Outsiders Within?

Ethnic labels empower and disempower Latino faculty. Life in the borderlands of the academic community means living with new dilemmas and paradoxes

By Benjamin Baez

As I pondered these statistics as I prepared to write this article, they initially confirmed for me what I knew from my personal experiences and research. But when I reflected further, I felt a growing unease over what I was assuming about these percentages. They tell us some things explicitly, but they imply many other things. They tell us explicitly that, given their representation in the U.S. population, Latinos are seriously underrepresented on our faculty bodies. They imply, for some, that Latinos are not as qualified as other racial or ethnic groups in higher education. For others, they imply that Latinos are victims of discrimination. The percentages, therefore, do not merely describe a particular state of reality; they also "explain" other, perhaps contested, "realities." Thus they generate truths, both negative and positive, about individuals and groups that many of us do not and cannot know personally.

Indeed, the term "Latino" should defy definition. It represents innumerable differences, including those of national origin, class, and race. But in standing for all these variations, the mark "Latino" effaces them. For example, for conservatives, "Latino" implies a universality, one that typically supports negative assumptions about the intelligence, qualifications, language ability, or citizenship status of many people they do not know and likely care not to know. But the mark also carries meanings for those of us who consider ourselves progressive. It may not imply universality—progressives recognize the diversity of groups that the term represents—but it does signal unity, that is, the idea that Latinos do or should respond similarly to discrimination, racism, and xenophobia.

Yet, if we accept such an idea, we assume something about individuals we do not know personally on the basis of a category, one that the individuals in question may not apply to themselves. Such assumptions should trouble those concerned about stereotypes and generalities about racial and ethnic groups. Politically, it may seem logical to take certain things for granted, such as that discrimination is rampant (I think it is, by the way). But all meanings based on marks are questionable. Moreover, meanings generated by and for political processes tend to become institutionalized and affect many individuals, even when they should not.

Theories of Race

Dispensing with all the baggage associated with racial and ethnic marks will be difficult. For centuries, those marks have been used to classify and organize individuals, and they have become institutionalized. Science—the primary basis for determining truth in Western societies—has contributed to the problem. For example, social science has produced knowledge that explains racial and ethnic marks in a way that winds up reinforcing their significance in our lives. Psychological theories emphasize the importance of race and ethnicity to a person's self-concept or identity. Sociological theories stress ways in which racial and ethnic groups and social structures transmit meanings to individuals, who internalize them. As a result, racial and ethnic marks carry wide-ranging psychological and sociological meanings.

Of course, I have oversimplified these theories, but my point is that science plays more than a descriptive or explanatory role in racial and ethnic dynamics; it also has a productive role in that it generates meanings about racial and ethnic groups that shape how we come to understand individuals, and what we will assume about them when we see them or, more accurately, even before we see them.

As academics, we are probably familiar with theories about race, ethnicity, identity, socialization, and acculturation, which influence how we think about Latino faculty. For example, education professors Raymond Padilla and Rudolfo Chavez's book, The Leaning Ivory Tower: Latino Professors in American Universities, gathers the often-poignant testimonies of fifteen Latino academics, all of whom highlight their feelings of alienation and discrimination. In Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success, education scholar Caroline Turner and human relations professor Samuel Myers argue persuasively that the perception of discrimination shapes the ways Latino faculty in midwestern colleges and universities experience their institutions.

In their impressive 1988 essay, "Racism in Academia: The Old Wolf Revisited," published in the Harvard Educational Review, education scholars Maria Reyes and John Halcon report that Chicano faculty face overt and covert racism, including "typecasting," "one-minority-per-pot syndrome," and "brown-on-brown research taboo," in which Chicanos are deemed to have expertise only in "minority-related" activities and are therefore hired only in and for those areas. The authors also explain how Chicano faculty deal with racism. Some "give in" to demands to assimilate and divest themselves of all apparent cultural traits. Others "give up"; they struggle against racism and use up their energy combating the injustices they encounter. Still others decide the struggle is not worth the consequences at a particular institution, and they move on to "greener pastures." Some faculty members "fight back," but recognize their limitations and the importance of succeeding in the system. Yet others also "fight back" but exert every effort to challenge racism, regardless of the consequences.

These studies, while important, mask individual differences in academe. In her 1997 essay, "The Chicana/o Generation and the Horatio Alger Myth," published in Thought and Action, education professor Gloria Cuádraz describes how some Chicanos, like conservative scholars Richard Rodriguez and Linda Chavez, perpetuate the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy to the detriment of social justice, while other Chicanos maintain a sense of identity and political orientation toward their group, which furthers social justice.

