Ewa Antoszek
The City as a Place of Dialogue,
Negotiation and Struggle in Terri de
la Peña and Mona Ruiz
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature 2930, 236-247
29/30, 2006, h t t p ://w w w .l s m l l .u m c s .l u b l i n . p l
Ewa Antoszek
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University,
Lublin, Poland
The City as a Place of Dialogue, Negotiation and
Struggle in Terri de la Peña and Mona Ruiz
A s R ichard Lehan notices talking about m odern m etropolis, “w e have seen that the history o f the city contains w ithin it the history o f w e ste rn civilization. O riginally the city provided a w ay o f organizing a com m unity in relation to the land (...) [as] the early cities took their being from the agrarian com m unities that preceded th em ” (Lehan 1998:285). A longside the changing functions o f the city its structure has undergone subsequent m odifications. Terri de la Peña and M ona R uiz discuss contem porary m etropolis and city respectively. T he city in their w orks functions both on literal and m etaphorical planes and they try to analyze w hether m egalopolis as an im ported concept of w e ste rn civilization can becom e a place o f interaction betw een the two cultures.
In spite o f dare predictions m ade by such urban com m entators as Paul Hawken, John Naisbitt, or A lvin Toffler, that w ith technological developm ents, such as telecom m unications, or the Internet the city w ill be w eakened, it still exists and, as Lehan m aintains, “the m odern city is the w o rld ’s dom inant social structu re” (Lehan 1998:287). He also distinguishes tw o city form s in the W estern w orld - E uropean
one “w ith rem nants o f the m edieval city still at the center and industry at the m arg in s” and A m erican m odel o f a doughnut w ith “energy m oving to the spraw ling m argins and su bu rb s” due to the fact that the center o f the city used to be a location of industry (Lehan 1998:287).
Tim othy J. G ilfoyle conducts a through analysis o f A m erican urban history together w ith the disputes concerning the city and the m odels o f its developm ent. H e em phasizes the diversity o f approaches that urban historians adopt w hile analyzing the A m erican m etropolis. A ccording to him the choice o f theory adopted for the exam ination of the city shifts the focus o f a definition and highlights different concepts1 and therefore, it verges on the im possible to provide one general definition describing an urban form o f different cities. U rban grow th “defies easy g eneralizatio n” (Gilfoyle 2001:16) due to “significant reinterpretations o f the A m erican m etropolis during the past two d ecades” (Gilfoyle 2001:26) and, therefore, in order to describe A m erican m etropolises “the plurality o f m odels grounded in distinctive urban conditions” is necessary.
H ow ever, S usan C larke endeavors to enum erate the “trends shaping the landscape o f A m erican cities at the end o f the tw entieth century” (Clarke 2001:240). Putting forw ard six m ajor trends2 she highlights the evolving m ulti-ethnic m osaic in A m erican cities. A ccording to her, “m ulti-ethnic politics have long been distinctive aspects o f U S political and social history, [b u t] in recent years m any cities have had to deal w ith levels o f ethnic and racial diversity com parable to those experienced at the turn o f the century” (Clarke 2001:241). T his “irreversible dem ographic change” (Davis 1999:341) is going to play a significant role in the direction o f the changes happening in A m erican cities.
1 e.g. the historians studying social history of city centers and relying on gender theory “have found male working-class identities defined by neighborhood networks, street gangs, and saloons” (Gilfoyle 2001:16)
2 such as “the declining significance of race, the evolving multi-cultural fabric of American society, the shifting grounds for multi-ethnic political coalitions, the rise of the new segregation, the spread of culture wars, and the resurgence of millennial prophecies about our urban future” (Clarke 2001:239)
T he transform ations A m erican cities have been undergoing are not only reflected in statistics and in social studies but they have also been chronicled in literary w orks and “as the physical city evolved, so did the w ay it w as re-presented in literary term s, specially in the n o v el” (Lehan 1998:289). A s Jane A ugustine m aintains,
the city in pre-twentieth-century novels written in English is almost wholly topos, a place, a locale which is the backdrop for realistic dramas of individual consciences making choices in order to solve personal dilemmas of love, marriage, work, war, parental origins, psychic identity (Augustine 1993:73). A t the beginning o f the 20th century, the city undergoes reinterpretation and
becomes less a topos and more anthropoid - man-like, resembling the human
being, more organic and seemingly capable of choice. It becomes quasi-human.
(...) [T]he city becomes a larger and more active agent standing in a new literary relationship to the individual human beings who are actors in the plot (Augustine 1993:74).
