El Vez in MN, or, It's Like Finding Out There's No Santa

I'd like to start off by saying that I've been a longtime fan of El Vez’s subversive Chicano punk performance, style and lyrics. I even cited him in a previous blog entry. Although his popularity has remained largely outside of the mainstream, his ingenious blending of a mainstream popular musical aesthetic (a la Elvis) with a politically conscious Chicano subjectivity has made El Vez a hot topic among Chicana/o academic circles.

I’ve seen El Vez twice in Austin, Texas for his “Snow Way José” and “El Vez for Prez” concerts a few years back. Both were at the Continental Club in Austin, TX - a very small, intimate venue - and both put forth a politically resistant message. For example, during his "El Vez for Prez" concert (during the very heated political climate when Kerry was running for president against G.W. Bush), El Vez had a very political anti-imperialistic, pro-immigration statement. At the beginning of the concert, he ran a slideshow displaying a distinct critique of the Bush administration's war in Iraq and anti-immigration policies. Several (white) people, expecting a non-political farce (The Mexican Elvis) were obviously offended by his politics and walked out of the venue before the performance even started. This just left room for us Chicanos to move closer to the front! :)

This time around, however, I felt like I was watching a very different performance. I walked into First Avenue here in Minneapolis with a small group of other Chicanas/os, mostly graduate students, staff and employees of the University of Minnesota who I strongly urged to attend the concert with me. Automatically, we felt like ethnic “others” among a huge sea of white faces that made up an unexpectedly large audience.

Then started what I thought to be the next act before El Vez - Los Straightjackets, a group of white men from Tennessee dressed up with Mexican wrestler masks, and speaking bad Spanish with a white accent to the crowd (basically playing “dress-up” and using Mexican identity as a gimmick). Offensive, to say the least. I figured I'd down a few beers to endure this garbage until the real show began. You couldn't imagine my disappointment when I realized that El Vez was using them as his band. *Why, El Vez? Whyyyy?!*

A member of Los Straightjackets (in his very bad Spanish) introduces El Vez, who runs on stage in his form-fitting Santa suit. Then the same band member introduces the Elvettes, El Vez’s “sexy señoritas" (typical perpetuation of the "hot Latina" stereotype). El Vez always has his “Elvettes” at his shows, but this time they were hypersexualized and objectified in their tiny Christmas dresses (there was even a mock sexual harassment skit involving a member of Los Straightjackets). What made it worse was that this performance of sexuality was done for a white male gaze - by white men for a white male audience members.

I also felt that El Vez was performing “differently." His usual political banter between songs was kept to a minimum...nearly non-existent. It was though he was aware of the fact that he was performing "ethnic buffoonery" for a majority white audience. He didn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm that he has in the past. Songs were familiar such as, "Mamacita, Donde esta Santa Claus" and "En El Barrio," but the performance seemed forced and unfamiliar from those I had come to know and love. Was it the fact that he was in Minneapolis that caused such a change in his performance? Would I have felt the same way had I seen his performance in Austin? I was confused; disappointed.

Adding to my discomfort was the fact that I was surrounded by white audience members who laughed at El Vez's satire for a wholly different reason that I laughed. These were supposed to be "inside" jokes, I felt. They weren't laughing with El Vez, but at him, at us. In this context, his satire, his fake Mexican accent, everything became unbearable. I actually cried - like a kid who found out there was no Santa. Being that I had brought a whole group of politically conscious Chicanas/os to see the performance (and who were each disappointed/offended), I felt it was my responsibility to share this with El Vez. Since he knows me from various shows and through internet correspondence, I went to the backstage area and asked for him.

“Tell him, Lucha Dora from Texas is here,” I said. Immediately he appears with his usual smile and charismatic charm. Happy and surprised to see me in Minneapolis, he greets me with a hug. I tell him that I am now assistant professor at the U of M and that I brought a critical mass of Chicanas/os who live here and who were in the audience. I then proceeded to explain to him how we felt about the performance as Chicanas/os watching our identity being performed for a majority white, mainstream audience. We were sincere and respectful in our constructive criticism.

As we did this, a group of white fans began to harass us, thinking that we were "stealing" El Vez’s time with them (not knowing that I called him out personally). They begin yelling things at us like, “Boo-hoo, cry me a river” and “Why don’t you go write a book about it?” We asked them to give us our time to speak with him and it got even more hostile. When someone in the group asked him to do something about the blatant harassment against us, El Vez refused to defend us and instead said that they were only "having fun." This simply added insult to injury. His consolation was a visit to the U of M in the spring. When the mob began getting physical with us (shoving our backs) and knowing that El Vez didn't have our back, we decided to leave to avoid things getting ugly. As we walked away, someone yelled, “Wetbacks!" (Yes, "wetbacks.") ---> NOTE CORRECTION OF INFORMATION AT END OF BLOG.

