Historiann and GayProf Teach It All, Part III: REVOLUTION!

Today Historiann and I finish up our discussion about the U.S. survey class. Together we have already outlined devious ways to undermine the entire nation through our teaching. Won't somebody think of the children?

If you are just joining the discussion, remember to read up on Part I and Part II. All of your friends already read Part I and II. You want to be cool like them, don't you?

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Historiann: It would still be a Great Leap Forward if Anglophone historians would reorient their teaching, if not their research. Perhaps the best way to alter the center of gravity

GayProf (GP): *coughGravitas*cough*

Historiann: (ignoring GayProf) Perhaps the best way to alter the center of gravity in American history is to change the date of that split between the first and second "halves" of American history. (I put "half" in quotation marks, as someone who teaches a "half" that goes from 1492-1877 and is therefore 385 years in 15 weeks, by comparison to my modern U.S. colleagues who teach a "half" that goes from 1877-2010, or only 133 years in 15 weeks. What can I say? Some Democrat, who thinks that 60 is "half" of 100, must have done the math.)

GP: Our colleagues teaching the History of Asia won’t give us much sympathy in the divide. Remember that they often have to cover several centuries every class session! Sometimes my two-part lecture on the U.S.-Mexican War (which was, you know, less than two years) seems really indulgent in comparison.

Historiann: Let's end the first "half" in 1848, instead of 1877, putting the Mexican War rather than the Civil War and Reconstruction at the center of American history.

GP: Ending in 1848 would be a good start. If the goal was to end the class with the incorporation of tens of thousands Mexicans into the U.S., maybe it would encourage professors to provide a modicum of background on Mexico (and if, as a side effect, that increases the marketability of the Never Ending Research Project of Doom, how could I disagree?). But I worry even then we would just end up with a ra-ra version of the Texas Rebellion.




Maybe we could even end the first section in 1821 with Mexican Independence? Tell me that wouldn’t blow the minds of many historians to think that a “foreign” event could define the cycle of U.S. history! And, yet, it did. Once the wars for independence in Latin America took hold, the U.S. was in a very different place in the global economy. Independence in Latin America meant the U.S. could suddenly exercise its emerging power in ways that were unthinkable in 1780.

Starting the class earlier than the seventeenth century would also be a nice thing to do. It seems like (and the WMQ articles alluded to it as well) that most of the non-Anglo history is given scant attention. A typical first-day lecture usually goes, “There were Native Americans in the hemisphere for tens of thousands of years; but not much happened until Jamestown was founded in 1607!” Or, if you are in a slightly more informed class, “There were Native Americans in the hemisphere for tens of thousands of years; then Columbus sailed in 1492. Then not much happened until Jamestown was founded in 1607!”

Lately I have been toying with the idea of offering a colonial borderlands class. I’m not looking to move over to CEUS, but I feel like Spain’s northern frontier is entirely absent from BMU It’s either teach that or an entire semester devoted to the golden-age of Queen Hippolyta. Really a toss up to me.

Historiann: As Donna Merwick said back in 1994 in her response to Hijiya's article, "to tamper seriously with America's received story of its past is dangerous because it is tampering with a myth. It disturbs the fixed version of the sanctified past that makes the present bearable," (WMQ 51:4, October 1994, 736). Suggesting that the independence movement in another nation or a trumped-up war of imperial aggression, rather than a noble war to end slavery, is at the center of American history certainly would challenge "the sanctified past!"

GP: I also think it has to do with the fact that we (as a profession) never really talk about what purpose the U.S. Survey is supposed to serve. Are we there to provide a backdrop political history? If so, which one(s)? Or are we there to teach basic historical methodologies? Or is our goal to shake up that “sanctified past?” All of these are potentially worthy goals for a survey class.

I personally struggle with the balance between “coverage” and “skills” in all my classes. While I prefer to talk about more “fun” things (like how we understand changing ideas about sexuality through time), I also can’t help feeling that they should know some really basic events and people before they move out of college.

For instance, if my class is going to contemplate the Mexican Revolution as one of the most important events in North American History, I feel like I need to give students at least a basic frame of reference. Like, you know, who Emiliano Zapata was.


Historiann: (Who???)

GP: But, of course, the problem with those types of narratives is that they privilege a pretty darn exclusive group: Men more than women; Whites more than people of color; Heteros more than the queer folk. Spending time on simply establishing who the hell Zapata was means that the soldaderas get cheated. It is much the same issue as how we all fall into the "Parade of Presidents" that you mentioned in the comments of Part I. We know better, yet somehow can't help ourselves. I am conflicted.


Historiann: I agree with you that we never discuss the purpose of the U.S. survey. At least, I can’t recall taking part in a formal conversation about the purpose of survey courses in the fifteen years I’ve been on various History faculties. This may have something to do again with the bruising “culture wars” of previous decades—a lot got said and written that I think embarrassed people in retrospect. (I’ve heard one confession from a culture warrior—with whom I utterly disagree—who told me personally that he regrets some of the things he wrote and said in those days. If I told you who it was, I’d have to kill you, so I’ll take his secret to my grave.) Immediately after 9/11, we had a brief discussion in which the importance of history to the creation of a patriotic citizenry was affirmed. But even then, none of us wanted to be terribly specific about what we’re up to because we all have different ideas and priorities.

GP: See, I don’t really see it as my job to affirm or discredit one’s patriotism. Instead, I think it is my job to provide historical context to our modern concerns as a nation. What students want to do with that once they leave my class (Wave flags, move to Canada, join the Army, start a sensible bistro) is entirely up to them.

What if instead of mandating “U.S. History,” we made the requirement “History of North America” or even “History of the Western Hemisphere (Including the Africa bits everybody always forgets is technically part of this hemisphere)?” We could forgo the nation as an organizing principle entirely.

Of course, there are downsides to that as well. Right now the rush to teach “Global History,” for instance, feels flat to me. It seems those classes are just “Western Civ, Now With China!” rather than really rethinking old structures. But that is another post entirely…

Historiann: What we certainly don’t want to talk about is the ridiculousness of expecting a compulsory history class of two quarters or one semester to cure historical ignorance in all of its many forms.



GP: True, but it would be nice if we could market our classes like they were a snakeoil cure. “Take Dr. GayProf’s Patented Chicano/a History Class – Cures All: Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Scurvy, Billousness, and Dropsy. Satisfied Customers Feel Less Ignorant After Just One Dose! Goes Down Easy – Great for Young or Old!”

Historiann: If various states of the union, or universities, or liberal arts colleges actually thought American history was important, they’d require more than a one-semester dose. What we’re left with in the popular discourse is the insistence that U.S. history is vitally important for everyone to know, and the injunction that we (the History professors) are doing it all wrong. (A former mentor of mine used to call this the “history is too important to be left to the historians” point of view.

GP: That’s so true. We don’t have a hard time convincing either the political Left or Right that people should know history. They are just at odds in deciding what history they really want people to know.