This new relationship develops in various circum stances, and as A ugustine notes, these include the situation w hen the hum an characters are “in transit, rootless, not fixed in a dom estic environm ent (...) that is, they are in physical and cultural flu x ” (Augustine 1993:74). The city as character is also “present, w hen the hum an characters in the novel discover the erotic - the pow er o f sex uality ” (A ugustine 1993:74) or w hen protagonists are “confused, unform ed or w eak, out o f touch w ith the prescribed set o f values, thus shaky and uncertain in personal identity and consciousness - that is, they are in m ental flux” (Augustine 1993:74). Finally, as A ugustine m aintains, big cities, or cities “perceived by a hum an character as a w ill or force or pressure bearing upon h im ” (A ugustine 1993:74) can turn into a character as well.
T ow ards the end o f the 20th century, it is a m ulti-ethnic city that turns into an active agent that reflects the struggles o f its inhabitants and becom es a place o f dialogue, negotiation, and struggle against conform ity. Such depiction o f the city is especially interesting in the two w orks by tw o C hicana authors m entioned above, nam ely The
by M ona R uiz. B oth authors choose as a setting for their books Southern C alifornia - Terri de la Peña sets the story o f D orado fam ily in Los A ngeles w hereas M ona R uiz talks about her hom e city, Santa Ana, C alifornia.
T he setting o f the tw o stories is especially thought-provoking in the light o f dichotom ous nature o f C alifornian cities highlighted in extensive criticism , fiction and film s depicting this region. A s M ike D avis notices various presentations o f Southern C alifornia hesitate betw een The L a n d o f E ndless Sum m er and A rm ageddon “im agined as a w ar o f exterm ination betw een the w hite and colored w o rld s” (Davis 1999:355). T his division is first introduced in “postcatastrophe fiction ” of the 1970s that offers tw o alternative results of a catastrophe, nam ely “m agical dystopian” - all non-w hite people do not survive the catastrophe - and “arm aggedonist” - w hen nobody survives the catastrophe (Davis 1999:331). D isaster fiction and film s o f the 1980s take it one step further and begin to draw an analogy betw een “alien invaders and illegal im m igrants” (Davis 1999:341). Thus, “im m igration and invasion, in a paranoid register, becom e synonym s” (Davis 1999:340). L ater on, the fear o f the O th e r and racial anxiety represented in fiction and film s talking about Southern C alifornia change its im agery o f a utopian la n d o f plenty into a dystopian one. Both R u iz’s and de la P e ñ a ’s stories reflect this dichotom y.
In T erri de la P eñ a’s F au lts T oni D orado realizes this transform ation of an apparent utopia into a dystopia w hen she returns to Los A ngeles after a 2-year absence. R ecollecting her childhood spent in a neighborhood in Santa M onica she ju x tap o ses her m em ories w ith w hat she sees now. She rem em bers her happy fam ily that attended com m unity m eetings, C hristm as parties and picnics together w ith other fam ilies living in the neighborhood. She com pares the coexistence o f this diverse neighborhood o f that tim e to various trees that used to grow on her street that not only “ch a rac te rize^ ] the surprising scenery o f Southern C alifornia” but “the infusion of nonnative plants a living m etaphor o f the m ulticultural hum an population o f the reg io n ” (de la Peña 1999:49).
How ever, as she notices, “a lot has chan ged ” w hen she w as aw ay and since she w as a child (de la Peña 1999:32). The C ity o f A ngels is a place w here “concrete, sm og and am plified noise aw ait” (de la Peña 1999:40). To Toni her “hom etow n appears schizoid, a dizzying com bination o f prosperity and hom elessness, property developm ent and failed dream s” (de la Peña 1999:50). The neighborhood is torn apart betw een the hom eless sleeping in dirty sleeping bags under cardboard shacks and yuppies and artists w ho are buying out houses and apartm ents in the area, as it has becom e fashionable. A s the prices o f real estate soar, the indigenous inhabitants can no longer afford to live in this area and they are forced to m ove out. T oni realizes aggravating am bivalence tow ards m ulti-ethnic m ake-up o f the neighborhood and her grow ing sense o f otherness is reflected in the analogy she m akes com paring the com m unity to the eucalyptus - a nonnative tree, that is “transplanted from A ustralia” and “is plentiful in Southern C alifornia. It thrives there, tall and arom atic, yet dangerously flam m able during dry seasons. Like other aliens in the G olden State, it is both w elcom ed and rev iled” (de la Peña 1999:32).
