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Hilario F. Dominguez
Question 3
March 24, 2013

Racial and gender identity are critical parts of the overall framework of individual and
collective identity. For some especially visible and legally defined minority populations across
countries in Latin America, racial and sexual identity are manifested in very conscious ways.
This manifestation is triggered most often by two conflicting social and cultural influences. First,
deep conscious immersion into cultural traditions and values through religious, familial,
neighborhood, and educational communities instills a positive sense of identity and confidence.
Second, and in contrast, individuals often must filter racial and gender identity through negative
treatment and media messages received from others because of their race and gender (Wilson
2010).
These messages make it clear that people with minority status have a different make-up,
and one that is less than desirable within mainstream society (Wilson 2010). Others, especially
privileged and often white persons in Latin America, manifest racial and gender identity in
mostly unconscious ways through their behaviors, values, beliefs, and assumptions, each of
which is created sand structured by visual and sexual economies. For them, race and gender is
usually invisible and unconscious because societal norms have been constructed around their
racial, ethnic, sexual, and cultural frameworks, values, and priorities and then referred to as
standard culture rather than as racial/gender identity. The media hardly portrays the
dominant white culture through negative lenses, but on the contrary, glorifies and magnifies
the culture. Thus, there is a divide between the invisible minority and the visible majority
(Wilson 2010). In the rest of this essay, I will discuss the ways in which race and gender intersect
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in the creation of visual and sexual economies, and how they relate to the marginalization of
certain people and groups.
Bus 174 illustrates the story of an invisible minority in Brazilthe street kids (C 2013).
The story of Sandro depicts a larger immoral representation the media gives to the public. Sandro
and the rest of the street kids are often portrayed as young colored boys who run around causing
havoc. The city not only forgets about these boys, but they ignore and are frightened by them.
However, the story of their poverty and struggle goes untold (C 2013). The story of the
inequalities and mistreatments they face become invisible. So invisible, in fact, that when they
are brutally gunned downed by the Brazilian police, the murders go untold. In this sense, the
street kids of Brazil are marginalized by the inaccurate portrayal the media illustrates and the
immoral lack of media coverage on their abuse by the authorities (C 2013).
The capacities of the Brazilian youth were forgotten, and unfortunately, there were
negative consequences. Stepans (1991) discussion of eugenics continues the pattern of the
underrated capabilities and capacities of minority cultures. Elites in Latin America accepted and
began disseminating the idea and practicing of eugenics because the questioned the potential of
minority cultures that had developed throughout the continent, especially the black and mulattos
(Stepan 135). Thus, implied racial inferiorities were spread across the continent and the idea of
eugenics to control darker persons became supported because the public thought it best for the
advancement of the country (Stepan 169). Latin America is a fertile continent with deep and
thorough race mixing by inter-racial marriage. Thus believing that Latin America were either
inferior, slow, or backward, eugenics was supposedly a scientific way in which an explanation
and solution could be offered to provide a resolution to the social problem of Latin Americas
unfit, lazy backward people (Stepan 137).
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The intersectionality between race and gender can be seen in Goldsteins (1999)
discussion of interracial relationships. Goldstein (1999) explains that interracial relationships in
Brazil are not widely accepted and are confronted with different challenges (564). Goldstein uses
ethnographic data to show, race is embodied in everyday valuations of sexual attractiveness that
are gendered, racialized, and class-oriented in ways that commodify black female bodies and
white male economic, racial, and class privilege (563). Goldstein goes on to argue that sexuality
and race are intimately connected by showing how Brazil eroticizes, exoticizes, and celebrates
the mulata, but real women of color are kept from mainstream media. In fact, the women of color
themselves appropriate and reproduce this behavior. This can be seen in the fantasies Grace and
her friends tease one another about (Goldstein 573).
Lastly, Poole (1997) captures images that she finds portray and perpetuate inequalities
based on race and gender. She discusses how the methods Figeroa chooses to portray the Cuscos
with manifests certain perspectives in those he showed the images to. Poole (1997) states, As
the Cuscos indigenistas themselves knew, paintings and photographs were representational
technologies (195). It is no surprise that images have immense power in the creation and
portrayal of certain groups.
Cultures are altered and manipulated many of times by what the media puts out. Race and
gender are used in an intersectional pattern to control perceptions and perpetuate
marginalization. The usage of visual and sexual economies is a popular method to create an
invisible minority who is ostracized. The street kids in Brazil, the images of Ecuador, the women
in Brazil, are all examples of controlled and maintained marginalization.

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References:
C, Oscar. (2013, September 13). Bus 174-Full Documentary [Video File]. Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mQ2b-PE7Iw
Goldstein, Donna D. (1999). "Interracial" Sex and Racial Democracy in Brazil: Twin Concepts?
American Anthropologist 101(3): 563-578.
Poole, D. (1997). Vision, Race and Modernity: A Visual Economy of the Andean Image World.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pp. 3-17, 142-193.
Stepan, N.L. (1991). The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press. Pp. 135-170.
Wilson, William Julius. (2010). More Than Just Race. New York: Norton.