“A
REAL FUCKING MAN”: EXPLORANDO MASCULINIDADES MIGRANTES EN MEN WITHOUT BLISS
DE RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA ECTÓPICA
“A REAL FUCKING MAN”: EXPLORING MIGRANT MASCULINITIES
IN MEN WITHOUT BLISS BY RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ FROM AN
ECTOPIC PERSPECTIVE
Antonio Acosta Sánchez
Universidad de Almería
Abstract: This project
introduces the work of the Mexican-American author
Rigoberto González into the Spanish literary panorama and focuses on his short
story collection Men without Bliss. For an exhaustive analysis of his
work, the starting point will be
the analytical tool established by Tomás Albaladejo
(2011) and his definition of "ectopic literature" which provides
tools to study the process of reterritorialization as a
consequence of migratory processes through literary works. As presented
in other studies dealing with this theoretical background, we would emphasize
the relationship between gender and migration. A detailed reading of Men
without Bliss aims to confirm the possibilities to analyze his short-story
collection from the prism of ectopic literature. The examination of masculine
characters in González’s short-stories, and particularly the way(s) men
experience processes of displacement are described are the main objectives of
this work. By exploring this short-story collection, we classify characters
according to different models of masculinity and identify how González depicts “traditional
masculinity” and patriarchy as source for unhappiness.
Key words: Rigoberto González, Men
without bliss, masculinities, ectopic literature
The US is one of the most powerful nations and
it is the destination for migrants from all over the world who travel in search
of the so-called American Dream, seeking prosperity and a better future for
themselves and their descendants. Migratory movements are a manifestation of
our constantly changing world and a direct consequence of globalization.
Looking at the American continent, especially
the relationship between the United States and Mexico, two of the biggest
countries in this continent, through the prism of literature allow critics and
readers to develop an emphatic vision of migratory processes. Acquiring an
appreciation of the transnational and transcultural experiences of others is
directly linked to the artistry and literature of those nations, for they play
an essential role in capturing the experiences and perspectives of those who
have endured unpleasant events though having been migrants.
Apart from migration, gender and sexual
identity are further elements inherent to personal experience and are major
issues within our contemporary societies. They are enormously important
contributors to the definition of one’s place in society, especially if
individuals do not behave according to common standards or are vulnerable to
some sort of oppression. Gender roles and power relations are undoubtedly
present in the globalized world and can contribute to friction when migrants
with different values interact with native culture. Literature, and in
particular short stories, can reveal such conflicts of identity and acknowledge
the convergence of various oppressions or the construction of an identity
outside of the norms (Brah and Phoenix, 2004).
Among the reasons why an examination of short
stories is preferable to the analysis of other genres such as the memoir or the
autobiography, we must highlight their brevity and freshness, as they allow
writers to represent everyday moments and express naturally specific moments, fragments of reality
(Cantizano, 2010). They constitute a perfect
material to analyse the representation of realistic events in the experience of
characters who have quit their country. Secondly, because the effects and
consequences of migration and culture clashes –in which we include gender differences–
are common thematic points in contemporary short story writing. Finally, a large
corpus, such as the short-story collection of González, provides enough material
to enable a thorough comparison and contrasting of diverse, unconnected
characters with entirely separate biographical development in a manner which
other genres such as novels or memoirs are rarely able to make possible. In
all, the short story serves better than most genres at informing the reader
about contemporary societies through the vital experiences of its characters.
In order to provide a corpus to study both the representation of migration and
gender, the short story collection Men without Bliss (2008) by the
Mexican American author Rigoberto González (1970–) is a valuable starting
point. These short stories reveal his own experience as a Mexican who had to
migrate into the US, and that of his community, and his short stories do not
only unveil the frustrations of men who have abandoned Mexico in the pursuit of
a better live in the North, but also they reveal the struggles of males who do
not fit stereotypes, or who are unable to express their emotions in a
patriarchal society which discourages men from suffering publicly or displaying
weakness.
The
thirteen plots in Men without Bliss focus on the stories of a handful of
men who suffer the conflict between tradition and modernity and who need to
cope with their own identities as Latinos, males and, in some cases, as
homosexuals. Men without Bliss has already been a subject for study as
the subsequent articles portray: “Self-destructive embodiment of the “Joto
Body” in Rigoberto González’s “The Abortionist’s Lover” (Dahms,
2011), focusing in one of the short stories of the book and explores the
violence exerted by the Anglo hegemonic masculinities against the Latinx gay
“effeminate” main character and “New West or Old? Men and Masculinity in Recent
Fiction by Western American Men” (Peterson, 2011), which introduces Gonzalez’s
work as a salient example of contemporary literature representing different
masculine models in the first decade of the 2000s. and the doctoral thesis “The
construction and performance of masculinity through the voice of Mexican
American male authors: Arturo Islas' The Rain God and Rigoberto
González's Men without Bliss” (Camacho, 2014) through which the author
explores the construction of Latinx masculinities in Gonzalez’s work. Whilst
these articles focus on the relationship between masculinity and Latinx/Chicanx
literature, there is little emphasis on the intersection of migration and
masculinities/homosexuality, as well as how displacement might have an impact
on the construction of masculinities outside of the hegemonic molds.
Rigoberto González is a Mexican-American
poet whose contributions to US contemporary literature are reshaping the
literary panorama and whose writing speaks for the feelings, emotions and
experiences of migrants and Latinxs[1] in the United States. Although born in Bakersfield (California) in
1970, González spent his childhood in Michoacán (Mexico) as his parents wanted
him to, in González’s words, “understand that they’re Mexican first.” (American Writers Museum, 2020). Although
González was born in the United States, his parents were undocumented Mexican. His
story is like that of other Latinxs, marked by poverty and the desire of
parents wanting their children to have a better future.
While twelve years later his family would
return to Mexico, González remained alone in the United States where he
continued studying a B.A. degree in Humanities and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Riverside, and two graduate degrees from the
University of California, Davis, and Arizona State University in Tempe.
He is a prolific writer and he has published
five full-length poetry collections: So
Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (1999), winner of the
National Poetry series, Other Fugitives
and Other Strangers (2006), Black
Blossoms (2011), Unpeopled Eden
(2013), which “documents the lives of migrants, immigrants and border crossers
in the form of memorials and prayers” (Rodríguez, 2014, p. 87) (which won the
Lambda Literary Award) and The Book of
Ruin (2019), but his talent spans many genres. In his own words, “I always thought that being a writer meant doing every
type of writing, so I never felt compelled to declare myself “a poet” or “a
novelist” or “a children’s book author.” (Sexton, 2009, p.15).
