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 Letters from the Road

A Selection of Performance Chronicles

GuillermoG6mez-Pena

I have alwaysbeen interested in looking for ways to operate as an artistin the

public sphere. This is particularlydifficult in the U.S., a society that confines artists
and intellectuals to the rarefied realms of the art world and academia. National
Public Radio is the closest I've ever gotten to the public sphere. I've been involved
with NPR since the mid-Ig8os, first in EnfoqueNacional,then in Crossroads, and
later, in the 'gos on All ThingsConsidered and LatinoUSA. In my radio chronicles
I have explored various genres, but alwaysfrom the positionality of a performance
artist.What follows is a selection of these chronicles. "Dual Citizenship" was re-
corded for Latino USA, and the other texts for All ThingsConsidered.An earlier
version of"Tattooed Brown Body" appearedin my book DangerousBorderCrossers
(Routledge, 2000). The version that appearshere was considerablyrewritten for
radio. The other pieces are being published for the first time.

Touring in Times of War

(2001)
I am a brown-skinned Latino performance artist, and I've been told many
times in recent weeks that I happen to "look Arab." Since September I th, my
never-ending tour to the outskirts of Western civilization has been bumpy to say
the least. When the tragic attacksoccurred I was in Northern Spain,paradoxically
performing a piece on the violent side-effects of globalization. After a nerve-
wracking week of waiting for airspaceto reopen, my wife and I finally made our
journey back home, and that's when an unprecedented adventurebegan for me.
It started at JFK airport in New York. After going through the final security
check point, my exhausted wife hugged me with relief. "Ahh, we made it back,
amormio," she whispered into my ear, sliding her hands into the pockets of my
pants. We were immediately surrounded by five screaming policemen: "What
did you put inside his pocket?" "Carinito," she responded, meaning "a little ten-
derness." They were more than serious. We raised our hands like surrendering
Hollywood bandits. One cop made me empty the contents of my pockets with

The Drama Review 46, 2 (T174), Summer 2002. Copyright ? 2002

New York University and the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology

97
98 GuillermoGomez-Pena

the ferocious certainty I would produce a weapon. I complied in extreme slow

motion. The sole, pitiful item-a snotty handkerchief-made them feel embar-
rassed.But to saveface they sent me to secondary inspection. There I experienced
the longest ethnographic inspection of my identity ever: a bizarreinitiation ritual
to the other "war on terror,"the one Americans are fighting inside their psyche.
As a migrant artist and a Chicano veteran of "mistakenidentity," I now have
to deal with new fears of T-W-A-L (traveling while Arab-looking). I am not
scared so much of Muslim fundamentalistsor airplanes. I'm more afraidof the
entire country becoming a huge "neighborhood watch program"where anyone
who looks or acts different comes to be seen as suspicious in the name of "high
security." During my next trip, my fears were confirmed: At the Raleigh-
Durham airport, I was singled out, along with a young Pakistani couple. The
airline agent tried to persuade the three brown passengersthat we "simply had
no reservations."After showing him my tickets-and explaining that Mexico
was not in the Middle East-I was finally allowed on the plane. But the other
passengerslooked visibly scared of me. In their fearful eyes, I probably looked
like the lead singer of Sammy Ben Latin & the Tali-vatos.
Clearly, my new dilemma was how to avoid ethnic profiling on the road.
Performance provided me with an expedient semiotic solution: I would simply
intensify some of the friendly stereotypes Americans alreadyhave about Latinos.
I developed three travelinglooks: the gallantmariachiwith my sombreroin hand,
the Tex-Mex rocker, and the Native dandy.
It didn't help much. Five times during the next eight trips I was "coinciden-
tally" chosen for "random security checks." And as my tour progressed, the
contents of my trunks (mainly "ethno-techno" props and "robo-Mexican" cos-
tumes) began to diminish: Some, like my Igth-century Sevillian dagger and hi-
Aztec mask, I took out myself. Others, including theatricalprostheticsand sci-fi
sex toys, were confiscated by airport security and customs agents. And, under-
standably,they had no time to listen to a lecture on pop archeology and perfor-
mance art. A couple of times, the agents scrutinized my scripts,books, and slides,
which made me realize they were actuallylooking for "content." I congratulated
them on their forensic sophistication.
Are all these incidents a mere preview of my new, exciting life as a permanent
suspect?I keep trying to understandwhat politicians mean when they tell us to
"go back to our normal lives." I guess performance artistshave to redefine what
"normalcy" means for us. PerhapsI should get a 9-to-5 job, shave my mustache,
and start wearing three-piece suits. Or maybe to be congruent with my art, I
should travelwith a sign hanging from my neck stating:"Nomadic Chicano artist,
intense-looking but inoffensive;has no Arabblood, no political affiliations.Works
mostly in galleries, museums, and universities. Please, cut him some slack. He is
just trying to be normal."

