Martin Manalensan, in Global Divas, discusses how the “immigrant is continually made aware of the performative aspects of survival so much so that he or she is continually compelled to move or “travel”…between various codes of behavior” (14). She must be aware of appropriate conduct and constantly interpreting acceptability. In fact, the skill of her performance ultimately determines her success at un-becoming the Other.
As Americans we are quick to read this as though “immigrant” always refers to one entering the United States and coming to terms with our ideas of gender, sexuality, and custom. This occurs, I believe, despite the fact that a rising percentage of college students study abroad, and the average American is much more likely today to have left the country than twenty years ago (stock market be damned!) What would this performance look like, however, if Jane the Plumber decides to permanently reside elsewhere?
While I openly admit to not having studied this topic in-depth, I do have limited insight to shed upon the subject. I spent two years in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania where, dear friends, homosexuality “does not exist.” I know this because I asked multiple people in quite surreptitious ways after reading that Mauritania was among one of six countries in the world legally allowed to “kill” a homosexual under Sharia law. The reply was that “no, not here, men don’t do that with men. Only in un-godly countries,” (as the connotation always implies male – understandably so as 95% of women are subjected to female genital mutilation). The one exception to this is encapsulated in the gorkigon who, like the Filipino bakla (Manlansan 25), is translated as “both man and woman” – gorkigons are effeminate men who dress as women and perform at weddings. His appearance lends social clues and serve as “external signs of the inner core, of essential qualities of feminine sensibility and emotion” (Manalansan 28). This quite vividly shows the cross-cultural mobility of Manalansan’s idea of “wearing” one’s identity. Well, being Lez extraordinaire, I became a bit unnerved, and you’d better believe I put on my long skirt, grew out my hair, and put performance into practice “straight-”away.
While two years abroad seems like a very do-able scenario, when the weight of 730 days is upon you, you do not feel in vacation-mode, but rather an urgent need to acculturate to your “immigrant” status. Language becomes essential, and one realizes the cultural weight of words. As in Hagedorn’s The Dogeaters, fluency in multiple languages is akin to being facile in multiple cultures; it implies more than a superficial understanding, but rather an ownership of cultural expression. In Arabic, for instance, one is constantly verbally reminded of delineated gender roles, as the pronoun “you” takes on a feminine (nti) and a masculine (nte), as do all verb conjugations and adjectives. It is, therefore, much easier to conceptualize a social world delineated in such a fashion. Butler’s interpellations, in such a gendered manner, are thrust upon you, and how you react (in dress, subordination, and etiquette) determines you’re tolerability as a foreigner and the limitations on your participation as a (temporary) citizen. In this case, my appropriation of “feminine” implied my heterosexuality, thus my viability as a social participant, but for me, my day-to-day interaction necessitated an asexual countenance to forego possible (although unlikely) incrimination. Therefore, my return to the United States was double culture shock, both into a world of consumerism and pizza, but also into gay culture, which Manalansan describes as “a culture that sustains the social relations of same-sex desire,” where citizenship in a way predicates an espousal of sexual desire.
I feel that while Global Divas is quite insightful on identifying the immigrant experience of viewing, experiencing, and performing (specifically gay) identity, but what happens when the immigrant is American? How does he re-draw the framework of his sexuality in new cultures? Will his “out” status in the United States make him forever feel re-closeted, or the maintenance of his public homosexual identity force him to negotiate his social and cultural acceptability?
Sex, Culture, Politics 