Response to Belen's "Latinx Cultural Expressions"

I think it is ironic (and unexpected) that the increase of the Latinx population has led to a rise in social notions of homogeneity regarding the Latinx community. I feel this way because absent the reading, I would have otherwise assumed that things would be the other way around-- that an increase in Latinx people would encourage people to further acknowledge the various distinctions.

Because the Latinx communiy has so many distinctions, one theory that Belen mentions (Bhabha's idea of "a Third space of enunciation") stands out to me. I feel like the concept of people acknowledging they are all somehow marginalized and then subsequently giving one another to speak on their unique relationship to marginalization is so important. Otherwise, social movements can't happen. Because within every coalition of oppressed people there will be people whose identity grants them power over others. This happens a lot in the Latinx community, because there are so many races and nationalities (and thereby economic and social classes) implied within that title. A perfect example of this is Aparacio's friend group from last week.

The cultural contributions of the 70s were probably great for Latinx representation and probably served the individuals of that generation to a large degree. What especially stood out to me was that during this time there were many Latinx contributions being made to the Bildungsroman genre, which I think is always a culturally important aspect of literature because it represents what growing up is like within a certain culture. The literary canon is mostly Anglo white, old, and male which means these artistic contributions were generating cultural
shifts.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 6, 2019 at 1:18 PM

    Hi Moben,

    This is a very skillful assessment of the multiplicity of Latinx communities and Acosta Beken's essay. Keep up those critiques & questions in future posts!

    ReplyDelete

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