Who is the Other? Analyzing bell hook’s reading through the San Pedro society .
Gloria Watkins aka bell hooks, was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952. After studying her B.A. from Stanford University in 1973, her M.A. in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin and her Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, she became a distinguished professor of English at City College in New York. hooks is mainly know as a feminist thinker and describe herself as a “black intellectual, revolutionary activist.” She explains that her pseudonym, is about ego; “What’s in a name? The substance in my books not who is writing them that’s important.” Her works cover a wide variety of topics on gender, race, teaching and the importance of media for contemporary culture. In her writings, she explicates that these topics are interconnected. The purpose of this essay is to analyze her work “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” through my personal perspective as a Mexican female graduate student in New York.
San Pedro is located in the state of Nuevo Leon on the northeastern part of Mexico. Many of their inhabitants call it “the bubble” because most of them never go out of it and not many people are socially accepted. They all grew up in a similar way, attending to the same schools, traveling to the same places, shopping in the same stores and cutting our hair with the same stylist. There is certain uniformity about “San Petrinos” and you can tell by specific codes they follow; girls have to be slim and blonde, boys have to play golf or tennis, girls study psychology or education and boys study law, medicine or business administration, they all attend to the country club and to the social club, they dress with name brands. Even though they are all Mexican, none of them look like the “typical” Mexican indian with dark skin, black thick hair and short legs. Almost everybody is fair skinned and has light brown hair, blond hair or fine black hair contrasting with colored eyes. The only ethnicity you can see in San Pedro is within the servitude which comes from small towns of the south of Mexico. They are not treated as equal, and the racial difference is strongly marked. In this case, I don’t agree with bell hooks when she says that “ there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference.” (424) because in my town, there is no such thing. “The commodification of Otherness” is not successful here, and the ways of the Mexican indian do not “become a spice” to our small mainstream white culture. Indeed, it is well known that indians, being more primitive, satisfy their sexual needs earlier -in life- and they are myths about indian women’s special power to sexually satisfy men.
Nevertheless, if we were to compare contemporary working-class British slang when they describe a sexual encounter with the Other as getting “a bit of the Other” or “Fucking the Other”(425) denoting coerciveness and domination, there is a popular Mexican expression that means the same thing; “Chingar”. This expression started to circulate in Mexico during the Spanish Colonization. A well known beautiful indian woman, called Malinche, betrayed her race by becoming the spanish conqueror’s lover and telling him the secrets of Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor. We as Mexican became sons of the Malinche, who was “Chingada” by the spaniards. She was under their control and command subject to their power. That is why, many of us reject our origins and any connection with our ethnic races, because the shame of our ancestors never washed away.
In addition, people of San Pedro are open to the Other, when he or she comes from Europe or some cosmopolitan city of the United States. Depending on their socioeconomic background, they are accepted and mystified as if they possessed more experience and enjoyed life -and sex- in a better way. I recall the days when I used to study at The American School. This school was created for the offspring of foreign investors and employees that moved to the city, but they conformed only 15% of every class. If a Mexican American joined the group, he would have difficulties fitting in because Chicano otherness is not well seen here. On the other hand, if a good looking American German girl would enter this school, the popular crowd would make all their efforts to make her hang out with them, because she would attract other “good looking” people. After I graduated from high school, I noticed that only certain foreigners would be accepted in our social circles. Artists, investors, prestigious lawyers and bohemian bourgeois that had money to spend and good looks. Stereotypes were always around and many of them were supposedly proven as people of San Pedro “adventured” to have a sexual encounter with one of these foreigners. If she was French, she was a stench filled sex bomb, if she was American she was adventurous, fast and floozy, if he was Spanish, he was passionate and sexy and so on. This proves that maybe, people in San Pedro felt as members of dominating races because in Mexico they are, in a financial way. Therefore, hook’s comment stating that “members of dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over intimate relations with the Other.” could apply to people in San Pedro if the Other is a European or American.
Still, in the San Pedro case it is important to say that it is not a matter of blacks having more life and sexual experience than whites. It is a matter of Mexicans having less experience than Europeans and Americans. For a Mexican young adults from San Pedro, going to South Padre Island, TX or Cancun during Spring Break is a ritual. They make bets to see who “fucks” more American girls. This is not to gain power over them, but to gain experience and become better lovers. hooks explains this phenomenon by saying that “ the exploration into the world of difference, into the body of the Other, will provide a greater, more intense pleasure than any that exists in the ordinary world of one’s familiar racial group.” (427)
Putting pleasure aside, and talking about crises of identity in the west, people of San Pedro are going through something different. They want to embrace the world, to be cosmopolitan to share their latin warmth and experience, but they are in no crisis. They have no need for spice.
In the end, Who is the Other? I could assume that I am the Other when I am living in New York, because I am not American and all that has to do with me and my personality denotes certain latin warmth and Mexican traditions. In addition, I am part of an international student population, which is something that every prestigious university looks for to offer as a plus to their American students and instructors. A different point of view, a different culture and in the end a little of spice. On the other side, when I am in San Pedro, anyone who is not from there and comes to visit or stay, is the Other because he/she will stand out until he/she becomes part of the “San Petrino” status quo.
