F2014Vera,Darlene

Hello Class,

My name is Darlene Vera and a fourth year Chicano and Chicana Studies Major. I am from Bakersfield, California which is in the San Joaquin Valley. The majority of the people in my community located on the East side of Bakersfield were immigrates who worked in the agricultural fields planting or growing grapes and oranges. Moving to UCLA was quite the cultural shock for me although my physical appearance may not have made it appear that way. I have always had to prove my cultural roots to those whom judged me by the light color of my skin. I often shock many people when I over hear their conservations in Spanish and they realize that I am not only able to understand them, but also respond to them in Spanish. My father is from Puerto Rico and my mother was from Guatemala and being raised in a Spanish household and community to UCLA was challenging. It was not until I took my first Chicano class that I saw other Latinos and people of color at UCLA. I truly enjoyed the material I was learning as a Chicano and Chicana studies major. As a result, I switched to a Chicano and Chicana Studies major.

After reading "Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask: The Mirror of Malinchismo" I still needed some clarification on the definition provided for Identity politics. Identity politics is described as a "kind of party-line, a philosophy of race/class/gender differences that constitutes a particular group's sense of community and public action" (122). What exactly is meant by "party-line" and how does that give a sense of community and public action?  I personally think it might be a mixture of all three differences since Chicana women in the Chicano movement were seen as traitors and very few women were allowed to participate in art, but I wanted a more in depth response especially in comparison to the Politics of identity.

In "There is no place like Aztlan" identity is portrayed as an equation that is composed of several personalized components. If identity is seen as an equation associated to that one specific person why is that one must be forced to identify themselves with one category in terms of race, class, and gender? What occurs to the equation if there are "gray" areas of identification instead of the "normal" black or white categories of identity?