In his novel Crossing Vines (2003), he describes the feelings and hardship of
Mexican laborers in the Southern California’s grape fields. His only collection
of short stories, Men without Bliss
(2008) deals with the lives of Mexican-American
characters who grapple with issues and problems related to Hispanic men in the
United States. Finally, there is the young-adult trilogy comprising The Mariposa Club (2009), in which Maui
(Mauricio), an openly gay student at Caliente High School, along with his
friends Trini (Trinidad), Isaac, and Lib (Liberace), decide to create “The
Mariposa Club”, the first LGBTQ+ club of the high school in a largely Hispanic
small town during their last year of studies. Mariposa Gown (2012) continues with the same characters but new
challenges, which sees his characters grow to and enter adulthood –Maui falls
in love with Sebastian, the son of a wealthy developer, Trini has to face his homophobic and abusive father, and all of
them have to prepare for prom, one of the most important events in the life of
an American teenager. Finally in Mariposa
U. (2015), Maui becomes a freshman at the university and experiences an
abusive first love without the support of his old friends and his family. Mixed
feelings, loneliness and bad choices fill this book about youth and personal
development.
Also remarkable are his memoirs, in which he
explores his identity as a gay and Chicanx writer[2], Abuela
in Shadow, Abuela in Light (2022) in
which he explores his own past by recovering the story of his grandmother, What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A
Memoir of Brotherhood (2018), which explore the experiences and decisions
of men in his own family during three generations, Autobiography of My Hungers (2013), Red-Inked Retablos: Essays (2013), which combines personal
reflections with texts about the writers who inspired him, and Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano
Mariposa (2006), winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus
Foundation, in which he explores his coming-of-age as a gay Latinx. González combines his work as a writer and as a
book critic, in Pivotal
Voices, Era of Transition: Toward a 21st Century Poetics (2017). He has also written two bilingual children’s
books, Antonio’s Card (2005) and Soledad Sigh-Sighs (2003), as well as
early reader books in Spanish for Benchmark Education Company.
His brilliant career has been recognised with
prestigious prizes such as PEN/Voelcker Award for
Poetry (2020), Lannan Literary Fellowship (2020), The
Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement by The Publishing Triangle
(2015), American Book Award, The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (Academy of
American Poets), The Poetry Centre Book Award, The Shelley Memorial Award
(Poetry Society of America), and Lambda Literary Award, Barnes & Noble
Writers for Writers Award. González has also been recipient of several
fellowships, such as the Lannan (2020), Guggenheim
(2000), NEA, NYFA, USA Rolón (2014) fellowships, and
he has lived in several countries including Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Scotland and Switzerland as a resident artist.
His role as a literary critic has been present
throughout his professional background. Evidence of this can be found in his
Chicano/Latino book review column for El Paso Times (2000-2012) and his
contributions to Poets and Writers Magazine and Los Angeles Review of
Books. In addition, he has been on the Board of Directors of the National
Book Critics Circle, on the Board of Directors of Fishouse
Poems: A Poetry Archive, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta,
a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers. His involvement with LGTBQ+
and Latinx communities has contributed to him being praised by Out magazine as one of the 100 Men and
Women who made a Year to Remember, and by My
Latino Voice as one of the 25 most influential LGTB Latinos in the United
States. González defines himself as a committed and political writer:
Writing has never been a luxury or pastime for me, it
has always been a passion and a mission. That means that I look at writing as
purpose, an expression that’s meant to communicate something important enough
for the artist that it is to be shared and hopefully appreciated. Writing bears
the responsibility to appeal to the linguistic, intellectual and/or emotional
pleasures, and to expand the reader’s understanding of the powers and politics
of voice, knowledge, and/or identity[3] (González, n.d.).
González has served as a professor at several
universities in the United States, including The New School, the University of
Toledo, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the City University of New York,
among them. Nowadays, González is a distinguished professor of English and
director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers
University–Newark (New Jersey). Alongside his career as a professor, he
currently serves as a critic-at-large for the L.A. Times, named in March 2016,
as well as a series editor of several publishing houses, supporting new writers
from the diaspora. Following in the footsteps of some of his former teachers,
including the Chicano writers Gary Soto, Francisco X. Alarcón,
Lorna Dee Cervantes, Pat Mora, and Alberto Ríos, and the African–Americans,
Clarence Major and Jewell Parker Rhodes, he is committed to giving space to
marginalized voices, as well as propelling the careers of young writers coming
from the periphery. He is an editor at the University of Arizona Press Camino
del Sol Latinx Literary Series, which publishes emerging and well-established
voices in Latinx literature. Within its editorial board, we can count
award-winning Latinx voices such as Sandra Cisneros or Jennine Capó Crucet. He is also member of
the Editorial Board of the Immigrant Writing Series from Black Lawrence Press,
which publishes work written by either immigrants or whose work focuses on the
immigrant experience.
In Men without Bliss readers can become
immersed in the stories of Mexican men who suffer silently: regardless of their
sexual tendencies, they describe men who have to
accept their pain and their loneliness. González explores private moments of
men who are trapped by stereotypes and criticizes the behaviour of some Mexican–American,
who are pierced by fixed assumptions and prejudices. With this collection of
short stories, González sheds light on facets of Mexican culture, and provides
an opportunity to explore the everyday lives of Chicano men living in the
United States.
Indeed, place
is a relevant issue within this collection as it informs the distribution of
the texts: the book is separated into two parts, the first, “Men in the
Caliente Valley”, includes short stories which take place in the fictional
landscape of Caliente Valley, whilst the second, “Men in Other Places”,
contains five short stories located in México (“Nayarita
Blues”), and big cities in the United States, Los Ángeles
(“Día de las Madres”), Seattle, (“Haunting José”), Albuquerque, “Road to
Enchantment” and New York City (“The Abortionist’s Lover”). Caliente Valley is
a recurrent location in his writings, as it is also the landscape where The
Mariposa Club, his first young adult novel, takes place. This setting is a
symbol of emigration and poverty. It is also a place where characters must
fight against alienation and opposing stereotypes, which become a source of
pain. In an interview with Elaine
Sexton, González explains, that although fictional, this place is
very similar to the
place where my family worked for many years as migrant farm workers. In that
place I became aware of my family’s lot in life –poverty and hardship– always
the fear of empty pockets and empty stomachs. This was not our promised land or
our American dream, by any means, and no one was more surprised by this than
me. (Sexton, 2009, p. 14)
González’s
writing belongs to a long tradition of Chicano writers who explore the
experiences of those living between two cultures, and therefore the notion of
“identity” is present in his writings, as characters seem to be torn between
two places, two languages or two borders (Stavans,
2011). About this “dual” identity, González expresses
For me duality is
being aware that I’m bicultural, I’m bi-national, that I identify as an
American as much as I identify as a Mexican … And that doesn’t mean there is a
separation between the two. I don’t see them as excluding each other, as
fighting or colliding. They’re actually collaborating.
And so that helps me move forward as a writer. (American Writers Museum, 2020)
Not only is
“identity” displayed as a cultural element but also from the point of view of
gender, the ideas of manhood are questioned through the different short
stories. Different male characters struggle with the idea of “being a male” and
satisfy the stereotypes associated with masculinity, especially in Mexican
culture.
