Jaiton and Rasquache

In a continuation of the Naco-Fresa divide discussion I previously touched on, I found interesting qualifying terms for what might describe the difference in the Naco as opposed to the Fresa aesthetic.
In his article "Brown: the Politics of Working-Class Chicano Style," Curtis Marez discusses the differences between "high class" and "low class" aesthetic and how music and style symbolize belonging.

Marez writes:
"The opposite of jaiton is rasquache, or "low class." Though close, this translation of rasquache does not adequately capture the word's confrontational meanings. According to Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, rasquachismo describes an in-your-face aesthetic, "the attitude, tastes or life-style of the underdog, where status is elevated with garish decoration." Rasquache "articulate(s) a stance that repudiates the Anglo experience"-and, I might add, the experiences of upwardly mobile Chicanos.19 In southern Texas, for example, musical tastes have historically divided working-class and middle-class Chicanos. While the former listen to conjunto, the latter generally prefer orquesta, a Chicano big band
music with links to American and Latin American styles. Orquesta aficionados often scorn the "crudeness" of conjunto, while conjunto fans think that orquestai s too "jaiton."20F or his part, Freddy Fender explains that he was never drawn to orquesta-its performers "thought they were too hot
shit for me."21 Just as "making do" becomes a means of affirming brown ingenuity, the rasquache character of conjunto allows working-class Chicanos to construct an alternative cultural identity as a counter to highbrow style"(123).

Marez, Curtis. "Brown: the Politics of Working-Class Chicano Style." Social Text. 14.3 (1996): 109. Print.

One the figures Marez's refers to in his discussion of working-class Chicano style is El Vez; here are a couple videos:

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QEO_AEhUg3I?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The song "Suspicious Minds/Immigration Times":

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9A27qCNEEk0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

El Vez Suspicious Minds/Immigration Times

Can We Escape Richard Rodriguez

The Bad Old Days of Chicano Conservatism

I somewhat tongue-in-cheek call it the bad old days, but I still know/have older family members who prefer not to think of themselves as Chicano. Hispanic is a term created during Nixson to categorize the growing percentage of Latin@s in the census. Hispanic comes from "Spanish" (Hi-Spani-C), and was perhaps some kind of pandering towards the generation of American Latin@s who had been through the World War, naming with an euphemism that has little allusion to the indigenous roots of Latin@ people. But I guess you could call the erasure of indigenous heritage business as usual by the U.S. government.

What brought me back to this idea of Hispanic Conservatism was a conversation I had with my colleague and companera Aja about pocha/o and Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory came up. If you're not familiar with it, it's a fairly well known text within assimilation discussions and many within the academy oppose Rodriguez' assimilationist message, which might be an assumed component of what is thought of regarding pocho/a.

 

Rodriguez describes a scene when he is teased and mistreated by people in his community about his pocho/a identity--language, and inability/loss of ability to speak Spanish is how pocho/a is discussed. This is something I knew, having taught the first chapter in one of my composition courses, and Rodriguez' presence in my own work reminds me how far we haven't come in some ways. Like I said, I still have older family members who hold on to some of these conservative beliefs and I know that the conflation of education and loss of culture continues.

(Xico Gonzalez' art: http://xicogonzalez.com/casa/)

Ahorita Vuelvo

Alternative Literacy Talk

It's been some time since I've posted on the developing concept or naming of the poch[o]tec@. But this is not to say it hasn't been on my mind in the less digital form of a revised dissertation proposal/prospectus cualquiera le gusta.

I twitter in addition to blogging in addition to other genres, but I see writing as a form of archiving and documenting. If one actively documents, then a literacy practice takes place. Literacy practice is indeed what it states, which is to say something done and repeatedly performed and refined as a discursive production.

Tambien, Xtranormal video making does provide yet another storytelling method for best expressing messages.

In the meantime, I recommend Pocho in Greater Mexico's recent post about the (mis)understanding of his companero's book.

The Fresa Naco Divide

The Fresa-Naco Divide

On my Academia de Cruz Medina blog, Enrique Reynoso posted on the fresa-phenomenon that he situates as a response to the pejorative use of pocho against Americanized Mexican Americans.

I found this interesting 2009 popular article about youth culture in the Guadalajara Reporter that defines fresas in comparison to nacos:

"Naco, naca: classless, pretentious, obtrusive, the Mexican version of white trash.
Fresa: superficial youngsters many of whom come from a high class family."

The reporter goes on to point out the differences as centering around low vs. high culture, where low culture tends to be more related to "real" Mexican culture:

"More likely to be fans of cheap tequila, banda or mariachi music, lucha libre, street tacos and soccer, nacos are in touch with the grass roots of Mexican culture whereas fresas tend to look north, peppering their speech with English phrases. “Happy,” “sorry,” “fresh,” “que cool,” “super” and equally infuriating Spanish phrases like “que oso,” “o sea” and “vales mil” are the hallmarks of the fresa vernacular."

To bring it back to the context of the U.S. and without being fully familiar with the essence of the naco social construction, I'd speculate that nacos sound a bit like those who self-identify with the "patriotic"(bordering on nationalistic), "redneck" or "country" as is done in the U.S. The assertion that nacos maintain a sort of pretentious quality about them makes me wonder what a "redneck" crossbred with a hipster would look like?

Read the rest of Tom Marshall's article at:
http://guadalajarareporter.com/features-mainmenu-95/908-features/24877-youth-culture-101-nacos-a-fresas.html

There is a good amount of Naco material online. Here's an interesting image I found on photobucket from fatimitha19:

Rhetorical Role of Pocho as Trope

"Bruised Fruit" Implications of Pocho Label
I've been talking with Enrique Reynoso, a fellow grad student in Rhetoric and Composition, studying at Purdue, about writing up something on pochismo. He told me the label "fresa" came to mind. Fresa is a term used against those who traditionally deploy pocho as a deficiency, which means "stuck up" and embodies a kind of "princess" meaning. I'm interested to see what he has to say because this term of difference could infer larger issues of class, nationalism and sexuality.

  (from www.patricio00.com)

Guest Blogger on Academia de Cruz

Andy Besa de Tejas Talks Mistaken Identity

Check out the recent Guest Blogger on my Academia de Cruz blog:
http://writerscholarprofessional.blogspot.com/2011/03/presenting-guest-blogger-andy-besa.html

Writer Andy Besa discusses how mestizaje makes him a target of microaggressions.  When Polynesians aren't sure of his ethnicity, they welcome him. When Anglos think he's native American, he's made to feel as though he's lacking if he doesn't fulfill their desire to interact with an 'other.'

(Besa and Walter Mignolo at New Directions Conference 2010)

Pocho versus Nationalism

Author Luis Alberto Urrea

Fiction and non-fiction writer Luis Alberto Urrea spoke at the University of Arizona this past Friday as a part of the UA Reads Program and as a part of the Tucson Festival of Books. During his talk, Urrea discussed his travels that accompanied his writing. A Tijuana native, Urrea cautioned against the nationalistic messages he heard on radio stations while traveling in Mexico. Urrea warned that many of the messages about Honduran immigrants paralleled rants from the conservative right in the U.S. about Mexican immigrants.

Urrea reminded me not only of the dangers of nationalism, but also of how that nationalistic message is a part of the discourse surrounding the connotations of pocho. When deployed in the manner that nationalist Mexicans, who see outside cultural influences as negative, pocho takes on a very negative meaning situated in opposition to "true" or "puro" Mexican identity.

An interesting podcast from Onda Latina about the novel Pocho that addresses the notion of nationalism within the opposition of Mexican and American identities.
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/onda_latina/program?sernum=000536942&header=Culture