I agree with Cuádraz that conservative viewpoints thwart social justice, but I cannot argue that Latino conservatives are not "proper" Latinos, because I don't believe there is—or should be—any such thing. The term "Latino" must be stripped of its attribution of universality and unity, and we must strive for a time when racial or ethnic marks will not so completely define—negatively or positively—individuals, especially those we do not know and cannot ever know completely because the mark defines them for us in advance.

An example from a study I conducted several years ago illustrates this point in more concrete terms. I interviewed faculty of color at a private research university in New York. One faculty member, a Chicano full professor of social work, told me why he needed to engage in institutional and community service for Latinos:

Latinos' circumstances are quite different from [those of] other people in that if you have any social consciousness, and any identification with your respective ethnic or racial group, you are going to want to help in some way, through your discipline or otherwise. . . . I don't see [at this university] a kind of understanding of-how we have respective communities that are oppressed, and many of us want to spend some time addressing those issues. Whether they be within the context of our academic lives or external to it.

Cuádraz would likely argue, as I do, that the actions of this individual further social justice. He seems to have a strong sense of Chicano identity and a political orientation toward his ethnic group. Reyes and Halcon would probably maintain, as I do, that this faculty member is "fighting back" against oppression. But do the comments below of another Chicano, an associate professor of anthropology, reflect a strong sense of ethnic identity? Does he "fight back"? He refers to a meeting he had with his department chair, who during an annual evaluation asked him why he was not involved in any "minority" organization:

And I told [the chair that the question was] racist: "Are you saying that because of my skin color I'm supposed be involved in some voluntary organization?" And I swear I didn't make this up. I actually said this. I said, "If I were Irish, would you put down that I didn't march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade?" . . . [The chair is] saying, "I've seen you as a person of color, and I'm treating you differently." So, essentially, the message was the same [as if the chair were overtly racist], it just wasn't as threatening.

This faculty member referred to his department chair's remarks as "politically correct bigotry," and he explained why he did so:

Well, it's politically correct because what [the chair] was telling me was, "You're not the right kind of minority. I see you. How come you're not eating tortillas for lunch. How come you aren't out there with other brown people." . . . It's . . . PC . . . because you talk to the person and they'll say, "Oh no, I'm not racist. I'm against racism." But they don't realize that here's some white person who feels that people of color should act a certain way. You know? Hey, it's Puerto Rican Independence Day. If you aren't there, Ben, there must be something wrong with you. You must be trying to assimilate.

This professor's "politically correct bigotry" seems much like Reyes and Halcon's "typecasting." But I would argue that the social work professor, like my interpretation of his comments, also typecasts, although the effect of his doing so differs considerably from the effect of the comments by the chair of the anthropology department. For the social work professor, "social consciousness" and "identification" with one's ethnic group means that one would want to assist in any way. He connects consciousness and identification with helping out, which seems like typecasting. But we may forgive him, since his doing so seems to diminish the effects of centuries-long oppression.

At any rate, while Cuádraz might say, and be correct in saying, that the social work professor has a strong political orientation toward his Chicano group, and the anthropology professor does not, it is important to understand that neither is the right kind of Chicano—both are Chicano. Therefore, the mark "Chicano" alone cannot tell us much about those two individuals. We may do better at striving for social justice if we stop believing that such a mark can tell us anything too complicated about complicated individuals.

Barriers to Understanding

Anzaldúa's experience reveals yet another way in which the mark "Latino" erects obstacles to a full understanding of the complexity of individuals. Indeed, other terms associated with that mark hinder our ability to get beyond the essentialism associated with it. Note, for example, the concept of the "border" that Anzaldúa describes in her Borderlands/La Frontera:

The U.S.-Mexican borderes una herida abierta [is an open wound] where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants. Los altravesados live here: the squint-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulato, the half-breed, the half-dead; in short, those who cross over, pass over, or go through the confines of the "normal." Gringos in the U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants of the borderlands transgressors, aliens—whether they possess documents or not, whether they're Chicanos, Indians, or Blacks. Do not enter, trespassers will be raped, maimed, strangled, gassed, shot. The only "legitimate" inhabitants are those in power, the whites and those who align themselves with whites. Tension grips the inhabitants of the borderlands like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside there and death is no stranger. (Emphases in original.)

Anzaldúa's "borderlands" describe not just a physical concept, but a political and psychological one as well. Indeed, such spatial concepts pervade the discourse on Latino faculty. Legal scholar Michael Olivas's important essay, "Latino Faculty at the Border: Increasing Numbers Key to More Hispanic Access," published in a 1988 issue of Change, uses the concept to illustrate that institutions hire too few Latinos and "pad" their numbers, "employing far too many statistical tricks in their reporting, and that both practices evidence bad faith." Former professor of Latin American studies Hisauro Garza, in his essay "Second-Class Academics: Chicano/Latino Faculty in U.S. Universities," published in Building a Diverse Faculty, argues that Latino faculty are facing "barrioization," by which he means that Latino faculty are concentrated in ethnic studies, language, and bilingual-education departments and programs; that their participation in academe is often limited to service dealing with cultural matters, study abroad programs, or student recruitment; and that, so segregated, they become second-class citizens.