We were surprised but we weren’t shocked. We walked away with a clear message: this space was not “ours” but “theirs” even at a concert of a "subversive" Chicano performer. The irony is that the same person who would yell, "wetback," would turn around and show their admiration for El Vez. I guess when we’re smiling and entertaining and not a threat, we’re acceptable. But when we get in the way of them and what they want, we’re undesirable “wetbacks.” Good thing El Vez didn't sing one of his most popular songs (and my favorite) "Immigration Time."

We were bummed, to say the least, and ended up drowning our sorrows at our favorite local spot, Pancho Villa, where we downed some margaritas and partook in some good ole Spanish karaoke. Although PV helped take away the sting that night, I woke up the next day feeling sad; disillusioned.

I reflected on the conversation my friend Karla and I had during the concert (and that got us "shushed" several times by nearby white audience members whom I threatened to "punch in the face"...but that's another story). El Vez's performance forced us to ask ourselves about the politics of Chicano performance. When does Chicano performance stop being subversive? How do we as Chicanas/os negotiate our resistant politics within a white mainstream institution. And it resonated with my current job in a Chicano Studies department at a predominantly white research one institution. What does it mean to teach Chicano Studies to privileged white students? Am I teaching resistance or am I perpetuating cultural appropriation? Questions I think El Vez and I both need to ask ourselves.

***CORRECTION***

It was brought to my attention by a friend in attendance that the "wetback" comment was made to three members of our original group AFTER they had separated from the larger group. This was outside of the venue on the way to their vehicle. My misunderstanding came from someone telling me, "They called us wetbacks," and thinking they had addressed our entire group. My apologies for the inaccuracy.

Carrying the Southside on My Back

So here I am in Minneapolis. A Tejana from the southside of San Antonio, Tejas. Why do I mention the region of the city in which I was born? Because of the cultural and class significance this has always held for Chicanas/os who were born in a traditionally socioeconomically depressed region of the city. I and my immediate family had no problem living on this side of town as it was where our gente was from. Real gente...the type that went to the Mission pulga off Morrison Rd. every Sunday (but Wednesdays were even better for the deals) and who went to Chucho boys for produce. Others, like my aunts moved to the northside first chance they got because that meant something. Meant they were "moving up" to the northside (ala the Jeffersons) where, if they got lucky, could have the gabachos as their neighbors. Cousins could claim predominantly "white" high schools as alma maters like Clark, Taft, Marshall, Holmes, rather than the "raza" schools like Burbank, McCollum, Harlandale or mine, Highlands.

My southside identity is an evident reminder my cultural location even here in the midwest, when, working at a cosmetic counter last year to supplement my postdoctoral fellowship, I ran into a white middle-class (and self-proclaimed Christian) woman who mentioned, during small talk, that she too was from San Antonio. (Like OMG!) Of course, the first obligatory question that all San Antonians must ask one another was asked, "What high school did you go to?" When I stated, "Highlands," her chipper demeanor transformed into a sort of perplexed look of, "That's in San Antonio?" I had to quickly follow up with, "It's on the southside." After which she gave a sympathetic oh, you're from the "southside" look. Yeah.

Fast forward to my new position as (the only full-time faculty member) in a Chicano Studies Department at a research one institution in the midwest, where I was asked during my job talk how I would feel teaching Chicano Studies to predominantly white college students. Suppressing my first reaction, which was to yell, "Oh hell no" I simply stated that my pedagogy engaged issues of privilege and marginalization and that I don't subscribe to white neo-liberal definitions of multi-culturalism "i.e., we're all the same...just a different shade!]." Now I'm here in a coveted tenure-track faculty position in hipster town U.S.A. where it's the norm to see on a street corner white dreadlocked, tattoo-covered hipsters "begging" for money for what I call their fuck-you-dad-I'm-not-going-to-be-a-doctor-like-you "spiritual" self-seeking journey, when back home, you see some real homeless raza strung out on hard ass drugs - the only thing that numbs the pain of hopelesness resulting from this government-sanctioned social genocide of our proud and hard-working people.