R ealizing this contradiction and the need to adopt an attitude tow ards it are like a déjà vu for her as she had a sim ilar experience before - during the L.A. riots w hen she w orked in the library. Then she did not conform to her co lleag ues’ opinions that supported “low- key approach o f dealing w ith racial-ethnic issu es” (de la Peña 1999:33), or w hat D avis calls N IM B Y (“not in m y b ack y ard ”) attitude (Davis 1992:226). T his w as the first tim e w hen she spoke out and “began to lobby in earnest for com m unity outreach ” (de la Peña 1999:32). H er “sudden transform ation resulted in su perv iso rs’ and cow ork ers’ distrust and outright disagreem ent w ith [her] v iew s” and she w as laid o ff after 14 years o f w ork in the library (de la Peña 1999:33). N on-conform ing turned out to have graver results that she had expected. “N othing felt right an ym ore,” she recollects, and she had to “run aw ay from it a ll” m oving out to the N orthw est and leaving her partner and fam ily behind (de la Peña 1999:99).
H ow ever, as she realized w hen living in F ir View, she could not run aw ay from herself (de la Peña 1999:2). The urge to return to w hat
she left behind w as reinforced by her experience o f a paradox of sim ultaneous standing out and disappearing (de la Peña 1999:7). Even though her looks m ade her prom inent, she w as invisible. Therefore, Toni decided that she had to com e back to C alifornia and fight again - for inclusion and recognition o f diversity and against being invisible; against racism , sexism and hom ophobia stereotyping Chicanas.
T he fight w ith hom ophobia turns out to be the first o f serious challenges that she faces w hen back in L.A. It is also the m ost painstaking confrontation, as it requires from her reconciliation o f two spheres - private one and public one. First things first, she has been brought up in a C atholic fam ily w here a heterosexual relationship functions as an unalterable m odel. N on-conform ing to this m odel m ay have significant consequences w ith com m unity ostracism as the m ildest one. Therefore, her com ing out is an act o f bravery. Unlike m any o f her friends w ho hide the truth about their sexuality before their fam ilies, she decides to reveal it and this w ay determ ine her identity both at hom e and in public. (An analogical situation w ith gay m en is described in L atin Satins; there, how ever, D aniel L eón decides not to disclose the truth and as a result his w ife and the daughter becom e HIV positive; the case o f dow n low).
T o n i’s confession w as a difficult experience for her parents - they “cried together w hen she told [them] she w as una de la s otras, one of the o thers” (de la Peña 1999:36). Even though they have finally reconciled w ith her choice and appreciated her honesty, her m other still ponders over it asking h erself w here the fault is, w ho is to blam e for the situation and w hat they, as parents, did w rong that she turned out to be a lesbian. W hen T oni com es back to L.A. she still has to negotiate her sexuality and help her m other overcom e the feeling o f guilt (de la Peña 1999:96).
A part from that she also has to undertake a dialogue about her n on conform ing w ith her siste r’s, S y lv ia’s attitude. S ylvia w ho is younger than T oni feels that her older sister patronizes her and disapproves of her life choices: first S ylvia w as m arried to a w hite boy w ho spent days surfing and w ho did not care too m uch about providing for his fam ily (we can observe J e f f’s transform ation in the story as well, as
right now he is a responsible father w ho takes care o f their daughter, Gabi); right now, she is m arried to a stereotypical violent m acho, G onzalo (later in the story distorted by G abi into G odzilla) (de la Peña 1999:184). “A living stereotype,” as Pat, T o n i’s partner describes him, is a violent, abusive cheat w ho gives vent to his hom ophobia in violence directed both at S ylvia and at T oni w ith Pat (de la Peña 1999:151). (The first tim e he beats Sylvia is w hen he learns that Toni is a lesbian (de la Peña 1999:262)). A s T oni realizes, Z a lo ’s violence, colorism - M artin L uther K ing H oliday is for him N ig g er H olid a y (de la Peña 1999:182) and hom ophobia m ask his deep insecurities and com plexes.
H ow ever, Sylvia lives in denial and does not w ant to adm it openly that violence, m istreatm ent and abuse contribute to m alfunctioning of her family. W hat is m ore, she blam es T oni for all her fiascos and failures. A dopting Z a lo ’s attitudes Sylvia distances h erself from her
dyke sister, her ex-husband and her fam ily in general holding them
responsible for her tw isted life. In the course o f the story the sisters begin a dialogue and they try to reach a com prom ise. T he dialogue is tenuous, as Sylvia has to accept the fact that T oni has decided to come out in public and w ork officially fo r the ca u se, openly criticizing racism , discrim ination, and terrible inner city conditions (which becom e especially apparent after the earthquake, w hen there are no reports from neighborhoods inhabited by ethnic m inorities, and people w ait for help m uch longer than in any other parts o f L.A.) (de la Peña 1999:219, 268, 272). Paradoxically, the earthquake is also a catalyst for the beginning o f a real dialogue w ithin the D orado family.
