UCLA

How does one come to understand the Mexican experience in the United States? How do we form these ideas from within the community and as an outsider looking in? From fabricated images in cinema to historical narratives in texts to real people-to-people encounters, we are constantly grappling to understand each other in an America that is hyper-mediated by images of others. This is due to expanding technologies such as digital social networking platforms, intense and pervasive media marketing, the symbolic cyber-world transferred over the internet and the very powerful American film industry. In this daily bombardment of media, how can we determine the accuracy of the images presented?

In my research an image is not simply a portrait or a digital picture in and of itself. The term image as I use it refers to the deeper social, economical, political and psychological meanings we assign to the images of others as well as the images that are created to represent us. These images function as precursors to social awareness and social interaction. This has deep implications when considering how socially restrictive racial stereotypes can be. In this context, images of being Mexican are explored across several sites.

My research enters the dialogue first by historicizing Mexican images in American cinema. The Hollywood studio system has frequently portrayed the Mexican as lazy, immoral and lacking self-control. I continue with an analysis of the imagery produced by Chicano cinema, a genre of film produced by Americans of Mexican descent, whose aim is to rectify Hollywood stereotypes. Leaving the fictional celluloid world behind I then produce imagery of Mexicans based on real experiences. This is done by collecting oral testimonies of Mexicans that formed soccer clubs in West Los Angeles from 1959 to 1986. I interviewed key figures from the three three clubs. They are all WWII-era immigrants that came from Juchitlan, which is a small town in the state of Jalisco. The research finds that these Mexicans formed a dynamic, imaginative and mutually caring community, contrary to the stereotypes in film. The social dynamics of soccer maintained group identity abroad and kept homeland culture alive while creating a thriving community in West Los Angeles.

I conclude the research by offering an image of myself in order to clarify my connections to my research subject. With this I undermine the "invisible hand" of the author that writes and I implicate myself in the political struggles that the war of imagery involves. I involve myself as an image, personally and professionally, invested in dismantling damaging myths about Mexicans.