hybridity

from new world border by guillermo gomez-peña

"i also oppose the old colonial dichotomy of first world / third world with the more pertinent notion of the fourth world -- a conceptual place where the indigenous peoples meet with the diasporic communities. in the fourth world, there is very little place for static identities, fixed nationalities, 'pure' languages, or sacred cultural traditions. the members of the fourth world live between and across various cultures, communities, and countries. and our identities are constantly being reshaped by this kaleidoscopic experience. the artists and writers who inhabit the fourth world have a very important role: to elaborate the new set of myths, metaphors, and symbols that will locate us within all of these fluctuating cartographies."

"people with social, racial, or economic privilege have an easier time crossing physical borders, but they have a much harder time negotiating the invisible borders of culture and race."

"in reaction to the transculture imposed from above, a new essentialist culture is emerging, one that advocates national, ethnic, and gender separatism in the quest for cultural autonomy, 'bio-regional identity,' and 'traditional values.' this tendency to overstate difference, and the unwillingness to change or exchange, is a product of communities in turmoil who, as an antidote to the present confusion, have chosen to retreat to the fictional womb of their own separate histories. even our so-called 'progressive' communities are retrenching to a fundamentalist stance."

"my version of the hybrid is cross-racial, polylinguistic, and multicontextual. from a disadvantaged position, the hybrid expropriates elements from all sides to create more open and fluid systems. hybrid culture is community-based yet experimental, radical but not static or dogmatic. it fuses 'low' and 'high' art, primitive and high-tech, the problematic notions of self and other, the liquid entities of north and south, east and west."

"the artist who understands and practices hybridity in this way can be at the same time an insider and an outsider, an expert in border crossings, a temporary member of multiple communities, a citizen of two or more nations. . . s/he assumes the role of nomadic chronicler, intercultural translator, or political trickster. s/he speaks from more than one perspective, to more than one community, about more than one reality. [their] job is to trespass, bridge, interconnect, reinterpret, remap, and redefine; to find the outer limits of [their] culture and cross them.

the presence of the hybrid denounces the faults, prejudices, and fears manufactured by the self-proclaimed center, and threatens the very raison d'etre of any monoculture, official or not."

"the borders keep multiplying. it just doesn't cut it anymore to pretend that the enemy is always outside. the separatist, sexist, racist, and authoritarian tendencies that we condemn others for perpetuating also exist within our own communities and within our own individual selves. we can't continue to hide behind the pretext that 'straight, white men,' or the all purpose 'dominant culture' are the source of all our problems. every community must face this fact: dominance is contextual. we all, at different times and in different contexts, enjoy some privileges over other people and perform the ever-changing roles of victim and victimizer, exploited and exploiter, colonizer and colonized."

"the absurd premise behind this belief is that if we are truly committed to our communities, we must be marginal, poor, angry, and anti-intellectual. . . this is contemporary america: a land of diversity where no one tolerates difference; a land of bizarre eclecticism where everyone must know their place."

"spanglish poetry reading in a public bathroom (cal arts, 1979)
this piece was another attempt to bring performance and language into unusual contexts, and to disrupt people's sense of the quotidian. for twenty-four hours, i sat on a toilet and read aloud epic poetry describing my journey to the united states. whoever happened to come into the bathroom - for whatever reason - experienced the piece. through this and other experiments of its kind, i became interested in the notion of performing for 'involuntary audiences.'"

"performing for the media: the cruci-fiction project (1994)
in early '94, roberto and i crucified ourselves for three hours on sixteen-foot-high crosses at rodeo beach (in front of san francisco's golden gate bridge). the piece was designed for the media, as a symbolic protest against the xenophobic immigration policies of california's governor pete wilson. inspired by the biblical myth of dimas and gestas (two petty thieves who were crucified alongside of jesus), roberto and i decided to dress as 'two contemporary public enemies of california': i was an 'undocumented bandido,' crucified by the INS [immigration and naturalization service], and roberto was a generic 'gang member,' crucified by the LAPD.

our audience of over 300 people each received a handout, asking them to 'free us from our martyrdom as a gesture of political commitment.' however, we had miscalculated their response. paralyzed by the melancholia of the image, it took them over three hours to figure out how to get us down. by then, my right shoulder had become dislocated and roberto had passed out. we were carried to a nearby bonfire and nurtured back to reality, while some people in the crowd rebuked those who were trying to help us, saying, 'let them die!'"