Wild Tongues: Transnational Mexican Popular Culture by Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz (review)

Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz’s work reflects the transnational experience and cultural literacy of many Chicano and Mexican men and women, including herself. Her book bridges cultural productions from both sides of the border “in order to explore how national boundaries and nationhood narratives define and constrict notions of identity” (xv). Wild Tongues traces the use and development of the figures of the peladito (peladita) and the pachuco (pachuca) in literature, theater, film, music, and performance art from 1928 to 2004. According to Urquijo-Ruiz, these figures represent rebellious and dissenting voices of the working class. The peladito is a destitute, downtrodden comic character who communicates meaning through slapstick physicality, while the pachuco is a zoot suitor with an aesthetic and counterculture of resistance. The book distributes its discussion of these characters among four chapters that elucidate the genealogy of each and delve into specific representations from Mexico and the United States, while the concluding chapter examines Dan Guerrero’s ¡Gaytino! in an attempt to bring the emergent themes together through a contemporary performative character. Urquijo-Ruiz’s primary contributions are her transnational approach in analyzing these four figures and her discussion of unpublished works, especially those by and about women.

The opening chapter provides an astute critical reading of how Daniel Venegas uses the figure of the peladito in his novel Las aventuras de Don Chipote, o Cuando los pericos mamen (The Adventures of Don Chipote; or, When Parrots Breast-Feed) to criticize the abuse and exploitation of the immigrant Mexican laborer of the 1920s. Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque, Urquijo-Ruiz examines the grotesque representation of the novel’s characters as a manifestation of their economic disposability. Chapter 2 focuses on the peladita in the work of two major theater artists: Amelia “La Willy” Wilhelmy in Mexico and Beatriz “La Chata Nolesca” Escalona in the United States. Both women employed the peladita to give themselves the creative freedom to critique the political establishment and push the boundaries of gendered and sexual expression. The bulk of the chapter engages in close readings of Escalona’s songs, at the expense of elaboration on Wilhemy’s performances. Nonetheless, considering that the peladito has received more attention in Chicano cultural studies, Urquijo-Ruiz’s discussion of these important female performers is an asset to the field.

Chapter 3 turns to the pachuco, illustrating how both sides of the border have contributed to its representation. Through a critique of music, Urquijo-Ruiz explores German Valdés’s comedic character Tin Tan in the Mexican film El hijo desobediente and Luis Valdez’s rebellious pachuco in Zoot Suit. The pachuco was a figure born in the United States but adopted and popularized by Tin Tan, whose border experience allowed him to create transnational connections between Mexican and Chicana and Chicano culture, as evidenced by the linguistic and cultural fluidity of his songs. Similarly, Zoot Suit uses music to produce links with Mexican culture and other non-Chicano cultures in the United States. At the core of this chapter is a discussion of the rebelliousness and resistance deployed by pachuco subculture to reclaim laboring and exploited bodies. Chapter 4 turns its focus to women, analyzing two protagonists created by Chicana performance artist María Elena Gaitán, “Sufrida del Pueblo” and “Connie Chancla.” This chapter engages with the theories of Chicana feminist writers Tey Diana Rebolledo and Yolanda Broyles-González regarding women who challenge constrictive social and cultural roles. Urquijo-Ruiz demonstrates how these characters integrate the rebelliousness, dress, and language of the peladita and the pachuca or chola and as hociconas use their voice to critique the dehumanization and exploitation of undocumented immigrants, the discrimination against Chicanas and Chicanos, as well as sexism within their own community.

Finally, the last chapter looks at Dan Guerrero’s ¡Gaytino!, an autobiographical performance piece that narrates his struggle to negotiate and integrate his ethnic and...