My dissertation, “Textual Poch@s in the Transpacific Borderlands: Chicana/o/x Art beyond Aztlán,” is the first in-depth study of connections between Asians, Asian Americans, and U.S. Latinas/os/xs in the visual arts. Drawing from the fields of Chicana/o/x art, cultural studies, fandom studies, and literary criticism, I present readers with the concept of the textual poch@. A textual poch@ is, in essence, an individual whose varied cultural tastes may or may not correlate with the dominant narratives and ideals of the racial/ethnic group they belong to or identify with. Nevertheless, a textual poch@ makes sense of their identity by creating cultural productions that are influenced by, but not beholden to, their racial/ethnic group’s expectations.

I use the textual poch@ framework to situate three different understudied artists who identity as Chicana/o/x, Japanese American, and Japanese —Rio Yañez (b. 1980), Shizu Saldamando (b. 1978), and Kazuya “Night tha Funksta” Naito (b. 1984)— to discuss how they each contribute to understandings of relational ethnic studies. Relational ethnic studies is a field concerned with how the presence and interaction with other communities of color affect the development of identity, history, and culture of non-white, ethnic and racial groups. This approach acknowledges that communities of color do not exist in separatist bubbles, nor is their identity formation only influenced by understandings of whiteness. Merging the textual poch@ framework with relational ethnic studies, this dissertation ultimately argues that the visual arts can help inform the re-envisioning of relational ethnic studies, Chicana/o/x art, and transnational understandings of Chicanas/os/xs in an effort to build new coalitional networks.

This thesis presents the concept of textual poch@ through Bay Area-based artist, Rio Yañez's artwork. The textual poch@ is an individual who experiences marginalization and/or has to justify themselves for deviating from their society's dominant narratives and cultural tastes. Their deviation results in their own interpretation and reconfiguration of their culture (usually associated with aspects of their identity, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, physical abilities) through a rasquache framework – in terms of making do with what they have to create something new. Through visual and textual analyses, I focus on two of Yañez's digital art collections, Morrissey-inspired artwork and Japanese-influence portraiture series, as my case studies. In doing so, I demonstrate how these two collections push against essentialism and unfix Chicanx/Latinx identity as it is tied to dominant Chicanx/Latinx cultural practices and tastes.