Imagining LatinX Intimacies. Edward A. Chamberlain
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Studies.
To bring these acknowledgments to a close, I wish to express my thanks to the people who had considerable impact on this book’s final steps and development. I have been inspired by the work of activists, advocates, and artists who have worked long hours to improve the lives of Latinx and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) peoples. The work of these unsung heroes repeatedly breathed new life into this project. Artists and poets around the world, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, and Félix González-Torres, provided considerable inspiration for this book’s creation. Similarly, at Rowman & Littlefield International, I wish to thank Gurdeep Mattu, Scarlet Furness, and the rest of the staff that spent numerous hours arranging this book’s production. Their dedication made the last steps easier and more of a pleasure. Then in an entirely different manner, a little buddy named Rascal offered some much-needed support on occasion, encouraging me to enjoy the afternoon sunlight and take a break from work. Equally, my partner, David R. Coon, inspired me to laugh, breathe, and look at the world with a new set of eyes. David made the journey of writing a book much smoother. His support gave me strength and helped me to see that social change takes place in multiple ways across time and space. This book is dedicated to David and the many changemakers of the world. Through this book, I honor the larger mosaic of peoples who are working to create positive forms of social change and a more inclusive future.
Edward A. Chamberlain
October 2019
Introduction
Stories of Queer Latinx Intimacies and
Spatial Experiences
Fear of going home. And of not being taken in. We’re afraid of being abandoned by the mother, the culture, la Raza, for being unacceptable, faulty, damaged. Most of us unconsciously believe that if we reveal this unacceptable aspect of the self our mother/culture/race will totally reject us. To avoid rejection, some of us conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows.[1]
—Gloria Anzaldúa
At the end of the twentieth century, diverse people across the Americas told personal stories that show a common desire for a space that they can call home. In one’s home, the feeling of closeness and familiarity are key elements that create a sense of intimacy. This feeling is a multifaceted sensation that often is undervalued in the public sphere, even as it is fervently protected. Beneath this desire for intimacy, however, there often is a disconcerting sense of worry that one might be separated from that comfort of home. This fear of being cut off and abandoned is a common feeling among a multitude of peoples who self-identify as departing from the normalized social identities of the United States, Caribbean cultures, and Latin American nations. This fear is a paralyzing sensation for diverse communities, including Latina/o and Latinx peoples who self-identify as LGBTQ. Much as the celebrated poet and theorist Gloria Anzaldúa attests, many queer peoples experience some fear of being labeled as “unacceptable” and displaced from their home. Such fears lead people to hide queer desires in “the shadows” as Anzaldúa suggests, while others speak out in courageous acts of artistic expression such as storytelling.
Stories and artwork about these struggles have been expressed by a range of individuals and social groups, like communities of color and people who self-identify as LGBTQ. As such artists have countered social bias and questioned respectability, they have produced modern visions of the American Dream, including what it means to be a family. These visions take the shape of intimate scenes that are presented in personal accounts, imaginative poetry, non-fiction, and visual art. These imaginative scenes are discernable in the creative works of peoples who identify as Chicana/o/x, Chilean American, Mexican American, and Puerto Rican. Although the term Latinx is still seen as relatively new, a multitude of people have embraced this concept to refer to peoples who are Latin American in descent and self-identify in ways that go beyond the normalized gender binary. For many who identify as LGBTQ, this binary has had the effect of constraining lives in multitudinous forms.[2] In examining these phenomena, this book analyzes the connectivities of sexual identities, spaces, and storytellers that are not always included in dialogues of US family experiences—namely, Latinx artists who identify as LGBTQ. These artists have produced notable artwork and writing that reimagines well-worn visions of family and intimacy that are delineated by norms, policy, and legislation such as marriage laws. Sadly, such social and legal codes have caused the displacement of Latinx LGBTQ peoples across the Americas. Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel explains how such displacement is interwoven with colonial history and leads to the “redefinition of national identities.”[3] This reshaping of human lives materializes in multiple forms that range from the personal stories of migrants to the intimate visual artwork of citizens. If we are to understand this artistry’s significance, it is necessary to situate this creative work in the cultural histories of their respective spaces.
As Imagining Latinx Intimacies contextualizes LGBTQ Latinx experiences in the histories of the Caribbean and the Americas, I offer the perspective that although many LGBTQ stories and media may focus on ostensibly ordinary experiences such as relationships and social spaces, these representations actually function as telling responses to exclusionary dynamics and institutions. That is to say, imagining the intimate spaces of Latinx sexualities is a defiant act that lays the framework for an alternative set of politics that support interests in forging new paths and engaging in socially transgressive acts such as non-normative sexual practices and unruly gatherings. These same dynamics and interests have led Latinx queer peoples to develop an intimate spatial imaginary that is less constraining and less judgmental than that of the dominant white culture. As Deborah R. Vargas contends, there is a benefit to understanding the lives, loves, and spaces that “defy heteronormative limits of intimacy and affect.”[4] Like Vargas, I envision the nomenclature of “intimate” and “intimacy” as being a helpful idiom for explaining the meaningful social relations created by Latinx LGBTQs (or “queers” as some prefer). These key relations are read as telling responses to varying kinds of displacement and materialize in a bevy of forms that are intellectual, improvised, and physical. Further, these self-expressions and interactions take place in less visible social sites, including personal and private contexts such as an apartment of Puerto Rican lesbians, virtual environments, and semipublic places like bars.
In an examination of several sites, Juana María Rodríguez provides a foundation for the study of socially constituted spaces that Latinx peoples inhabit for a spate of purposes.[5] In Imagining Latinx Intimacies, I extend the theoretical thinking of Rodríguez’s work by examining a set of interrelated intimate spaces, and in doing so, I show how these sites can cultivate a supportive social realm for Latinx queers to develop and share their dreams, intellects, and lives. Accordingly, Imagining Latinx Intimacies is by no means intended to maintain a fixed set of borders but, rather, to create and honor a set of bridges between cultural contexts. To make such connections, this book offers a set of critical examinations that works with the perspectives of several theorists including Anzaldúa, who envisioned bridges as “thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote transitioning, crossing borders, and changing perspectives.”[6] For Anzaldúa, bridges are made from more than mortar, wood, and steel. In her logic, bridges can also be imagined art forms, including books, images, and writing. These cultural creations are the connectors and meeting points that link cultures and time periods in intellectual and social forms. Although material realities frequently have been privileged as the most meaningful in some circles, the imagined spatial experiences of films and texts like poetry and novels indeed hold the potential to cultivate the needed bridge—or dream—to a more hospitable future. As such, I interpret the artistic representation of Latinx queer spaces as being important blueprints for the future—blueprints that enable people to develop a world that supports one’s development, relationships, and well-being. As Marijn Nieuwenhuis and David Crouch have said, “Space is relational, subjective and personal,” and thus, they are imbued with feelings that are meaningful.[7] Human feelings have been discounted again and again as being inconsequential, yet more and more scholars are regarding this interior affect as being intricately linked to spatial experience. Scholar