A Sad Postcard from San Francisco, Chilicon Valley

(I999)
(Latinoloungemusicmixedwith soundsof crowds)
I'm sitting in a bar in San Francisco'sfashionableMission District. Less than a
year ago this place was a Mexican cantina for local winitosand brown blue-collar
workers; now it's a shi-shi lounge club jam-packed with upper-classhipsters in
their twenties wearing gothic tattoos, retro hairdos, swing jackets, and "vintage"
'70s clothes. From the old decor, all that's left are two Mexican murals on the
 Lettersfromthe Road 99

1. "El BinationalBoxer"
back wall. The bartendersare two blond female bodybuilderswith designerbod- (G6mez-Pena)in a "video-
ies and minds. There are no Latino customers other than myself; but the music graffitti"by G6mez-Pena
and Chicanofilmmaker
coming from the originaljukebox is pure Latino '5os lounge, including Esquivel,
Perez Prado, Acerina, and Javier Cugat. Occasionally, we hear a tune by Herb Daniel Salazar (2000).
Daniel Salazar)
Alpert & the Tijuana Brass,who, as far as I'm concerned, is an honorary Latino. (Photoby
I wait for my friend, City Lights editor Elaine Katzenberger,while sippingMyers
rum.
Suddenly, in the middle of this typical Bay Area vignette, the door opens
abruptlyand an old Mexican homeless man pulling a shopping cart enters, hold-
ing what appearsto be a sharpened stick. He begins to scream in Spanglish at
the crowd: "I'm tired of all of you, yuppies del carajo!"He begins to theatrically
threaten some customers with his handmade "weapon." He is clearlyacting out,
but the Femme Nikita bartendershave a different opinion. They grab baseball
bats from behind the counter and go for the man's head. I cannot believe my
eyes. I instinctivelyjump in between them and manage to persuade Las Anime
Amazons that, "I'll take care of the situation." They back off reluctantly.I grab
the old man's arm, take him outside and tell him in Spanish, "Life'sa drag, ese.
You must be real tired, que no?"The man nods affirmatively."So am I." I try to
commiserate with him. He gives me a hug and begins to cry. "Carnal,"he says,
"all I need is a little pincheattention. I've been walking these streetsforever,but
since last year, no one looks at me anymore. These kids are arrogantand selfish.
They don't even imagine this was my hood just a few months ago."
Ioo GuillermoGomez-Pena

He's clearly referringto the rapidprocessof gentrification that has transformed

the Mission from a laid back Latino barrio to "one of the hippest hoods in the
country," according to Vanity Fair and the Utne Reader. I grab his hand very
firmly: "Man, this is the last chapter of a very old story: the conquest of the
West." "Yes, ese," he continues, "they are the cowboys and we are the Indians."
Though I am not quite sure which category I fall into as a Mexican mestizo, I
answer: "True, but there's not much we can do about it, other than keeping the
flame of our rage alive." After a long pause, a very sad one, I tell him: "Ese, we
gotta move on." The old man grabs his cart and begins to walk away toward
Market Street. I can see the distant lights of the financial district framing the
fading silhouette of the homeless veterano.
I go back to the bar, crestfallen. This lounge hipster comes to my table and
offers to buy me a drink. I politely reject it. "Thank you, man," he says. "You
handled the situation real smooth. It was like a scene from a SpaghettiWestern."
The recurrentreferencesto frontier iconography make me even more depressed.
I walk out of the bar to wait for my friend. What I had experienced is clearly a
new version of a very old western movie. Elaine finally arrives. I suggest that we
go to another bar, and that we please not talk about gentrification at all.

