Chapter 6 Assignments and Activities
The prompts on this page are ideas for interactive assignments and/or activities used to extend learning from this chapter. These can be used to further understanding, retention, and ownership of learner content.
- Before reading the chapter, write down the term jotería on the board or have students get out a blank sheet of paper and write the word “jotería” in large font. Ask the students what they know about this word and its meanings. Have they ever heard of it? What associations do they make with the term? Set the activity aside, and then return to it after reading the chapter. Have students reflect on the knowledge (and perhaps biases and stereotypes) they began with, and how they now define jotería after reading chapter 6.
- Collectively watch the video “Quiero Que Llames Joto” and have a discussion emphasizing the importance of poetry and cultural production in jotería identity. What language does Yosimar Reyes use to reclaim and resignify the word joto? What positive associations does he conjure with the word?
- As follow up to the chapter, assign Chapter 7 of Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa. This is the often cited chapter that contains the line, “People, listen to what your jotería is saying.” After reading this chapter and Anzaldúa’s do you think as a collective we are “listening to jotería”? Have we taken Anzaldúa’s request seriously? Provide examples from the text or other sources or life experiences to support your answer.
- Have students read Raul Coronado article “Bringing it Back Home: Desire, Jotos and Men.” He mentions how queer the chapter of University of Texas, Austin MECHA was in the 1990s when he was a member. What has been the relationship of MECHA with LGBTQ or jotería members? How has MEChA changed over the years in terms of gender and sexuality? What chapters of MECHA have been leaders in inclusion of jotería?
- Research the student organizations Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU), La Familia, and La Jotería at UCLA (Univeristy of California Los Angeles), La Familia de CSUN (California State University, Northridge, or ?Y Que? at Univesity of California, Berkeley, and the impact they had on their campuses and the community. What are some of the causes they organized for? What other campuses had chapters (if any) of these organizations? How did these organizations contribute to joteria studies?
- Carefully peruse the website Jotería: Documenting Queer Latinx in Los Angeles created by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. This website highlights and provides an introduction to the different collections of jotería archives housed by the center and which researchers can access. Some of these archives are the LGBT Mujeres Initiative, the VIVA Records, the Gronk papers, and more. The website can inspire ideas for further research. This is a great resource.
- Review the concept of sex positivity with students. How do they understand this concept? Did they grow up in a sex-positive environment? Where do these ideas come from? How do they understand sex-positivity in their everyday world? Provide examples. This can be a discussion in small or large groups or a writing assignment.
- Read the poems and essays by Gil Cuadros in City of God, Claudia Rodriguez’s book Everybody’s Bread or Maya Chinchilla’s The Cha-Cha Files: A Chapina Poetica.1 Have a discussion about the themes in the writings in the book.. How do they speak to some of the topics they learned about in the class? Did the chapter help them think differently about these topics? Have students write their own poems or do a visual representation of the poems.
Footnote
1 Gil Cuadros, City of God, (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 200).; Claudia Rodriguez, Everybody’s Bread, (San Francisco: Korima Press, 2015); Maya Chinchilla, The Cha-Cha Files: A Chapina Poetica (San Francisco: Korima Press, 2014).