Historiann: Maybe it’s my Midwestern low-church WASP heritage of conflict-avoidance, but this state of affairs (call it détante) is better than the projectile insults and name-calling of the kulturkampf. Let’s just all teach what we want to teach, and let others teach what they want to teach. Let a thousand flowers bloom, in other words. (Or as we say here on the plains: “it’s your affair, and none of my own.”)



GP: Yes, I want to echo that. I am not interested in establishing a formal curriculum or dictating what must be taught. Still, I’d like to think that most people want to be more inclusive in their classes (I’m in a “People are Basically Good” sort of mood -- Or at least, “Historians are Basically Good” sort of mood). The problem is that they either have never thought about it (because they, themselves, were never taught in an inclusive way) or because they don’t know how to go about it.

Historiann: That doesn’t mean busybodies like you and me can’t point out who’s being left out of the dominant U.S. history narratives, of course, and why it’s problematic.

GP: And we still get to judge them, right?

Historiann: By all means. Over cocktails, of course!

Burning and Itching

Huh – It turns out, based on the number of Google hits that I am getting, that a great number of you have “crazy colleagues.” At least one of you seems to have a colleague with a spider in hir hair. Who knew?

Of course, the new semester is upon us. This can mean only one thing: the end of the television summer season.

Longtime readers know that GayProf has two, sometimes overlapping, criteria for watching a television show: a) Does it have camp value and/or b) Does it have a hunky male lead. Usually “b” is the prime mover for me. What can I say? I am shallow, but pretty.

Longtime readers also know that I tend write volumes on television shows. Today is no different. Come to think of it, I am surprised that I have any longtime readers at all.

Given that “b” decides most of my viewing habits, you might imagine that my television selections are often quite low brow. You might also imagine that I watch these shows while in my underwear. You really shouldn’t have such dirty fantasies about GayProf.

More than any other, the basic cable network "USA" has cornered the market on summer-fluff. To borrow Kate Jackson’s comments about Charlie’s Angels, the scripts at USA are so thin that if you tossed one in the air, it would take a week to hit the floor. Something about one of its most popular shows, Burn Notice, seems to bother me.



For those who have higher standards than I do, let me give you Burn Notice’s basic premise. Michael Westen, the lead character played by the hunky Jeffrey Donovan (Remember: “b”), once worked as a spy until he was “burned” (essentially framed for a variety of crimes he did not commit – Or did commit, but it was okay because he committed those crimes on behalf of the good ol’ USA (the nation, not the network – I think)). The show’s major narrative focuses on Michael’s efforts to restore his good name and thus return to the spy world. Until he can do that, he takes on odd jobs of fighting crime within a colorful Miami locale.



The show’s appeal depends upon some fairly standard fantasies about power and heroics. Westen possesses a seemingly unending array of secret talents and abilities. He easily defeats whole armies of gunmen with well-timed punches and carefully crafted verbal zingers. Within fifty minutes, you have a guaranteed serving of [largely vigilante] justice.

So, what’s my problem with Burn Notice? The show veers into some problematic realms in terms of race and gender. Mostly it has to do with its valorization of white-straight men as the best and only hope for the future of the nation. Michael Westen’s heroism can only be construed through the vulnerability of his “clients.” Who are those clients? Disproportionately, they are women and racial minorities (and even especially women of color).

Am I arguing that real white-straight-men never fight on behalf of social justice or that we should never see such a representation? No, obviously not. Nor am I suggesting that executives and producers at USA network are participating in an intentional conspiracy to assure the dominance of the white race. I really have no idea if they are members of the Republican party.

We aren’t talking about real life. We are talking about representations. Who ends up as the main “hero” and who best fits the role of “victim” are entirely shaped by gender and race. And for the USA network, white heterosexuality rules. Let me give you another example. Even though USA’s show In Plain Sight is set in New Mexico, a non-white majority state, the lead character is still a remarkably blond Euro American. Indeed, that show has no Latino characters who are actually from the area (One Latino character does appear, but his origins are clearly not from NM).


Minority roles, when cast at all in USA shows, are most often relegated to side characters who need a good, white character to either save or defeat them (Though it is interesting to note that USA seems to like to cast minority actors to play white characters. Real-life Arab-American Tony Shalhoub plays the titular Monk and Latino James Roday (né James Rodríguez) stars in Psych. More could probably be written about those instances at some later point).

GLBTQ folk basically don’t exist at all on USA. According to the most recent GLAAD report, USA ranked 7 out of 10 in terms of cable networks. Although I will at least grant that Burn Notice mostly avoids the passive-aggressive homophobia found in its sister show Psych.

By making the white-straight-male lead an almost invincible hero in an all-white pantheon, Burn Notice and similar USA shows uphold the notion that white-straight-men are not at all the beneficiaries of institutionalized inequities. Nor is white straight manhood ever figured as a direct exercise of privilege and power. Rather, white-straight-male heroes make “noble sacrifices” to save minorities, women, or weaker white men from less scrupulous (most often foreign in the case of Burn Notice) foes. Being a white-straight-man is a type of burden because only they have the necessarily abilities to solve all the nation’s problems, including those created by other white men.

A typical Burn Notice episode will open with Michael’s newest client describing hir problems. If a woman character, she often does it through tears and with a quaking voice. Michael reassures hir; his mother (played by the seemingly downgraded Sharon Gless) offers them a place to stay; and Michael snaps to work with his team. His clients frequently report that they have been trying to solve their problem for years, but Michael usually has everything tied up over the period of a long weekend. Once the bad guys are secured in jail (or dead), Westen shows his beneficence by never accepting any actual payment for his work. It’s just the cost of being a white-male straight hero.



One typical episode focused on a Latina character, let’s call her “Marta,” who solicited Westen’s help to defeat the evil “South-American” Rufino Cortez. The bad-man Cortez evicted poor Marta’s entire family in order to sell their property to a greedy U.S. corporation. With the team emotionally invested in weak Marta’s problem, Westen devised a plan to defeat Cortez.

After a hard year of dispossessing peasants, Latin-American wannabe dictators apparently like to do nothing better than vacation in Miami. This proves to be a real time saver for Westen. The show, of course, ends with Rufino’s death and, apparently, a swift reordering of the entire political structure of the nameless Latin-American country in question. Marta and similar characters, beyond having a problem that Michael can solve, only appear when the audience needs more exposition. They are otherwise totally powerless in their own lives.

Even women and minorities who one might expect to be Michael’s peers, such as a Latina police officer (“Sophia”) who appeared in the second season, end up being fairly useless. Sophia was so inept at her job that she actually became a stalking victim of the man that she apparently spent years trying to arrest (!). She then had to appeal to Westen to not only help her arrest the drug dealer, retain her job, but also secure her own personal safety. Always chivalrous, Westen even allows her to take credit for the arrest.




Some might suggest that the main character Fiona Glenanne offers a woman character who is potentially Michael’s equal. Fiona, we are told, is an Irish national originally trained by the IRA. She does therefore have elements that push against some traditional gendered stereotypes. Fiona’s expertise on guns and explosives can even surpass Michael Westen’s. She also frequently holds her own in regular fist fights and, on a rare occasion, has rescued the male characters in the show.

