What have you learned in this course?

What I have learned is the configuration of Latinx identity is more broad and continually expansive than I could’ve realized. It is interesting studying a subject that for me, and I think for many of us is so deeply personal. For me it was a place to deeply examine things “I already knew”–or, more accurately, things I thought I knew. Some of these being: Poetry as an empowering tool of identity formation, in many instances, a way to reclaim the oppressor’s language. The fickle concept of “Latinidad”, the iconography of Selena, the fluidity of Spirituality, Religion, Language and Culture.

Porcupine Love, short story by Tatiana de la Tierra (Colombia): alternative ending.

How cruel of me would it be, to pull her back into my life and once again let go. It would be cruel, no? But I can’t help that its all I want to do, to fly across continents, and swim with her in Pacific waters, and feel her in my mouth, on my thumb, on every finger of mine, as they re-familiarize themselves with her cunt and her with mine. It may seem silly, to pull a once-failed-love all the way back to the arch of my cheek to full draw to where the trajectory of  life—my happiness, which maybe shouldn’t even be a goal—depends upon its successful flight.

Do you remember when we went to New York? I just found the bandana you bought me for the parade. It’s faded but you can still see where you wrote “Te quiero Antennita”. 

I remember New York,  when we were there for Pride a few months into dating. What I remember is we got separated during the parade and argued every night except for the last when we didn’t talk at all. We were in the bar of our hotel and I had been talking to this girl with curly hair and tattoos on every visible inch of her skin going up to her ears.  She was flirting with me—with both of us actually, and I whispered to Antenna that maybe we should let her come to bed with us. She looked at me really calmly and shook her head so imperceptibly I bent over to whisper it to her again. I thought she hadn’t heard. After I whispered it a second time, she gave me a strange look but didn’t say anything. I shrugged and turned back to talk to the girl. We talked for another few minutes—the two of us, Antenna just nodded along but didn’t say anything—then I felt her perpetually cold fingers tightly grab my wrist “cmon, you’re drunk, let’s go to bed” Antenna said as she nudged me off my stool. My chest went suddenly cold, but I jauntily played the part she’d cued me to play (“ugh, no fun!” I complained) and followed her into the elevator, wrist-first. 
“I’m not drunk” I said stupidly
“I know”
(The half-finished glass of wine I’d left on the bar was the only alcohol I’d had the whole trip, which she knew.)
“Why did you suggest we fuck that girl”? She asked me, her eyes pleading with mine to hold contact.
“I thought it’d be fun” I said stupidly, again. 
She looked suddenly heartbroken. She was wearing the bandana I’d gotten her, my gut churned, I felt bad. 

Antenna had told me of her playful threesomes, the successful orgy she’d had once when she went  back home to Portland, the not-so-successful one she’d tried to have in Miami. But my Antennita remembered my stories as I did hers, and she knew about Valeria, my first girlfriend with whom I’d had my only threesome—something I swore to never do again. Valeria had proposed it immediately after I walked into our apartment to see her kissing the only other out girl we knew at Universidad de los Andes, and before I could register my feelings of shock and betrayal and hurt, I said yes (or I didn’t say no) and so I had a threesome with my girlfriend and the woman she was cheating on me with. The trauma of it still stung me and Antenna knew that too.

I retracted my quills.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s not about being right or wrong. I just— I just…” She trailed off. 
Then I struck suddenly back. 
“Aren’t I allowed to change my fucking mind? Carajo.”

She looked at me and nodded. I looked to the ground. I’m sure we said a few things here and there and I remember her asking me to wake her up in the morning, but when I think back on that night I see it like the tv with the sound off: I see us silently packing side by side, brushing our teeth without the rush of water from the sink or the bristle of toothbrushes against teeth, and fucking ourselves to sleep noiselessly. 

Did she know?
I had wanted to see if she really loved me. 

It was another of my traps. If she hadn’t confronted me in the elevator I would’ve taken it as affirmation that she didn’t love me, or only me. I would’ve assuaged the heartbreak of it by telling myself that I had saved myself a greater heartbreak down the road. But she did confront me. And I took it as cloying and needy and I was disgusted by her neediness and by myself for basically begging for it.

I looked outside, the day had gone. I had thought myself into a pitying stupor. I was sore for no good reason and dizzy too. I had forgotten to call in sick. In no time, I fell into sleep. 

The next morning, the sky had a grim pallor. I had gotten into the habit of checking the weather in Auckland each morning: sunny and beautiful, of course. The cold air assaulted my lungs. I hadn’t dressed warmly enough but I had promised myself to go outside. So here I was! I wanted to yell out. I thought about the ways the universe was calling out to me, in the melodic voice of Antenna’s amorous emails—it was offering me the possibility of love once again. Or I was a fool in an echo-chamber, hearing 14-year-old whispers and swallowing them whole.

I met a dog with your name today. She was beautiful. 

Her email made me smile. I thought of what breed of dog she might be. I wondered about the owners of the dog with my name, and the conversation they might’ve had with my Antenna. I spent my evening researching breeds as I ate dinner, trying to find a dog that reminded me of Antenna. But I didn’t respond. 

