This week, we sought to understand the close interweaving of religion and violence in the life of Latinas.
On Wednesday, we discussed the work of Ames, Ware, and Behnke on religion, culture, violence, and church leaders, and the concept of maternal self-mourning, translated for a “Gender and Domination” course by Moises Ramirez. We also discussed the multiple subject positions and dynamics of gender, class, and colonial violence in Chascas’s ¿Quién mató a Sara? / Who Killed Sara?. Finally, we briefly analyzed and commented on the images of protesters against gender violence in Chile and Argentina. Our discussions were framed by two archs. First, we identified the tension between language and silence and its role in Latinas’ ability to speak about the violence they endure. Second, we questioned and struggled with the multiple directions of violence and how those violated can also exert violence upon others.
By Sunday 5pm comment on a) the kinds of speaking and your working concept of it in one or more of the cases we discussed in class (church leaders, Who killed Sara?, the Argentinian and Chilean protests) b) the contradictions of violence and violence against Latinas.
Church leaders possess an extreme amount of power and they have a history of abusing the power they have. This could lead to distrust of Church leaders among Latinas. This is due to the sexual violence committed against Latinas, and the history of sexual violence among the Church. As seen in the videos from Chile and Argentina there is animosity against the Church because of the history of sexual violence and the lack of action against it. This tension and history in the Church can cause for Latinas to be distant from the Church. This leads to what we have been talking about all year about the relationship between religion and Latinas because of the terrible history of the Church. The current issues of sexual violence against Latinas this could for less and less Latinas to participate in the Church. This ultimately can have consequences of being isolated from their families because of their choice to disassociate from the Church. How can the Church stand for something so Holy and have such a history and current issue of sexual violence and then expect Latina women who experience extreme violence to still be for the Church? It is a difficult relationship between the Church and Latinas. Ultimately, the Church needs to do a better job at addressing their current issues with sexual violence and do better to work to protect women, specifically Latina women.
One of the reasons the Ames study focused on church leaders is because of their influence on the people. Most people turn to religion to justify their actions, and a lot of the time, church leaders give them that approval they seek. Many women turn to the church for support when they are stuck in abusive relationships, but feel like they can’t get it because the church doesn’t support them, or does not believe them. In general, the church has a very patriarchal structure that favors men even if they are in the wrong.
The videos from the protests further prove that there is a patriarchal structure everywhere, not just in the church. The lyrics of the song the women in Chile were chanting had strong lyrics about the struggles and abuse they face, mostly at the hands of men. I remember when this song went viral, men found a way to mock the song. They invalidated these women by saying that those things don’t actually happen, or that they are exaggerating. This further proves that women have to do so much more to prove themselves that men, such as we saw with the violence in Argentina.
The series Who Killed Sara?, serves as an eye-opener for the oppression that Latinas and all women can experience in the contemporary world. It challenges the idea that class and gender do not continue to define one’s reality in modern times. I was struck by the images of silent women having sex with random, white men. These were men of power and status. For instance, Imara, the woman who Sergio instructed to have sex with Bruno, followed his instructions swiftfully. She clearly knew what she needed to do to fulfill this role. She placed his hands on her because she knew he had this right, and she was powerless. Imara had to accept this reality in order to survive temporarily, since there was no way out. On the other hand, Elisa is a woman, but she is not subject to this reality that is occurring around her. Elisa does not experience silenceness in the way these victims are. Instead, she has been able to pursue an elite education and learns about these atrocities later on.
The fact that Elisa is able to investigate these crimes and stand up to her father about his actions clearly demonstrates her privilege due to class, as a member of this aristocratic family. The women who were being sex trafficked, on the other hand, had no other choice but to be silent. There were a great number of men who took advantage of these women and treated them as disposable. The ways in which these women were treated challenge the narrative that men and women are equal in society. Men who consider women to be their equals would not treat them or allow them to be treated in this way.
