Chicanonautica: New Whiteness, Brown Shift and Other Absurdities

by Ernest Hogan

A strange phenomenon has been popping up. Hispanics -- as the U.S. Census Bureau calls them -- have been changing color. Talk about unexpected mutations.

Slate used George Zimmerman as an example of the New Whiteness.

According the New York Times:

An estimated 1.2 million Americans of the 35 million Americans identified in 2000 as “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin,” as the census form puts it, changed their race from “some other race” to “white” between the 2000 and 2010 censuses . . .

It reminds me of what I call the Brown Shift in Mexican comic books, which is especially noticeable in westerns (or should they be called norteños?): Mestizos become white, Indians become light brown, and whites look like they should glow in the dark. 

Note these Mexicanas confronting gringos in Frontera Violenta, No. 1114:

And blue-eyed Solitario, killing a classic bandido in El Solitario, Jinete Sin Fronteras, No. 50:

It also gets me flashing back to when I was going to college back in the Seventies. I hated filling out forms (and still do) because my reality never fit their spaces and boxes. There was always a nice box for Hispanic but the word was always followed by (Spanish surname only). The only other choices were White, Black, Asian and Other. It pissed me off. So depending on my mood, I’d put myself down as Black, Asian and even Other.

I never put myself down as White. I’d been called a nigger enough times to know that would be pushing things a little too far.

Though people often think I’m white, and complement me on my tan. One said, “I thought you were Jewish -- you’re so smart!”

Whether I’m light- or dark-skinned depends on who’s looking at me.

But do we now have a choice? Can we become legally white?

I imagine a gun-totting Arizona vigilante approaching someone who fits the profile of an illegal alien:

“Do have any I.D.?”

“Sorry, but I consider myself to be white.”

Can Afrolatinos become white? The diverse mestizo gene pool often has people from güero to negrito in the same immediate family. Would a parent or sibling declaring New Whiteness make you white, too?

When La Raza Cosmica meets the New Whiteness, Chicano truly becomes a sci-fi state of being. Or what Chester Himes called the “absurdity of racism.” Or in the words of Ishmael Reed: “it’s not a ghetto -- it’s a galaxy.”

And I’m reminded of Joseph Goebbles once said to Fritz Lang: “We decide who is Jewish or not.”

Ernest Hogan trying to get things done as it gets hotter in Phoenix.

Chicanonautica: El Solitario, Jinete Sin Fronteras

by Ernest Hogan

My neighborhood carnicería never fails me. If I feel like I need reading material that will take me away from all the crazy business that tends to pile up around me, I can always go there and pick up some Mexican comic books. After all, as it said on the price sticker on the plastic baggie of the three-pack: LA LECTURA ES CULTURA.

And what culture I found in three issues of El Solitario, Jinete Sin Fronteras. (Not be confused with the enmascardo, El Solitario, who also starred in comic books.) Talk about cultura!

This is western, but of a definite Mexican sensibility. Note the calavera motif in the logo. Rodrigo Santos, AKA El Solitario is not just a sort of Mexican Lone Ranger. He has strange eyes like blue diamonds. He wears a cross and symbol suggestive of native mysticism, and on two of the covers these items are hanging from a six-shooter. His motivation to shoot it out with evil-doers is spiritual.

Though the stories never cross the line into the supernatural, themes and images keep showing up: In “La Noche de la Hechizada,” the ghostly images of people who were killed are shown; a scythe-wielding, laughing grim-reaper appears behind El Solitario in a shoot-out; and in one panel, the legs of a crucified Christ are shown, dripping blood and looking more like flesh than a statue. A shooting in “Tu Peor Pesadilla” takes place under a full moon with black birds flying in front of it, and in the end, El Solitario embraces a beautiful blonde in a graveyard. “Ni El Diablo . . .” has a dragon wrapped around a skull on the cover, a page-and-a-half vision of angels, devils, and Hell, and the grim reaper again appears behind El Solitario as he confronts the villain. In the last panel, the word “FIN” is on a flaming sword.

This doesn’t mean that these tales are Sunday school material. Violence can take place in a church, which is also burned down. Mutilation worthy of horror stories happens. Blood and burnt corpses are also shown.

El Solitaro, Jinete Sin Fronteras, has a Facebook page, a lot of covers displayed on various webistes, and even entire stories that can be read online. There is also a song about him. I even saw issues offered for sale on eBay.

This Mexican Gothic western is still going strong. I wouldn’t be surprised if El Solitario ended up in movies and television, or at least online video. He is the personification of a yearning for justice we see on both sides of the border these days.

Ernest Hogan’s first novel, Cortez on Jupiter in now his first ebook, through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashworlds. And there are more ebooks coming.

Chicanonautica: Frontera Violenta -- the Comic Book

by Ernest Hogan

I found the most interesting comic book I’ve come across in years at my neighborhood carnicería. It’s called Frontera Violenta. I’m not sure how to translate that. Frontera means both frontier and border in Spanish. In English -- especially in Norteamerica -- frontier means wide open spaces in need of heroic pioneers to go out and fill them with civilization, while a border is something that only nefarious criminals cross without official permission.

That’s the sort of thing arises when Wild West mythology collides with Mexican popular culture.

Frontera Violenta has Año XX in front of the issue number, so it’s been around for twenty years. It also has PARA SU VENTA A MAYORES DE 18 AÑOS on its covers. It’s not kiddie material.

