Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:45:37.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Phoenix's jotería is saying: Identity, normativity, resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2019

Holly R. Cashman
Holly R. Cashman*
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Holly Cashman, University of New Hampshire, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 210 Murkland Hall, 15 Library Way, Durham, NH 03824-3520, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article questions queer theory's investment in antinormativity and anti-identitarianism by applying a queer multimodal discourse analytic approach to the ethnographic context of queer, bilingual Mexicans/Latinxs in the US Southwest. The article explores the complexity of ways that norms are taken up and resisted (or not) in discourse, with particular attention to the activist use of discourses about community and identity. A close analysis of several texts illuminates how language practices and social practices—as seen, for example, in advertising strategies, participation in annual LGBTQ Pride festivals, and activism surrounding the undocuqueer movement—become invested with social meaning among queer Mexicans/Latinxs. (Antinormativity, queer theory, bilingual, sexual identity, community, Latinx, jotería)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 48 , Special Issue 4: Navigating Normativities: Gender and Sexuality in Text and Talk , September 2019 , pp. 519 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1122948. I gratefully acknowledge this support. Very special thanks to Erez Levon and Tommaso Milani for including my work in their panel at the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) in Hong Kong, and subsequently to them and Kira Hall for including it in this special issue. I am also indebted to Jenny Cheshire and an anonymous reviewer for their invaluable feedback and suggestions. All remaining shortcomings are my own.

