Latinx Visual Culture Studies: Arlene Dávila in Conversation with Charlene Villaseñor Black
Charlene Villaseñor Black & Arlene Dávila, Placita Olvera, Los Angeles, December ‘22.
On November 10, 2022 Arlene Dávila, director of the Latinx Project at NYU and Charlene Villaseñor Black, editor of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, interviewed each other as part of a collaboration between the journal and Intervenxions. The first interview* revolved around questions related to naming and their personal stories, as well as the founding of The Latinx Project and thoughts on Latino visual culture. In this second section, the scholars turned to the differences between Latinx studies on the East and West coasts, the importance of digital humanities, and their overall thoughts about the future of Latinx studies. You can read the first part here.
*Please note that a digital subscription purchased via the University of California Press is required to access the first interview.
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Arlene Dávila (AD): The difference between Latino Studies on the East coast vs. West coast, is such an interesting conversation. Scholars in NYC and the East have been at the vanguard in the conversation around the Latinization of the US because of the greater diversity of the local population. I think back to the volume I co-edited on the Latinization of New York in 2001. We immediately realized that there was already a large and growing body of literature on “Latino studies,” even back then. This has everything to do with the demographic realities of New York City, where you have a strong Puerto Rican community, but also a strong Caribbean community, and by the ‘80s, large-scale migration from Mexico, particularly from Puebla. And in boroughs like Queens, a strong Colombian and South American community. In the 1990s, I was also lucky to be part of a rise in Latinx studies, led by scholars such as Juan Flores, George Yudice, Miriam Jiménez Román, and a strong cohort of students who were not only doing Puerto Rican studies, but also Latino studies. In other words, there’s been a longer and more substantive recognition of Latino diversity on the East Coast, particularly in regards to the rise of Afro-Latinx studies, relative to what I see happening in Latino Studies on the West coast.
Charlene Villaseñor Black (CVB): The conversation on the West coast is still very Chicano-centric.
AD: I totally recognize the importance of defending legacy spaces, but the development of Latinx studies should not be an either/or conversation—there should be room and spaces for Puerto Rican studies, Chicanx studies, Central American Studies, Afro-Latinx Studies, and Latinx Studies. And all these spaces should be nurturing and collaborating with each other.
CVB: In the context of Chicano studies, what are its boundaries? How do we respect its history? How do we approach challenges to its definition? It should be seen as in conversation with and reaching these fields. Instead, the conversation in Chicano studies doesn't get to that. We become pitted against each other in unfruitful ways. That has to change.
AD: Another key element in Latinx Studies on the East coast is the reality of Black Latinidad and the key role that Afro-Latinx studies has played in expanding the conversation. Again, this is directly tied to the migratory histories of Caribbean people and the geography of New York City, where African Americans and Puerto Ricans have lived side by side for decades as the first large-scale migrations of non-white European people into New York City. This fueled the whitening of European ethnic migrants, shaping a common history of racialization for African Americans and Puerto Ricans, who lived in the same tenements buildings, side by side, marrying each other, giving rise to boogaloo and hip-hop, and making it impossible to draw strict boundaries between these communities. It reminds me of Juan Flores' book of essays Divided Borders, where he describes his conversation with a Chicano friend visiting New York and remarks on their surprise at learning about the linkages between African Americans and Latinos, which he did not see in Los Angeles, and how central this relationship is for understanding Latinos in New York.
CVB: I was so impressed, in your book on Latinx art, with your facility talking about both coasts. We read that a couple of times in my seminars and I think you're absolutely right. There are really key differences that arise from different histories of colonialism and different im/migration patterns. The West coast is predominantly Mexican American. But L.A. is also home to a huge Central American population. The city is now 51% Spanish-speaking. But increasingly there are other diverse Latinx populations on the West coast and in L.A.
Chicanx studies has a history going back 50 years, but there has been resistance at times to opening up the discussion. There's increasing dialogue with Central Americans, though, which is really important here in L.A.
There is an acknowledgment of other Latinx cultures on the West coast but I feel like we're in the beginning stages compared to what happened on the East coast because of these different migration patterns, but also because of the entrenched racism in Mexican American communities. Thinking about the nationalist construct of Aztlan as settler colonial, and how we're finally moving beyond that [to] important thinkers like Rafael Pérez Torres, who was suggesting, in the 90s, that we need to get beyond this literal idea about Aztlán and think about it more conceptually.
I am happy to edit Aztlan: A Journal Chicano Studies and to see a new diversity of publications moving beyond this European-Indigenous binary and essentialist notions, and looking at Latinx in a wider, global context.