Yet, her character’s basic premise is still mired in some pretty traditional gender ideas. Michael’s motives are rooted in lofty ideals and a sense of U.S. patriotism. In contrast, Fiona’s greatest ambitions center on building a romantic relationship with Michael. She actually finds it impossibly difficult to understand his noble aspirations to serve his country. Indeed, we are informed that she only joined the IRA to avenge the death of her sister, not out of any deeper political or nationalist ideology. So, while Michael and Fiona complete the same jobs, her motives are still rooted in traditionally feminine ideals: emotion, family, and an ultimate desire for heterosexual marriage. Michael uses his skills for justice. Fiona uses her skills to help her man. Oh, and by the way, Fiona herself became one of Michael’s “clients” in the end of this past season.



In this way, producers of Burn Notice get to have it both ways. On one hand, they can handle serious social issues like domestic abuse, human trafficking, and the drug trade. On the other hand, they get to divorce those problems from the bigger social structures that keep inequalities in place or from thorny questions about racism, sexism, or U.S. imperialism. They are treated as case-by-case problems that can be solved through the timely intervention of the right white-straight man. In this way, the show ignores the seriously hard work that goes into fighting for social justice. Far from being the work of individuals, it takes entire communities to fight for change.

Burn Notice is hardly unique in this formulation. All sorts of shows have been built around the good white guy who helps the Other. Maybe no other show took this premise to its greatest extreme than the eighties sci-fi clunker Quantum Leap. In that instance, the white-straight-male hero literally coopted the bodies of [white] women, men of color, and (in one memorable episode) a quasi-gay naval cadet. Quantum Leap often literally rewrote the history of civil rights in this nation. Rather than being a product of the hard work of minorities against a disinterested white straight majority, Quantum Leap proposed that white straight men even created the first impetuses for social justice. What minorities really needed was to get a little white-straight man in them before they could really improve their lives. Without white straight men to help them, women, minorities, and gays would have been forever degraded.


It is quite something to be living in a moment when the nation is willing to elect an African American man to lead the nation, but television networks are still frightened about casting a minority to lead an hour-long drama. Perhaps USA should change its slogan to“White Characters Welcome, All Others Enter Through the Back."

Confirming Racism

Barack Obama has had a difficult relationship with two (sometimes overlapping) constituencies within the Democratic Party: Latinos and the gays. He never really won over either group during the tense primary season. Despite that fact, both groups nonetheless voted overwhelmingly for him in the general election (Before Clinton apologists jump on this, it is important to note that her stated positions toward both groups were almost identical to Obama’s – I have serious doubts her administration would have acted any different in these issues).

One would have imagined that Obama would therefore be more mindful of Latinos and gay concerns so that they remained on his side. Turns out, not so much.

For the gays, his administration has decided that we are expendable and is more than happy to toss us aside. He recently allowed his administration to file a legal brief comparing gay marriage to incest. Not only won’t Obama support equal marriage rights, but he has even balked at upholding the right of queer folk to serve their nation’s military. In place of real justice, he invited a few select A-list gays to the White House for a cocktail party.

During the campaign, Obama pledged to be a good “friend” to the queer community. Apparently Mr. Obama doesn’t see friendship as being about recognizing our basic equality before the law. Friendship seems to mean serving some soggy appetizers and watered-down cocktails in the East Room.

Or maybe Obama wants us to be the equivalent of adolescent “secret friends.” It’s cool if we come over to his house and play video games, but he doesn’t want the popular kids at school knowing that we hang out. He has his reputation to consider.

Latinos have not fared much better under Mr. Obama. Political considerations prompted him to appoint the notoriously anti-immigrant Arizona governor Janet Napolitano to head Homeland Security (the bureau that currently controls immigration for the entire U.S.). Obama also largely ignores Latin America until an absolute crisis forces him to pay attention.

He was, however, willing to throw [straight] Latinos a bone by nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Don’t get me wrong – That’s a pretty good bone. There is lots of meat on it and all the marrow is intact. We could be chewing on it for decades to come. Well, that’s assuming that Nepolitano doesn’t deport us all.

Merely being Latina, though, is not enough to draw the support of the Latino community. After all, the Bushie administration frequently floated Alberto Gonzales’s name as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court. Latinos rarely supported the idea, even before Gonzales contracted that crippling case of amnesia that seemed to tear his life apart.



Still, I generally like Sotomayor. By all accounts, she has been a remarkably thorough and deliberate judge. What really sealed the deal for me was when she broke her ankle while traveling to meet with the Senate. Not only did Sotomayor still make her flight, she hobbled her way up the steps of Capitol Hill without missing an appointment. There is a woman who wants a job! Well, who can blame her given how high the unemployment rate is these days? I hear that Supreme Court Justice gig comes with a nice benefits package, maybe even dental!

Sotomayor’s path from nomination to confirmation has exposed the general public’s ambivalence about discussing race in the nation. Republicans know that they are in a precarious position with the public. Voters appear to finally have had it after decades of Republican mismanagement, corruption, and a disregard for the welfare of the majority of citizens. Since most Republicans don’t actually want to change their positions, they see their best bet at victory as whipping up hate. Hey, it worked for Bushie in 2004. Despite having driven the nation into the ground (and spending most of his time on vacation), he could still build a winning reelection campaign based on homophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria, and unending war. Republicans see a prime chance to use common racism as a means to get back into the limelight (They also conveniently ignore that it was Bush I who appointed Sotomayor to the U.S. District Court).




At the instant of her nomination, Republicans attacked viciously. Newt Gingrich and the various pundits declared her a “racist.” Mitt Romney declared her nomination “troubling.” Religious zealot Mike Huckabee released a scathing statement slamming Sotomayor. Of course, Huckabee was a bit confused and called her “Maria” Sotomayor rather than her actual name, Sonia Sotomayor. Apparently Huckabee just assumes that all Latinas are named Maria. Yeah, but Sotomayor is the “racist.”

More than anything else, Republicans have seized on Sotomayor’s now infamous statement that “a wise Latina woman” might make decisions about the law differently than an individual of another race or gender. If we are to believe Republicans, apparently Sotomayor will use her seat on the Supreme Court to institute a bloody race war that will only end when Puerto Rico has triumphed and enslaved the rest of the world.

Of course, Republicans also argue that Sotomayor is going to take away everybody’s guns. So, I guess it will be a race war fought with banana-cream pies.



What I find astounding about the whole debate is that we are seemingly expected to believe that the Supreme Court in the United States, up until this point, has been somehow “race blind.” If we accept what the Republicans are saying, then Sotomayor would radically alter the court because she *gasp* might be influenced in her interpretations of the law by her racial and gender identities.

Actually, the Supreme Court has often made decisions with racial implications (if not directly influenced by race). These were decisions that upheld a racial hierarchy within the United States by interpreting the Constitution in particular ways that benefited white men. They were also decisions made exclusively by white men.