Tattooed Brown Body

(1998, rewritten 2000)
I've always taken tattoos seriously. As a performance artist, my body is my
laboratoryof experimentation, my canvasand diary.In this most personal book,
scars are like imposed inscriptions, whereas tattoos are the words and phrases
consciously chosen by me. Whatever happens to my body inevitably affects my
art and sense of self, my social and sensual relationship to the world, and vice
versa.
Like most visible scars, each of my tattoos revealsa dramaticmark or shift in
my accidental and nomadic biography. Verbigratia:The bold pre-Columbian
snake etched on my left shoulder by Mexico City punk artistDoctor Lacracele-
brated my arrivalin early '95 to San Francisco, my most recent hometown. In
mid-I996, tattoo master Don "Ed" Hardy and I collaboratedon the design of a
huge tattoo on my right arm and shoulder: a detailed map of Mexamerica made
up of intricate computer circuits. Migrant Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the giver of
culture and agriculture, is seen departing from the YucatanPeninsula on a low-
rider motor boat; while to the north, Zorro burstsout of the U.S. on his rearing
black stallion. This one-of-a-kind tattoo functions as a biographical/historical
map of my journey as a Mexican immigrant, one that goes from South to North
and from pre-Columbian America to high-tech Chicanismo.
In July of 1998 I got my third and most painful tattoo, this time right over my
heart:an intricate skull with a rattlesnakewrapped around it. A crown of electric
thorns frames the head. Its forehead bears a romantic sign written in barrio cal-
ligraphy, "Sin Fin," which in Spanish means "without end." Unlike my prior
tattoos, this one was done in the purestpinto (Chicano prisoner) style, with deli-
cate renderings and soft fading grays. The artist was Ruben Franco, a 23-year-
old surenoex-gang member from East L.A. who now resides in the Watsonville
area. His main clientele are migrants who work the venomous strawberryfields
of Northern California. They go to him to get tattooed on their backs and chests
as a permanent reminderof their dangerousU.S. adventure,right before returning
to their homeland. The favorite designs of the migrant workers are Virgins of
Guadeloupe, bucolic landscapespopulated by gorgeous cholasand muscularvatos
locos...andskulls,just like mine.
 from the Road I
Letters

2. Vintagelowriderdrawing
the mid-g98os.(Cour-
The reasonsbehind my third tattoo were many. I hadjust turned 43, and I was from
tesy of PochaNostra
becoming hyperconscious of my own mortality. Two of my favorite uncles had
just died; I had separated from a three-year-long relationship; and, as if this Archives)
weren't enough, a grumpy border patrolmandecided to invalidatemy green card
when I was coming back from Mexico. As you can imagine, these incidents
clearly marked the end of a chapter in my life, and the beginning of a new era.
And all this is now scripted on my body for good, as a performance script.
Lastyear, I got my most recent tattoo on the right side of my chest, opposite
the skull. It's a curious hybrid character,half samuraiand half lowrider, metic-
ulously rendered in traditionalYacuzza style by artistEddie Deutch. My "Pacific
Rim Vato Loco" is wearing a pachucohat pierced by a dagger whose handle reads
in Japanesecalligraphy:(phonetically):nan-jin, gay-juska,han-neen, which means,
"madman, artist, criminal." This artwork documents my renewed commitment
to radical art and social change in the dangerous era of globalization; and in
dialogue with the other tattoos, it constitutes a ritual affirmation of life on the
edges of an ever-dying Western civilization.
People often ask me if my tattoos affect my social interactions. Sure they do,
especially with cops. Despite the fact that tattoos have become commonplace,
and even Ivy League students and sugary pop singers wear them ostensibly,law
enforcement agents tend to observe me with suspicion. Why? A tattooed brown
body has very specific connotations for them. It is not just a bold act of social
defiance from a dark-skinnedmale, but a signifier of a criminalpastspent between
gang warfareand jail. Now, if to be a politicized Chicano performance artistin
102 Guillermo G6mez-Pena

the U.S. can be misconstrued as an act of social defiance and criminality,I fully
embrace the cops' misunderstanding.It gives me a strange kind of power.