It seems that
there is an underlying triangle about identity in González’s stories, as he explores
and writes from the perspective of a male, Latinx, and gay writer. It is only
by accounting for the implications of being a male, being a Latinx and being
gay that some of these stories can be understood. We should bear in mind that
identities cannot be dissociated one from the other: one does not stop “being”
a male when one “performs” as a Latinx, but rather the implications of
“behaving like a (stereotypical) male” can be challenged when more layers are
added. Expectations of what defines a man is (or in other words how a man
should behave) can be defied when the layers of “Latinx” and “gay” are added.
This idea is perfectly expressed in the Preface to Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (2011), a short story
collection devoted to Latinx authors describing and exploring the lives of
LGBT+ communities. When he refers to the authors compiled within this
collection, he says:
Their writing addresses what it means to be a queer
Latino: not only how the colour of your skin, or your accent, or any of a dozen
of perceived differences affect not only how you may be treated—demonized,
vilified, adored, iconized—but also how you come to perceive yourself. And what
happens when, because of your sexual desire, you add yet another layer of
difference on top of that. (Picano, 2011, x)
Men without Bliss questions the conventional images of masculinity and redefines the idea
of what “being a male” in the Latinx
communities represents. In order to explore the conventional
image of manhood in these communities, Camacho (2014) resorts to some examples
from media and literature, so as to define such “conventionalities”. For
Camacho (2014), a good example of hegemonic masculinity is strongly represented
by the images of the “galán” and the “macho” in soap
operas (telenovelas). In both cases,
they represent males who are perceived as positive role models, none of them
displaying their sensibility publicly. Only two moments seem to allow “galanes” and “machos” to show themselves as sensitive: when
they are in love with a woman, or when they are not sober. In any case, most of
the time these men are portrayed as brave, valiant, and heroic, they are
desired by everyone, and project a positive outlook to viewers. The idea of
displaying “machismo”, defined as an exaggerated masculinity, seems to be
entrenched in Latinx media, and therefore, seems to be a crucial influence on the way
male and female characters are not only represented in literature, but also how
do they “perform” in real life.
These characters of “galán”
and “macho” in traditional soap operas are, of course, satisfying heterosexual
normativity and shed light on the relationship between men and women and the,
mostly negative, consequences of this machismo in straight relationships.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that homosexual male characters are not
susceptible to suffering from these stereotypes.
Rigoberto González redesigns the conventional
images of Latinx manhood, breaking with the conventional images of males
displayed in media and literature as defined in the previous paragraphs.
Emotion is a crucial element in the construction of different characters, as
their suffering comes either from the suppression of it, or the displaying of
it publicly. It is by means of questioning the status quo, and not performing as men are expected to do, that male
characters struggle with their pain and find and
redefine the notion of masculinity. Instead of being perceived as a source of
weakness, emotions are seen as a sign of acceptance of the male character´s own
debilities.
Men without Bliss is about displaying weakness in Latinx cultures, and the way “the
masculine” should be represented by means of pain and hardship more usually
linked to ideas of “the feminine” rather than images of power and control. It
is through the risk of feeling vulnerable, of exploring new ways to behave like
a man and by questioning the extent to which they must succumb to the
expectations of others (mothers, friends, and members of their community) that González´
characters grow to wisdom. In an interview with Eleaine
Sexton, González (2009) expresses: “The only deliberate strategy was that I
wanted to explore the lives of males—gay and straight, Mexican, Chicano—and
reveal a few of the many complicated layers of masculinity men have to navigate
as members of a culture that doesn’t allow men to express vulnerability or
weakness through emotion.” (p. 14)
If there is
anything that characterizes Men without Bliss it
is that the question about maleness and masculinity is found in nearly
every short story. According to Judith Butler’s theory of performativity,
“gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within
a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the
appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (1999, pp. 43-44). Male
performativity is therefore considered as the defining element of gender expression
and embodiment. González questions himself as to what happens when effeminacy
is the definitory feature of this performativity and concludes that there is an
existing manipulative force “in the Mexican American and Mexican community that
is destroying the happiness of men” (Camacho, 2014, p. 58). All in all, the
different short stories depict the “crisis of masculinity”, defined as the
delegitimizing of power and dominance entrenched within males (Lemon, 1992).
This crisis reveals that there are models and rules of behaviour which have
been internalized but which are detrimental to the well-being of men and
therefore are a cause for the lack of bliss.
Besides this, Rigoberto González inserts
himself into a narrative tradition of Latino writers, from inside and outside
the United States, for whom “their outsider status is a double one, queer and
Latino, providing an enhanced, more brightly coloured distancing lens from
which he so brilliantly examines, exalts, and critiques (...) the gay life of
his time.” (Picano 2011, p. x). Just to name a few,
Jaime Manrique (Latin Moon in Manhattan),
Manuel Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman),
Reinaldo Arenas (Before Night Falls) seem to be representative of the twentieth-century
Latino-American literature written in Spanish, but consumed worldwide. In the
new millennium works from Gloria Andalzúa and Cherrie
Morraga, are great examples of writers who
significantly explore the lives of LGBT+ Latinos living in the United States.
In Men
without Bliss, effeminacy is treated as a weakness and therefore, a source
for suffering. According to Dahms (2011, p. 17),
“effeminacy is never a sought-after characteristic. It is so anti-male, that
most characters equate crying or expressing emotions as effeminate and in their attempts to erase effeminacy from their gender
repertoire, close themselves off to any emotional display.” Just to highlight
some examples, in “Good Boys”, effeminacy is equated to illness as the
character of Baltazar is described as someone who is not able to work like a
man, and in homosexual encounters, men who perform as “passive” in same-sex
male encounters suffer the submission for a male “active” partnership, whose
performativity as a male is more akin to the traditional stereotypes, as it
happens in “Men of Calliente
Valley” and “Your Malicious Moons”.
Certainly, the depiction of these characters aligns with Octavio Paz’s
depiction of female Mexican imprisonment: “La mujer vive presa en la imagen que la sociedad masculina le impone” (1981, p. 205). Men without Bliss depicts
how patriarchy can also create masculine prisoners, entrapped due to this
male-constructed society.
When we ask
ourselves why we should focus on queer Latino writing, as focusing on its
triple intersection: race, gender and sexual orientation, Picano
observes of the emerging figures in literature, cinema and pop culture who are
no longer accountable to the cultural references of previous decades: “There
was, there is, an exploding gay population with Iberian heritage, and they’re
on the lookout for role models, seeking people to identify with, to help build
a queer Latino community and culture.” (Picano, 2011,
p. x). In fact, the lack of male referents is a source for unhappiness and
struggle for teenage characters in González’s short stories, as will be further
discussed in the next pages.