Indeed, it was often cases involving race that helped solidify the Supreme Court’s authority within the U.S. Of course, there are the well-known ones: In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court ruled that the drafters of the Constitution considered African Americans “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled the forced separation of the races was just dandy. Other cases, though, are not as frequently discussed. In the 1831 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that Native-American tribes existed in a type of legal limbo as “domestic dependent nations.”

As residents in Puerto Rico, Sotomayor’s family felt the implications of the Supreme Court’s power directly. In 1901, the U.S. Supreme Court case Downes v. Bidwell more-or-less defined that island (and other occupied U.S. territories) as a colony of this nation. While ostensibly about taxes, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution did not extend to Puerto Rico or its inhabitants because it was merely a “possession” of the United States.



The majority of justices couldn’t find a consensus about how the law permitted that to be true. Instead, they submitted five different opinions, none of which received a majority endorsement. The one with the most support explained that Puerto Rico “was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” In other words, Puerto Ricans just didn’t “fit in” with the rest of the U.S. They spoke a different language, looked different, and had different customs. As a result, the U.S. did not legally have to treat Puerto Rico as an equal part of the nation. One might hope that, had a Puerto Rican been on the Supreme Court in 1901, that ze might have objected to such logic (no matter how based in the “law” it was).

Such rulings, which certainly had racial implications, have had long-term implications that have yet to be resolved. The Pew Hispanic Center just recently released a report on Puerto Rican demographics in the fifty states. Today, more than four million Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States, slightly more than live on the actual island of Puerto Rico (which, btw, is still a U.S. possession without a voting member of Congress – All Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens). Puerto Ricans are the second largest Latino population in the U.S., but are far overshadowed by Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Puerto Ricans account for only 9 percent of the total Latino population in the U.S., but Mexicans and Mexican Americans are a substantial majority (constituting 64 percent of the total Latino population). Puerto Ricans, like all Latinos, have less access to education and earn less than the general population. They also have lower rates of homeownership, lower than even the rate for Latinos overall.

So, it doesn’t surprise me that Sotomayor might have a particular take on the law based on her background. Of course, accusations that one’s racial and gender identities would bias their decisions is not something that seems to come up when white men are appointed to the court. The current Chief Justice, John Roberts, sailed through the confirmation process. Shortly thereafter, in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that Seattle, Washington’s defacto segregated school system did not violate the rights of minority students. The Court thus severely limited the ability of all the nation’s schools to consider race as a means to achieve integration. Roberts glibly promised that pretending that race doesn’t matter in this nation will make it so. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” he wrote, “is to stop discrimination on the basis of race.”



Did you hear that, people? Simply stop being racist and racism will be over. Why didn’t we think of that before? It’s all so simple! All these centuries and it took such a brilliant jurist to simply say, “stop discriminating based on race.” Oh, brave new world!

How can one not but conclude that Roberts’ naïve assumptions about racism are the result of his elite background and status as a middle-age white man? One guesses that he probably still believes that it was his clapping that brought Tinkerbell back to life.

The legal and social status quo means inequity for Puerto Ricans and other Latino groups (Not to mention women, other racial minorities, queer folk. . .) Existing injustices, some of which are written into our laws, are the legacy of racism in this nation. That can’t be wished away.

Boldly Going Where We Have Been Before

Star Trek’s latest incarnation warped into theaters this past week. Praised by critics, fans, and newbies alike, the film is more than successful in relaunching the venerable franchise. If you care about such things, spoilers are ahead.

Long time readers know that GayProf has been a die-hard trekker since he was GayFifthGrader. While I have never worn the ears, I will confess to having attended a Star Trek Convention shortly before becoming a teenager. My knowledge of the Trek “universe” would likely frighten the uninitiated. I have opinions on things that you don't want to know, like which was the "best" Enterprise.

Producers of the new Trek worked hard to lower expectations from die-hard fans before this film’s release. They noted it would be impossible to retain continuity with the original series and therefore weren’t going to bother. Instead, the film offers an “alternate time line” approach. All the adventures chronicled on the sixties television show, according to this gimmick shocking plot twist, are not to unfold in the same manner.



To make a long story short, a really pissed off Romulan mucked up the time line after an elderly Spock failed to prevent a super nova from destroying Romulus in the future. Of course, now that young Spock knows what will happen one hundred years in the future, he could work to prevent the destruction of Romulus in his old age. If successful, then the pissed off Romulan would not need to travel back in time and muck up the time line. This would then create a temporal paradox, but possibly erase the new time line and restore the first time line chronicled in the sixties t.v. show. Confused? Believe it or not, that’s considered a boilerplate narrative for the franchise.

Let’s be clear: I actually liked the new movie. While the actor playing Spock lacks Leonard Nimoy’s commanding voice (or presence), all the other actors filled the roles quite well. Watching Karl Urban mimic Deforest Kelley even bordered on the eery at times. Besides, after all of the disasters that were the Next Generation films, it was refreshing to see a Trek movie that wasn’t a total embarrassment. And yet. . .



You don’t keep coming back to CoG for sunshine and lollipops. Even though I like something, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be better. Or that I don't have a rambling blog post about it. I am inclined to criticize something I like even more than something that was simply “okay.” Just imagine what type of parent that I would be!

The biggest problem with the “updated” Trek is that it’s not very updated at all. Because Trek has become such a part of the nation’s cultural landscape, we tend to take for granted the many revolutionary innovations it ushered in when it premiered in 1967. Even in the midst of the Cold War, the Star Trek universe (occasionally) promised an end to capitalism and explicitly rejected the accumulation of wealth as a symbol of one’s social worth. It also presented a future peace for earth and an end to national borders. In the middle of the various civil rights movements in the U.S., the show offered an egalitarian future where racism was solved. The show even pledged an end to sexism – Well, sort of.



Despite the show’s credentials, its utopian ideals were obviously always filtered through the social lens of the era it was filmed. Limitations that could be partially justified in the late sixties no longer seem as dismissible in 2009.

As I have complained about in another post, Latinos only appeared as ancillary figures in the Star Trek universe. Aside from attending the convention, I will also confess to having written my own Trek fiction while in middle school. Though I haven’t thought about it in years (and those pages are thankfully lost forever), I do remember feeling the absence of Latino characters so strongly in the Original Series that I created a Latina captain in my fictional accounts. In those stories, she communicated to her crew entirely in Spanish. Given that I wasn’t actually raised in a bilingual household, it was an interesting choice on my part (and I can’t imagine what the Spanish-text even looked like. It’s funny what we internalize, isn’t it?).

Latinos aren't the only group that apparently doesn't exist in the 23rd Century. Producers of Star Trek also explicitly rejected adding any openly gay characters.

Hmm – Limited spots for Latinos and no openly gay people? The bridge of the Enterprise looks a lot like the Obama administration.

I won’t bore you with those complaints – again. This time, I want to talk more about gender in the Trek universe.

