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Dickinson, Jennifer Alvarez. "Pocho Humor: Contemporary Chicano Humor and the Critique of American Culture," University of New Mexico, May 2008. Advisor: A. Gabriel Melendez
This dissertation examines humorous works produced by Chicano artists, performers, and writers from roughly 1987 to 2007. By focusing on the post-Chicano Movement period, this study seeks to understand the relationship between ongoing Chicano activist politics and an increasingly fragmented sense of Chicano identity. The figure of the pocho, or Anglicized Mexican, emerges as an important comic trope as Chicano artists attempt to reconcile complex inter-cultural influences while retaining a sense of Chicano identity. Chicano humor expresses a “pocho aesthetic” that is rebellious and playful, yet frequently revelas anxieties over citizenship and representation in American culture.
This study surveys a wide range of materials, including stand-up comedy, film, plays, and creative writing. Despite the diversity of approaches to Chicano humor, there are important recurring themes. Contemporary Chicano humorists frequently address immigration and its relationship to American idenity; the under- and misrepresentation of Chicanos in U.S. media; and the traditional cultural markers of Chicano authenticity. While most of the works surveyed are English-dominant, translation remains an important consideration for many Chicano humorists. As cultural mediators, Chicano humorists simultaneously explain and conceal, expressing their frustration with the ongoing perceptions of Chicanos as “foreign” and “other”. With a rapidly growing U.S. Latino population, Chicano humorists exploit fears of the “borrowing” of America for laughs while pointing to the ways in which, despite an increase in the number of Latinos, political participation and power remain out of reach for many Latinos.
Chicano humor, like Chicano identity, increasingly resists containment and categorization. While humor is frequently assumed to be inherently libratory and transgressive, this study illustrates ways in which humor often results in the production of oppositional binaries and the articulation of new social norms. Contemporary Chicano humor, in all its complexity, provides an imporatn means of assessing the highly dialogized nature of contemporary Chicano discourse.
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