References

REFERENCES

Alimahomed, Sabrina (2010). Thinking outside the rainbow: Women of color redefining queer politics and identity. Social Identities 16:151–68.Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2012). English ‘on top’: Discourse functions of English resources in the German mediascape. Sociolinguistic Studies 6:209–38.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestizo. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.Google Scholar
Backus, Ad, & Spotti, Massimiliano (2012). Normativity and change: Introduction to the special issue on agency and power in multilingual discourse. Sociolinguistic Studies 6:185–208.Google Scholar
Bañales, Xamuel (2014). Jotería: A decolonizing political project. Aztlán 39:155–65.Google Scholar
Barrett, Rusty 2004. As much as we use language: Lakoff's queer augury. In Bucholtz, Mary (ed.), Language and woman's place: Text and commentaries, 296–302. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Behdad, Ali (2005). A forgetful nation: On immigration and cultural identity in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Boellstorff, Tom (2013). Future perfect: Queer language in scholarship and practice. Paper presented at the 20th American University Conference on Lavender Languages and Linguistics, Washington DC, February.Google Scholar
Cashman, Holly R. (2018). Queer, latinx, and bilingual: Narrative resources in the negotiation of identities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chávez, Karma R. (2013). Queer migration politics: Activist rhetoric and coalitional possibilities. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Dong, Jie (2012). When modern public space encounters postmodern migration: Abnormality and the making of migrant identities. Sociolinguistic Studies 6:239–57.Google Scholar
Duggan, Lisa (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Kira (2013). ‘It's a hijra!’ Queer linguistics revisited. Discourse & Society 24(5):634–42.Google Scholar
Hames-García, Michael (2011a). Identity complex: Making the case for multiplicity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Hames-García, Michael (2011b). Queer theory revisited. In Hames-García, Michael & Martínez, Ernesto Javier (eds.), Gay Latino studies: A critical reader, 19–45. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hames-García, Michael (2014). Jotería studies, or the political is personal. Aztlán 39:135–41.Google Scholar
Heidenreich, Linda (1999). Reflections on Euro-homo normativity: Gay and lesbian studies and the creation of a universal homosexual. Critica (Spring):41–49.Google Scholar
Honig, Bonnie (2001). Democracy and the foreigner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jaspers, Jürgen (2014). Stylisations as teacher practice. Language in Society 43:371–93.Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam, & Thurlow, Crispin (eds.) (2010). Semiotic landscapes: Language, image, space. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, & Baumgardt, Dan (2004). ‘Pittsburghese’ online: Vernacular norming in conversation. American Speech 79:115–45.Google Scholar
Jones, Rodney (2009). Technology and sites of display. In Carey, Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis, 114–26. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gunther, Kress, & van Leeuwen, Theo (1998). Front pages: (The critical) analysis of newspaper layout. In Bell, Allan & Garrett, Paul (eds.), Approaches to media discourse, 186–219. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gunther, Kress, & van Leeuwen, Theo (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Juffermans, Kasper (2012). Multimodality and audiences: Local languaging in the Gambian linguistic landscape. Sociolinguistic Studies 6:259–84.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Levon, Erez (2012). The voice of others: Identity, alterity and gender normativity among gay men in Israel. Language in Society 41:187–211.Google Scholar
Machin, David; Caldas-Coulthard;, Carmen Rosa & Milani, Tommaso M. (2016). Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse. Gender and Language 10:301–308.Google Scholar
Madrid, Alejandro L. (2018). Secreto a voces: Excess, performance, and jotería in Juan Gabriel's vocality. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 24:85–11.Google Scholar
Magaña, Lisa (2013). Arizona's immigration policies and SB 1070. In Magaña, Lisa & Lee, Erik K. (eds.), Latino politics and Arizona's immigration law SB1070, 19–26. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Mendoza-Denton, Norma (2004). The anguish of normative gender: Sociolinguistic studies among Latinas. In Bucholtz, Mary (ed.), Language and woman's place: Text and commentaries, 260–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Milani, Tommaso M. (2013). Expanding the queer linguistic scene: Multimodality, space and sexuality at a South African university. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2:206–34.Google Scholar
Milani, Tommaso M. (2015). Sexual cityzenship: Discourses, spaces and bodies at Joburg Pride 2012. Journal of Language and Politics 14:431–54.Google Scholar
Milani, Tommaso M., & Kapa, Koki (2015). Ready-to-wear sexual politics: The semiotics of visibility on Wits Pride T-shirts. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 46:79–103.Google Scholar
Milroy, Lesley (1987). Language and social networks. 2nd edn. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Motschenbacher, Heiko (2011). Taking queer linguistics further: Sociolinguistics and critical heteronormativity research. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 212:149–79.Google Scholar
Muñoz, JoséEsteban (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of color and the performance of politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Pérez, Daniel Enrique (2014a). Jotería espistemologies: Mapping a research agenda, unearthing a lost heritage, and building ‘Queer Aztlán’. Aztlán 39:143–54.Google Scholar
Pérez, Daniel Enrique (2014b). Toward a mariposa consciousness: Reimagining queer Chicano and Latino identities. Aztlán 30:95–127.Google Scholar
Pérez, Emma (2012). Decolonial border queers: Case studies of Chicana/o lesbians, gay men, and transgender folks in El Paso/Juárez. In Aldama, Arturo J., Sandoval, Chela, & García, Peter J. (eds.), Performing the US Latina and Latino borderlands, 192–211. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Perez, Hiram (2005). You can have my brown body and eat it, too! Social Text 23:171–92.Google Scholar
Phelan, Shane (2001). Sexual strangers: Gays, lesbians, and dilemmas of citizenship. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Quist, Pia (2008). Sociolinguistic approaches to multiethnolect: Language variety and stylistic practice. International Journal of Bilingualism 12:43–61.Google Scholar
Rubio-Hernandez, Sandy P., & Ayón, Cecilia (2016). Pobrecitos los niños: The emotional impact of anti-immigrant policies on Latino children. Children and Youth Services Review 60:20–26.Google Scholar
Santa Ana, Otto, & Celeste González, de Bustamante (eds.) (2012). Arizona firestorm: Global immigration realities, national media and provincial politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Seif, Hinda (2011). ‘Unapologetic and unafraid’: Immigrant youth come out from the shadows. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 134:59–75.Google Scholar
Seif, Hinda (2014). ‘Coming out of the shadows’ and ‘undocuqueer’: Undocumented immigrants transforming sexuality discourse and activism. Journal of Language and Sexuality 3:87–120.Google Scholar
Shohamy, Elana, & Gorter, Gurt (eds.) (2009). Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stryker, Susan (2008). Transgender history, homonormativity, and disciplinarity. Radical History Review 100:145–57.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun (1995). Aims of critical discourse analysis. Japanese Discourse 1:17–27.Google Scholar
Warner, Michael (1991). Introduction: Fear of a queer planet. Social Text 29:3–17.Google Scholar
Wiegman, Robyn (2012). Object lessons. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wiegman, Robyn, & Wilson, Elizabeth A. (2015). Introduction: Antinormativity's queer conventions. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 26(1):1–25.Google Scholar
Yep, Gust A. (2010). Toward the de-subjugation of racially marked knowledges in communication. Southern Communication Journal 75:171–75.Google Scholar
Yep, Gust A. (2016). Toward thick(er) intersectionalities: Theorizing, researching, and activating the complexities of communication and identities. In Sorrells, Kathryn & Sekimoto, Sachi (eds.), Globalizing intercultural communication: A reader, 85–94. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia (1997). Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia (2003). ‘José, can you see?’: Latin@ responses to racist discourse. In Summer, Doris (ed.), Bilingual games: Some literary investigations, 51–66. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia (2014). TWB (talking while bilingual): Linguistic profiling of Latina/os, and other linguistic torquemadas. Latino Studies Journal 12:620–35.Google Scholar