The
depiction of “migration” through literature (Albaladejo,
2008) as well as in other studies dealing with migratory issues and fictional
narratives (Bayraktar, 2016) is vastly productive. The emergence of a new
concept like “ectopic literature” reveals the need for new terminology to
classify works in which the migration experience is involved. As defined by Albaladejo (2011, p.3), we can classify as ectopic:
la literatura que ha
sido escrita por autores que se han desplazado de su lugar de origen a otro
lugar, implicando ese desplazamiento en muchos casos inmersión en una realidad
lingüística distinta de la de origen e incluso cambio de lengua. Es la
literatura que es producida fuera del lugar propio, fuera del espacio o
territorio, en sentido geográfico y también en sentido cultural, en el que ha
nacido o se ha formado el sujeto productor de dicha literatura. Es la
literatura que está fuera del que sería su tópos
propio y se sitúa en otro tópos, que también es
lugar, espacio, pero distinto del previsible. Es la literatura que, a falta de
su territorio habitual, encuentra otro territorio; es ectópica en relación con
el tópos primero, el habitual (Albaladejo, 2011, p.
3).
Although
there are other terms such as “deterritorialized
literature”, “exile literature”, “intercultural literature”, or “migration
literature” the focus of study, and the works which can be classified within
these frameworks differ significantly. A discussion about the differences
between the three first terms can be found in Mora (2020) and Luarsabishvili (2013). Succinctly, the term “ectopic” focuses on the notion of
“reterritorialization” and the construction of literature located in a new topos. This term is not interested in the reasons for the
displacement, as it might happen with terms such as “exile literature” and is
particularly interested in the people who have experienced
personally the displacement, paying no attention to the literature
written, for instance, by descendent of migrants unlike “intercultural
literature” does.
On the
other hand, “migration literature” refers to those works that reflect upon
migration; that is, whose discourse has ‘migration’ as a macro-structural
element. It is therefore a broad concept, within which more specific categories
can be found. The “literature of exile” is “migration literature”; however,
they are not assimilable terms, but rather they present a hypernymy
relationship. While, as Soren indicates “migration is not only to be understood
in relation to authorial biography. Rather, the concept of migration is able to encapsulate the overall thematic and stylistic
elements of the novels” (2008, Soren, p. 9), an ectopic perspective requires a
deep understanding of the experiences of the authors.
Another
of the signs why “ectopic literature” becomes an efficient perspective to
analyze Men without bliss is the
fact that apart from
racism and cultural shocks, the question of “gender” is an issue commonly
explored within ectopic literature, especially within the intersection of
gender, class and race which is derived from the migration processes as the
works of Hellín (2021) and Alfaro (2016) exemplify.
From a
textual point of view, gender and sexuality are often represented as
problematic issues, because sometimes there must be a process of redefinition
of categorizations such as “masculine” and “feminine”, which obliges individuals
to accept the space assigned to men/women in the new space, in terms of
performativity or culture/political issues, as a consequence
for reterritorialization. Added to that, when dealing with sexualities outside
of the heteronormative space, the degree of acceptance of these sexualities
varying between the ‘source space’ and ‘target space’ –understood as the two
poles of the migration process– (Albaladejo, 2011) is
relevant when analyzing the representation of the
intersection between queer (understood
as outside the heterosexual normative spectrum) and migrant.
Oppression
due to gender or sexual orientation could be inherent before the displacement,
for instance, oppression for being part of the LGBTQ+ communities could exist
before the displacement, and it can be attenuated or emphasized depending on
the political and cultural environment of the target space. Therefore, it is
not only the resulting multiplicity of oppressions which should be studied when
dealing with an ectopic text, but we should also recall the plausible existing
oppressions before the migration process even if these original oppressions
were not the reason for the displacement. We are not considering here, because
of the nature of the textual material we are evaluating, texts in which
homosexual characters migrate because of their sexual condition, more appealing
to “exile literature” approaches; but rather how the perception of
homosexuality in the source place, shared by family and members within the same
community, can be a source for (un)happiness in the target place as well as
considering how masculinity becomes redefined as a result to
reterritorialization.
When
dealing with Men without Bliss, we can
observe that although some of his characters are first-generation migrants who
have experienced migration first-hand, others are well-established second or
third-generation Mexican-Americans who have not
experienced migration but suffer the consequences of being migrated people’s
sons. For them, tradition and family can be accepted positively or negatively,
but the status of their ancestors as migrants determines their ideas about
gender and sexuality. According to Hurtado and Sinha (2016), Latinx men living
in the US
occupy a contradictory position within a system of privilege, one that
offers them advantages but concurrently disadvantages those belonging to
devalued social categories, that is, men who come from working-class
backgrounds, who are immigrants, who speak Spanish, who often look racially
non-white, who have a Latino background, and who may be gay—all statuses that
contribute to experiencing racism, ethnocentrism, classism, and heterosexism (p.
12).
Characters
in González’s short stories are not only marked by their experience as migrants
but also as belonging to other relevant categorizations (“male” and sometimes
“gay”), which are the source of their oppression and suffering. Hence, not all
men share the privileges the same way, even if every man can benefit from
patriarchy (Connell, 1995), but rather “the disadvantages increase because of
the convergence of these categorical assignations.” (Hurtado
& Sinha, 2016, p. 12).
Male characters are the
pivotal element in each of the short stories of Men without Bliss. As
the title says explicitly, these thirteen stories recall the experiences of
ordinary men whose emotion is repressed. Although being very different, due to
factors such as age, cultural background, sexual preferences, social class or
belonging to a rural or urban area, there are two factors which unify different
characters of the stories: they are all Mexican-American
men who suffer silently and must accept their pain alone. Their status as
Mexican links them to a culture in which suffering seems to be associated
exclusively with women, leading men to hide their emotional pain and to avoid
displaying any kind of weakness publicly. By describing the emotions and
frustrations of Latino males who succumb to displaying weakness, González
critiques how traditional behaviours which are entrenched within a certain
community can contribute to suffering and hopelessness. It seems that it is
only by questioning this assigned role and breaking with the alienation that
they produce that these male figures can overcome their lack of bliss.
The sources of pain can
be different but they are primarily derived from their
condition as male and/or Latinx, or social and economic injustice, like in
their workplace, sexual repression, or the inability to handle emotional grief
because of the necessity of acting according to a learned and well-stablished
masculine role. Even if every character in Men without Bliss is
contributing to picturing how Latinx males can feel trapped in a society which
obliges them to show virility and power, González depicts realistic situations
showing how men carry the weight of a sexist tradition which imposes certain
stereotypes upon them. The unfulfillment of the expectations of masculinity can
therefore only be questioned in private, leading to a silent suffering, but
also to a space to purge their emotions.
Although not showing
their weakness to other characters in the story, readers are allowed to learn
about different moments of vulnerability of these male figures, which
contributes to presenting the men not as mere alienated figures, but as members
of society who must recognize that it is only by expressing their feelings and
allowing themselves to be vulnerable that they can find happiness.