I think watching the show Who Killed Sara? has better enabled me to understand and develop more of a conceptual basis for how Latinas experience violence in intersectional ways, but one particular concept, that of physical silence, still resonates with me. Kimberle Crenshaw proposed that the intersectional disenfranchisement that occurs within many Latinx peoples’ lives, especially Latinas or Latinx with children/uteri, is that of a language barrier. Being as it is that church officials and clergy wield some of the most influential authority is no coincidence: the Church, the Christian one, has constructed its own biopower authority, inflicting upon its base a supreme power that stems from “the word,” be that the word of god, the word of the pope, or the word of a local priest. Holy Orders seem to exempt church officials from doing any wrong unless proved otherwise, and even then it is extremely difficult to indict a church official. When one considers violence, the Church, and language, one doesn’t make an inherently intuitive connection; however, there is an unavoidable intersection between these three. When Latinx/Latinas experience violence, it may occur on any level in accordance to whichever or all of the axes of identity that are concerned in the person’s life. In terms of language, the language barrier and the sociocultural influences dictating how gender roles function in Hispanic and Latin societies then informs how women and men are expected to communicate. The Church also functions within this broader, gendered system, and as the Church is an extension of the society, it follows that the inherent maleness of the Church influences how women are to fall into the strata: they are inferior to men and are especially inferior bodily, sexually, socially, and linguistically to the male church leaders. It is almost as though being a member of the clergy heightens the import of one’s maleness, thus further illuminating the inferiority of women. Linguistically, as these roles have been transcribed into the socio-cultural fabric of Hispanic and Latin society (though this is a further extension of European colonial influence), it goes that Latinas are bound to their roles and their status within society. The characters of Mariana, Elisa, and Sara’s mother exhibit this well. There is very little that Sara’s mother may do to alter her situation, but it also appears as though Mariana may also do nothing to challenge her authoritarian husband’s wishes. Yet, Mariana is privileged because of her class. She still has autonomy and authority to influence those in her life. Elisa, also in accordance with her social status, is able to contest her family’s views, which is something that Sara, Marifer, and the women that the Lazcanos traffic are unable to do (respectfully and for their own reasons). Returning to Crenshaw’s point, those Latinas/Latinx who cross borders and then must deal with the heightened issues of language barriers seem to be further silenced. This silence, in whatever way it manifests, renders obsolete any autonomy a woman may have over her body, and in a male-ruled state, silence seems to be the only way of life for many who do not have the privilege of class, status, or gender. This allows violence to not only occur but to seemingly endlessly perpetuate.
I am aware that Crenshaw was not a reading for this class, but I find this point to be rather salient in terms of juridical handlings of Latinas in the US.
In the Argentinian and Chilean protests against femicide, it was very striking to see Latinas coming together to battle a common enemy. In “Un Violador en tu Camino,” the women were very aggressive in their speech in that they acted as though they were speaking directly to the men guilty of femicide. They shouted that it was the president and others, which highlights their bravery to me because as Latinas it seems like a big move to call people out directly. For Latinas to usually be silenced, I found the protest to be a very significant statement showing the world how dire the problem of femicide is. Because they used their voices, we can see that there lies strength and power in the Latina that is hidden. In Who Killed Sara?, Don Cesar has trafficked many young women from around the world and silenced them. The entire show sheds light on not only sex trafficking but sexual violence as a whole. The women in the basement, such as the Hungarian one who speaks with Bruno, also find difficulty getting help because of the language barrier, which just provides more support to the claim that women are always somehow silenced.
Violence is very well known of by most people, and it has becoming a growing issue as people become more aware of how common it is. Violence against Latinas, though, does not receive much coverage in the news. They are continuously silenced and made to believe that their lives do not matter, when they do. On the other hand, when a white woman endures violence, it is suddenly the end of the world, and everyone wants to get involved in solving the issue. It is interesting to see who is “worthy”. Before this class, I had never heard of the violence in Honduras nor the anthem we listened to. I am someone who is usually aware of social issues, but this seems to have been kept quiet because for some reason it is not worthy enough to be shared as much as we know it should. Even though Latinas do endure violence within the home and outside the home, you never hear about them, and it really is at the hands of news channels and journalists. They decide what news is worthy enough to know.
