Next of Kin

As both an idea and an institution, the family has been at the heart of Chicano/a cultural politics since the Mexican American civil rights movement emerged in the late 1960s. In Next of Kin, Richard T. Rodrguez explores the competing notions of la familia found in movement-inspired literature, film, video, music, painting, and other forms of cultural expression created by Chicano men. Drawing on cultural studies and feminist and queer theory, he examines representations of the family that reflect and support a patriarchal, heteronormative nationalism as well as those that reconfigure kinship to encompass alternative forms of belonging. Describing how la familia came to be adopted as an organizing strategy for communitarian politics, Rodrguez looks at foundational texts including Rodolfo Gonzaless well-known poem I Am Joaqun, the Chicano Liberation Youth Conferences manifesto El Plan Espiritual de Aztln, and Jos Armass La Familia de La Raza. Rodrguez analyzes representations of the family in the films I Am Joaqun, Yo Soy Chicano, and Chicana; the Los Angeles public affairs television series Ahora!; the experimental videos of the artist-activist Harry Gamboa Jr.; and the work of hip-hop artists such as Kid Frost and Chicano Brotherhood. He reflects on homophobia in Chicano nationalist thought, and examines how Chicano gay men have responded to it in works including Al Lujans video S&M in the Hood, the paintings of Eugene Rodrguez, and a poem by the late activist Rodrigo Reyes. Next of Kin is both a wide-ranging assessment of la familias symbolic power and a hopeful call for a more inclusive cultural politics.