Poch[o]tec@ as (Re)appropriator of Technology

Putting the Tech@ in technology
As a part of the tec@ that this blog performs, I experimented with visual representations of pochismo. I've mention Bill Nericcio in a post post, but the images on his Tex[t]-Mex blog have always been extremely inspirational. With that said, I see the performance of the poch[o]tec@ as a new media mestiz@, renaming the Franco-filia flâneur for a Xikan@ identity.

Twitter has been an interesting new/social media site for poch[o]tec@ practice, but the motivation for this post was my amateur (re)appropriation of images as a demonstration of pocho agency.

The "So Cal" is a nod to the geographic space of Califas that mi amigo Tejano Andy Besa says breeds a different kind of Mexican.

Pocho as Spanglish & Bruised Fruit

A Note on "Pochismo" Author(s): William E. Wilson
Kicking it old school, here is an excerpt from a 1946 article that speaks of pocho as a Spanglish kind of dialect.
 
From The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 30, No. 6, (Oct., 1946), pp. 345-346

"POCHISMO, derived from pocho, an adjective which originally meant discolored, has now come to mean a type of popular slang in Mexico. In the evergrowing list of pocho expressions are many hybrid words, artificial combinations of English and Spanish. Indicative of its spread is the inclusion of many words of this type in a Spanish vocabulary list prepared for U. S. Border Patrol Trainees.' with the remark that "those words underlined are colloquialisms but are often used on the Mexican border and the officer will get better results if he understands them." Typical examples in this list are bebi, baby; yaque, jack; diche, ditch; lonche, lunch;pene, pen (penitentiary); esteche, stage; traque, track, and huachar, to watch. Mexican intellectuals and conservatives have long endeavored to check the spread of this hybrid language, and even held an Anti-Pochismo week in August, 1944."

 (Sun Mad Ester Hernandez)

This image kind of goes along with the theme of the bruised fruit or even dead on the vine as it were.

Pocho.com on LatinoGraduate.net

Latin@ Role Models and Academic Identity

In an interview with the cartoonist/author of "La Cucaracha" and Pocho.com's Lalo Alcaraz, the Latin@ Graduate gets at the issue of representation that Alcaraz faced in high school. Bussed to what Luis Urrieta Jr. would call a "whitestream" school, Alcaraz explains he was the only Latino to graduate from his bussed-in cohort.

When attending San Diego State University (home of Tex[t]-Mex czar/prof. Bill Nerricio), Alcaraz acknowledges the supportive role that MECHA played because the other students has similar experiences to what Alcaraz was going through as an undergrad.

 (art copyright Lalo Alcaraz, on the LatinoGraduate.net website)

Read the entire article and see some more of Alcaraz' art at:
http://www.latinograduate.net/new/rolemodels/alcaraz.shtml

Or of course check out Alcaraz's website at:
http://www.pocho.com/

When discussing an academic identity, there are many factors to consider. Alcaraz's experience as one of few Latin@s makes his background very much different from some of the students I speak with, who are from predominantly Latin@ schools, but feel the stark contrast in college of being one of few Latin@s.

Macroparasitism and Microparasitism in Mesoamerica The Aztec

The Humbleness and Forced Humility of the Pochteca

The pochecas were not allowed to flaunt their success for fear of being put to death by jealous nobility. This is worth taking into consideration.

I'm not sure of the author of this pdf strangely enough:

"The pochteca grew to be quite wealthy, but they were restricted in terms of the “flaunting” of their wealth and how much they couldaccumulate. First, they did not want to inflame the jealousy of the ruler. Many a merchant was put to death by a noble who desired the merchant’s fortune - an experience not uncommon among European Jews"(24).