Men without Bliss presents characters who are far from
representing the hegemonic ideas about masculinity entrenched in Mexican
communities and entrenched within Latinx pop culture (Baker, 2005). Characters
in Men without Bliss are not galanes
in their attitudes to women, as represented in soap operas, and neither are
they stereotypical machos, in the sense that they are often mere victims
of cultural expectations derived from family and society. They represent, as we stated some
lines before, a “crisis of Latino masculinity”, should we understand Latino
masculinities as sharing specific cultural attributes distinguishable from
other kinds of white masculinities. Therefore, the main characters of
these short stories tend to suffer from the power others exercise against them
or because they must revolt (voluntarily or not) against their own assumptions
about masculinity and machismo entrenched within their origin culture.
Therefore, this crisis reveals that there are models and rules of behaviour which
have been internalized in Chicanx/Latinx backgrounds and hence, prevent men from
achieving bliss. This is not a book with unhappy endings, but rather one whose characters
learn through their suffering and who remain hopeful until the end.
Along with this idea, in
Men without Bliss, characters struggle to find a place in which to purge
their emotional pain, and this lack of release becomes a major cause for
lacking bliss. In the author’s words, González “wanted to explore and reveal a
few of the many complicated layers of masculinity men have to navigate as
members of a culture that doesn’t allow men to express vulnerability or
weakness through emotion” (Sexton, 2009, p.14). Displaying emotion is generally
assumed to be a sign of men accepting their weakness, and therefore some
characters are only able to express (or at least to think over) their phantoms
when they are alone. Hence, loneliness is a common motto in different
characters, who need a space to vent their sorrows. Characters are presented as
reflective human beings who use intimate spaces such as cars (Gaspar in “Good Boys”, Jesse in “Your
Malicious Moons”, Helio in “Día de las madres”), the
shower (Marcos in “Mexican Gold”, Baltazar in “Good Boys”), or solitary
landscapes (Rolando in “Cactus Flowers”). This impossibility of
expressing emotion is explicitly mentioned in “Good Boys”, Gaspar is alone in
his car, but he suffers because he is not able to cry:
At that point in
his journey he feels the urge to cry but can’t, even though
his eyes are ready to tear. Tiny spasms force his lids to pound as if they
can’t keep open any longer. His throat becomes raspy, chocked up with bitter
bile that crawls up from his stomach. But he can’t cry. Just as he’s about to
release a pent up wail –the kind he imagines only
women are capable of–the grief deflates in his chest. The courage to burst open
is lost. Why can’t he cry now that there’s no one near enough to hear him? Even
that’s become trapped. (p. 70)
In general, as male dominance and privilege are threatened, we can
classify characters in the different short stories into one or more of these
categories suggested by Peterson
(2011):
-
(a) Men who are trapped by place and poverty, as happens with Rolando in
“Cactus Flower” who is unable to escape from the wooden shack in the middle of
the desert, or the three brothers in “Good Boys”, whose behaviour is clearly
determined by their low social status;
-
(b) Men who struggle with tradition and family, as happens in “Your Malicious Moons” in which Rolando comes
out during a family event to frustrate his brother’s objective of being the
future mayor of Caliente Valley, or in “The Call” or “Men without Bliss”, in
which the father-son relationship is also worth to analyse;
-
(c) Men who suffer because they regret (not) having done something, as
happens with the character of Marcos who regrets not having done something to
prevent his brother’s death in “Mexican Gold”, or “Road to Enchantment”, in
which Arturo decides to start a new life and regrets not having pursued his
dreams when he was younger;
-
(d) Men who struggle with desire and sexuality, as happens in “Plums” or
“The Abortionist’s Lover”;
-
(e) Men who must confront “machismo” and similar models of normative
masculinity like the character of Maclovio
(“Confessions of a Drowning Man”) and the impossibility of asking for help due
to his cousins’ judgemental attitudes reveals; and
-
(f)
Men who suffer from not being able to express weakness publicly, as happens with Gaspar in “Good
Boys”.
It is indeed in this short story where we can find
three examples of men which are sufficiently relevant to be worthy of further
comment, specially as they are presented as male
characters entrapped by their status of Latinxs and migrants. In this story, three brothers who work in the fields
picking onions, live alone with their mother, Doña Gregoria, who dreams about
winning the lottery in order to clear the debts of her
dead husband “left behind for her sons to pay” (p. 59). The three male
characters in “Good Boys” represent different models of masculinity and the
three of them suffer from their social oppression in different ways. None of
them are able to publicly express their feelings or
emotions, as they are trapped within stereotypes and models of normative
masculinity. Melchor and Gaspar, the older brothers, are presented as toxic
masculine characters who exercise their power against their younger brother
Baltazar. Gaspar is described like this:
Even as a boy Gaspar has been a hateful person. He has always been vain
about his good looks and trim body, admiring himself in front of any reflection
he comes across. Years of flattery and compliments from friends and strangers
have made him self-righteous and resentful of his plain-faced brothers.
People’s eyes open wide to take in perfection of Gaspar’s features. Little do
they know about his heavy, spiteful heart and cruel tongue (p. 63).
Their conversations evidence these stereotypes and their vision of
masculinity. Melchor showers the first, and, later on,
Gaspar enters into the bathroom. In the middle of this, Melchor says:
«You love me so much, Gasparín. Why don’t you
get behind me and fuck me in the hole?». Melchor drops
the towel on the floor on top of Gaspar’s good shoes. Gaspar leaves the room
with his clean towel across his arm.
«Pinche maricón» says Melchor. «If it wasn’t
for Doña I’d have kicked his puto
ass years ago. I hate guys like him» (p. 63).
Gaspar represents another type of masculinity, more appealing to a
seducer, and a “galán”. Although also representing a
type of stereotypical masculinity, he is certainly different to his brother.
While Melchor decides to make money by breaking into the houses of wealthy
people, Gaspar is more inclined to liquidate his assets and, by so doing,
renounce his marriage ambitions: “That was then, when even Gaspar, that
cold-hearted sissy, had pawned what little strips of jewellery he had saved up
for his future girlfriend.” (p. 68)
For instance, in “Good Boys”, the younger brother, must confront
poverty, as he has not a bedroom on his own, nor can he share with his two
brothers. We should add that he is constantly insulted by his brothers. And
that he refuses his mother’s suggestions to sleep with her in her bedroom:
With his brothers out of the way, Baltazar relaxes on the couch, where
he sleeps. He doesn’t mind sleeping with his legs over the armrest. When he
tires of the couch, he sleeps on the living room floor. Doña has asked him
repeatedly to move into her room, but Baltazar has enough problems fighting off
the mam’s boy image already (p. 64).
Poverty is presented as
a reason for masculine characters not to achieve happiness, but González’s
characters also struggle with tradition and family, as they have
to face the stereotypical roles assigned to masculinity. Suffering
arrives when these men are unable to fulfil these standards, and the
impossibility of recognizing them defines these characters as “men without
bliss”.
