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Buse Acar

Prof. Dr. Meldan Tanrısal

AKE404 Literature of Diversity

30 May 2020

“La Prieta” and “La Bruja”

In this essay I will discuss the issues handled in “La Prieta” by Gloria Anzaldua, and
later on I will focus on the concept of “la Bruja” in “A Woman Lies Buried Under Me”, a poem
by Anzaldua, “Livin’ la Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin, and “La Bruja” by Francisco Gorrindo.
Examination of the same issues on the perspectives of United States, Mexico, and Argentina -
all of them colonized by Spaniards at some point of history- reveals an ongoing pattern.
Through this pattern I will try to show the stigma around las brujas, how threatening and
empowering is the concept, and how it has become an alternative identity for feminists all
around the world as a means of resisting and dismantling patriarchy. Moreover, perception of
la bruja within and without is going to be mentioned as a part of the feminine struggle/journey
of making a sense of the world.

La Prieta – Gloria Anzaldua

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldua was a Texan scholar who worked mainly on feminist, queer,
and Chicana cultural theories. Her being a Texan is significant in the sense that many Mexican-
Americans who live in Texas say that the border crossed them due to the decline of Republic
of Texas. They have been made aliens in the very land that they were born into by the white
settlers who also lived in the Republic. Although that Anzaldua’s family was seventh-
generation in the United States, she still felt the division between these two cultures and that
inspired her to coin her well known term “nepantlera”, a person who is in the state of
inbetweenness. But being in between worlds, being at “nepantla” (Nahuatl for “in-between
space”) is not something negative, it is rather necessary for social change although the state
itself might be full of anxiety and cause identity issues. (Keating, 8) “La Prieta” is an essay
which the traces of her theories can be found and is inseparable from Anzaldua’s personal
experiences since she wrote it almost in a confessional way, opening herself up without any
censors. This transparency creates an ambiance of voyeurism -it is disturbing to look but one
cannot help but looking. Anzaldua’s raw and no-bullshit attitude also makes it easier for the
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reader to relate to her, because there is not a single trace of fiction in it and that is how she
serves the truth -without a sugarcoat.

There are three main points in the essay: colorism/racism, homophobia, and sexism. She
presents these issues with examples and experiences from her own life, disabling any possible
objection by providing a first-hand source. She also questions herself several times throughout
the essay, to check whether or not she has valid points. Her tone swifts back and forth from
rationality to emotionality. As a person of high sentimentality, in order to heal from the traumas,
she had to grow a thick skin which was possible only through detaching herself from her
emotions when necessary.

The title of the essay comes from a colorist slang that shows how deep rooted
internalized racism is even within minorities. It means brown and refers to dark-skinned people.
Anzaldua’s blue-eyed, part German grandmother gave her the nickname “Prieta”, who was
slightly disappointed by Anzaldua’s skin color. Her grandmother inspected her when she was
born, to see if she had a blotch on her skin that indicates she carries Indian or mulatto blood.

“Don’t go out in the sun (…) If you get any darker, they’ll mistake you for an Indian.
And do not get dirt on your clothes. You don’t want people to say you’re a dirty Mexican”
(Anzaldua, 220) says her mother to Anzaldua when she was a child. Even though Mexicans are
considered mulattos and part-Indians, they seem to be unaware of this fact. Or maybe
Grandmother’s German roots gave them a better-than-others delusion.