Generation "MeX"
(I997)
I love my Generation MeX nephews madly. There is Ricardo, AKA "Ricar-
diaco," the skinny 25-year-old rockero from Mexico City; and Cristobal, the 22-
year-old existentialist grunge surferofrom San Diego. Our relationshipis crucial
from both ends. They are my philosophical heirs and indirect performance dis-
ciples, and by default, I am their surrogate father. My sweet but pusillanimous
brother Carlos, Ricardo's father,lives in TJ (Tijuana)and does not have the means
to support him; and Cristobal'sfather, don Fernando, has long been dead.
They are also my toughest critics. If one of my performances or Spanglish
poems does not fly in their eyes, I tend to kill it. Why do I pay so much attention
to them? In a way, they are my ideal audience. They are the "children gone
wrong" of globalization, the orphans of Chicanismo, Zapatismo, and any other
"ismo" you can imagine. I am analog, they are digital. Gleefully disconnected
from their roots, they are cyber-literate, fully bilingual, furthermore, biconcep-
tual-smart but monosyllabic-and their attention span is under Io seconds.
They were born in Mexico, true, though one may agree with Mexican writer
Carlos Monsivais that "they belong to the first generation of gringos born in
Mexico." Experts on transnationalpop culturaltrivia, they know very little about
what we boring adults call "life." They've seen many more guns and much more
blood than we have, yet they aren'treallytough. They never cry at family funerals,
but they always attend. Deep inside they harbor good feelings. Their sense of
loyalty to family and friends is thin but real.
Ricardo and Cristobal were born respectively in 1975 and '78, when their
parents' "counterculture"had already gone sour and the incipient punk move-
ment was emerging out of the ruins of modernity. Their "progressive"parents
were so "hip" that they decided to leave them alone to their own fate, without
a compass or existential structure.They grew up in complete silence, immersed
in a soliloquy of despair,with the permanent temptation of suicide, the reality
of hard drugs, and the ephemeral redemption of self-destructivelove a la Kurt &
Courtney (the film, not the albums). They now live stalking us with distrust,
unable to talk back-or rather tired of talking back-and with a much more
developed sense of style. In fact, everything in their lives is about style. From
1993 to 1997, Ricardiaco went through at least 25 different temporaryidentities
and corresponding hairdos. Among others, he became a designer cholo,a dyed-
blond rasta,a gangsterrapper,a lounge lizard,and a "skinheadfor peace" without
any (apparent)organic logic to these changes. He was merely "sampling"culture.
Content was secondary.The "look" was what mattered.
What my nephews and their friends lack is fear of death and mortality. To
them, death isjust ajoke, a good image, a rock tune. Death is...cool, and condoms
are a nuisance. The reasonsfor this are not lack of responsibilityor sex education,
but rathera nihilistic spirit of defiance. It's a neo-Aztec thang. They know very
well the risks of casuallove and are more than willing to take them.
Luckily, my Generation MeX nephews have found temporary redemption in
true love. Ricardo just found Paola, a beautiful ballet dancer and cyber-designer
who happens to be as skinny, skeptical, sarcastic,and aloof as he is; and Cristobal
found Jennifer, an unconditional accomplice to his contemplative sense of or-
phanhood. I love both couples though I feel awkwardaround them. I think that
 Lettersfromthe Road I03