As Peterson (2011)
states, Men without Bliss contains several short stories which explore
adolescents growing up to become men. There are some common ideas within all
these short stories: families are not described as functional and there is a
lack of effective male role models (father, brother). The most salient cases to
examine from this perspective are the characters of Marcos (“Mexican Gold”), a
young boy who has recently lost his brother and who has decided to join the
army, and Abismael (“Plums”), a young boy who has
sexual secret intercourse with an old man in a motel. In some other short
stories, young characters must confront issues derived from their own condition
as Latinos, such as Helio (“Día de las madres”) who
comes across an accident involving a truck full of undocumented and illegal
Mexicans and who has to deal with the death of his mother, or such as Baltazar,
who suffers from being the youngest of three masculine brothers, for whom
expressing emotion is practically forbidden. I would focus primarily on the
transition to adulthood in “Mexican Gold” and in “Plums” as both consider implicitly
the ideas of learning through suffering and deciding to make the right choices.
In “Mexican Gold”, the character of Marcos, who has lived under the
shadow of his brother, Roger, suffers his loss as he has died in a fight with
Tino, which started because Roger had stolen his girlfriend. Although it went
against the rules, Roger takes out the knife he carries with him, but Tino
catches him, and it has terrible consequences for his attacker. Marcos feels
guilty about having screamed out to warn the young boys about the existence of
the knife, which will have fatal consequences for his brother. The ideas of
vulnerability and guilt are presented as negative characteristics of male
characters, and the mere idea of being humiliated during a brawl represents the
traditional vision of masculinity. When there is a recreation of the typical
procedures of wrestling between young men, the idea of honour appears to be associated
with a violent masculinity.
And
when he gets tired of watching Roger’s bloody face wave in front of him he euthanizes him with a solid right hook and a swift
kick in the stomach. It’s how a real man puts his competitor out of his misery,
and it’s considered honourable. And Roger writhes in pain a bit and then the
crowd loses interest quickly and disperses some guys complaining this wasn’t
much of a match. (p. 9)
Certainly, it is this feeling of guilt which articulates the whole short
story, and which will demonstrate the coming of age of the character. The
character of Marcos is not presented as a model of this masculinity
and neither is he as violent as his brother. This does not mean that he does
not have negative thoughts about his brother, but they have never been
explicitly voiced. Indeed, the fact that the image of Roger is constantly
repeating in his head, is evidence that Marcos is a sensitive character who
feels guilty for not having done anything.
The death of Roger, who is presented as his mother’s favourite, will be the
catalyst for Marcos’ decision to enlist the military, as he feels lost and
alone. The figure of the mother is relevant as his final conversation with her will
enhance this feeling of not belonging anywhere. It is only his grandfather –who
he calls Abuelo–, who persuades him not to enlist in
the military.
The revelation of his mother, who tells him that he was supposed to
leave the house when he was a child and go with his father, is fundamental to
Roger’s feeling of loneliness and his existential void. Nearly at the end of
the story, when Marcos looks for a photograph of his dead brother, there is a striking
revelation about his mother: “She has faded from his personal belongings,
having made herself irreversibly invisible as if she too were dead” (p. 22).
“Mexican Gold” is a cyclical story in which feelings are only expressed
in places where the character of Marcos is alone, like the bathroom or his own
bedroom, when Roger is no longer with him. At the end, Marcos is presented as a
vulnerable character, and a simile can be established when referring to the
roach at the beginning of the story. A new cockroach appears while he is
glancing over the photos of his brother, but instead of killing it, he lets it
live: “a few roaches
scurry out. His impulse is to crush the insects, to chase them down before they
disappear beneath the bed, but he doesn’t move”. In a way, it seems that Marcos accepts pain and his
status as a defenceless man who has to take decisions,
and who has to grow up by his own means.
The fact that Marcos pierces his ear, even though he knows it is
forbidden to enlist in the army with a piercing: “The tip stings a little, but
when he pushes it through he doesn’t feel any pain other than the brief
surprise of the warm penetration of metal” (p. 22), might imply that he is
experiencing an evolution, and that he is closer to finding his own place in
the world. The idea of his perforating his ear might suggest that he would not
finally go into the army and will instead consider the people who care about
him, especially his Abuelo. The idea of expressing
pain and being able to feel vulnerable is also positive in terms of achieving
bliss, as it seems that it is only through personal knowledge and the
acceptance of it that he can make good choices.
In “Plums”, personal knowledge is directly linked with the idea of
choosing between fantasy and reality. In the same fashion Abismael,
like Marcos, has to confront toxic masculinity and the
appearance of new masculinities. Both characters are victims of the absence of
a male role model. In “Mexican Gold” we learn that:
the truth is Marcos didn’t like going to work with his father. He only
pretended. He knew nothing more painful than getting up at dawn to go to the
desert, where his father drove the bulldozers and cleared the ground for new
roads. It wouldn’t have been so bad if his father didn’t insist on forcing the
pedals and gearshifts on him while he had a beer. Marcos hated that, especially
when he forgot which lever did what and his father slapped him on the head,
sometimes knocking him off the bulldozer and into the stones the machine had
broken down to sharp gravel (p.11).
Regarding “Plums”, the character of Abismael
learns to choose between a toxic masculinity, represented by the character of
Gilberto, who is a violent man who abuses his wife, and who represents the
stereotypical depiction of a man behaving in an overly aggressive way, and
Tony-R, who is a “geeko” and represents the opposite
of Gilberto. A brilliant depiction of Gilberto is provided when Abismael describes his wife: “When she comes near enough
for Abi to detect the smell of her body lotion, he’s stunned to discover a
bruise on her chin. For a brief second, he feels for her because her father
must beat her also, but then he realizes she doesn’t live with his father. She
lives with Gilberto. (p. 47)”
Apart from the brilliant lyrism of González in this passage, in which
the reader can notice the contrast between the “plums”, in the title of the
short story, defined as “a sweet disguise for a love bite” (p. 43) and the
“bruise”, the character of Gilberto is as violent as Abismael’s
father, establishing both figures as being far from depicting role models.
The character of Tony-R, who works as a receptionist in the motel and is
only a few years older than Abi, prevents Abismael from
keeping on meeting Gilberto, who waits for him two nights consecutively. Each
time the married man asks for his lover in the motel, Tony-R tells him that his
lover is absent. The second day, when the receptionist decides to talk with Abi
and sort of introduce him to some new revelations about masculinity, sex and
homosexuality are discussed. Tony-R looks for Abi in his room, who later on accedes to going with Tony-R to see the stars in
his cars. It is then when Abi learns that Tony-R had his first sexual
experience by performing a fellatio on Mr. Hartnett, his former social studies
teacher at the high school. When Tony-R tries to approach him, Abi aggressively
compares him to Gilberto:
How dare you suggest that I–haven’t you been watching the stud who comes
to see me? A real fucking man. All fucking muscle and cock, if you want to know. Shit, when he
enters me I feel like a goddamn cathedral. And that’s
something you or that pencil-dick social studies teacher will never do for me.