Everyday I'm forced to ask myself how I, a working class Chicana from a trailer park on the southside of San Antonio, who fights her own daily battles of resentment toward the dominant (read: white and/or middle class) society, approaches this new role of teacher in this racist institution known as academia. My only solace in this position is that I am a strategic infiltrator...bringing the very rare and very real working class Chicana aesthetic into the classroom and the academy at large while, in turn, using my academic position to help educate my working class gente by showing that if I, this chicanita from the southside of San Anto can succeed in the world of higher education, hell, so can you.

The Misadventures of Guera, the Internally Colonized Chihuahua - Episode Two

The Misadventures of Guera, the Internally Colonized Chihuahua

Chevy's Fresh Mex - oxymoron or oxymoronic?

As a Tejana deeply rooted in the cultural landscape of South Texas, I have found my transplant to the Midwest to be...painful, to put it mildly. A recent example of my sense of "out of placeness" as a conscious Chicana/Tejana in the great white Midwest:

A few days ago, famished from a surprisingly productive day at the office, my partner and I decided hastily to eat dinner at "Chevy's Fresh Mex." Well aware of the fact that merely stepping into any establishment with the term "Fresh Mex" in it would merit the immediate revocation of our Chicana/o licenses, we reluctantly decided to pursue our curiosity, thinking "How bad could it be?" I soon found out just how bad it could be...

First off, upon entering what could be best described as the "Mexican Chili's," it became obvious that we were the only people of color in a sea of white Midwesterners who were either college students from the local flagship state institution, or locals (whose uniform often consists of thin cotton turtlnecks, wool vests, circa 1985 light wash denim jeans and snow boots...oh, and an overall "hearty Midwestern" physique). To the rhythms of upbeat salsa music (mind you, this is a purportedly "Mexican" restaurant), we were seated by the perkiest white (probably college student) hostess and soon after greeted by an even perkier white (probably college student) waitress. After placing my order, I began to examine my surroundings only to be accosted (not surprisingly) by the offensive "decorations" that hung along the ceiling and walls. As if the larger than life Cinco de Mayo banner displaying a "sexy Latina" sipping a margarita wasn't bad enough, I noticed framed sepia photos of indigent Mexicanos from around the early 1900's...the backdrop for white customers partaking in menu items such as "El Flavinator" and fresh tortillas made straight off of "El Machino," or tortilla making machine so innovative that it maintains Chevy's registered copyright. But the culturally insensitive moment that really made my jaw drop (and believe me, coming from the "Tex-Mex Disneyland" of San Antonio...this is hard to do), was the birthday acknowledgment offered to Chevy's customers. Led by the shaking of maracas, a group of approximately five wait staff members chant a birthday jingle (which I have apparently repressed as I can't remember how it went), after which the birthday boy/girl is fitted with a sombrero that they are to wear for the duration of their meal. The saddest part of it all? The staff song and dance was led by a Latino. And my partner wonders why I got drunk and beligerent that night...

But the even sadder part of the spectacle that was our night at Chevy's Fresh Mex, was the presence of the one inmigrante Mexicano bussing tables and wiping the bar...the hardest working person in the establishment and, no doubt, the lowest paid. What did he think about the circus of an establishment that makes light of, misrepresents, and commodifies who he is as a Mexicano just trying to get by in this white, foreign social setting...one that remains foreign and oppressive even to me, a third generation Tejana/American. Then I thought, he probably doesn't even have time to "ponder" issues of "cultural commodification" and what spaces like Chevy's say about mainstream U.S. society's total disregard and disrespect for its largest minority group. In this economy, he's probably just happy to have a job.

Perhaps one of the most profound explications on the condition of the Mexicano/a in the U.S. came from a Mexicana waitress at a locally owned Mexican restaurant who described the Mexicano/a community in this Midwestern town by stating, "Estamos aqui, pero no nos vemos." "We're here, but we don't see each other." In other words, we are here, but we are not visible...to each other or to mainstream society. Latinos in the U.S. are only visible as laborers - landscapers, cooks, nannys even - but not as equal members of society. Mainstream (read: white) America is fine and dandy when we're serving them, making their lives more comfortable - when we "do your lawns to make you look pretty" in the words of El Vez. But when we have any presence of equality or authority, we become a threat - a threat to the "comfort zone" of white privilege. If we become "visible" members of society - social equals - then they are forced to "see" the invisible brown laborers who make up the very (material) fabric of our society. But merely acknowledging the inhumane cultural oppression of Latinos in this society makes mainstream white Americans feel "uncomfortable." Good thing they've got places like Chevy's Fresh Mex, where offensive cultural stereotypes become cultural "comfort food," served up with a sombrero and a smile.