Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
9th Eurasian Conference on Economics and Social Sciences, Girne, Kıbrıs (Kktc), 5 - 07 Mayıs 2023, ss.134-135
Deeply engraved within the socio-cultural imagination and political landscape of the American mind is the “Post-9/11 Era,” which has been denominated so since the attacks on the Twin Towers of New York City in September 11th, 2001. The period has marked by an increased sense of distrust towards all non-Americans residing in the United States; an intensified government effort to cope with domestic security and tight border politics; and a more belligerent approach in foreign policy overseas. Mexican-American, or Chicano, cinema is the accumulation of all filmmaking practices that initially came forth out of the essentialist or cultural-nationalist consciousness of the Chicano Movement of the 1970s. The adaptation of Rudolfo Gonzales’s quasi epic poem Yo Soy Juaquin (1965) by director Luis Valdez is hailed to be the prototype of this newly emerging cultural production. Historically speaking, since the silent epoch of Hollywood, there have been significantly fewer representations of autonomous Latin American women in mainstream films. Similarly, the predominantly male occupied arena of Chicano cinema has also excluded such Latinas as speaking subjects or powerful agents to execute their will outside the norms of patriarchal culture and family structure. Since the 1970s then the only Latinas to be admitted on screen have been portrayed by Chicano filmmakers as the backbone of the family structure, either as self-sacrificing mothers, grandmothers or loyal daughters and sisters with no personal, professional, or sexual autonomy outside the normative rules of their strictly Catholic worldview.
With this in mind, this study turns its focus on a pair of acclaimed and independent movies, Real Women Have Curves (2002) directed by Patricia Cardoso, and María Full of Grace (2004) directed by Joshua Marston, both of which highlight two respective young Latinas in their quests for autonomy and agency within the context trespassing symbolic and literal borders. Throughout Real Women Have Curves, the heroine, Ana García, an 18-year-old Chicana is torn between her obligation to stay with her working-class family in Los Angeles, and continuing her higher education in the prestigious Columbia University in New York. When her ephemeral yet arduous quest comes to an end, she emerges as a triumphant role model, presented as an alternative on the limited options available to Chicanas, living and working in an urban working-class neighborhood. Ana’s story portrays the younger generation of Latinas who are free from the financial aid of their male counterparts, constituting a new Latina identity marked by their own independent thoughts and actions. In María Full of Grace, the audience is presented with the story of María Alvarez, a 17-year-old Colombian girl, who is haphazardly and unwillingly involved in the international narcotraffic to migrate to the first world, symbolized by her destination in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. The theme of the trespassing of borders plays a significant rule in pregnant María’s quest search for freedom in the American context. In American legal system María is obviously a criminal as a stereotypical drug-mule, however the movie portrays her as a lens thorough which the audience is suggested the covert and unofficial coaction between Colombia and America on an international scale for the manufacturing and transportation of narcotics across borders. Throughout her metaphorical journey within the neighbourhood of Queens, Maria observes the decent way of life and opportunities available in the first world for and her unborn baby. To conclude, both heroines of the aforementioned films end up in New York City in search of a better future, achieving freedom of mind and body across literal and symbolic borders, exceeding the limited choices for Latinas within urban spaces.
Keywords: Chicano Cinema, Border Culture, Migration, Gender, Post-9/11 Era.