Anzaldua was a child who was not very obedient, and she preferred to do her own thing
rather than doing what traditionally girls should do. Her family was not happy with this, and
they called her “Machona – india ladina” (Anzaldua, 223) that translates directly into
“Masculine – wild Indian”. The idea of being free to express yourself (in clothing, behavior,
language, etc.) is strictly masculine and it is natural when men do it; but when a woman does
the same thing it is outrageous, un-lady-like, a sign of being untamed; thus “the wild Indian”.
The phrase is sexist and racist at the same time, which is very ironic since the ones who say it
are also women and Chicanas. Anzaldua later on comments on this issue in general, questions
the dynamics of any kind of oppression, dwells on the position of the oppressed and the
oppressor. And although she does not want to label the oppressed as villains, she concludes that
willingly or unwillingly they are accomplices since they carry on the ideologies of the
oppressors. These ideologies are so internalized that discrimination happens even within the
same minority. When Anzaldua brings her then-boyfriend who is a Peruvian home, and her
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mother says that she “did not want her ‘Prieta’ to have a ‘mojado’ (wetback) for a lover.”
(Anzaldua, 227) A wetback is someone from Mezo or Latin America who swam his/her way to
the United States. They were not considered as citizens and they faced great discrimination by
the government and American citizens. Seemingly, Texan identity of “border crossed us” gave
Anzaldua’s mother a branch to hold on to that grants her a piece of superiority.

Upward mobility of the American Dream unfortunately is not widely available to any
group other WASPs and white ethnics. Jewish Americans have benefitted from it after a certain
time, but other majority-minorities such as African Americans and Asian Americans are still
facing similar socioeconomic obstacles, excluding a few token individuals (and tokens are
being used as a discrediting tools to dismiss the advocates of social justice, claiming that United
States is no longer the country of white supremacy as seen in the example of ‘the’ Black rich
person, or ‘the’ Asian CEO). Hispanic/Latinx American situation is no different, Hispanic
poverty rate is 17.6% while white poverty rate is 8.1%1 (Hispanic poverty rate was far worse in
the 60s which led to the formation of El Movimiento, civil rights movement of Chicanxs), and
Mexican Americans have the lowest average education level of 8th grade in the country (Alfaro,
2). Consequently, in La Prieta Anzaldua shares her experience on poverty. Her father died when
she was on her early teenage years, and that left the burden of maintaining a home on her 28
years old, unskilled mother with little education. Obviously, that was not sufficient, so the
children worked on cotton fields as well, Anzaldua kept working until she graduated from
college. They were taking tortillas to the school as lunch and they were mocked because of it,
later they switched to regular bread, and stopped bringing any food from home at all. Their
mother gave them lunch money, but it was enough only for one of them, so the rest stayed
hungry. Anzaldua recalls the shame she felt due to her poverty, but now she praises her mother
for the strength she found inside her to protect and take care of her family even at the face of
grueling conditions.

Chicano Movement covered racial issues and advocated for political, economic, and
social equality for Chicano communities, but by doing so they had to create and enforce an
image of the Mexican to use as a unifying symbol which was embedded with Mexican cultural
elements. Together with better parts of the Mexican culture, inherent misogyny and machismo
was enforced as well. (Unfortunately this situation was the same for many civil rights
movements, for instance when black women’s position in the movement was asked the leading

1
“U.S. Poverty Statistics.” Federal Safety Net, federalsafetynet.com/us-poverty-statistics.html.
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men would answer “on their backs or knees”) Sexism fueled by the movements led to waves of
ethnic women’s right movements, in this case it formed Chicana Feminism or Xicanisma.
Through Xicanisma many young Chicana women found a voice to resist the oppression they
suffered in three aspects: racism, imperialism, sexism (Alfaro, 1). The foundation of “Nueva
Chicana” challenged the preexisting “Ideal Chicana” (Alfaro, 5). While Ideal Chicana embodies
the patriarchal and Catholic values, Nueva Chicana refused and actively worked against them.
People did not like Nueva Chicanas, called them (and still do) names such as “Las Malinches”,
“mujeres malas”, “Las Brujas”, “putas”, etc.

As Xicanisma got louder, the movement attracted new supporters and allies. People of
various backgrounds worked together in similar causes and supported each other, but some of
them were rather infected by the savior syndrome. Anzaldua calls it “the white women’s
burden”; they are white feminists who are trying to be intersectional but instead they steal
Chicana voices by daring to speaking for them, as if Chicanas are incapable of doing so.

