directly affected by the curriculum implemented for education (p 169). More specifically, she argues about the lack of equity in education, where equity is defined as integration into the dominant culture. I think she brings up a very good point when she addresses ethnic studies, while these may reflect different race and representation courses offered at different institutions, it does not reflect their integration with the Euro-American dominance. This argument reminds me of the “separate but equal” act implemented to the education system long ago because I feel that even though universities provide students with access to these classes, that does not meet the requirements for an equitable program. The mere inclusion of other ethnic courses to the class catalog, does not necessarily mean that the ideas , histories, philosophies, religions and cultural values are integrated into public policy and other decisions that affect and impact the lives of people. She points out that to her ethnic studies is a contradiction because it “provides students of color with a physical and intellectual home on college campuses” and it often becomes“training for translating between our home cultures and the US academy” (p 170). I had not considered these arguments in regards to ethnic studies, but given the numbers and faces of the students sitting in ethnic classes other than American cultures, a requirement at LMU, I can say I agree with Moraga, while these classes may give every student access to learning more about a particular ethnic group, there is no implementation of this beyond that particular classroom. I do believe however, that LMU is doing something that Moraga points out, and that is giving students opportunities to ensure that learning happens beyond our educational institution, because although I do not see a great diversity in the students taking ethnic studies courses, I do see many LMU students being involved in different communities involving different ethnic groups, and I think this is one way of learning about different ethnicities and cultures outside the classroom through service.
When Moraga wrote, ” Anything or anyone interrupting profit by utilizing tax revenue for social welfare became an enemy of the state, including the single mother needing assistance(166)”. I thought that this force of behavior by America basically labeling you a troublemaker if you didn’t follow them, reminded me of the start of the Chicana movement. The Chicanos used the same tactic as America, of labeling any woman especially, that supported the Chicana movement as a trouble maker. It didn’t matter if the woman supported the movement because she was beat by her spouse, or she wanted better education for her kids, or wanted to help build the community, she was just labeled as a trouble maker and the enemy by the Chicano men since she supported the Chicana movement. I thought that Moraga contradicted herself when she tried criticizing Christians. She wrote, “If Christians really want to preserve the “holy family,” then they should dig deep into those deep Morman pockets.(182)” This is just like saying that if Chicana women are having issues they want to address, then they need to get the white feminist to help them have a voice. These are two separate groups that are under the same umbrella, but have different beliefs and standing, concerning both accounts. I think she is guilty of trying to make a group stand for one, like she wants for the feminist movement, but such oneness isn’t the reality of all Christian beliefs or for all feminist beliefs.
I agree with Moraga that from the 1950s-1980s it was the birth place of some of the most important social movements that have shaped our nation. Also there was an immense amount of activism going on which makes us wonder what are we doing now? She reminisces in the section Back In The Day by echoing Richard Aoki, a Sansei Black Panther, “We didn’t lose in the sixties, we just didn’t finish the job”(164). I strongly agree with the statement because problems have not disappear after those pivotal moments and Supreme Court decisions but rather people have forgotten and others are not investing their time in social movements. The nation has to mobilize as a whole again. Sometimes people wish they were part of history and I certainly think we can. There are so many different causes people can make their own. I think our generation is being confronted with really important times that will also change the lives of future generations. I think our modern day Civil Rights Movement is the fight for immigration reform and the the campaign for Marriage Equality. We are in the center of change and we can definitely do something about it as college students. Moraga is pushing us to think what can we do to becomes actors in history. We have the power to write history again but it requires devotion and persistence. Times are different because we have rights to utilize, like freedom of speech, the right to assemble and many more. Our predecessors faced harder challenges because they did not have a voice but WE DO. Moraga remembers Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, Cesar Chavez, etc., but we should not wish they were here rather we should pick up where they left off. They’ve passed onto us the torch but we’ve also inherited a history of activism that people must continue. I always like to remember what Mahatma Gandhi once said “be the change you want to see in the world.” So lets be it.
Reading Moraga’s last chapter one of the things that triggered my memory was her talking about Elvira Arellano and immigration. It took me back to my first year in college, the first day of my chicana/o studies intro course. I vividly remember mu professor introducing the course and mentioning immigration movement of 2005/6 onward. I remember thinking yes! I am finally taking a class that I can relate to. One of the things that I had a hard time with here at LMU is the class divisions just like Moraga talks about the country taking advantage of immigrant workers for its own convinience.