From Chicano therapy to globarriology: Chican@ popular culture and identity in late 20th and early 21st century Los Angeles

2012-11-29This dissertation argues that for some Chicano and Chicana artists and activists living and working in Los Angeles during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, what it meant to “be” Chicano or Chicana was increasingly mediated by a globalized and more inclusive conception of cultural identity that actively challenged and deliberately moved away from previous and oftentimes nationalistic models. As such, some examples of the cultural work produced by Chicanos and Chicanas, some of the Chicano discourse surrounding their cultural productions, and Chicano politics in general suggests that Chicano and Chicana artists and activists began to openly express a more inclusive and globally mediated concept of cultural identity. As in the past, Chicano cultural productions both responded to and were reflections of Chicano and Chicana perceptions of themselves at home while simultaneously finding solidarity and influence from populations abroad. This dissertation illustrate some novel approaches and examples Chicanos and Chicanas were invested in projecting a revamped globalized Chicanismo outside the context of the United States in an attempt to locate, reconcile, and assess what I see as instances of Chicano globalizations. I examine the production and dissemination of films such as Boulevard Nights (Warner Bros. 1979), Real Women Have Curves (HBO-Newmarket, 2002), the politics of the artist and activist collective “The Eastside Café,” and the music of underground Los Angeles rock bands such as Aztlán Underground, Rage Against the Machine, Quetzal, Slowrider, and the spoken word of Rocco from Mexico City’s Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del Quinto Patio. I put these texts in conversation with the work of scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa, the satiric work of the Theatre Troup Culture Clash, the prose of Rubén Martinez, and the visual art of fine artists such as Mario Ibarra Jr., and graffiti artists such as Nuke. This dissertation shows how Chicanos have been actively engaging and collaborating with other groups outside the US through the production and reception of popular culture. The circumstances surrounding these works also provides examples of what I find to be, to borrow from George Lipsitz, “Chicano Moments of Danger” that challenge both essentialized notions of Chicana and Chicano identity and state-centered narratives of identity formation