Page 10
News
Street Roots • May 26-June 1,2017
Deleting
oppression
How two activists’ digital
platforms are creating space
for marginalized voices in
Xicanx communities
BY EM ILLY PRADO
S T A F F W R IT E R
achismo, an exaggerated and
culturally specific form of toxic
masculinity, is a concept that
shapes many Latinx households. While it
manifests itself in a multitude of ways,
machismo is most clearly marked by a
rigidity in gender roles and the
encouragement of dominant, self-righteous
men.
For Cassandra Alicia and Ruben Angel,
activists and founders of the online
platforms Xicanisma and Queer Xicano
Chisme, the effects of machismo are felt on
a daily basis. Instead of quietly retreating
into the subservient roles that machismo
has tried to carve out for them, they’re
challenging it and other regressive
ideologies head-on, and are encouraging
fellow Latinx to say no with them.
Through a combination of personal
narratives and resource sharing, Xicanisma
and Queer Xicano Chisme are providing an
ceremonies, he opted for soft florals and
online network for marginalized voices to be
warm pink letters that read, “For all the
heard. Since starting on Instagram in 2014
sissy brown boys that couldn’t.”
as a way to create visibility and
As it turns out, the message resonated
representation for brown and Latina
deeply with others. The post was quickly
feminists, Xicanisma - a feminized word
circulated thousands of times.
that stems from the ideology that inspired
“My parents were actually the hurdle that
the Chicano movement - has expanded to
I needed to cross in order for me to
Facebook with each platform nearing
graduate. I was disowned and homeless. I
100,000 followers. Queer Xicano Chisme is
had to do a lot of things on my own,” he
a multi-platform outfit that Ruben originally
explained. “I was having this conversation
started as a blog in the wake of the 2016
with my friend about how many queer and
Orlando Pulse nightclub shootings.
trans folks didn’t have the opportunity to
“The urgency of creating something
make the stage because of the time (in
happened the morning of Orlando because
which) they were raised. So I wrote a poem
all the news that was being reported
about how me crossing that stage was also
(wasn’t) from black and brown queer and
about other sissy brown boys that couldn’t
trans people. It was from folks who were not cross that stage because of the violence
Latinx or Xicanx,” Ruben said. (Neither
they faced or because they had to kill that
Ruben nor Cassandra, who live in Oakland
part of themselves. Because I graduated the
and El Paso respectively, use their last
day of the Orlando shootings, it took on a
names out of fear for their safety. Alicia and
new meaning. It was overwhelming.”
Angel are middle names.) “So I started
On May 26, the two will participate in a
making all of these posts and they started to panel discussion “Dismantling Machismo in
gain a lot of traction. I started to see that
Chicanx Communities,” hosted by Portland
there was the need for this type of voice,”
State University MEChA as part of Chicanx
Ruben said.
Week. Cassandra and Ruben shed light on
Cassandra shared a photograph of
the ways they’ve implemented social media
Ruben’s graduation cap on Xicanisma the
as a source for combatting systems of
same day as the Orlando shootings. Instead
oppression and will focus on their own
of thanking his parents in glittery text as is
struggles resisting machismo in their
common in college commencement
spheres. Ruben said the effects of machismo
M
DISMANTLING
MACHISMO
Cassandra Alicia
and Ruben Angel
will be speaking on
a panel about
machismo during
Portland State
University’s
Chicanx Week,
now through
Saturday, May 27.
The panel is 4-6
p.m. Friday, May
26, at the PSU
Native American
Student
Community
Center, 710 SW
Jackson St.
are, “incredibly tangible—especially for
women, trans folks and gender non-binary
folks. Anybody who doesn’t fit the mold of
machista or even marionista which is the
opposite of machista, gets persecuted
because they fail at gender. They fail
expectations.”
It’s an experience he has known all his
life, Ruben said.
“My family tried to beat the femininity
out of me. My community tried to beat the
femininity out of me. And so for a long time,
I resented my community because of
machismo. They didn’t want me to exist as
my authentic self. The most tangible way
that machismo has affected me was when I
was kicked out of my house for being queer.
I failed at gender. Not only was I queer but I
was femme, right? There was no way that I
could ever be stealth - that I could ever
hide my identity which, for a lot of people
who want to navigate this machista culture,
(is what) they do,” Ruben said.
Living in the borderlands, Cassandra
speaks of the violence against women
happening next door in Juarez, Mexico, as a
sobering, notable, ongoing example of
machismo.
“I go to Juarez and know that women are
there that are being raped, murdered and
tortured. It’s this really ugly thing,” said
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