AD: I think publications like yours are so critical to this conversation because we can read about each other's works within a larger Latinx context. I’m thinking of Aztlán versus the Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, for instance, and the very different conversations that are increasingly possible in both spaces. At the same time, it's important to recognize that Chicano and Puerto Rican studies journals have been publishing Latinx studies topics forever—in fact one of my first articles was published in Aztlan decades ago. Still, new publications encompassing larger identity framings are a welcoming development to generate the type of intersectional conversations that cross boundaries and regions.
CVB: And those conversations are happening in the journal and in the department here at UCLA and at conferences. So it's a new day, I hope.
AD: Social media has been essential to this development too.
CVB: Absolutely essential. Think of new technologies, transdisciplinary collaboration, community partnerships, new tools and approaches.
AD: The digital humanities are so key particularly because we're at a moment when the activation and dissemination of our research is essential. Twenty years ago we needed to foster more research and encourage more scholars to do original research—remember the turn to policy briefs? Yet today, what we most need are ways to communicate and disseminate all the great research, and resources we’ve been producing for decades to ensure it’s accessible to wider communities. This is where the public and digital humanities come in. All of us are increasingly aware that learning is not limited to university and academic settings. In fact, we could argue that it is not in the classroom where people are being offered the most cutting edge literature and curricula. Instead, we are often learning about each others’ work on social media.
CVB: Social media is a way to be in conversation with our communities, and so many important conversations come from social media, from our communities. The use of the ‘X’ or discussions of Afro-Latinx culture. My impression is that those really came from social media.
I try to keep track of these digital humanities websites and tools. I am a little concerned that I'm seeing an increasing lack of citation of original research in some of these venues, and it's usually women and women of color whose research is not cited. Some of these websites just take original research and present it as if it's common knowledge. So I am a little concerned about the lack of citation and digital resources. And thinking back to the Cite Black Women movement by Christen Smith in 2017, and what she called citational justice, and how important that is.
AD: Another key concern is sustainability. A lot of the new digital humanities projects are often underfunded and vulnerable, or depend on social media platforms that we don’t control. As a result, you often see sites disappear when they're out of funding. Intervenxions is linked to the NYU server, which I don't think is going anywhere, but a lot of content is vulnerable and ephemeral. This is one of many reasons why I am so excited by Karen Mary Davalos’ project Rhizomes of Mexican American Art Since 1848.
CVB: I love how she's bringing together all of these independent databases, aggregating them so that we know what images are there, what research is there. I love how she extended the temporal range into the nineteenth century. It’s an extremely important resource. I'm hopeful that her project will really help us know each other’s work, and also cite each other, and really learn from each other. We shouldn't all be responsible for doing everything—her project allows us to complement each other. That’s better for everyone.
Let’s talk about the future and what excites us about the current visibility of Latinx art and culture.
AD: I'm very skeptical about all the enthusiasm surrounding the sudden visibility of Latinx artists. When you think about the demographic reality of our community, the fact that one gallery that never featured Latinx artists now works with one or two, or that a few of our artists are getting museum shows, is no reason to celebrate at all. Because we would need to have at least 19 percent in museums, galleries, and academia to get close to the levels we should be at and these spaces are diversifying a bit, but not at the speed to address structural inequalities. We may also see a backlash after this sudden interest—when all of this becomes a trend, a fad. Both of us are old enough to have seen “Latin booms” in the past. We recognize the peaks and valleys that didn’t lead to structural transformation.There's little cause for celebration when major museums hire only one Latinx curator, when collections are changing so slowly, and when museum board members remain mostly white, like most senior faculty in academia.
CVB: My goodness—yes to all that.
On the one hand, we're hearing about this interest in Latinx art. On the other, there's this tremendous anti-Latinx sentiment being expressed politically and the realities of what happened during COVID, and the way that devastated the Latinx community in Los Angeles and elsewhere. So I’m thinking about the Latinx boom and at the same time, the kind of political realities that we're living in.
I do have to say something about the Cheech Marín Museum—an important moment for Chicano art. I'm hoping that it's the first of other museums that will open. There's also the Smithsonian Latino Museum coming down the pike.
It's not good enough to have one or two Latinx artists represented in a museum collection, especially given the demographic realities of this country. In whose hands will cultural commentary be? it needs to be in all of our hands. It can't just be in the hands of a select few that are not representative of the country or the world.
So I'm absolutely hopeful. But there's a lot of work left to do.
AD: I am hopeful for our students. They inspire me constantly. Academia can be very lonely, as we know. But we always have community with our students—more than with colleagues, really, because many of us are so exploited, and so tired. Those of us in academia must always remember that academia is not the world. Our community is so much larger, and it is so important to have solid networks beyond our academic world because there are people doing incredible creative things all around us that can enrich our teaching, research, and lives.