The fam ily finally negotiates a com prom ise after the earthquake. Z a lo ’s death, serious dam age the neighborhood suffers and the need to com e together in the afterm ath o f a disaster facilitate the reunion o f a family. Y et the reunion takes place under specific circum stances - the D orado sisters redefine the apparently hom ogenous m odel o f la fam ilia and rew ork the concept o f ca rna lism o or bro th erh o o d into the kinship o f w om en - sisterhood. “La fam ilia de h erm anas” - w ith a new ly born S y lv ia’s daughter w ho, significantly, gets the last nam e after her m other, D o ra d o - does not conform to the popular and
m onolithic m odel o f C hicano fam ily (Fregoso 2003:86). A nother act o f non-conform ity creates alternative space for D orado wom en. T hrough their dialogue, negotiation, and struggle they start to change the place that is m ost im portant for them , because, as T oni notices “everything is h ere,” in Los A ngeles and if one does not like the situation the best thing to do is to try to change it (de la Peña
1999:70).
T he need for change is also present in M ona R u iz’s account o f her life that oscillates betw een conform ing and non-conform ing. In her narrative she also records a transform ation o f a utopia into a dystopia, talking about her grow ing up in S anta Ana, but she depicts this m etam orphosis against the background o f the interplay betw een the barrio and the city.
Sim ilarly to de la Peña, R u iz’s life as a young girl revolved around her fam ily - “both our household and the extended fam ily that seem ed to reach throughout the city,” as she recollects (Ruiz 1997:24). The fam ily provided her w ith security, love, and m odels to follow. In addition to that, the parents set up som e strict rules concerning their children’s upbringing in order to protect them from the increased activity o f gangs. M o n a’s parents hated gangs and regarded both hom eboys and hom egirls as “lazy and disrespectful” (Ruiz 1997:27). T hey w anted to safeguard their children against this w orld and open up som e other opportunities for M ona and her siblings.
How ever, it w as hardly possible to deny the existence o f gang- related incidents in the neighborhood. M o n a’s trouble-free existence w as first underm ined w hen she w itnessed gang-related shooting in the barrio (Ruiz 1997:35). T hen w hen she w ent to high school it w as m ore and m ore difficult to negotiate her space in the place occupied by gangs w here various gang skirm ishes happened on a daily basis (as hom eboys and hom egirls from different gangs fought for territory and influence) (Ruiz 1997:39). T he fact that her cousins belonged to F- Troop(ers) did not m ake it easier for her as she w as often associated w ith them and regarded as a m em ber o f their gang (Ruiz 1997:33). W hen she w as challenged by cholas from one o f the clicas, she w as left w ith two choices - either to be a victim or to fight back (Ruiz
1997:41). A s she recollects, her life turned into a fight for survival in the hostile environm ent (Ruiz 1997:40), but at som e point violence becam e inseparable part o f her school life. W hat is m ore, M o n a’s victories in various battles w ith ch o la s gained her reputation w hich she started to relish. L ooking back at her adolescence R uiz adm its that to a young g irl’s eyes this w orld becam e m ore and m ore m esm erizing and her cousins “seem ed m ore and m ore like cool and exciting figures” (Ruiz 1997:29).
Her p aren ts’ response to her gradual involvem ent in the gang verged on violence. T hey w ere appalled by her and her siste r’s allegiance to the lifestyle they despised so m uch. T heir w arnings that “gangs prom ise only sham e and danger for a young g irl” (Ruiz 1997:27) w ere not very convincing, as she already believed that it w as in the gang w here she could get acceptance (Ruiz 1997:48). This feeling w as reinforced w hen she saw her p arents’ reaction to her siste r’s early pregnancy (Ruiz 1997:47). It w as then that the dialogue w ith her parents began to dwindle.
W hen R uiz analyzes how she gradually stopped conform ing to the values her parents cherished she cannot determ ine specific circum stances that induced such decision. A s she recollects:
There was no specific day, no single moment, when I made a decision to run with a gang and turn my back on everything I had been taught by my father. It was more like a series of surrenders and lapses that combined to deliver me into the very lifestyle I had been raised to most despise. (...) And there was no great fall for me, merely a steady slide (Ruiz 1997:48).