When Gene Roddenberry first filmed a pilot for the show, he did have a revolutionary idea for 1967: The second in command of the Enterprise would be a woman (known only as “Number One”). This first version of the show had Captain Christopher Pike commanding the famed ship along with the "logical" Number One as First Officer. That first episode showed Number One making life and death decisions and playing with really big guns. Alas, the network executives didn’t like the notion that an uppity woman would take over command of the ship whenever Captain Pike was in peril (They were even less pleased that Roddenberry was having an affair with Majel Barett, the actor who played “Number One”).



Thus, after a complete rewrite, Roddenberry’s ambitions for women on the show had been significantly altered. Kirk appeared as Captain and women were demoted to “more traditional roles,” such as yeomen or nurses. Instead of taking over command and making decisions for the crew, women on-board the Enterprise took the Captain’s messages and made him coffee. Majel Barett, no longer First Officer, assumed a role as Nurse Chapel who spent her days mooning over Spock and handing out aspirin.



Significantly, the show also “sexed up” the women’s uniforms. In place of Number One’s sensible turtle neck and slacks in the first pilot, women officers squeezed into ultra-mini skirts, go-go boots, and beehive hairdos. All of that, I am sure, was real practical for working in space.


Still, even with all those deletions, the show did push for an inclusive universe rarely seen on television to that point. The characters of Uhura and Sulu allowed actors-of-color to play characters that (mostly) avoided racial stereotypes. Most other representations of Asian men on television presented them as either meek flower gardeners or as treacherous (but easily defeated) villains. Lt. Sulu, in contrast, figured as an equally valued crew member.




Comparably, Nichelle Nichols portrayed Lt. Uhura, the most prominent woman on the original series (FYI: Nichols was the keynote speaker at that convention I attended – I got to ride in an elevator with her!). Uhura broke sixties-era boundaries by being a Black-woman bridge officer. Her character offered a much needed corrective to the usual assortment of maids that most African-American women had to play in sixties film and television. For once, a Black woman on television appeared to have more on her mind that scrubbing toilets, making pancakes, or ensuring that the house had a fresh pine scent.



Of course, Uhura’s role as a commanding officer was still heavily proscribed. Instead, her assignment was more-or-less presented as one of a space-receptionist who staffed an intergalactic switchboard. Uhura had little to say beyond “Hailing frequencies open.” Nichelle Nichols found the role boring and contemplated quitting the series after the first season. None other than Martin Luther King, Jr. intervened in that decision. King, who claimed to be a fan of the show, convinced Nichols to stay on board despite her limited role. He argued (apparently convincingly) that her mere presence on the bridge made an important statement about racial politics in the U.S.

Nichols stuck it out through the rest of the show, an animated series, and six films. Through it all, she always advocated for a more elaborate role for Uhura. In particular, she hoped for an opportunity for Uhura to take command of the ship (which she did in one episode of the Saturday-morning cartoon (but only after all the men on board became slaves to an all-woman planet who sought to drain them of their essence (don’t ask)).

The relaunch of the series therefore presented some significant problems to reforming a pretty dated character. Out of the eight main characters on the original series, Uhura was the only woman and one-of-two characters of color (Not even having a Mexican-born producer was apparently enough to add a Latino character to the latest film). Sadly, I have a fairly harsh assessment of Uhura’s new incarnation.

The new Uhura was given a bit more in the way of professional credentials. Rather than being somebody whose greatest accomplishment was mastering the use of a hold button, Uhura is now a skilled linguist. In the opening scenes with her, she also shows significant promise. Uhura deftly ignores the boorish Kirk, his clumsy passes, and a crude joke about blow jobs. It seemed possible that Uhura would be a significant equal of the Enterprise bridge crew. Then things kinda go off track.



Returning to the sixties model, Uhura mostly kept out of the way of the men on board, who clearly had important things to do. Her skills as a linguist were rendered moot as the Romulans jammed all the communications anyway. The difference between Uhura and one of the blinking bridge consoles thereby became minimal. She contented herself by looking pretty and flipping her long, straight hair as often as possible. While each of the men had some profound action sequence, Uhura’s major duty in life focuses on cheering Spock up. She does that task mostly by making out with him.

The implicit premise behind the egalitarian diversity of the original series was that each of the crew members was professionally respected as the best at their particular job. The new film inverted that professionalism by having Uhura be the only crewmember who has an affair with her instructor and her commanding officer, Spock. Apparently Starfleet forgot to write rules and regulations about sexual misconduct among officers (If Trek producers really wanted to push the envelope, they could have had cadet Kirk having an affair with his instructor and commanding officer, Captain Pike!).

The producers' clumsy decisions forever clouds Uhura’s representation of a professional Black woman. I am willing to not tred into the obvious stereotype of women-of-color’s bodies being always available for white men. Nonetheless, Uhura’s success on the Enterprise becomes irrevocably linked to her affair with Spock.


Indeed, the character of Spock even acknowledges this potential when Uhura complains that she was not assigned to Starfleet’s perpetual flagship, the Enterprise. It is her romantic relationship with Spock that initially sends her to another commanding officer to avoid the appearance of “favoritism,” but it is that same romantic relationship that allows her to insist that Spock return her to his command. Uhura becomes a bizarre combination of Spock’s available lover and space-mammy all rolled into one ultra-mini skirt (Which, along with knee-high boots, reappeared on the women in this Star Trek).



I don’t object to either Uhura or Spock having romantic relationships per se. Indeed, the original series suggested that Spock did have romantic entanglements while a young officer. The problem with this incarnation, though, is that Uhura becomes defined only by her relationship to Spock. In contrast, Spock’s relationship to Uhura is one of many elements of his history and character that we get to see on film. Lots of celluloid is spent charting Spock’s goals, childhood experiences, relationships with the other crew, and even his old-age shenanigans. Uhura’s needs or ambitions, meanwhile, are never explored. We are even unsure whether she wanted to be on board the Enterprise for the sake of her career or just so that she could whisper sweet nothings into Spock’s pointed ears.

Add onto that the fact that the only other woman in the film with any significance is Spock’s mother and we start to see some serious (and Freudian) problems here. After forty years, one would have hoped that Star Trek would allow more roles for women than as the mothers or lovers of the male leads. Turns out, not so much.



According to some reports, Paramount executives understood that Star Trek (and science fiction in general) has had a poor record for attracting adult women as audience members. They therefore charged the current Trek producers to solve that problem. How did they tackle this issue? Astoundingly they suggested their solution came from consulting their wives about what women wanted in a film. Yeah, ‘cuz asking your spouse over morning bagels is just as good as, you know, hiring a professional woman onto the writing/producing team. Wow, they really did master time travel and returned us all to 1967!

The new Trek makes it clear that the job of saving the universe rests exclusively with men, preferably white men. Indeed, Starfleet values white, male leadership so much that Kirk gets to skip up the ranks from Academy Cadet to Captain of his own Starship all in one go! Let me tell you, if I was on the Enterprise and had actually earned the rank of Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander, or Commander, I would push for a mutiny against the woefully unqualified “Captain” Kirk.

