Interrogating ‘Viva la Raza' and Borderlessness

• In Event: Poster Session: Class and Inequality & Political Science Education
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Class and Inequality

Abstract

The formation of chicanismo and/or Mexican American politics has been centered on bettering the raza/race. This project continues the discussion to question ‘raza narratives’ and the utility of it to reimagine liberation. This project extends interrogations of sects of Mexican American politics that unfortunately hold space to white supremacy and/or blanqueadad to create a myth to establish belonging on a facade of multicultural grounds. In dedication to support Afro-descendent and/or other nonwhite communities, Black feminism and Black radical thought on borderlessness and belonging are centered to interrogate “Viva la Raza'' rhetoric engrained in political mobilization and identity building. Raza narratives have claimed a multitude of backgrounds to create a singular story although its claim to multiculturalism through the two root claims (Aztec and European blood), we may understand this as mestizaje in Mexico or Mexican American politics. Chicanas feminist work in Chican@/x activism is crucial to calling against colonial understandings of sexism but still work under raza narratives to find a fit to belonging. This history of overlooking complete nuances becomes what informs raza narratives and its myth simplify violence replicated within new racial orders. I outline the gaps among Chicana feminism on their understanding of borderlands. To further complicate sourcing Chicanca feminism as a totalizing lens that challenges violences by borders and more, I engage with Black feminist literature to connect the network of systems of oppression created and that overlaps with Chicanx politics (Boyce-Davies 1994). Patricia Hill Collins Standpoint theory allows us to sit with the proximity to whiteness that raza narratives support. Hill Collins' work, studied Black women’s insider and outsider perspective that builds a centering and decentering mechanism for self reflection (1997; 1986). This self-reflection tool situates and changes narratives to redefine understanding borderlands and displacement. I outline how Mexican American movements have been documenting borders and the consequences of their build through murals. Murals are a site to study gender /racial constructs in which I see a recreation of colonial influences. James Baldwin discusses the dangers of mythmaking that influenced this work in his book The Fire Next Time, in which he has pointed out that not understanding the consequences of enslavement does not give guidance to heal from the violence that has shaped internal conflicts within the Black community (1963). Chicanismo, as I carefully attempt to understand Baldwin's intentions, is a created myth which works for scapegoating racial minorities for temporary wins at the cost of othering among the others. I will center the public space at the historical site Barrio Logan. In that historical site a center for activism lies Chicano Park, a place where murals give an insight to the rhetoric, politics and symbols that were embodied in the Chicano movement of the 70s. Imagery in public spaces, such as murals, will guide this discussion around the construction of Chican@/x identity and the way it informs valid members, limits for social justice and to gender performance. Sectioning histories as without connection to the histories of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the Americas, gendered violence entrenched the building of a nation and its way raza is carved from Mexico and once Mexican territories now know as the US Southwest. My contributions are to begin the conversation of having continuous re-evaluations of liberations that understands and confronts the histories of racial orders that have contributed to raza narratives and politics. My goal is to outline the violence recreated. To understand the political development within the Chicano movement, we must understand racist structures such as white supremacist values within the United States and Mexico’s influence of Blanqueamiento and how it has contributed to different understandings of anti-Blackness creating the nexus that is US Mexican narratives. I will be presenting one of my prospectus chapters introducing the development of borderlands and its relevance today at the US/Mexican Border with the ongoing border crisis.

Author

• Angelica Garcia-Macias, University of California, Irvine