Are you coming? I can feel the warmth of your c u n t already. 

It was strangely warm the next couple days. I went in to work and complained about the phantom flu I’d just had. 

How many vacation days do you get? I was thinking we could go to Samoa—I’ve never been, it would be new for both of us. 

My phone pinged. Received 7 days ago. Reply? 

Photography: Dulce Pinzón and Graciela Iturbide

Dulce Pinzón “Girl in the woods”

Graciela Iturbide “Limpia de pollos”

I chose to look at these two photographs because on a very basic level, their subjects are similar: people and their interaction with animals. However this “interaction” I refer to is interpreted in very different ways. In “Girl in the woods” a young Latinx girl stands in the middle of the frame, her body angled away but her head is turned, looking directly into camera. She is in a set, surrounded fake woodland creatures, (likely) fake plants, and a painted background. The photograph “Limpia de pollos” depicts something entirely different. We see many women (in Juchitán, Mexico) cleaning chicken they are presumably going to prepare and eat. In “Limpia de pollos” the dead ‘pollos’ are the focus of the photograph. What I am drawn to in the comparison of these two photographs is the way people interact with animals in a natural way—in this instance, quite a brutal way (though the photograph is still beautiful) vs. the way people and animals are put together in a manufactured and romantic way. 

“Mexican Heaven” and “I, Tonya”

In this clip from I, Tonya, Tonya is a competitive skater and has just been given a poor score in a skating competition. In this clip we see her react hotly. Tonya believes her performance merits a much higher score, this one in particular is a breaking point; she has routinely gotten lower scores than what would be expected of a skating performance of her caliber. She goes right up to the judges who’ve just given her the score and asks point blank: “how do I get a fair shot here?/Does someone just want to tell me to my face ‘you’re never going to get the scores I deserve’?”

The line from the clip said by one of the judges, “maybe you’re just not as good as you think, maybe you should pick another sport” relates to the last line of Mexican Heaven “They dream of another heaven, one they might be allowed in if only they work hard enough”. “Hard work” in both of these contexts is purported to be the only thing standing in the way of the two elusive spaces of “heaven” in the poem, and esteem and respect in the world of competitive skating for Tonya in the movie. This of course is not true, there are many barriers that make these places more difficult to inhabit. 

Create a playlist on Spotify that matches the short story “Kimberle”, by Achy Obejas. 

Notes on some songs:

Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) What if you knew her/ And found her dead on the ground?/ How can you run when you know?
“Ohio” came to my mind after reading the story. I read an interview with Achy Obejas where she said the following, “When I was in college in Bloomington, Ind., back in the 70’s, it wasn’t unusual for girls to disappear in the fall and be found in the spring, after the snow had melted. It colored every step on a dark night going home from work or the bars.” Similarly, Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) was written in 1970 and listening to it now brings an eerie nostalgia. It is arguably one of the most famous “protest songs”. Written in response to the killing of four students at Kent State, its fairly uptempo considering its subject matter and its direct and casual voice reminded me of “Because the girl was always white and pointedly ordinary, there would be a strange familiarity about her: everyone was sure they’d seen her waiting for the campus bus, or at the commons or the bookstore…”

Nameless, Faceless (Courtney Barnett) I wanna walk through the park in the dark/ Women are scared that men will kill them/ I hold my keys/ Between my fingers made me think of “…every year we waited for that disappearance—I’d grown up in town and it had been going on forever”,

Motion Sickness (Phoebe Bridgers) “I hate you for what you did/ And I miss you like a little kid” /“I have emotional motion sickness/ Somebody roll the windows down/ There are no words in the English language/ I could scream to drown you out” Upon seeing another of her books missing from the shelf again, “I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach”

Pasaporte Latino Americano (Celia Cruz) “Y llegué a esta tierra sola, donde soy extraña/ Tierra del hamburguer y del hot dog” “My life, such as it was—my widowed mother, my useless Cuban passport, the smoke in my lungs, the ache in my chest..”

Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd) I have become comfortably numb “At some point I noticed “American Dreams” was missing from the shelf but I no longer cared”

Already Naked (Blondie) “Rewind, already naked/Inside, blood on the pavement/Feels like we could be dancing” “The next morning there was an icestorm” “I wanna do a threesome with a guy” “Then we flipped twice”

Así Quiero Morir (Celia Cruz) “Ay, estréchame en tus brazos/escucha mi latir/estréchame bien fuerte/que quiero así morir“

Find a newspaper article online that relates to Pandora’s Box, by Arturo Arias. Explain the connection.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/2/12/21075683/trans-coming-out-cost-of-womanhood-pink-tax

What this article and “Pandora’s Box” have in common is an investigation and discussion of how we (as a community, but also as individuals) essentialize and uphold the gender binary even as we challenge it.

After reading La Guera, Cherrie Moraga, record your voice (just audio) speaking for 1 or 2 minutes about how this reading relates to you.