You got me? No wonder Mr. Harnett came after you. He saw what a dumb little
unattractive fag you were, and he didn’t have to finish his sentence when you
were probably already on your knees with gratitude (p. 56).
Suddenly, after the revelation, Abi recognized his aggressive manners and
apologizes to Tony-R. The last lines of the short story reveal somehow an
epiphany in the character of Abi who “rests his head against the tattooed
cushion of Tony-R’s shoulder and breathes in the musk of a cologne that
probably didn’t cost very much, but for Abi, it’s quite valuable and
deliciously real” (p. 57). This moment is presented in opposition to the motel,
“a place for desperate fantasy and people who enter its walls for escape”
(p.57). It seems that Abi learns to distinguish fantasy from reality, and
therefore he implicitly escapes from the toxic masculinity Gilberto
illustrates.
Regarding the main
characters of the different short stories, we account Jesse (“Your Malicious
Moons”, Abi (“Plums”), Heriberto (“Día de las Madres”), José (“Haunting José”)
and Arturo (“Road to Enchantment”), but we should add their male counterparts
or the gay male figures with whom they have sexual and/or romantic intercourse.
These characters differ in age, in social class, and their relationships to sex
and desire cannot be equated. Nevertheless, three major topics can be
distinguished regarding homosexual characters in Men without Bliss: the
idea of coming out and family acceptance, which can be perceived as “negative”
such as in “Your Malicious Moons”, or rather positive, in “Día de las Madres”
or “Haunting José” (positive); the impossibility of achieving a “fulfilling”
relationship, such as happens in “Your Malicious Moons” or in “Road to Enchantment”,
or the idea of men trapped in a toxic relationship, due to racial oppression,
or the attachment to male counterparts who represent toxic masculinity, as it
happens in “The Abortionist’s lover” and in “Plums”.
6.3.1.
Coming out / acceptance
Positive or not, the
presence of the topic of “coming out” in almost every short story concerning
gay characters reveals the importance of this topic, as it emphasises the
importance of this moment for homosexual people in general. “Your Malicious
Moons” deals with the revelation of Jesse. In “Plums”, the coming out is not
explicit, but the non-acceptance of his family is a major concern for Abi.
Although not focusing on the idea of “coming out”, the relationships of
Heriberto and the positive acceptance of his mother as well as with José, are
also mentioned in the short stories. In “Road to Enchantment”, the idea of “coming
out” appears in reference to a secondary character, Walter, the ex-boyfriend of
Cecilia, one of the friends of Arturo, who has sex with him because of
curiosity. Finally, the traumatic discovery of Lorenzo’s affair with his
brother-in-law becomes the reason for his to escape from Mexico and seeking a
new life in the States.
The central idea in
“Your Malicious Moons” is that of coming out publicly during the mayoral
candidacy of Jesse’s brother Victor. Apart from his “self-pity, anger,
victimhood” (84) as Peterson (2011) describes, the
feeling of lack of acceptance by his mother is explicitly expressed in the
short story when he assumes that he is compared to Teresa’s ex-lover who turned
out to be homosexual. “That’s how she wants to hurt you for not being Víctor
since, unlike your gullible half-brother, your mother figured out long ago you
are just like the shoe-store boyfriend. The hickeys on your neck –men bites
through and through. She always knew. She was Teresa Talamontes,
mother, mayor, sage.” (p. 27)
The idea of family
acceptance is portrayed throughout different short stories. There are
characters who have not come out publicly, as happens with Víctor in “Your
Malicious Moon”, as they know their sexual condition comes into conflict with
their parents’ ideology and stereotypes. By the same token, Abi is conscious of
the problems he can generate because of his sexual condition. Abi assumes that
the response of his Catholic parents will be negative and
that the community will be ashamed of his sexuality. Hence, the character feels
trapped between his own desires and the expectations of his family and his
community. This reflection appears when Abi says:
My parents are
perfectly healthy, and they'll both have long lives and that pisses
me off because that means that all three of us will grow old together.
Do you know how much that sucks? I'll never be free of them. And I'll be much
more of a burden to them because all of their friends
will look at them with pity for having had one child-a faggot at that-who will
never marry or have kids or a profession. They might as well have been barren.
I might as well have been born handicapped (p. 52).
The “coming out” as
homosexual, is not always treated as a conflictive issue, as the characters of
José (“Haunting José”) and Heriberto (“Día de las Madres”) portray. The
explicit mentioning of the coming out in almost every short story concerning
gay characters is relevant as it sheds light about the importance of this
moment in the life of a homosexual person. Regarding Heriberto, we learn about
his ex-partners, Lamont, Kyle and Charlie, through
Helio’s words. In fact, the whole story deals with the visit of Catarino, an old lover who has come back from New York to
bury the ashes of Heriberto’s mother.
When talking about the
former couples of the character, Heriberto’s mother’s rejection of Lamont is
not due to his sexual condition, which she accepts, but because he is a black
male, which shows the stereotypical prejudices of the mother: “Ma didn’t care
for Lamont because he was black. I didn’t care for him because he was such a
wimp” (p.154). Although Kyle is also a black male, he is accepted by his mother
as “he was patient, masculine, and polite as hell to Ma, who took a great
liking to him. She changed her mind about the black issue, though she qualified
it by saying Kyle was a black man from the South and not from Compton” (p. 154).
With Catarino, there is a complete acceptance of his
mother, “She said he was a perfect match for Heriberto because my brother’s
fire organ was his heart” (p.161).
Similarly, José’s homosexuality is accepted as it is expressed in “She
has certainly given me the space to be who I am. Not only does she overlook the
whole gay thing, she’s never objected to my tattoos” (p. 171).
6.3.2.
Gay male facing traditional masculinities
There are two short
stories in the collection in which homosexual characters are involved in sexual
intercourse with men who depict a toxic masculinity. They represent the
stereotypical conceptions of a macho and are presented as violent
characters. On the one hand, in “Plums”, as we have already mentioned, Abi, is
a teenager who has sporadic sexual encounters secretly in Palm Tree Motel with
Gilberto, a man who abuses his wife. On the other hand, in “The Abortionist’s
Lover”, Lorenzo is trapped in a relationship with his husband Adam, who abuses
him, and with whom there is sexual intercourse marked by violence and social
rejection.
In The Abortionist’s
Lover, the main character, Lorenzo, is presented as an effeminate man who
is trapped in a relationship with Adam, a Jewish doctor who practices abortion
procedures on poor women coming mainly from Latin-American countries. From the
very beginning of the short story, the discomfort and the dependent
relationship are explicitly described. “The more we sweat, the quicker I want
this to end, so I recall a time when I actually enjoyed the sex, when it was
still spontaneous, before he made it a duty –mine, in exchange for living in
his home without paying a rent” (p. 194)
This short story reveals
the struggles between homosexuality and class. Lorenzo suffers from the intersection
of being Chicano and gay, as he is considered as an “inferior” man in comparison
to Adam. The conversation between Lorenzo and Adam at the beginning of the short
story shows this dominance of Lorenzo by Adam, who silently accepts his
husband’s insults. When Adam talks aggressively about an abortion he has
practiced, and Lorenzo asks him to change the subject, he contemptuously says:
“Oh, pobre Papi,” Adam says
in that gringo accent that annoyed me. “Have I hurt your little ears?” (p. 195).