The act of speaking for Latinas itself is a revolutionary act that challenges their social role. The protestors in Argentina against sexual violence and the church particularly caught my eye as an example of how the church plays the role of both a saving grace for Latinas as well as the source of their oppression in many ways. As we covered during our class discussion, Catholicism in particular places a great emphasis on the cohesion of family units and the organization of the community as a whole. Further, the harmful marianismo archetypes that are forced upon Latinas also oftentimes have their roots in Catholicism and its veneration of the Virgin Mary. The rage of the protestors against the church as they burned bibles and beat up counter protestors signified to me the change in the perspective of many Latinas towards the church. The hostility of the protestors towards the church indicates how they have observed the church failing repeatedly to use its great social power to take meaningful action against domestic violence in the community. In the video we saw a few weeks ago about the issue of femicide and extreme violence against women, the immense power of the church over daily life was captured by the constant presence of churches and Catholic iconography such as Jesus and the Virgin Mary across the city streets. Despite the constant influence of religion, extreme violence against women still continues to run rampant across the country right under the nose of so many religious institutions and is totally contradictory to the Catholic faith to which so many of these men adhere to. The rage of the protestors at this contradiction ,as they spoke out, showed me how many Latinas feel betrayed by the very institutions that they were taught to seek refuge in. Sadly, the protestors expressed their righteous anger in inappropriate ways by attacking pedestrians and church supporters, as is so often the case of groups that have been silenced and looked over for so long.
It’s ironic that Latinas, a group of people stereotypically seen outside of their ethnicity as loud or “fiery” are victims of such debilitating structural silences. Despite Latinas having such important roles in the maintenance and reproduction of community, they are routinely denied any meaningful representational power in misogynist institutions like the church. More than that, they are asked to be complicit in the reproduction of said institutions, bearing the foundational weight of marianismo. Through this they are reduced to nothing more than their role as mother, asked to create and reproduce the spaces that alienate (and comfort) them.
I appreciate Ramirez’s article, “Kristeva on Maternal Self-Mourning,” for helping me think through this. While I had originally thought of the issue of silence in terms of male-occupied institutions, I had not thought about silence through the institution of motherhood itself. One line really stood out to me: “[woman] must produce another body within her own body — only to then have that other body removed from her.” It had not sunk in for me before this reading, before this week, how Latinas are split amongst their children, asked to place their own voices inside other vessels.
In the imagery of the Argentinian and Chilean protests, I was very surprised to see so many Latinas coming together to publicize their outrage towards violence against women. While it is obviously understandable why they would want to stand up against this, given the nature of femicide in these countries, I was surprised that so many Latinas came forward despite the consequences it may have on them by the men in their lives. All I could think about was tragedy that would occur if someone’s partner or husband found out they went to this protest and inflicting more violence upon her for trying to stand up for herself and others.
In the Ames article, the researchers decided to tackle Church leaders because of the influence they have on Latinos and the large impact they have on Latino lives in general. However, it is interesting how the article puts Christianity into a whole category and doesn’t separate the differences in devotion for example among Protestants and Catholics. It is also important to note the patriarchal nature of the Church when discussing violence against women because while many Latinas turn to the Church for help, strength, and understanding when they are experiencing violence there’s the aspect that the men of the Church do not support her. This again leads back to the idea that many Latinas use their religion as a source of comfort and survival while also being subject to oppression and subordination.