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/ecn/starkey/ECN398%20-Ecology,%20Economy,%20Society/aztec2006.pdf

Rodolfo F. Acuña's "The Making of the Political Pocho"

Pocho as Socially Comfortable Middle-Class
A function of this blog is to document the different definitions, connotations and embodied rhetoric that 'pocho' takes on. It should be noted that many of the people in the 'list' section have 'owned' pocho, reclaiming it as a self-identification. Acuña's article http://www.aztlan.net/pocho.htm seems to denote 'pocho' in the vein Gloria Anzaldua uses when she describes it as 'cultural traitor.'

From Acuña's article:
"I make the analogy of the pocho because when many of us entered the public schools we spoke fluent Spanish. In fact, it was our only language. Because of the lack of maintenance of Spanish our development in the language remained at a primary school level. It did not advance to reading Spanish language literature. English in many cases became our primary language. Meanwhile, we were not able to take Spanish classes until high school when we repeated like parrots, "?HOLA PACO, QUE TAL? ?COMO ESTAS?
Many former Chicano activists through a lack of political maintenance have become political pochos. They learned the basics of Chicano studies, its language, but have not advanced beyond a cultural level. They identify with the culture, but not the political dimensions of culture. Over time, they begin to think about the barrio as a justification for their entitlements. Notions such as the transformation of the barrio become alien to their political vocabulary"

It is true that Acuña is calling into question the political commitment of middle class Latin@s and Chican@s; however, I am interested in the use of 'pocho' and how it is deployed to denote transgression.
Update: 
No, I have no real great insights that I have come to about the perceived transgressions of pochismo at this time; rather, I tracked down the Chuck Norris image that kept coming to mind every time I looked at the "El Pocho" movie poster above so I had to add it for visual juxtaposition purposes.

Pochteca Deity Yacatecuhtli

From: Aztec Mythology: The Influence of Aztec Mythology on Mexican Culture and History

By: James W. Salterio Torres

Description of the Yacatecuhtli:
"Yacatecuhtli, like the Greek Hermes, is the god of merchants, traders and travelers. He is pictured with white and black facial decorations, his hair is bound in a high sheaf, and he carries a staff and a flywhisk. He is honored by having his statues wrapped in paper wherever they are found. Merchants hold their walking stick, a massive cane called an utlatl in high esteem. They carry these walking sticks when traveling and when they arrive at a place they are to sleep, they gather all of their sticks in one bundle and tie them together, lay them at the head where they are to sleep and spill drops of blood in front of them from their tongue, ears or arms and legs; they offer copal and light a fire that burns before the walking sticks which they hold as the image of the god himself. This is their way of asking for the god’s protection from all dangers. (Restored by the author from the Codex Fejervany Mayer)"













I'm not sure how the deity of the pochteca affects the embodied rhetoric of the pochteca as a figure. Although Dolores Delgado Bernal has looked at the role of spirituality in the academic identity of Latin@ students, so this could be an aspect to consider.

What's up with the "@"

Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire

 Sandra K. Soto describes the use of the "@" in "Chican@ [because it] signals a conscientious departure from certainty, mastery, and wholeness, while still announcing a politicized collectivity," adding that the "@" catches "our attention with its blend of letters from the alphabet on the one hand...at first sight looks like a typo and seems unpronounceable"(Soto 2). 

The "@" in poch[o]tec@ announces its gender inclusivity while making Soto's same political announcement. The "@" separates some of the trapping of "a/o" binary of gender and other trappings that might be associated with older unifying messages. 

This reminds me of the Kid Frost song "This is for La Raza" in which there are messages of Chican@ pride that might be conflated with misogynist ideology. Chican@ scholars like Soto point to gaps where the generative aspects of something can be emphasized and the less desirable aspects dismissed.

Kid Frost "This is for La Raza": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REEu9Oua47M


Click on the subtitle or here for the Google Book link: http://books.google.com/books?id=MWuGctuYpj0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=sandra+soto+reading+like+a+queer&source=bl&ots=fqAwDRGvuT&sig=SXkxTn-GX-ZdSVBLXq838C7Jge4&hl=en&ei=ARxtTZW6Oon0swPrnZzABQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false