3. RobertoStfuentesposes
hybrid persona "El
~~~and strident
for them.rom
much" "too
personality,
my~as
East LA
simply
i I Roberto
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~(Photo
by Espi-
-rc~~~~~~~~~ ~ :~ .~: ~.noza; courtesyof Pocha
."'I~~~~~~~~~ L m ~~Nostra Archives)

they secretlyadmireme. But since they are existentialminimalists,my verbalskills

and strident personality,my epic spirit, and neo-baroque artistic sensibility are
simply "too much" for them. "Baijaletfo,"they constantlytell me, which roughly
translatesto "cool off, uncle" or "turn down your volume," or "get off your
unnecessarily wild horse." Despite our dramatic differences, there's always an
implied moral contract between us: We never lie to one another. The rest is up
for grabs. I hope with all my heart they get to live at least to be my current age.

Vacationing in a War Zone

(I999)
NPR announcer:The word "Colombia"is one of the mostmythicallychargedwords
in theAmericanimagination.Thestereotype clearlyovershadows
reality:it instantlyevokes
at
drugs,guerrillas,politicalviolence,and, best, and
coffee tropicalmusic.
(Musicby VallenatorappersEl GranSilencio)
104 GuillermoGomez-Pena
4. This racistsign was
placedby the INS in many
border-crossingfreeways to
warnmigrantworkerfami-
lies of the trafficahead.Pe-
destrianmigrantsareoften
victimsof trafficaccidents.
(Courtesyof PochaNostra
Archives)
PRECAI
LastJuly, my wife, Colombian curator Carolina Ponce de Leon, and I spent a
couple of weeks in Bogota. We were invited to judge a national art contest and
to give a couple of lectures on U.S. Latino art. The day before our trip, the
FARC guerrillasbroke the temporary peace treaty with Pastrana'sgovernment
and attacked several towns in the vicinity of Bogota. The much-awaited peace
talks originally scheduled to begin in a week were indefinitely postponed.
The morning before we left, we received severalphone callsfrom friendswon-
dering if we were insane "to go on a culturalvacation to a war zone." Carolina
answered with her habitual poetic logic: "Hey, if my 75-year-old mother lives
down there, and so do my best friends, I don't see why Guillermo and I can't
go.
Colombia was certainly intense. The recent confrontationsbetween the guer-
rillas and the army had left hundreds of casualtieson both sides, and the right-
wing paramilitary groups were carrying out daily massacres throughout the
country. The economy was in shamblesand common crime was out of control.
This national chaos translatedinto a total militarization of Bogota, the capital.
The soldiers were embarked on the project of disarmingthe civilian population,
and raids to nightclubs and restaurantswere common.
Ana MariaRueda, a close artistfriend of Carolina's,told us: "In San Francisco,
you have gotten used to living without fear. Here, you might want to make some
radicaladjustments."These adjustmentsin our daily behavior included only tak-
ing radio cabs, not walking alone at night, never leaving the hotel with your
documents and credit cards in case you get kidnapped, and only going to bars
with a sizable group of friends. Since I spend at least three months a year in
Mexico City, most of these precautions sounded quite familiarto me. But since
human beings are incredibly adaptableto violence, fear faded fast and so did our
precautions. Within two days, we were visiting with friends, hanging out alone
at bars, and walking the city up and down. Everyday life in Bogota seemed
strangely,abnormally "normal." The streets were buzzing with energy, people
were cordial, and music-good music-was bursting everywhere. Sometimes it
was easy to forget that the country was at war. For Carolina and I, the only
constant remindersof violence were the explicit Colombian TV programs,which
showed bleeding corpses in between pop singers and sports news, and of course,
the eerie presence of the military throughout the city.
A few times fear kicked in. Once, leaving a movie house, Carolinaand I found
ourselves walking in front of cyborg-like, U.S.-trained soldiers holding uzis and
standing motionless every five meters. Another night, the embasucados (homeless
people high on basuco, an even more dangerousform of crack)were particularly
edgy. They walk up to you with fiery eyes, get really close to your face, and ask
you for money. If you don't give them any, they follow you. They love to scare
you. In Colombia, they are called los desechables, the
disposablepeople, and when they are around, you find
*^^* ^ * > yourself looking over your shoulder in search of a sol-
l
_JC
ON~'~ dier, the very same soldier you feared so badly the day
before. It's confusing.
~
But then, every time I felt fear, I would console my-
self by remembering all that we had left behind in the
U.S.: supremacistserialkillers,massacresat high schools
perpetrated by teens, deranged militiamen preparing
for a race war, police brutality selectively directed at
youth of color. The U.S. wasn't that differentfrom Co-