The first issue I bought was No. 1199, “Perscucion Encarnizada,” (“Bloody Persecution”). Along with a blonde babe in revealing red dress was a naked man with a six-shooter aimed right between his nipples. The story starts with a blonde woman killed, her naked body displayed at the roadside. A bounty hunter arrives in town, and after a shootout in the bar he is hired to search for the Mexican that is accused of the crime. During the chase, the Mexican is betrayed by two blonde women before the real (blond) killer is caught and hung in the end.

To make things even more interesting is what I call the Brown Shift in Mexican comics. Either because of the four-color printing they still use, or long-held societal taboos, everyone is lighter than they would be in real life. Mestizos look white, Indians look like Mestizos, and white people -- especially the ever-popular blonds -- look like they should glow in the dark. In the above story the Mexican looked white while the bounty hunter looked Mexican.

I guess you can never tell without checking IDs.

At a more recent visit to the carnicería, I found a plastic bag with three issues of various Mexican comics, including Frontera Violenta for just $2.29 (that’s dollars, not pesos).

No. 1093 “Salieron del Infierno para Morir” (“Escape from Hell to Die”) has a blond thug kill a Mexican in a saloon. The Mexican’s son, goes out for revenge. After more fighting and shooting in saloons, the hunter and hunted wind up in a corrupt prison together. After the Mexican has a night with the commandant’s abused, blonde mistress, they escape. Once they’re out, the Mexican shoots the guy who killed his father.

No. 1114 “Obligados a Matar” (“Forced to Kill”) flirts with politics. Soldiers come to a village and take all the men away to help Presidente Díaz fight las fuerzas rebeldes. This allows a gang of Americano bandits, led by “Rush Clinton” to come in, take over, and make all the women into sex slaves. Humiliated and outraged, the women break out the household firearms, and revolt. The last bandit is shot by a boy hiding in la nopalera with a carabina 30-30.

No. 1121 “Cuando la Ley No Basta” (“When the Law is Not Enough”) begins in Mexico with a machete-wielding, sombero-wearing hombre hacking a woman to death. Two years later in New Mexico, some gringo bank robbers kill a young girl while shooting their way out of town. The girl’s mother is befriended by a Brown-shifted Mexican man who happens to be looking for the machete-maniac from the first bloody scene. The two go to wild and wooly Arizona on a revenge quest. The Mexican hero finds and shoots the leader of the bank robbers, and he and the woman have an outdoor sex scene. The next day, the machete man, shows up and takes the woman hostage, giving the hero his chance to get his revenge. Yes, a Mexican got killed at the end for a change.

Frontera Violenta is everything a comic book should be. No “graphic novel” pretensions to being art or literature. Just professional cartooning that makes the unashamed, thrill-packed pulp writing come alive. It’s the sort of entertainment to have in a pocket as you run around the Nueva Frontera, dodging bullets and talking care of business.

Ernest Hogan’s writing, and news of publications and ebooks can be found at Flurb and Mondo Ernesto.

Chicanonautica: From the Digital Divide to the Electronic Revolution

Does anybody remember the Digital Divide? It was the term you heard a lot around ten years ago, during the much hoopla’d Y2K turn of the millennium -- which was like the 2012 thing only without distortions of Mayan culture. The idea was that because of a lack of mastery of English, Latinos would not be able to take advantage of the Information Age, and would lag behind. We would have split into a society of high tech Anglos and ignorant, out-of-it low-tech Hispanics who would be a burden on the economy . . .

Yeah, they actually believed it. The media spent a lot of time discussing it.

I was even asked about it by a reporter from the now-defunct Latino.com while being interviewed about my novel Smoking Mirror Blues. I said I didn’t think it was going to be an issue. At the time I was taking computer classes at Glendale Community College here in Arizona, often sitting next to young women in Islamic head scarfs, overhearing conversations in Vietnamese, while black and brown kids did cell phone tech support for their parents in languages that weren’t officially recognized Spanish or English.

Hm. Just where do those ideas for my stories come from?

And it turns out I was right. We’re into 2011 and the dreaded Digital Divide is all but forgotten. After all, technology doesn’t care what language you’re using, or culture you’re practicing, or what color your skin may be.

Here in Aztlán/Arizona, the people helping me puzzle out the newfangled are, more often than not, young Latinos who are more bilingual than I am. Chicano techies and hackers are so common they are almost a cliché. Even Mexican grandmothers have smart phones. You can’t judge a person’s immigration status by their ability to telecommunicate.

I’m also delighted to see how Hispanoid cultures are jumping into cyberspace and going wild. There are sites like La Bloga, and others that I keep discovering daily. That border turned out to be easy to cross. The electronic revolution is here, beyond my early visions of dipping microchips into salsa.

The fall of traditional publishing is creating new opportunities with electronic self-publishing, and new ways of marketing and networking. Also, bilingual editions are now possible in new ways. Language barriers will break down as a result.

So my suggestion to all the struggling Latino and Chicano writers is to join the revolution. I’m publishing and networking online. I’ll soon be putting my books out as ebooks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

And before I sign off, let me throw out an idea: The iPad and new ereaders are making it possible to do illustrated ebooks. Comics have gone electronic. Two of my most visited posts on Mondo Ernesto are about Mexican comic books. Every day people look at them from all over the world. What if they went from pulp to digital? In bi- and multilingual editions?

Maybe they need a catchy new name, like mexga . . .

Ernest Hogan has decided to work harder as professional writer in 2011. Got any freelance work out there?