In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Insolence, Incorruptible:For José Muñoz
  • Sarita Echavez See (bio)

It can’t be twenty years now since I first met José Muñoz. My friend and then roommate Hiram “I’m-Every-Cuban” Pérez and I were still in our PhD program, slogging our way through Columbia University without the benefit of the Hunger Games books and movies as a model for the ruthlessly competitive arena that we found ourselves in. So when I met José, who had just been hired at New York University, I of course wondered, who the hell was this new Cuban on the block? Why did he look to be about two feet shorter than Hiram? Could this bitch possibly be the same age as me??

Little did I know that I was absolutely right to call José a bitch. Over the two decades that followed, José would set the standard for incorruptibility, an exceptionally admirable feat given the kind of ravenous destructiveness that private universities like NYU and Columbia wreak and exemplify. Indeed, it was during my postdoctoral fellowship at Williams College that I first got the opportunity to appreciate how José embodied and practiced his own rendition of the insolence attributed to queer modes of survival. Despite the fact that he seemed to have zero tolerance for the pastoral, he accepted Williams’s invitation to do a semester-long teaching gig. I was thrilled that there’d be another brown body on campus, but I was wondering what difference he could or would make in just one semester. Williams College’s lawns are mown daily within an inch of their lives. Professors and students regularly whisper in awe about the college’s $1 billion endowment, but you’re never supposed to really talk about money publicly. Its commitment to and reputation for privileged white respectability are renowned. Really, what damage could a Cuban maricón possibly do? I underestimated José.

I will never forget hearing José’s account of his first meeting with the English department chair. José had walked into the department office. Hand outstretched, the chair greeted José with all the proper polite affability and benevolence that make up the surface of daily life on a rich campus and that thus constitute one of the more subtle yet effective ways to corrode people of color. But José apparently interrupted the rites of inclusion and asked: “Where’s my check?” I would have loved to have seen the look of horror that [End Page 419] must have come over the chair’s face, probably mimicked by the face of the department secretary. Everyone except José must have gulped. No one, let alone a brown, gay newcomer, should ever talk out loud about getting paid—about money—like that! But then as that semester unfolded and as José’s apartment so quickly became an intellectually and socially crucial hub of black, brown, and queer life, I learned to appreciate the intertwining of politicized insolence and abundance that José practiced with such apparent effortlessness. José insisted on reminding the university that he got paid for his work, but not for his body and soul. And he insisted so irresistibly on the pleasures of company, getting together, as part of the natural and regular rhythms of academic life.

To this day, José’s story about asking for the check fills me with glee. It certainly helped me get through terrible times during my fight for tenure at my first job as an assistant professor. A few years after my Williams gig, José yet again stepped in at a crucial stage in my attempt to resist being “educated” by the academic-industrial complex. He was the outside reader for my book manuscript workshop at University of Michigan, and he was invited to participate in a daylong marathon of larger and smaller group meetings about the state of my progress in writing my book on Filipino American artists and decolonization. It was during the manuscript workshop that I began to understand for the first time what a number of colleagues had referred to as the politics of readership. I privately had wondered what could be complicated about that, since I couldn’t imagine that I...

pdf

Share