Anzaldua was a lesbian woman, so her activism included the gay movement as well.
Her friend circle consisted of queer people (which her family did not approve) and together
they worked in various different areas. But homophobia runs deep in some people and hate
tends to evoke more hate.

“…a Black man a bus stop yells, ‘Hey Faggots, come suck my cock.’ Randy yells back,
‘You goddamn nigger, I worked in the Civil Rights movement ten years so you could
call me names.” Guilt gagging in his throat with the word, nigger… a white woman
waiting for the J-Church streetcar sees Randy and David kissing and says, ‘You should
be ashamed of yourselves. Two grown mean – disgusting.’ …Randy and David running
into the house (…) Three Latino men in a car had chased them as they were walking
home from work. ‘Gay boys, faggots,’ they yelled throwing a beer bottle.” (Anzaldua,
228-229)

Randy and David fought each other in a really violent after the incident, even though
they love each other, the outside hostility made them hostile as well. Anzaldua describes the
situation perfectly: “The violence against us, the violence within us.” As the passage clearly
shows, minorities who are being oppressed by racism become the oppressors by acting out of
homophobia -which is actually another part of white patriarchy where the manliness of a male
comes from having a female partner(s) as much as being white and Christian.
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“I see Third World peoples and women not as oppressors but as accomplices to
oppression by our unwittingly passing on to our children and our friends the oppressor’s
ideologies.” (Anzaldua, 231)

Previous passage on homophobia is an example highly suitable to Anzaldua’s statement

above and it can be expanded to racism as mentioned earlier and sexism. In La Prieta she
discusses the sexist aspect of the issue in great detail, giving personal examples from her life.

Anzaldua suffered from her reproductive system, as she started menstruating very early
and later on her periods were so painful that she had to go to the hospital every month due to
excruciating pain with fever and swollen tonsils. “It’s all in your head (…) When you get older
and get married and have children the pain will stop” (Anzaldua, 222) was the doctors’
prescription to her medical issues. When she was 3 months old her mother noticed pink blots
on her diaper. The doctor who examined her said “Eskimo girl children get their periods early”
(Anzaldua, 221) (as if there are any Alaska Natives around Texas). Throughout the years her
mother warned her not to talk about it, thinking it was a punishment for having premarital sex
and having a child out of it. Later on she and other members of the family calls Anzaldua “puta”
(“whore”) for having sex. This internalized sex-negativity and slut-shaming is an inherent part
machismo and Catholic values; both of them deeply rooted in Hispanic and Latinx cultures.

Machismo originates from macho, which means male in Spanish and Portuguese, is a
sociocultural term that encapsulates the code of behavior expected from men in Hispanic
cultures. A man must be ‘man enough’ to defend and provide for his family since it is his
responsibility. Female counterpart of machismo is marianismo, originating from Mary the
Virgin, which is pretty self-explanatory. Marianismo accepts her role as subservient and dutiful
daughter/sister/wife/mother and accepts her identity as a part of a man’s possessive adjectives
(his wife, his daughter, etc.) To benefit from the provisions of a macho, she internalizes and
enforces her dictated virginal role, and participates actively in dismissing non-macho males and
non-marian females (or their rebellious, unorthodox behaviors) from the patriarchal society they
work hard to sustain. That is where they become accomplices to oppression as Anzaldua stated.
Machismo results in excessive pride from an exaggerated masculinity, which leads to a delusion
of entitlement. Domestic violence and “crimes of passion”2 are inevitable results as macho men
expect utmost respect, obedience, and adoration from women around them. If women fail to

2
“Crime of Passion.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute,
www.law.cornell.edu/wex/crime_of_passion.
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provide them, men get “emotional” and beat or murder “las putas”. In La Prieta, Anzaldua
mentions her abusive ex, who tried to strangle her to death. She managed to put him in jail but
when he was released, she spent many sleepless nights and she was hypervigilant at all times
(but especially at night outside) because she knew he would come back for her as retaliation.