The act of speaking, loudly, angrily, and aggressively, is a stereotype often associated with Latinas. However, the act of Latinas speaking out against, something or someone, is revolutionary because Latinas are subject to the onerous marianismo, and thus, have conventionally been taught to have no voice unless that voice confines to the structural bounds established by the Catholic society and communities, of which they are a part. In this way, Latinas, despite being heralded as spiritual family leaders and the guiders of ‘good,’ are silenced because they have no significant representation or voice in patriarchal institutions such as the church. Latinas are compelled to adhere to the norms set out by the sexist and misogynist institution of the church without having any say when it comes to those exact norms. Thus, in this way, the church is symbolic of both a source of compassion, strength, and comfort, and also a source of oppression, abuse, and injustice for Latinas. A question that I have been pondering with regard to my working definition or concept of speaking is, “Is a Latina’s silence, either as an active choice or out of helplesness, also a form of her speaking? What kind of speaking is this, and what social and historical circumstances, traditions, phenomena, and situations have forced women to feel the need to silence themselves?”
Sadly, the very place that many Latinas think of as their ‘home,’ and go to find solace, and gain atonement and validation for their choices, is one where they frequently experience harrowing incidents of harassment, and violence. Moreover, the lack of legal or social action against the clergy, the perpetrators of many of these heinous acts, often due to a language barrier in the US that physically prevents Latinas from speaking out, has resulted in many Latinas withdrawing from the church, waning their devotion, and dissociating from an institution that they are taught to revere and venerate. Furthermore, the expectation of silence ingrained in the minds of Latina women for decades has begun to come to a boiling point, as we witnessed in the graphic and vicious Argentinian protest video. The distrust, and subsequent distancing from the church of Latinas often alienates and isolates them from their families and communities, since the church is a part of lo cotidiano or the daily life of many Latin Americans. The church is also a familiar source of compassion and a piece of home for many Latinas as they migrate to a new country, hence, it is troubling to see a symbol of positivity and comfort transition to a stained symbol of brutality and bloodshed. Additionally, it is important to note that church leaders have an immense impact and influence on the communities that they are a part of, and thus, their patriarchal and misogynist structure is especially problematic, because it destroys the place where Latinas often go to, in order to seek refuge from the patriarchal structures, transgressions, and inequities that they experience in their relationships, workplaces, or families. The ubiquity of patriarchal structures in our world, and the entitlement and the license that men believe they possess in order to be the more powerful, dominant, and intelligent gender, is the reason why gender violence and aggression against women is so prevalent. The lines “The patriarchy is a judge that judges us for being born and our punishment is the violence that you don’t see” from the Chilean protest song video, illustrates the fact that society’s perception and treatment of women as inferior is the fundamental reason why men are able to justify their abuse against them. Unfortunately, the church, which is supposed to be a holy place, often bolsters, instead of rejecting and repudiating this cruel torture against women.
For Latinas, speaking and voice holds a lot of significance. In Who Killed Sara?, we often see the suppression of Latina voices in different characters. In the case of Sara herself, her relationship with Cesar was a case of silencing. After sharing with Cesar the news of her pregnancy, Cesar uses this information against her and threatens to tell Rodolfo about the baby. In this same case, Mariana silences Sara as well when she had a growing suspicion of Sara’s relations with Cesar. Mariana tells Sara that she is not good enough for her son and should not be with him. Mariana’s voice was silenced in a different way because not only was she silenced by her husband, Cesar, but she in some ways suppressed her own voice while trying to behave as society would expect her too. Clara was more willing to use her voice to combat her father’s suppressive nature. There was a bit of transformation in Clara, though, because it was clear in the beginning of the show that she was unaware of the harm her family has caused on others. She begins to fight against this little by little while still remaining close to these family members to continue to play her role as a “good daughter”. From a young age, Clara had been silenced by her trauma in many ways. For example, when she had wandered into the basement as a kid and witnessed the physical, sexual violence being committed against the women at the casino, she had suppressed the memory until later in life. In that memory it shows her walk into the room and Sergio places his finger to his lip to motion and tell her to be quiet. Sergio took away many women’s ability to speak simply by stripping them of their identities and committing acts of sexual violence and abuse against them.