CVB: That's a really good reminder—the absolute importance of our students. I just love my students at UCLA, they keep me going. They keep me connected to our community. I learn from them. They remind me of what's important. It's one of the most important things I do at UCLA—that mentoring and teaching. I’m also thinking about activism, and how important and central that is to many of our lives. I moved half of my line from art history into Chicana/o and Central American studies in 2014 because I needed to survive as a Chicana in the academy, and I wasn't gonna survive just being in this art history department. It was literally an act of survival for me and I am so grateful to those colleagues in Chicana/o and Central American Studies for welcoming me and making space for my work. Now you can do a PhD in visual culture in that department. So it really diversified the kinds of students I was able to train and put out into the world.
AD: For Latinas in the academy, having our feet grounded in real life communities is an act of survival and self-preservation. Yet when we think of our larger communities, I feel hopeful and optimistic. Things have to get better. We have no choice but to imagine new and better worlds. I also think it is super interesting seeing so many Latinas leading the conversation around Latinx studies, and engaging in institution building. This is so different from the start of Latino studies, when it was all men in leadership positions. I think women create and work differently. I see and live it—just as you and I decided to have this conversation to uplift each other's work, I can think of so many Latinas who are behind new centers, institutions, and initiatives: Adriana Zavala (US Latinx Art Forum), Karen Mary Davalos (Rhizomes), Yarimar Bonilla (Center for Puerto Rican Studies), Zaire Dinzey (Black Latinas Know Collective), to the dynamic duo of Veronica Terriquez and Sonja Diaz in UCLA. I can think of so many womxn who are spearheading collaborative outreach efforts and creating linkages with scholars and stakeholders across the US. I'm really excited about what is possible when we work collaboratively to uplift Latinx studies.
I am also hopeful that what we're creating will be lasting, and that new generations will have an easier time in the academy because of the spaces we're carving right now. So that we no longer have to spend years trying to open up a space, but instead, we can continue to imagine what is possible. As my colleague Cristina Beltran shared at one of our meetings about the future of The Latinx Project, we are tired of having to think about building our home from scratch—we want to have a home and spend time thinking about how to decorate it! I couldn't agree more. We deserve resources and infrastructures to dream and imagine.
CVB: I share your optimism. It's actually fundamental to my personality. I'm always optimistic, maybe even when I shouldn't be, but hopelessness is not an option in my mind. We continue to move forward and continue to build. I am really inspired by our students and you're right about women. Chicana/o studies has passed this critical point, where there are a lot of women now in these spaces and we've really changed things. We've changed the discourse. It's very noticeable. This was really a field dominated by men going back 50 years.
I'm excited at UCLA to see so many First Gen students. We have lots of undocumented students, too—more than any university in the country. A large number of our students are on Pell Grants, so I think we can be an engine of social change. But we have to do the work. And I'm ready for the decorating to start.
Arlene Dávila is Professor of Anthropology and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She studies the political economy of culture and media, consumption, immigration and the geographies of inequality and race. These research interests grew out of her early work in Latinx art and culturally specific museums and spaces in New York City, and have developed through her continued involvement in Latinx advocacy and interest in creative industries across the Americas. She has authored multiple books among them, Latinx Art: Artists, Markets and Politics. Learn more here.
Charlene Villaseñor Black is Professor of Art History and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Associate Director of the Chicano Studies Research Center, editor of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and founding editor-in-chief of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (UC Press). Her research focuses on the art of the early modern Ibero-American world as well as contemporary Chicanx visual culture. Winner of the 2016 Gold Shield Faculty Prize and author of the prize-winning and widely-reviewed 2006 book, Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: Art and Gender in the Spanish Empire, she is finishing her second monograph, Transforming Saints, from Spain to New Spain, under contract with Vanderbilt University Press. Professor Villaseñor Black publishes on a range of topics related to the early modern Iberian world, Chicanx studies, and contemporary Latinx art. Her most recent books include, with Dr. Mari-Tere Álvarez of the Getty Museum, Renaissance Futurities: Art, Science, Invention (UC Press, 2019); the new Chicano Studies Reader (2020); Knowledge for Justice: An Ethnic Studies Reader (2019); and Shifra M. Goldman’s final book, Tradition and Transformation: Chicana/o Art from the 1970s to the 1990s (2015). Several more titles in Art History and Chicanx studies are forthcoming, among them Autobiography without Apology: The Personal Essay in Latino Studies (2020); and Antonio Bernal: Witness to the Chicano Movement (2021). She has held grants from the Fulbright, Mellon, Borchard, Terra, and Woodrow Wilson Foundations, the NEH, the ACLS, and the Getty. Most recently, she is PI of “Critical Mission Studies at California’s Crossroads,” a $1.03 million dollar grant from the University of California’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives. Her upbringing as a working class, Catholic Chicana/o from Arizona forged her identity as a border-crossing early modernist and inspirational teacher.