New World Tropes

Nepantilism

This is but the beginning of an unpacking of the Aztec/Nahua term 'nepantilism'--as a trope, it captures the lived contradiction Anzaldua identifies as being a part of the mestiza consciousness. As someone interested in the rhetoric that the study of the New World possesses, I'm using this space to map some of the ways that I begin to examine the theoretical power of this trope when further developed as a theory for conceptualizing inner and outer conflict.

From Chapter Seven of Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera:

“In a constant state of “nepantilism,” an Aztec word meaning “torn between ways,” la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. Being tri-cultural, monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed; which collectivity does the daughter of a darkskinned mother listen to?”(78)

Teaching controversy analysis, I feel like Nepantilism could serve as a generative title, re-naming the assignment in a way that reframes it as something more culturally situated, a practice I hope encourages student engagement. As academics, or even for burgeoning academics, developing a sense of an academic identity might feel as though being torn in a different direction than the pre-college self--nepantilism might help conceptualize the inner turmoil one feels submitting to certain practices over one's cultural ways of being.

I found this interesting Slideshow by artist Isis Rodriguez, which integrates the notion of Nepantla, and Rodriguez has a really interesting gallery on her site that's worth checking out.

The Counter Pop Evolution, English Corregido

View more presentations from Isis Rodriguez.

Non-Greek Ancient Rhetoric

Damián Baca & Victor Villanueva - Rhetorics of the Americas: 3114BCE to 2012CE

According to the description, this new book provides: "an understanding of discourse aimed to persuade within the Pre-Columbian Americas. The contributors in this collection offer glimpses of what those indigenous rhetorics might have looked like and how their influences remain."

This sounds like a great re-historicizing and counter-narrative about Precolombian rhetoric that is often marginalized in traditional discussions of ancient rhetoric.

Mictecacihuatl la norteña in 'hell-hot' Tucson

Service Learning

On a recent visit to a local Tucson high school, I was speaking with students of a Latin American literature class. The students were asked to draw self portraits, incorporating symbols that they believed identified them according to their culture and interests. Some of the students had drawn images of Aztec/Nahua calenders, flowers and pictographic heads representing various deities. I began speaking with a young girl who told me that she was from El Salvador. She laughed when I asked her if she liked Tucson. She responded with a variation of how I'd heard Tucson referred to before, as 'hell-hot', or 'hot as hell.'

I told her that the Aztecs might've agreed--although Tucson is located in what is often referred to as Aztlán, where the Aztecs began their migration to Tenochtitlán, the Aztecs also thought of the underworld Mictlan as being located north of them in relation to present day Mexico City DF. So Mictecacihuatl might've been a norteña, sweating like the rest of us under the Arizona sun.

Hopefully the next time I visit, I'll remember the names better, but it's great to see how much interest these students have in pre-Columbian history. Now, if I were only able to incorporate their love of Reggaeton into New World Rhetoric...

UPDATE: I couldn't help but add a video of Calle 13 in a response to my previous point about using reggaeton as a point of entry--Calle 13's Latinoamerica possesses a critical ethos that alludes to the tradition of colonialism in the Americas.