Private (Brown) Eyes: Ethnicity, Genre and Gender in Crime Fiction in the Gloria Damasco novels and the Chicanos Comic Series

The representation of women in crime fiction has traditionally been a complicated one. Consistently forced into secondary characters (assistants, girlfriends, or damsels in distress) the most active role a female character could aspire to was that of the femme fatale, a pit of perdition, an unwelcome distraction for a man looking for truth and justice. This traditional approach to the genre has been challenged in the last decades by women acting as detectives, trusted with solving their cases in a hostile male world. Similarly, the traditional white male protagonist has been contested by fictions where ethnic minorities are not just consigned to the criminal world, but where detectives are members of ethnic groups, and can use their knowledge of the community to solve the case. This essay focuses on the crossroads of ethnic and women’s detective fiction, specifically the Gloria Damasco series by Chicana writer Lucha Corpi and the graphic novel Chicanos (Trillo and Risso, 1996). Both protagonists (Gloria Damasco, a Chicana clairvoyant detective, and “poor, ugly, and a detective” Alejandrina Yolanda Jalisco) must face both the dangers of investigating criminal cases and discrimination in their professional surroundings due to their gender and ethnicity. By contrasting these texts, the essay elucidates the importance of specific cultural products, their connection to (and defiance of) canonical forms of the genre, and their rejection of generic and gender expectations.

Migración contemporánea mexicana: redes sociales transnacionales y políticas migratorias : la experiencia migratoria de la comunidad de Tunkás, Yucatán en el sur de California

This research explores the impacts of the most recent U.S. economic crisis on the Mexican immigrant labour market, specifically from the town of Tunkás, Yucatan. Based on Bourdieu.’s theory of Capital production, and the transnational theoretical perspective, this study aims to build a conceptual frame for the migrant’s social capital in modern societies. A key element of this analysis is that a pioneer migrant-woman has initiated the tunkaseño social network in Los Angeles and Orange County, California; and has set the route to migrate to North. Finally this analysis presents how U.S. worksite enforcement policy affects the labour market that tunkaseños encounter in Southern California in the midst of a financial crisis. Tunkás, our Mayan community, native from the Southern Mexican state of Yucatan has experienced a constant migration process to California ever since the Bracero Program started. Mayan migrants have acquired new responsibilities, and a hybrid identity as transnational citizens. Yucatecan migration is defined as a contemporary Mexican migration, mostly undocumented, exacerbated during the nineties, in the midst of the Mexican financial crisis from 1994 to 1997. The present work is part of a broader research that discusses the transformation of Mexican migration patterns of different states of Mexico. This project is based on fieldwork in the communities of origin and destination. As well, on the survey results and life stories obtained during 2005-2006, and 2008-2009 by MMFRP1, where I took part in both editions as a researcher...