Wild Tongues

<p>Tracing the configuration of the slapstick destitute <i>Peladita/Peladito</i> and the <i>Pachuca/Pachuco</i> (depicted in flashy zoot suits) from 1928 to 2004 <i>Wild Tongues</i> is an ambitious extensive examination of social order in Mexican and Chicana/o cultural productions in literature theater film music and performance art.</p> <p>From the use of the <i>Peladita</i> and the <i>Peladito</i> as stock characters who criticized various aspects of the Mexican government in the 1920s and 1930s to contemporary performance art by María Elena Gaitán and Dan Guerrero which yields a feminist and queer-studies interpretation Rita Urquijo-Ruiz emphasizes the transnational capitalism at play in these comic voices. Her study encompasses both sides of the border including the use of the <i>Pachuca</i> and the <i>Pachuco</i> as anti-establishment marginal figures in the United States. The result is a historically grounded interdisciplinary approach that reimagines the limitations of nation-centered thinking and reading.</p> <p>Beginning with Daniel Venegas's 1928 novel <i>Las aventuras de don Chipote o Cuando los pericos mamen</i> Rita Urquijo-Ruiz's <i>Wild Tongues</i> demonstrates early uses of the Peladito to call attention to the brutal physical demands placed on the undocumented Mexican laborer. It explores <i>Teatro de Carpa</i> (tent theater) in-depth as well bringing to light the experience of Mexican <i>Peladita</i> Amelia Wilhelmy whose La Willy was famous for portraying a cross-dressing male soldier who criticizes the failed Revolution. In numerous other explorations such as these the political economic and social power of creativity continually takes center stage.</p>