meXicana encounters

Rosa Linda Fregoso’s “MeXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands” discusses the contradictory nature of the portrayal of Mexicans in American society: their visibility in America’s culture in counterpoint with their absence in the nation’s history. The duality is most clearly demonstrated through the use of the term Mexicana (the interfusion of a Mexican and a Chicana, a woman from the borderland). The first half of the book discusses the position of the Mexicana within the public sphere (society) and private sphere (the family). The women lodged between these two spheres are rendered voiceless. Fregoso, in the second half of the book, critiques the portrayal of Mexicans during the silent film era and the appearance of the racial slur, “greaser.”

How can a Mexicana be both visible and invisible? Fregoso attempts to answer this question through examination of both historical and recent events that demonstrate this dichotomy. Fregoso describes the gender killings in Ciudad Juarez as a case in point. The large number of maquiladora factories in the borderland city of Juarez, attract men and women in search of work. Hundreds of women, most of humble origin, are easily preyed upon, sexually assaulted and some brutally murdered. Yet, the state refuses to recognize that this type of violence is being perpetuated against women. However, in the few instances where there is acknowledgement, the state blames those women for their “nonnormative sexuality” (la doble vida) and their rejection of the ideal model of womanhood (mother/wife) (5). Sadly, in the private sphere, it has become acceptable for men to use their physicality to punish and control (17). Unfortunately for these women, the barbaric acts inflicted upon them are classified as crimes against a family’s honor rather then crimes against themselves (18). The effect of the ninth commandment of Marianismo: “Do not discuss personal problems outside of the home” (30), is similar to placing a “gag order” on the assaulted women, causing them to feel more shame if they choose to speak out about their predicament. In “Women Hollering Creek,” author Cisneros discusses the life of a Mexicana woman who is abused by her husband. Some critics have blamed Cisneros for perpetuating racist and colonialist stereotypes of men of color as violent. (33) Their critique’s camouflages the issue at hand: that those women are being violated and are forbidden to discuss or share their experiences.

In the public sphere, Mexican cinema and television, portrays a highly sexualized image of femininity. As such, “the stereotype of maquilar workers as ‘prostitute’ is derived in part, from a historical belief that the border zone is an area of ‘sexual excess’ and border women are ‘culturally bound to sexual chaos”(11). Thus, those in power feel justified in exploiting or exterminating amoral female bodies; as it is an exercise of power and expresses gender hierarchies. The contradictory nature of women is best demonstrated by the pink and black crosses that activist groups have put on display throughout the city of Juarez. The cross is a “contradiction between woman’s visibility as abject subject (murder victim) an d the invisibility of woman in the public sphere (citizen).” (21) While the issues regarding Mexicanas occupies the first half the book, Fregoso spends the second half speaking more generally about the representation (or lack their of) of Mexicans in American culture and history.

American silent movies provided the first glimpse into the lives of the Mexican people. These movies depicted how America saw itself at the time and how they saw Mexican’s as an “alien presence.” (127) Anglos feared that mixing with the “effeminate progeny of mixed races, half Indian, half Negro, sprinkled with white blood” (135) could lead to the downfall whiteness. Acting on fear, Anglos went to great lengths to maintain racial superiority by enforcing their beliefs in Manifest Destiny. According to this ideology, “no race but our (white) own can either cultivate or rule the western hemisphere” (137) as a “nation of mestizos was not predisposed to democracy” (131). Through the movies and the introduction of the Mexican as “greaser,” Anglos were able to reinforce the image of the Mexican as inferior. The “greaser” was a character often seen in films and through the use of repetition, that inferior image of the Mexican was cemented into white cultural and allowed the discrimination to continue. “Greaser points to the ways in which the skin is the ultimate signifier of abjection; to white, dark color connoted filth and therefore Mexicans were a dirty, putrid people existing in squalor.” (167)

Overall, I found Fregoso’s work to be interesting and provocative. Due to Fregoso’s weaving of facts with personal accounts, it’s hard to truly criticize the book. From the beginning, the author grabs the reader’s emotions as she recounts the horrors inflicted on the women of Jaurez. These women are being brutally murdered and the state remains uninvolved, choosing to do nothing about these crimes. If I find any fault with Fregoso’s work, it is in how she chose to write the final chapters; I wish that the book could have ended as strongly as it had begun. As Fregoso closes her book, she shares her family’s history, told by her grandma Angelita. Her personal story gave the reader a first hand account about how Mexicans were excluded in the historical account of the early 20th century (looking at the state of Texas). Unfortunately, Fregoso’s personal anecdotes weren’t as impacting as the earlier descriptions of horrors committed on the women of Juarez. The book starts out with a bang, but ends with such a soft ending, that the reader is left wanted better closure.