Violence in the life of this couple is not only verbal, but also physical, but
Lorenzo is trapped due to his economic dependence. These two characters are in
the kitchen preparing the soup when suddenly Adam hits Lorenzo with his fist
and, although Lorenzo is in shock, he lets his lover penetrate him.
Without warning, I
feel the hot sting of his fist across my face. It’s the surprise of the blow
that knocks me down, not the force. Adam drops beside me immediately. “You see
what you made me do?” he says.
I’m stunned into
paralysis. He rolls me over on my stomach and lifts the robe up over my ass. He
continues to coo apologies and to kiss the back of my neck as he squirms his ay
on top to penetrate me. The adrenaline has excited him, and though I’m not
prepared to receive him, I let him exhaust himself. I let his breath distract
me from the pain. (p. 196)
As shown in these lines,
in “The Abortionist’s Lover”, the migrant homosexual male is presented as a
penetrated subject. Sex is presented as a domination-dominated situation in
which the passive counterpart suffers from the abuses of their active partners.
This abuse is represented by means of different social classes, as in the
“contractual” relationship of Lorenzo with Adam but is a common topic in all
the relationship presented in this short story. Readers also learn from the different
lovers of Lorenzo, which shows that the character is trapped within toxic
relationships: Jayson, who is about to marry but with whom he has been having
sexual intercourses; Robbie, Ahmed and Shiraz, with
whom he practices sex at the end of the short story and her sister Dalia’s
husband, who motivated him to move to the US. As happens with Jesse and Arturo,
Lorenzo is unable to have a fulfilling relationship.
When Adam is on call for
twenty-four hours at the hospital, Lorenzo wipes out every trace of him and
waits until his lover Jaysen appears ready to give
him a fellatio. But this time is different, as Jaysen
announces to him that he wants to stop being Lorenzo’s lover, and that he is
going to marry and he is going to have a baby. The
relationship with Jaysen does not seem to emotionally
fulfil Lorenzo. Their conversation is based upon sex and there is no reference
to an emotional or romantic attachment.
After we learn of this
encounter, a flashback lets us know how Lorenzo ended up in the United States
because of the secret sexual encounters with his brother in-law. As Dahms (2011) points out, “Lorenzo differs from these other
Mexican and Chicano men in that he had to flee because of his promiscuousness
with other men, notably, with his future brother-in-law”. In short, homosexual
men are presented as figures dominated by other men who are either masculine,
or heterosexual, which emphasizes the domination of what is traditionally
considered “masculine” or normative against other vulnerable positions.
Rigoberto Gonzaléz’s short story collection portrays the struggles of
migrant Chicano men in different places of the United States and reveals a deep
understanding of suffering and oppression due to the conditions of “male” and
“migrant”. This approximation of Men Without Bliss raises awareness
about the situation of the Chicanx community in the USA, and helps us to
understand the feelings, attitudes and worries of men who have suffered the
process of migration, and/or who struggle with notions such as “cultural
identity” or “alterity”.
Regarding the purposes
this essay aimed to cover, it should be highlighted that it has served to
introduce the author Rigoberto González and his work to the Spanish and
European literary panorama, where there is no available research yet. This
essay contributes to the few academic projects made on González’s short stories
and and further explores their main topics and
symbols of their main topics and symbols, focusing on the ideas of migration
and masculinity. As his experience is directly connected with his artistic
process, we have collected data about his biography from several sources,
accounting several interviews already registered. This material has been key to
clarify some of the hypotheses
of our research and have also draw our attention to new ideas. By the same
token, González expresses through his fiction his own experience as a migrant
and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, which has provided us with a better
understanding of the depiction of these topics within his creative process.
By considering the
notions of “Chicanx”, “male” and “homosexual” as relevant labels to examine the
construction of individual and collective identity, we can resort the
importance of such labels in the writing process for authors whose literature
is based on these categories. Authors such as González express through their
literary process their awareness of his belonging to these previous categorizations
and challenge the pre-stablished notions of what they mean. It aligns González
with other Chicano and gay authors who share the idea that it is through
writing about their experiences as belonging to oppressed groups, that they
will raise awareness of these injustices among their readers, thus becoming
committed authors.
Ectopic literature is a
theoretical framework which has allowed us to examine the traces of migration
in Men Without Bliss, a collection of thirteen short stories in which
Chicano men living on the US are in the search of happiness, and struggle with
the construction of their identity. As some papers concerning ectopic
literature suggest, the experience of migration is directly linked to the
experience of gender and sexuality, as the feeling of otherness usually
challenges the notion of gender performativity. In fact, the characteristics
attributed to gender might vary within the process of migration and
reterritorialization, and these cultural differences are explored in González’s
narrative. His male characters are complex human beings who suffer from pain in
a culture which do not accept their emotional pain as licit and expressible.
The depiction of homosexual characters introduces new ideas such us the “coming
of age” and explores, among others, the notion of family acceptance. In sum,
thanks to the representation of male characters who break the moulds of the
traditional masculine archetypes, readers can give thought to the necessity of
fulfilling the exigencies of patriarchy as an impossibility for men to achieve
a fulfilling life.
In
light of the
above, this research paper has met its goals in demonstrating that Rigoberto González
is one of the most compelling voices in the contemporary panorama of the short
story in the United States, and his work is worth being read and analysed.
Finally, this dissertation opens a door for new directions, which include the
study of his poetry, his memoirs and young adult novels.
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[1] As accepted in Oxford
Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary, we prefer using “Latinx” to “Latino” when
referring to the community, as we prefer a non-gendered biased term. Aware that the term is not exempt from
polemic, for more information: Sulbarán, (2020, January 15). “Qué hace que el término «latinx » sea tan
controvertido entre los hispanohablantes”. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-50899019. The usage of
“Latino”, as referring to both men and women, instead of “Latinx” has been
maintained in literal quotations.
[2] In this essay we will rely upon Pereira’s definition
of “Chicano/a/x” as comprising all the
authors “que abarcan la temática social y racial de los hispanos de Estados
Unidos, así como los méxico-norteamericanos con interés por otros temas”
(Pereira, 2018), thus rendering “Chicano/a/x” and “Latino/a/x” completely
synonymous.
[3] This
statement is extracted from his personal webpage at the Pacific Lutheran
University (PLU) website. González, R. (n.d.) Biography. Retrieved
June 7, 2022, from https://www.plu.edu/mfa/staff/rigoberto-González/.