Unlike 1967, it is no longer revolutionary to just acknowledge the presence of people-of-color or women. They can’t be the tokens who promise future inclusion, but then step aside when the “real” decisions need to be made. This new Star Trek only sneaked around questions of gender and racial equality. In the end, it is still a “boy’s” franchise that no longer wants to think about contemporary problems of racism and sexism.

Sexism in the City

One of the constant themes of this blog is that GayProf is absolutely no fun as a movie companion. My gravitas will largely overshadow any enjoyment of a film, especially if it involves a post-viewing critique. One shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that I have some tart words for the Sex in the City film.

Let me be up front with the fact that I never actually watched the show when it was on the air. HBO wasn’t in my budget, so I missed its six-year run. It got to be so crazy popular among certain sectors of the straight-woman/gay man world, however, that I started to feel the need to feign interest in it. Even without premium cable, one couldn’t escape the show’s icons: cosmo cocktails, “Mr. Big,” and glossy scenes that are more about showing pretty, pretty dresses than actual plot or character development.

So when some gay friends suggested that we see the film this past weekend, I agreed. Heck, it was better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Actually, having a catheter inserted would be better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom.

For those (like me) who only had a vague sense of its composition, Sex and the City centered on four thirty-something (four forty-somethings in the film) white, straight women, each with their own personality quirks, seeking love and romance in New York.

I understand (or at least think that I understand) the appeal of the show/film for its target audiences of straight women/gay men. First and foremost, it is escapist fluff. The show/film is a consumer fantasy where money falls from the sky, fashion is everything, and the most complicated problem in your life is how to have a three-way without the nanny hearing or smudging your makeup. Given the crippling economic depression that is appearing in this nation, I am not surprised that many people want vicarious, carefree adventures involving the wealthy.

Like most HBO productions, it also relied on sexual titillation (heavy on the “tit”), but without the creepy violence of Oz. The show’s title was not a shy reference nor did it depend on mere sexual innuendo. From what I understand, many of the episodes would have made Helen Gurley Brown blush.

Sex and capitalism, despite what Fox executives might think, aren’t enough to make a show a hit (even in the U.S). So, why did so many women viewers become cult followers of Carrie, et al’s fictional love lives?



Unlike most representations of single women on television to that point, these women characters had active sex lives that they enjoyed without apology. Against gender stereotypes, the show said that women could be just as sexually adventurous, daring, and even raunchy as men (The show was often written by gay men – which is something for somebody else to explore).

It also showed a type of sisterly bond among the protagonists that had been one of the lost promises of second-wave feminism. They created their own support networks that were outside the scope of the men in their lives. Every week (day?), they met over drinks to discuss their latest romps or heartbreaks and shared their lives. It’s small wonder, therefore, that the show filled a much desired gap for its viewer ship. Many women were probably tired of characters like Ally McBeal, who seemingly only wanted to have sex and a relationship as means to end her spinsterhood and finally have a baby.

That’s all to the good, I suppose. Still, the Sex-in-the-City franchise is a poor substitute for actual sexual liberation or gender equality. The film more often reenforced the gender and sexual (and racial) status quo than challenged it (and I can only really talk about the film since, despite that exposition, I have never really seen the show (and I am willing to concede that the show might be substantively different than the film (but that would require me watching the six seasons of it, which I don’t want to do after watching the film))). I know, there will be immediate naysayers and scoffers. Heck, one of my film companions complained that “GayProf just didn’t get it.” A true statement.

Why didn’t I “get it?” Well, firstly there were the huge racist presumptions that went into the film. For a more careful reading, see Diary of an Anxious Black Woman (found via HistoriAnn). She succinctly explains the “Mammy 2.0" that appears midway through the film as “Louise,” Carrie’s assistant/wet nurse. That alone made my flesh crawl in the film. I am tired of the mainstream media serving up the same-old racist shit and having to pretend like it isn’t that big of a deal.



Before going to the big screen, the producers of Sex in the City recognized that their show had long been criticized for its lack of racial diversity (despite being set in one of the most diverse cities on the planet). One can imagine that somewhere in a board meeting, a [white] writer proposed the character of Louise as a solution to this quandary. “We need a woman of color to shut them up,” the producer exclaimed, “What do women of color like to do?” “Don’t they like to serve white people?” this writer offered, “At least until they get married and have babies?” “That’s brilliant! Write it up.”

My other major problem with this film is the way that it conformed to narrow views of sexuality, relationships, and marriage. Maybe I am jaded (What am I saying? “Maybe????”), but we don’t need another candy-coated celebration of heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

The heterosexual bit came in the total absence of lesbian characters (despite one of the main actors being a real-life lesbian) and the only cursory inclusion of gay men. If Louise was Mammy 2.0, then white gay men were Mammy 3.0. [white] Gay men existed flatly in this film to happily serve straight women in planning their wedding, giving advice, and offering snappy fashion quips. In an opening scene, they also offered a passing joke/titillation (low on the “tit.”). For a show written by gay men, it’s pretty homophobic.

More than that, though, the film played into some durable, sexist assumptions about heterosexual relationships. At its core, the film argued that, even when they are wrong, straight men are always right.

If we eliminated the fashion shows and extended shots of footwear, the film’s plot centered on three of the main characters facing problems in their relationships. Carrie wants to marry “Mr. Big;” Miranda discovers that her husband had a one-night stand; and Samantha feels unfulfilled in her monogamous prison relationship.

Let’s start with the last. On the surface, Samantha should be the critique of monogamy and traditional conceptions of marriage. Indeed, her character unmasks the tedium that is associated with monogamy (which she compares to chemotherapy). She faces daily temptation from a hot Los-Angeles neighbor, whose shower is apparently located outdoors. Ultimately, Samantha realizes that monogamy is not for her.



Potentially that decision could have been a bold statement in the film. Its execution, however, suggests otherwise. Samantha does not renegotiate her relationship with her current partner to something more open (Sex is sex, love is love -- Relationships don't have to be based on society's expectations of monogamy). That is ruled out even before it's mentioned. In Sex in the City, relationships are apparently all or nothing.

Instead, Samantha packs her bags and heads back to New York. We are never shown that she has a better life single and non-monogamous (or non-single and non-monogamous). We don’t even know if she lost all her frustration-weight! In the end, she is alone with her girlfriends celebrating her fiftieth birthday.

If Samantha’s resolution is, at best, ambiguous, the other dilemmas are much more clear cut. We are led to believe that it is entirely Miranda’s “fault” that her husband cheated on her. After all, she cared much more about her career and her child than satisfying him sexually. Plus, she stopped waxing her vagina! What was Miranda expecting? Even the best man is going to cheat under those circumstances.

The film never offered that the problem is bigger than Miranda or her slutty husband (who was presented as a saint). Maybe the problem is the expectation of monogamy? Maybe the problem is the way that marriage, in our society, presumes that one person belongs to another?