V arious scholars w ho started to exam ine girl gangs in the 1990s tried to account for the allure gangs held for adolescent girls. T heir studies prove that the gangs not only enable the girls to stand out and be seen, but they also subvert dom inant norm s. In K eta M iran d a’s ethnography o f girl gangs in O akland, C alifornia she analyzes the im portance o f pachucas (as fem ale zootsuiters) and hom egirls (girls’ gangs) for challenging “cultural nationalist concepts o f com m unity by re-creating form s o f fem inine C hicana solidarity through bonds of friendship, solidarity and m utual tru st” (M iranda 2000). C atherine Ram irez, in turn “analyzes the role o f pa ch u ca style and C hicana style
p o litics in the form ation of alternative national identities” (Ram irez
2000). A s Fregoso sum m arizes their research, “this unprecedented scholarship has unearthed the w ays in w hich pachuca and hom egirl identities deliberately challenge sexual and gender norm s, transgress gender roles, thw art behaviors and expectations, and defy dom inant (C hicano/a and m ainstream ) boundaries o f dom esticity and fem ininity” (Fregoso 2003:96). D ue to such subversion and no n conform ing to various form s o f subordination g irls’ gangs have been receiving harsh reactions from both the outside and w ithin their own com m unity.
R uiz developed her non-conform ing even one step further. A s a gang m em ber she w as an outcast to a certain extent, because she did not sm oke pot or take drugs. V ery often she w as accused by vatos that her attitude to them bordered on disrespect and contem pt (Ruiz 1997:58). The fact that she w anted to get education past high school w as also perceived as an act of defiance by her friends and her husband (who w as a vato as w ell). H er loyalty w as questioned totally w hen she took up a jo b as a police clerk (Ruiz 1997:65). T his w as the first tim e she w as openly called a “sell-out (...), a pig w ho w ill keep people d ow n” (Ruiz 1997:214). And, as she adm its, this is how she felt to som e extent, because “to grow up in the barrio is to grow up seeing the police as an occupying arm y ” (Ruiz 1997:93).
She w as w ell aw are of corruption and abuse that plagued Santa A na Police D epartm ent. W orking there she w as also a target of various snide rem arks concerning her looks or her friends and relatives and the barrio in general (Ruiz 1997:119). H er abusive m arriage w ith a gang m em ber becam e a proverbial la st straw , and she gave up on her career in SA PD for som e tim e, because she did not know how to negotiate betw een the loyalty to her fam ily and her jo b at the police station (Ruiz 1997:92). W hen M ona finally ended her destructive m arriage (which w as another act o f defiance because a divorce w as still a taboo in the C hicano com m unity) she decided to face the challenge again and she cam e back to the police station.
T he treatm ent she received from her co-w orkers did not change from w hat she w as used to - m any tim es she experienced hum iliation
and discrim ination. She w as treated like a spy for gangs and very often people w ere telling her that she belonged to the street, not to the police station (Ruiz 1997:236). T his lack o f trust w as aggravated by various additional tensions, as her cousins still rem ained in gangs and w ere involved in various gang-related skirm ishes, w hich w as very often taken against her, even though she had nothing to do w ith their activities (Ruiz 1997:136).
How ever, she had som e m entors at the police station w ho supported her choice. She w as also determ ined to succeed, realizing that “despite having a huge Latino population, the city o f S anta Ana ha[d] a m ostly w hite police force” (Ruiz 1997:257). Therefore, she thought of it as her obligation to becom e a policew om an w ho w ould treat people w ith respect and “offer them solutions and options to their problem s” (Ruiz 1997:252). N ever forgetting about her background and her past she saw herself as a person w ho could start to build bridges in the com m unity and develop a dialogue w ith people living there, w hich, as she adm its, is still very difficult in the contestable space o f W estern m etropolis (Ruiz 1997:252).
T his need for the dialogue and non-conform ing to ubiquitous stereotypes that both de la Peña and R uiz advocate is especially critical in the light o f recent events taking place in L.A. and in C alifornia. Looking through the articles in L.A. T im es’ local section and listening to the new s one can hardly resist a feeling that a problem atic space o f m odern m egalopolis rem ains unsettled and a “global crossroads city ” (Davis 1999:419) is still at the crossroads. D av is’ statem ent arguing that “as the w alls have com e dow n in Eastern Europe, they are being erected all over L.A. (Davis 1992:228) seem s especially salient now adays. These are both virtual and m etaphorical w alls that victim ize people w ho are already discrim inated against. However, w ith no progressing agenda on such issues as skid row and hom elessness, gang injunctions, and im m igration reform - to m ention ju s t a few unresolved issues that divided L.A. com m unity - it w ill be extrem ely difficult to negotiate any kind o f cooperation and integrity and “the proliferation of new repressions in space and m ovem ent” com bined w ith personal
insulation m ay continue to be a sad but plausible scenario for L.A. and other A m erican cities (Davis 1992:224).
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