None of this discussion about spatial concepts is incorrect, but such a construct offers too simple an understanding of racial and ethnic dynamics in higher education. The border culture that Anzaldúa describes is not one that is simply constructed and maintained by "gringos"; it is also a political culture that defines how those inside are to think about those on the outside and perhaps even others on the inside. Anzaldúa's borderlands do not just describe the them but also the us. It explains the social work professor's sense of himself, as it does the anthropology professor's. It would position the former as an insider and the latter as an outsider.

Such a dichotomy, however, rings true and false. It explains oppression, but it doesn't explain all of oppression. It explains identity, but it does not explain all of identity. Anzaldúa argues that the borderlands are in a constant state of transition. If so, then so must the us and them in and outside those borderlands be in transition. The interaction of individuals must leave those borderlands changed, because it provides for the possibility of people knowing other people as individuals, and not simply as embodiments of a mark. The ethnic mark constructs an unreliable sense of inside and outside, and, as a result, it reduces everyone to monolithic identities and experiences. Our interactions with each other should allow us to dispel the power of the mark.

Outsiders Within

All of us on the panel—we were all faculty of color—related how we felt oppressed because we did not adhere (physically and politically) to the established (white male) norms. At the same time, we talked about how we cope with and resist those norms. I wondered, however, whether one can be an outsider if one is within. What allows someone within to claim outsider status, a status that comes paradoxically with a certain power to redefine oneself and resist the oppressive norms that constitute the person as an outsider in the first place? We may want to disturb this troublesome contradiction, as it is loosely thrown about, without reconciling ourselves to what it might mean about identity and oppression and without exploring its limitations as a political motto. To start, one may ask whether the ideas of "outsider" and "within" stand for concepts that too neatly suggest unity and universality. For example, we can surmise that the term "outsider" reflects a multiplicity of genders, races, ethnicities, classes, sexualities, abilities, religions, and viewpoints. There is, then, no one outsider, or one kind of outsider; indeed, the idea's irreducibility to any one position might indicate, paradoxically, that everyone can qualify as an outsider and that no "within" exists.

But the whiteness to which "within" usually refers is also highly problematic as a universal and unifying concept. Whiteness has multiple and shifting meanings. Its power, nevertheless, may lie in the fact that its meanings are fixed as an (oppressive) unity. But whiteness doesn't always work that neatly. Indeed, all of us on the panel worked at research universities, and our participation in the research conference was sponsored or supported by our universities, which many of us believe marginalize us. We are not unique; the number of racial and ethnic minorities in academe is slowly increasing. As academics, when we speak, conduct research, teach, or engage in service, we destabilize the insider-outsider dichotomy. We change the within, if by nothing else than by speaking for ourselves. When we act in the academy, we alter who is authorized to act.

My point is to suggest that the term "outsider within" is not quite right as a descriptor of racial and ethnic dynamics in higher education. The outsider within, it seems, has that status only because he or she is not white, and not because the person is completely excluded from academe. I believe, however, that the logic of whiteness is that it makes others conform to an ideal that no one can live up to. It suggests a universality and unity that do not exist. So, does the insistence on outsider status help to consolidate the ideal of whiteness? By standing in opposition to the white ideal, one actually comes to require it for one's identity. Such a politics of identity seems hopelessly bound to an ideal and a set of differences that it both rejects and depends on. To move beyond this quagmire, one may have to let go of the inside-outside dichotomy and realize that one does move from inside to outside positions, and that movement through these positions always leaves them changed and different.

The "outsider within" concept now prevails in the discourse on faculty of color, especially among Latinos, who often negotiate not just racial, gender, class, and sexual barriers, but also ethnic, linguistic, and national ones. Many people have explained the reasons for this phenomenon. But I believe that our understanding of Latino faculty is necessarily limited by the politics of racial and ethnic identity, which marks individuals in absolute racial and ethnic terms and, in so doing, defines them by those marks. Resistance to such marking comes not only from understanding how the dynamics of race and ethnicity shape one's sense of being in the academy, but also from questioning the power of the very marks that seem most essential to us.

Notes

1. Despite the fact that there is no consensus within the Hispanic/Latino communities as to how their members should be described, I use the term "Latino" to represent those communities for convenience. I do distinguish in the text between "Latino" and "Chicano," because the latter term refers more specifically to people of Mexican origin. I use the masculine form "Latino" and "Chicano" when referring to groups of men and women, but use gender-appropriate terms when referring to specific individuals. Back to Text

Benjamin Baez is a professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State University and chair of the AAUP's Committee on Historically Black Institutions and Scholars of Color.

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