Nope, says Sex in the City, the problem is frigid, career-oriented women. These poor, delusional women think they can do it all: marriage, job, children. They are really nuts and selfish. Sadly, it’s their innocent men who suffer because of them.

After Miranda goes to therapy (not to deal with the obvious betrayal, but instead to figure out why she is so wrong in not forgiving her cheating dog of a husband), she reveals that she is afraid that she will be left by him. Being alone is a fate worse than death in Sex in the City. What is a woman without her man? Nothing -- That's what. Their reunion on the Brooklyn Bridge is the triumph of the heterosexual family.



Finally, Carrie’s storyline is all about conforming to gender expectations. Carrie and “Mr. Big” decide to get married early in the movie (maybe around the third catwalk of dresses). Mr. Big buys Carrie her dream apartment, complete with a walk-in closet bigger than my studio in Boston.

Carrie, though, has at least heard the word “feminism.” She begins to wonder if she would have any legal recourse should Mr. Big dump her and take away that fabulous prewar abode. They both come to the legalistic conclusion that marriage is really about property. So far, so good as far as GayProf is concerned.

Then things kinda go off track. Carrie starts trying on wedding dresses, hires a gay wedding planner (Mammy 3.0), and poses for Vogue magazine. Before you know it, her wedding plans make Princess Di’s look like the christening of a Greyhound bus. All the pomp and circumstance results in Mr. Big standing her up at the altar.

For the next hour and a half, we watch as Carrie puts her life back together (thanks, in part, to Mammy 2.0). When she finally is independent, however, Carrie returns to the house that Mr. Big built and realizes that she was the one who was truly in the wrong. Sure, he jilted her – but he was forced to do so by her greedy self-interest. Had she just recognized what a good provider he was, Mr. Big would never have left her.

While I am definitely on-board with the film’s message that people are spending too much on their wedding(s), I am not at all on-board with the film’s message that marriage is a necessity (unless you want to end up fat and alone like Samantha). I would have been much more satisfied if the film argued that sex and love don’t require a binding contract.



Sex and the City pulled off a neat masquerade. Nice clothes and great hair cloaked a retrograde message that happy relationships necessarily require women’s sublimation.

Enough Minorities, Minority Enough (Part II)

One of the things about being a minority faculty member that is not discussed a great deal is the amount of isolation that one experiences. Most scholars are usually at the whim of the job market when it comes to deciding where to live in the U.S. (or even earlier when they are at the whim of which university admits them to graduate school).

Because universities, particularly those in small towns, are often segregated from communities of color, becoming a professor frequently involves leaving the community where one grows up. Moreover, one’s audience in the academic world is most often composed of a white majority.

As I mentioned previously, humanities departments tend to use minority-research positions as the only means to build diversity. It is not at all unusual, therefore, that a Latino/a Studies scholar will also be the only Latino/a in the department (likewise for Afro-Am). In some small liberal arts colleges, that might even be the only one in the whole college division – or even the only person of color. An implicit (and sometimes explicit) expectation of these scholars is that they will work to make the few minority students on these campuses feel less isolated by becoming a universal mentor.

It is small wonder that so many minority scholars often report feeling exhausted and over-extended. I don’t think that it is an exaggeration to say that I did quadruple the number of campus talks that my colleagues did at my former Texas institution. It was almost always Latino or queer student groups that asked me to be part of their programming. Part of the reason that I got roped into this was because I have hard time saying “no” to anybody (Just ask my last few dates). Another major part, though, was that I felt a personal and political commitment to work with students who were trying to change the atmosphere on the campus. In a non-white majority state, it was shocking that minority students represented less than ten percent of that Texas institution’s student body.

Being the “only” (or at least the only willing to work with students (more on that in another post)) puts faculty in difficult spots. They are doing a solid amount of work by being engaged with students, but it is work that will not be valued for tenure and promotion at most research universities. It also makes fuzzy the line between an individual’s identity and their scholarly research.

Yet, faculty of color are frequently expected to become the central reference for every issue facing people of their same identity. Most people, who are secure in their own sense of identity and politics, try to take advantage of that powerful position to create change or support others pursuing change. If one isn’t careful, though, it can also really twist you psychologically.

I have seen some Latino/a colleagues become warped as they try meet other people’s expectations about Latinos. In their efforts to conform to the identity that is projected onto them, they contort themselves into a “Super Latino.” They lose sight of their research and simply become the "campus Latino," a ready-made spokesperson who exists only to give "the Latino point of view" to anybody who asks. One problem with this is that they often lose track of the fact that no individual could ever fulfill that role. There has never been a singular "Latino point of view." The Latino/a community is filled with contradictions and wide ranging experiences. These "Super Latinos," however, discount their own experiences that shows this to be true and become a self-proclaimed embodiment of the community.

In many ways, they are the academic version of the singing mariachis in the Taco Bell commercial (God, why? Why?? Please, no more.). They serve Anglos what they expect to see and are rewarded by being to asked to perform for them (Though they haven't yet mastered the talent of making the sound of a cracking whip with their wink). One can always find these individuals at conferences, roaming about in their size-six huaraches, with beans almost literally falling out of their pockets. They are rarely presenting their research, but are ready to critique everybody else's.



These same individuals attempt to enforce those standards of “Latinoness” onto their colleagues and (especially) their grad students. Because their career has devolved to merely being a projection of Latinoness, it is in their best interest to ensure that their version of Latinoness is validated. Some time ago, one Latino grad student shared a story with me about meeting a Latina professor at another university. When he demurred from claiming to be a modern “Aztec warrior” (Who knew people were still pushing that?), she questioned whether he was really committed to social justice or even Latino scholarship.

In my own case, I have certainly encountered a few Latino/a scholars who expected me to be apologetic or embarrassed for not having been raised in a bilingual household. Since my mother was Irish American, there was no Spanish language for her to pass on to us. My father’s parents succumbed to institutional pressures in New Mexico that demanded that they not pass on Spanish to their children. The U.S. then, as now, wrongly imagined being bilingual as a hindrance. Indeed, Latino/a children of my father’s generation were punished in New Mexico’s public schools for speaking Spanish (N.B. to America: being monolingual does not keep the U.S. unified as a nation. It’s just leaving us isolated and backward). My father, as a result, had only marginal Spanish skills to pass along to his own children.

When faced with this critique about childhood, I am not sure what people expecting me to do. Am I supposed to build a time machine, travel back to the time before World War II, and convince my grandparents to make another decision in my father’s upbringing? If I had that power, why not simply stop the United States’ 1846 invasion of New Mexico in the first place?

Obviously, knowledge of Spanish is critically important for my research on Latino/as in the U.S. I have had to learn it, though, in the same ways that non-Latinos have to learn it. It is also a struggle at times as I seem to have no natural aptitude for languages (We won’t even discuss my disastrous flirtation with Russian). I think of not being raised bilingual in much the same way as I think about having been circumcised. It wasn't really my choice or preference, but you've got work with what you got. No use in crying over things that are impossible to undo.