The contradictions of violence and violence against Latinas are that for Latinas it is so deeply ingrained in the culture that the violence is internalized and in many cases can turn to self-inflicted violence because they are conditioned to discipline themselves as society would.
Church leaders are definitely leaders within the community. And I say this, and in previous discussion about this, I feel conflicted in what way to talk about the role of those leaders within the community. These church leaders for the most part are males because of the misogyny that is exemplified through the leadership structure within the church. Despite this, church leaders are present in communities and have a following. If/when church leaders use this to help marginalized and displaced communities, it can make waves within the community. And when they don’t help, it always makes waves within the community. In these contexts, we can see silencing. In the big catholic bomb where it was shown the leaders of the church were sexually abusing children, we can see the power the church can use. And when looking at the way churches work like this, women are then encouraged to keep silent to maintain families rather than an alternative. In Who Killed Sara, there was silence in all areas of the show. The silence around the death of Sara and Alex attempting to break this silence. The silence around what actually happened below the casino. The silence of the affairs between Cesar and the SOs of his son. In the real world, there are so many cases where someone like Cesar would be best friends with a church leader. Here, rather than the church leader being the community leader, Cesar is actually the community leader. This furthers the complications of defining how a church leads in a community because they continuing to favor the advantaged communities.
Since I was a child I’ve always been fascinated by the ways Latinas speak. It always seemed to me that they held their tongues when it counted and spoke their minds behind closed doors. In reality, they were constantly choosing their battles and often would only speak up in situations where they knew they could win. Often the battles they could win dealt with their authority as mothers.
Latinas are valued by the emotion they bring to their relationships with others, but emotions are internal. Emotions lead to actions and those actions get skewed to center and be in the service of others. In her piece Kristeva explains that “through the act of speaking […] the self becomes self-aware and realized.” To communicate one’s feelings requires emotions to be filtered through a sense of realization that goes beyond duty. It requires you to believe in your emotions and believe that you will be heard. Because latinas cannot fully express themselves through speech they do so in actions, such as the “release of milk and tears.” Latinas get to speak through their children, but even that is valuing their voice through something that is entirely separate from them. Because of this value system, Latinas have to find their own ways to make spaces where it’s acceptable for their emotions to come out.
When I was younger I would get annoyed that it seemed like so many conversations between women in my family went back to issues where they hadn’t spoken up. How could they be silent then and spend so much time now. What could that solve? I didn’t realize at the time it may have been some of their only ways to feel heard. The need for space to speak becomes increasingly more important when violence is involved, but that is when the shame of speaking and self realization is also most evident.
In a Latinx household silence is of the essence. Women shouldn’t talk about the pain they experience when they’re on their period and God forbid anyone sees blood in the bathroom trashcan because how disrespectful is that. Latinas should never say no because setting boundaries with your family members is a disgrace, and you don’t have the power to do that. This silence goes on to shape us into submissive women, perfect women, who don’t complain who clean and cook and stay home with the kids and it’s all because we’re conditioned to be silent. The women in the Chilean video aren’t silent. Their unity and bravery allow them to demand attention and to scream the injustices they have endured to their own perpetrators face. In Who killed Sara I argue that every single woman in that show is silenced. Imara is the most prominent example but if you think about it, we know absolutely nothing about Sara. Her character is always so superficial — innocent young girl who wants to have fun — but no one knows who she really is. No one cares to ask what she really wants or what she was doing the whole time because no one cared. Everyone was happy with the idea of Sara they made up that if she opened her mouth the whole picture would be tainted, and she wouldn’t be lovable Sara anymore. The same goes with the women who are being sex trafficked, the men like that they don’t speak because they want an object they can control if a woman speaks, she has a brain and she is no longer just a body for their pleasure. The violence Latinas endure is used to create a comfortable environment for men and silence is also something Latinas are blamed for. Why didn’t you say no? Why don’t you stand up for yourself? You’re the one in charge of educating the kids then why don’t they listen to you? The roles that Latinas have are overwhelming and unachievable when they’re not supposed to say anything.