|
Multicultural Identity
as Performance
by Citlali Martínez
I
am one among millions. A child of cultural hybridity, I am unique
in the specific combination of factors that determined my upbringing,
yet unremarkable to the extent that racial/cultural mixing is the
flavor du jour in many societies around the world. So when I try
to analyze the importance of performance in my community, the first
question that comes to mind is: what is my community? Together with
legions of multicultural peers, I belong to a community that constantly
moves between the cultures that have shaped us as people. This multicultural
community is both an imagined community and a real one: most of
us will never meet each other, yet we are aware that there are many
others "like us". When we do meet one another, it has
been my experience that there is an understanding or sorts between
people who share the experience of multiculturalism, regardless
of the specific cultural components of our experience.
Members of this community learn from a young age the politics of
each of our communities in order to navigate them natively. The
smooth navigation between communities is tricky, of course, and
accurate cultural performance is essential in this process. Wrinkling
and wiggling your nose in Puerto Rico has a series of possible meanings
which another Puerto Rican can easily identify and respond to. I
cannot wiggle my nose in Mexico and expect the same response. In
essence, we learn to perform a multiplicity of identities ('selves')
that fulfill the different expectations of our communities in order
to be accepted as legitimate members.
The strength of our multicultural identity lies in its extreme mutability,
its capacity to be exteriorized in a variety of particular 'selves'
that give us access to different communities. The reinvention of
'self' becomes a daily performance. The multicultural performer
reaches into his/her bag of tricks and pulls out the 'self' that
is appropriate for a particular performance. This is not to say
that we are not really Puerto Rican or Mexican or Peruvian. We are
not acting; we are just selectively showing a side of ourselves.
In doing so, we control the identity that we present to society.
If performing an identity is a political act in and of itself, the
importance—and political potential—of the multicultural
performance of 'self' lies in giving us legitimated access to a
diversity of cultural spaces and using this access to create bridges
between communities that may not touch each other otherwise.
Citlali Martínez completed her BA in
Visual Arts at Brown University (2002) with a focus in mixed media
and installation. She is currently a graduate student of Hispanic
Languages & Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. Her
current studies include Indigenous media, performance and video
art, and ritual processes in art and literature.
|