I am not apologetic about things that were beyond my control. Nor am I willing to concede that it somehow lessens my own sense of Latino/a identity. Indeed, the loss of Spanish fluency has been part of many Latino/as’ experiences in this nation. To paraphrase an old joke from Cheech Marin (who grew up speaking mostly English himself), Chicanos are Mexicans who get “B’s” in Spanish class.



My grandparents, like many Latino families, were promised that if they adopted English-only their children would not face discrimination in the U.S. It turns out that was a lie. My father faced numerous incidents of racism and, alas, he had only one language with which to curse about it. My grandfather frequently expressed his regret about and mourned his children's lack of Spanish skills. All of that was a "Latino" experience (but not the only Latino experience).

Latino/a and other scholars are frequently forced to conform to the expectations of their white colleagues about their identity. It is therefore disheartening when we see Latino/as imposing their own definitions of their identity onto one another. This only serves to contain and reduce Latino/a experiences and ignores the greater diversity of own community. It lessens our ability to understand the complexity of Latino/a responses and strategies for finding a place in the U.S.

Enough Minorities, Minority Enough? (Part I)

Oso Raro recently had a post on teaching, experience, and racial identities in the academic world. This, along with my own entry on diversity in hiring, had me thinking about the role(s) of minority faculty who teach on race in the U.S.

Since arriving at Big Midwestern University, several Latino/a graduate students have stopped by my office to talk about their futures in the academic world. While they still have a long way to go before they become professors, they expressed an ambivalence about their expected place at universities and colleges. Many of their peers and some professors don’t view their academic pursuits in the same way as other students studying [white] topics. Although they are working just as hard (if not harder) than their colleagues, many people assume that their knowledge and ideas about Latino/a Studies are “naturally” derived from their racial identity and experiences. They have felt a pressure to enact other people's assumptions about Latino/a identity even as their intellectual creativity has been ignored. They are called upon to be the living embodiment of Latino/a oppression so that others can know.

I wish that I had some solid advice for these students. Alas, though, their estimation about minorities in the academic world is fairly accurate. My experience at my former Texas institution demonstrated the disinterest (and even hostility) that still exists for minority scholars/scholarship within certain academic enclaves. During a department meeting, the classes that I and others (Others?) taught on race and gender were dismissed by one memorable colleague as “boutique classes” that distracted from the “real” [read: white, straight, male] history of the nation. For him and his friends, such classes were a frivolous waste of precious classroom space. Our presence in the university was a product of wrong-headed affirmative action programs and political correctness run amok. Another colleague made this explicit by saying to me that hiring in Latino studies was "just an excuse to add more brown faces to the department."



Such talk left me wondering how those Texas colleagues fantasized about me. Stereotypes about my perceived racial identity must have intermingled with equal stereotypes about my sexual orientation in their daydreams about my classroom. By the way they discussed my classes on sex and race, I figured that they imagined that most of my time at the lectern was spent in drag, wearing a long billowy skirt, whirling in a circle while I played the castanets. Then, after I finished with the ritual dance of my people (gay or Latino (take your pick)), we all ate tacos together and drank tequila. While I might actually enjoy that type of class, it’s not really how I choose to teach – most days.

African Americans, Latino/as, and Asian Americans in the humanities often have to walk a complicated tightrope between expectations about their racial identity and their academic scholarship. Many (Most? All?) departments depend upon positions focused on minority scholarship as the major (only?) method to increase the racial diversity of the faculty. Minority scholars are therefore viewed with suspicion if they are seen as not sufficiently “academic” enough and “distanced” from their subject matter. If minority faculty advocate for increasing the role of Latino/a Studies or African-American Studies, they are seen as “pushing an agenda” or simply wanting to hire their friends. The intellectual value that comes from a more diverse faculty is not seriously considered (much less the need to reinvent the way that we all teach U.S. history at the university level).



Yet, minority scholars are caught by equal pressure from the other side. At times, minority scholars have to prove that they have as “authentic” a racial identity as the people that they study. Certain white faculty position themselves as the arbiters of that authenticity. Since joining the academic world, I have been astounded at the number of white faculty (most of whom considered themselves “liberal”) who were willing to pass judgment on whether certain African American colleagues had “legitimate” claim to hip-hop styles based on their perceived economic class. With tremendous authority (but almost no knowledge), they felt certain that they could tell which of their colleagues had known “real” struggle and which had not. Likewise, I have heard other colleagues try to determine if certain Latino/as were sufficiently invested in a metaphorical salsa (either the dance or the food). Did the Latino/a faculty add enough zesty spices to the academic pot to warrant their continued employment?



From my own experience, I have numerous stories about my expected/ perceived/ desired racial identity being drawn into my professional position(s). The loveliest of my former Texas colleagues, for instance, accused me of being too identified with Latino/a students during my first year evaluation. They alleged that I catered to Latino/as and didn’t care enough about Anglo students.

For the record, not a single colleague ever came to observe my classes first-hand or ever spoke with any of my students in my entire time in Texas. In other words, they had no real evidence that Latino/as were getting better service in my classes. That didn’t matter. It sounded plausible enough that a Latino historian probably favored his Latino/a students that it made it into my official tenure file as something that I needed to work on (!).

Perhaps they felt threatened because they imagined that my classes were about “insider” knowledge to which they could never be apart. If I was teaching Latino/a History and receiving positive student evaluations for it, they reasoned, I must have been secretly conspiring with my race. It was surely a plot to take Anglo jobs and (possibly) replant their gardens (Also for the record, my classes on Latino/a History have never been filled with exclusively Latino/a students).



That wouldn’t be the only incident in my fledgling academic career. In other moments, some of my colleagues have questioned whether I am Latino enough given my mixed ancestry (Note to new readers: My father was Mex Amer and my mother was Irish Amer). My entire life in New Mexico, this was never raised as an issue by the Latinos who surrounded me (like, you know, half my family). Some white faculty, however, want to be sure that they got the “real deal.” Being “mixed” is suspect to them. It seems the power of whiteness grants them the unquestioned ability to decide the appropriate measure of everybody else’s racial performance. This is ironic given that Mexican identity has historically been imagined as mestizo.

These types of identity concerns would not be expressed to a scholar working on medieval Italian history. Nobody wonders if they are catering to students who are of Southern European extraction. Nor are they asked if they are “medieval enough.” It might be more interesting if we did hold them up to that type of criteria. Not wearing a hair shirt? Do you like to take baths? Have you never suffered from the plague? Clearly you aren’t a fully legitimate medieval scholar.

What is astounding about all of this is that it has nothing to do with our actual jobs. It is obvious (or should be) that identifying as Latino/a does not mean that one is ready to step into a classroom and instantly start teaching Latino/a history. It takes years of studying, reading, and thinking. True, being identified as Latino/a might predispose somebody to take up that challenge because of their experiences in our society. One’s experiences might also give one a political and intellectual perspective in writing that history. That, though, is hardly the end of the story.