~J lombia. It just had a different image of itself, a self-
righteous and depoliticized one. In the American
imagination, "realviolence" alwaysseems to take place
 Lettersfromthe Road I05

beyond our borders, in distant lands like Bogota, or Baghdad. At our farewell
party, one of Carolina'sfriends told me something that blew my mind. When I
asked him if he was planning to go to America in the near future, he responded:
"No, I don't like it up there. It's very violent. Everyone is armed, and racists
shoot people of color, just because." He had a point: violence is relative to who
you are and what you representat a given time and place. In this sense, someone
like me, a brown-skinned Mexican with a thick mustache and an even thicker
accent, might be saferin the streetsof Bogota than in Idaho, Wyoming, or Geor-
gia. Am I making my point?

The Mysterious Connection between Montana and Chiapas

(1996)
Since the abrupt end of the cold war, many philosophers and historians have
been talking about the fact that we are now living in a world without political
theory and that the mirror of ideology has turned upside down. For me, this
concept was hard to fully grasp until I toured Montana, a few years ago. The
following incident took place during the Freemen standoff [March-June 1996].
After giving a lecture in Bozeman, I was invited to a bar by a group of local
artists.There I met this huge bearded guy who had attended my talk. He intro-
duced himself as a true "American anarchist";and out of the blue, he began to
discuss political self-determination and the sacred right to bear arms-his eyes
glowing in a messianic way. He used theological quotes to support his case. I
listened patiently. He then confessed he was a supporter of the Montana militia
and the Freemen, "the true American revolutionaries."I asked him why, if that
was the case, he had attended a talk on Chicano experimental art and border
culture. He said that since I was a Mexican artist,he assumed I was going to talk
about Zapatismo.I asked what was the relationshipbetween Zapatismo and the
U.S. militias. He replied that both movements believed in the holy right to utilize
guns to defend themselves from an oppressive government. Blown away by the
analogy, I lost my Chicano cool. I tried to explain to Tom Payne Jr. that there
were major differences; that the Zapatistaswere indigenous peoples waging a
centuries-old war against colonial forces; that they were not interested in guns
per se, not even in armed struggle;and that their true weapons were the Internet
and their now legendary and quite poetical press communiques. He responded
with militia-style cliches saying that, "Anglos were also indigenous to Montana,
and that like the Zapatistas,they wanted their land back and their country back."
"Fromwhom?" I asked. "From the federalgovernment, or from people like me?"
He didn't understandmy sarcasm."You know," I elaboratedmy sarcasm,"non-
Christian darkpeople with foreign accents." He laughed in a fake manner. I then
continued with my list of obvious distinctions:I told him that the Zapatistaswere
coming from a leftist/internationalistperspective, and that they were into coali-
tion politics; whereas the U.S. militias were extreme rightists, heavily Christian,
and micro-separatist.He didn't see much problem with these minute distinctions,
or perhaps he didn't even understand them. At that point, I politely excused
myself and returned to the other table with my artist colleagues.
Last April, when the standoff with the Republic of Texas Militia made the
international news, I was performing in Mexico City. My friends down there
asked me if the fringe patriot group was composed of or inspired by Chicano
secessionists. I explained to them that RTM was a marginal white supremacist
group immersed in nostalgia for the brief period when Texas had been an in-
dependent republic. My friends thought I was making it up.
Io6 GuillermoGomez-Pena

5. "El Mexterminator thinksdifferent,y que?"G6mez-Penaincarnating thefearsof

Internetusers,posesas a bordersuperhero(1998). (Photoby EugenioCastro)
 Lettersfromthe Road I07

If people in the '9os are having such a hard time distinguishing a right-wing
secessionist movement from an indigenous movement of political self-
determination, our ideological compass may not be working that well. I mean,
I just can't imagine a Mexican farmworker or a Zapatistasubcomandante arriving
unannounced at the Montana Militia camp and asking Trockman, "Oiga Sefior,
let's join forces. You are probably aware we have the same enemy." And him
answering: "Sure amigou. Let's organize the first binational guerrilla summit in
Tijuana."

The Chihuahua Project

(2000)
Question: What is the most effective social aid to break the interculturalice
in America?
Answer: A chihuahua dog.
(Soundsof TacoBell Commercial)
Exactly a year ago, when Taco Bell spokesman Mr. Viva Gorditaswas still the
"most famous Mexican in the U.S.," my wife and I decided to carryout a unique