WORKS CITED
bell hooks, “Eating the other: Desire and Resistance” reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, Eds., Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works (New York : Blackwell, 2001): 424-438.
Provenzo, Jr., Eugene. bell hooks; Contemporary Educational Thought; Department of Teaching and Learning, School of Education of University of Miami; accessed on Dec 17, 2004; http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/contemporaryed/Bell_Hooks/bell_hooks.html
San Pedro is located in the state of Nuevo Leon on the northeastern part of Mexico. Many of their inhabitants call it “the bubble” because most of them never go out of it and not many people are socially accepted. They all grew up in a similar way, attending to the same schools, traveling to the same places, shopping in the same stores and cutting our hair with the same stylist. There is certain uniformity about “San Petrinos” and you can tell by specific codes they follow; girls have to be slim and blonde, boys have to play golf or tennis, girls study psychology or education and boys study law, medicine or business administration, they all attend to the country club and to the social club, they dress with name brands. Even though they are all Mexican, none of them look like the “typical” Mexican indian with dark skin, black thick hair and short legs. Almost everybody is fair skinned and has light brown hair, blond hair or fine black hair contrasting with colored eyes. The only ethnicity you can see in San Pedro is within the servitude which comes from small towns of the south of Mexico. They are not treated as equal, and the racial difference is strongly marked. In this case, I don’t agree with bell hooks when she says that “ there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference.” (424) because in my town, there is no such thing. “The commodification of Otherness” is not successful here, and the ways of the Mexican indian do not “become a spice” to our small mainstream white culture. Indeed, it is well known that indians, being more primitive, satisfy their sexual needs earlier -in life- and they are myths about indian women’s special power to sexually satisfy men.
Nevertheless, if we were to compare contemporary working-class British slang when they describe a sexual encounter with the Other as getting “a bit of the Other” or “Fucking the Other”(425) denoting coerciveness and domination, there is a popular Mexican expression that means the same thing; “Chingar”. This expression started to circulate in Mexico during the Spanish Colonization. A well known beautiful indian woman, called Malinche, betrayed her race by becoming the spanish conqueror’s lover and telling him the secrets of Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor. We as Mexican became sons of the Malinche, who was “Chingada” by the spaniards. She was under their control and command subject to their power. That is why, many of us reject our origins and any connection with our ethnic races, because the shame of our ancestors never washed away.
In addition, people of San Pedro are open to the Other, when he or she comes from Europe or some cosmopolitan city of the United States. Depending on their socioeconomic background, they are accepted and mystified as if they possessed more experience and enjoyed life -and sex- in a better way. I recall the days when I used to study at The American School. This school was created for the offspring of foreign investors and employees that moved to the city, but they conformed only 15% of every class. If a Mexican American joined the group, he would have difficulties fitting in because Chicano otherness is not well seen here. On the other hand, if a good looking American German girl would enter this school, the popular crowd would make all their efforts to make her hang out with them, because she would attract other “good looking” people. After I graduated from high school, I noticed that only certain foreigners would be accepted in our social circles. Artists, investors, prestigious lawyers and bohemian bourgeois that had money to spend and good looks. Stereotypes were always around and many of them were supposedly proven as people of San Pedro “adventured” to have a sexual encounter with one of these foreigners. If she was French, she was a stench filled sex bomb, if she was American she was adventurous, fast and floozy, if he was Spanish, he was passionate and sexy and so on. This proves that maybe, people in San Pedro felt as members of dominating races because in Mexico they are, in a financial way. Therefore, hook’s comment stating that “members of dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over intimate relations with the Other.” could apply to people in San Pedro if the Other is a European or American.
Still, in the San Pedro case it is important to say that it is not a matter of blacks having more life and sexual experience than whites. It is a matter of Mexicans having less experience than Europeans and Americans. For a Mexican young adults from San Pedro, going to South Padre Island, TX or Cancun during Spring Break is a ritual. They make bets to see who “fucks” more American girls. This is not to gain power over them, but to gain experience and become better lovers. hooks explains this phenomenon by saying that “ the exploration into the world of difference, into the body of the Other, will provide a greater, more intense pleasure than any that exists in the ordinary world of one’s familiar racial group.” (427)
Putting pleasure aside, and talking about crises of identity in the west, people of San Pedro are going through something different. They want to embrace the world, to be cosmopolitan to share their latin warmth and experience, but they are in no crisis. They have no need for spice.
In the end, Who is the Other? I could assume that I am the Other when I am living in New York, because I am not American and all that has to do with me and my personality denotes certain latin warmth and Mexican traditions. In addition, I am part of an international student population, which is something that every prestigious university looks for to offer as a plus to their American students and instructors. A different point of view, a different culture and in the end a little of spice. On the other side, when I am in San Pedro, anyone who is not from there and comes to visit or stay, is the Other because he/she will stand out until he/she becomes part of the “San Petrino” status quo.
WORKS CITED
bell hooks, “Eating the other: Desire and Resistance” reprinted in Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, Eds., Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works (New York : Blackwell, 2001): 424-438.
Provenzo, Jr., Eugene. bell hooks; Contemporary Educational Thought; Department of Teaching and Learning, School of Education of University of Miami; accessed on Dec 17, 2004; http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/contemporaryed/Bell_Hooks/bell_hooks.html
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