Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje

"Hybridity" has become a popular concept among scholars of critical race theory and identity, particularly those studying Chicano identity. Some scholars claim that hybridity-premised on multiplicity and fluidity-represents a new approach to subjectivity challenging the idea of a stable and unified subject. In "Patrolling Borders," I argue that scholars are mistaken in their belief that "hybrid" or "bordered" identities are inherently transgressive or anti-essentialist. By constructing a genealogy of Chicano hybridity (i.e., mestizaje) I show how Chicano nationalists produced a politicized subjectivity during the Chicano Movement that emerged as the basis for recent notions of hybridity put forward by writers like Gloria Anzaldua. By tracing the historical construction of mestizaje, I show how hybridity continues to be a discursive practice capable of comfortably co-existing with dreams of privileged knowledge, order, and wholeness. "Perhaps there is no identity so perfect, so seamless, so well-fitted to her that she could wear it, be it, perform and live it without resentment, without sadness, without yearning, without guilt, hatred and even violence" (Honig 1993: 183). "A 'border' is always and only secured by a border patrol" (Johnson and Michaelson 1997: 1). Over the past few years, the notion of hybridity has become increasingly popular among scholars of identity, particularly those engaged in critical race theory, feminism, and Chicano/Latino studies. These fields share a common concern with the discursive practices of marginalized groups and subjectivities. As such, the focus on hybridity represents an attempt to legitimatize and give voice to groups or individuals who lack power in society and create theoretical space for alternative epistemologies and epistemic frameworks. Given these interests and concerns, it is no surprise that scholars have identified connections between postmodernism and theories of the hybrid subject (see Appiah 1991; Fregos and Chabram 1990; Spivak 1989; and Perez-Torres 1995). Postmodernism, after all, challenges the hegemony of dominant discourses and their claim to what K. Anthony Appiah (1991: 342) describes as a certain "exclusivity of insight." In postmodernists' writings, subjectivity is problematized so that every subject position is understood as embedded in networks of power and history Yet many postmodern theorists also have a political commitment to giving voice and legitimacy to subjugated and subaltern forms of knowledge. The postmodern approach to theorizing, then, confronts this challenge: How do we legitimate and include marginalized subjects and their claims without essentializing them? How do we remain attentive to difference yet maintain the capacity to challenge and critique the experiences of those whose identities are not necessarily our own? How do we grapple with inequality while also creating the necessary space for contestation? Added to this is the realization that the problem of privileged knowledge claims is not a problem for identity politics only. While these issues and questions are certainly at the forefront of feminist and Third World scholarship, they also animate the terrain of political theory and democratic theory, because at its best, democratic community presumes the possibility of mutual transformation, a transformation forged through dialogue and debate. But if citizens treat their respective experiences as a form of privileged knowledge-as a kind of "uncontestable evidence"-then democratic politics is seriously constrained. The danger of the essentialist impulse is that: It treats some citizens as inherently incapable of the shared understanding necessary for turning strangers into democratic interlocutors. And how can we engage in political deliberation if the claim to experience seeks to locate itself beyond the reach of contestation and challenge? The use in Chicano/Latino studies of the hybrid1 represents an attempt to negotiate this problem. …