sociological experiment: to buy a chihuahua dog to see how his presence would
affect our daily interactionswith people.
We got one on the Net and named him "Pochito." He immediately became
the defacto "gallery attendant"of the art space run by Carolina, and the whole
staff decided to share the responsibility of his upbringing. A true San Francisco
"community dog," he was blessed with two lesbian mothers, two gay fathers,
and two straightparents. Among other costumes, we made him a mariachi suit
and an S&M number with leather undies, a garter belt, and a studded necklace.
To introduce him to society according to Mexican tradition, we organized a
"chihuahuaethnic fashion contest," and people from every imaginablesubculture
showed up: sensitivebikers,lowriders, apocalypsehipsters,bohemian dot.comers,
Asian post-punks, middle-class couples from Marin County-you name it, each
with their chihuahuitadressedup accordingly.Soon, Pochito became a local ce-
lebrity, and gallery attendance increased by 20 percent.
We also startedtaking him places, which was extremely easy since he fit inside
a little handbag. Overnight, Carolina and I became the ultimate lovable Latinos,
or ratherthe human prostheses of Pochito, which is to say,extensions or projec-
tions of his chihuahuaness.At restaurants,parks, and shops, people approached
us immediately. First, they would talk to him, and then to us-about him, of
course. And no matter who these people were, in terms of their age, class, or
ethnic background, their voices became immediately infantilized. Others sud-
denly broke into a kind of Sesame Street Spanish, to be more anthropologically
accurate, I assume: "Ay, perritou, que lindou chiquitou. Viva Chalupa, ajua."
Some even asked him questions as if expecting a verbal answer:"Hey little hom-
bri, tu tienis hambri?"
I wonder what makes Americans so friendly to dogs-and so indifferent to
other humans?Perhaps,in a country ridden with racial,generational,and gender-
based conflicts, it is much easier for people to relate to dogs. After all, they never
question our behavior. They become the perfect substitute for friends, relatives,
children, even lovers. Pop culture may be partiallyresponsible:People here grow
up watching cartoons, TV commercials,and films populated by animalsthatspeak
and behave like humans.
My next art project is to install a tiny video camera on Pochito's head and
document a day in the life of a chihuahua from his perspective. Each and every
Io8 GuillermoGomez-Pena

6. Globalizationexports
fear of theOther,herede-an invo
pictedin a popularJapanese s T "d" w
comicas the evil Latinovil-
lain with theAmeric good an
guys. (Courtesyof Pocha
NostranArchives)

person who touches him or talks to him will instantly become an involuntary
actor, or rather, an ethnographic specimen. This "dogumentary"will certainly
provide me wth crucal i nformation about a rare species, El Homo Canofilus
Americanus.

On Dual Citizenship
(zooo)
It's late December, 1999, and my wife Carolina and I are sitting at the San
FranciscoINS office, waiting for my turn to get interviewed for citizenship. My
"resident alien card" was invalidatedby a border patrolmanwho couldn't deal
with an uppity Mexican. Besides, for the first time ever, Mexico and the U.S.
accepted dual citizenship and my lawyer suggested that instead of applying for
another green card (which may take me up to two and a half years to receive), I
should apply directly for citizenship.
It suddenly dawns on me: After o20 years of living in America, I'm gambling
everything I've got, including my family and friends, my art projects, even my
voice on National Public Radio. I hear my name in the loudspeaker:"Guermo
Comes Pennis." I enter a nondescript office with my heart pounding real fast. A
Chinese American INS officer welcomes me with a huge smile, as if I were some
kind of undocumented celebrity. "Aren't you... G6mez-Pefia...the performance
artist!?"No puedocreerlo,ya me cacharon coiio!(untranslatable)."Well...yes." I try
not to express my surprise. "I, I, love your, your book, The New WorldBorder,"
she tells me. "I didn't know that INS officers actually...read,"I said. I truly didn't
know how else to respond. "In fact," she tells me, "I am a writer myself. I've
 Lettersfromthe Road o09

7. Gomez-Penaand Caro-
lina Poncede Le6ncelebrat-
ing dualcitizenshipin
costume.(Courtesyof Pocha
NostraArchives)

got two books out on Chinese American diasporic literature.""What are you
doing here? Researching the source of our immigrant pathos?" I ask her. She
cracks up, suddenly nervous, and then answers apologetically, "Well, there are
not that manyjobs availablein academia."It's one of those casesin which reality
is much strangerthan any of my writings.
Ten minutes later, I walk out of the INS office with my brand-new dual
citizenship. In a sense, I just exchanged my green card for the gold one. I give a
humongous kiss to Carolina. Our kiss is heard through the entire INS building.