Intertexts

R e v i e w s Baugh, Scott L., ed. Mediating Chicana/o Culture; Multicultural American Vernacular. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. xxvi +189 pp. The work of mediation functions on multiple levels in this collection of essays. Taken as awhole, the book surveys abroad spectrum of media Chicanas/os have used as means of cultural resistance, expression, and survival, including graffiti, film, novels, and poetry—even food and soccer are examined as forms of cultural resistance. The collection accounts both for the diversity of Chicanos/as’ methods of expressing and formulating identity and for new means available in the twenty- first century, such as film posted on the Internet. Editor and contributing author ScottBaughassertsthat,“Withcriticaleyesonarelativelywideandunconven¬ tional array of cultural topics, the chapters in this collection examine and interro¬ gate the underlying tensions between personal expressions and public demonstrations in their on-going formulations and negotiations, their media¬ tions, of Chicana and Chicano identities as part of acontemporaryAmerican multicultural vernacular” (xi). Indeed the “array of cultural topics” surveyed is a critical part of what makes this collection avaluable contribution to studies of Chicana/oidentityformation.Bysubjectingunconventionaltopics,suchassoc¬ cer and food, to critical examination, the collection’s authors enter these topics into serious intellectual discourse and provide scholars and students of Chicana/o culturewithamoreexpansivewayofthinkingaboutChicana/oidentity. Severaloftheessays’authorsnotethat,throughtheirownwritingandanaly¬ sis,theyaimtoextendthemediatingfunctionoftheirsubjects.Atthesametime, Baughiscarefultonotethatthecollectiondoesnotoffersimpleanswerstothe complexissuessurroundingChicana/oidentity,asitisshapedbythevariedlega¬ ciesofcolonizationorwhathereferstoas“potentiallyneo-colonizingfactors associated with late-capitalist ‘postmodern’American multiculturalism” (xv). Baughandtheotherauthorsexplicidyandimplicidycouchtheirprojectin colonial/postcolonialtheoreticalperspectivesthatemphasizetheheterogeneous, liminal,andchangingnatureofChicana/oexperience.Baughinvokeswhathe "revolutionarymethodologies,”includingthoseoudinedbyChelaSan¬ doval, GloriaAnzaldiia, and Emma Perez, who have written (respectively) about Chicanas/os’needtocraftever-changingstrategiesofsurvivaltoaccommodate the shifting landscapes of their lives, the borderlands existence of the Chicana/o people within the United States, and the ways Chicanas/os’ voices and resistance can be located in the margins of dominant discourse (xiii). These theoretical per¬ spectives are repeatedly referenced throughout the collection. t e r m s Intertexts, Vol. 12, No. 1-2 2008 ©Texas Tech Universit)’ Press I N T E R T E X T S 1 6 8 Like Emma Perez, who aims to uncover Chicana/o experience and resistance in the margins of history, the contributors to this collection aim to call attention to experiences and modes of expression overlooked in mainstream ethnographic studies, such as Chicana life writings, votives left at sacred sites by Mexican migrants, and decorated cloths produced by Chicano prison inmates. Baugh characterizes this thread of the book as an eff'ort to “reappropriate avernacular that decolonizes” the legacy of Chicana/o history in the Americas (xi). By allow¬ ing the vernacular—that which has been deemed comparatively lesser than, while still associated with, the voices of the conquerors—to be heard, the classic power dynamic between colonizer and colonized can be upended. To borrow from Gyatri Spivak, the subaltern (here Chicanas/os) may be allowed to speak. The book is divided into two sections: (1) Discursive Bodies, Bodily Dis¬ courses; and (2) Public Testimonials, Honorable Demonstrations. However, as Baugh rightly notes, this organizational feature should not be taken as an asser¬ tion that there is asimple continuum from private to public expression. Indeed, as certain essays in both sections illustrate, the division between public and private is often one of the thorny aspects of the effort to express and formulate identity. In essay that clearly benefits from more than adecade of research, presentation, andrevision,VictorA.Sorellarguesthattattoosandpanos(handkerchiefsand other cloths that Chicano iiunates use as canvases for artistic expression) serve in thewaythatbuildingwallsdidformanyinthebarrio.AccordingtoSorell,murals functionedassitesfordiscursiveexchange”(5).Sotoodotattoosandpanos,thus providing an analogous means of processing the transition to prison. Only, as Sorellnotes,thesizeofthecanvas,likethesizeofthepintos'(Chicanoprisoners’) livingquarters,hasshrunk.Althoughamuralisclearlyapublicmeansofexpres¬ sionandpmfoartismorepersonal,thesenseofcontinuitytheyprovideforpintos blurssimplelinesbetweenpublicandprivateidentityandexpression. Intentional negotiations of the private and the public, as Carole Counihan illustratesinFoodasMediatingVoiceandOppositionalConsciousnessforChicanasinColorado ’sSanLuisValley^canbeameansofempowerment.Helen Ruybal, Counihan explains, pursued acareer outside the home and only agreed to marryafterfindingapotentialspousewhowouldsupporthercareer.Byselling food outside the home, Ruybal extended domestic productivity into the public sphere and attached aspecific monetary value to the food consumed in the home. CounihamthusassertsthatwomencandevelopwhatChelaSandovalterms“dif¬ ferential consciousness”—which Counihan defines a n the ability to think differ¬ ent things and use different strategies in different times and places in ways that resist domination”—“in their relationship to food, as Ruybal did, by challenging the dichotomy...