Although the misogyny is incredibly obvious in macho pattern of behavior, it was and
is demanded by the patriarchal women all around the world and the lack of it made them feel
unsafe:

“…on the island [Puerto Rico], women perhaps felt freer to dress and move more
provocatively since, in most cases, they were protected by traditions, mores, and laws
of Spanish/Catholic system of morality and machismo whose main rule was: You may
look at my sister, but if you touch her I will kill you. The extended family and church
structure could provide a young woman with a circle of safety in her small pueblo on
the island, if a man ‘wronged’ a girl, everyone would close in to save her family honor.”
(Cofer, 223)

A woman is protected when she is a sister, and that protection is executed through
violence; toxic masculinity is glorified. The language also situates women below men as
describing them in need of constant protection, someone that must find safety inside the very
cage she is entrapped. Perhaps what Nueva Chicana/feminist defines as cage is a comfort zone
for Ideal Chicana/patriarchal woman.

La Prieta is one of the early works of Gloria Anzaldua, which contains the foreshadows
of Anzalduan theories that is going to mature in the oncoming years. Short but comprehensive
essay covers a wide range of issues and concludes in a rare angle. Rather than picking an
identity and advocating solely for it, Anzaldua prefers to hold them all together.

“‘Your allegiance is to La Raza, the Chicano movement’ say the members of my race.
‘Your allegiance is to the Third World’ say my Black and Asian friends. ‘Your
allegiance is to your gender, to women’ say the feminists. Then there’s my allegiance
to the Gay movement, to the socialist revolution, to the New Age, to magic and the
occult. And there’s my affinity to literature, to the world of the artist. What am I? A third
world lesbian feminist with Marxist and mystic leanings. They would chop me up into
little fragments and tag each piece with a label.” (Anzaldua, 228)
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This passage clearly presents Anzaldua’s inbetweenness and multifaceted personality -

which is not something exclusive to her. Every person in the world has different identities and
positionalities that they were born into, that are given to them, or they chose to claim for
themselves. Being a nepantlera is a consequence of the globalizing world, but it is not inaccurate
to claim that people of color who are born into once-colonized nations are experiencing being
at nepantla relatively more than others. And Chicanas of las Americas face a triple oppression
due to their race, class, and gender. A Chicana looks at herself through the gaze of the white
world, through the gaze of Chicano ideals, through the gaze of a colonizing dominant culture.
With so many external perspectives, it is challenging for her to get a clear look of herself which
must be required from within. Two well-known symbols of the outer perspectives are La
Malinche and La Virgen. These are stereotypes used to put women in their places, and although
their connotations are changing, they are still imposed from outside. Anzaldua’s affinity to
“magic and the occult” is significant at this point, as it is an indication of an archetype that is
going to shape contemporary Xicanisma. What Anzaldua called “spiritual activism” is going to
merge with (or gives birth to) “Bruja feminism”, a subbranch of Xicanisma. The framework of
spiritual activism is to go within to reach without -to focus on yourselves as a way to fix the
world- as Anzaldua believes if one wishes to make a change in the society, first they must make
a change in them as she describes “a going deep into the self and an expanding out into the
world, a simultaneous recreation of the self and a reconstruction of society.” (232) That change
is to unlearn the limited, binary ideologies imposed by the western world and hence seeing the
world as a whole. Anzaldua’s holistic and interconnected world view is truly an alternative to
western idea of divided and categorized world. But how to abandon a system built and sustained
for hundreds of years?

La Bruja, Mujer Mala / La Bruja, Diosa

“We fear our power, fear our feminine selves, fear the strong woman within, especially
the black Kali aspect, dark and awesome. Thus we pay homage not to the power inside
us but to the power outside us, masculine power, external power.” (Anzaldua, 231)

In her poem A Woman Lies Buried Under Me, Anzaldua describes the dormant female within
and the process of embracing her. Associated with archetypical goddess attributes such as the
moon, night, snake, and earth; she was “interred for centuries, presumed dead.” She is afraid of
waking up and facing the society that suffocated her, but dreams of being out there again. When
the narrator listens to her, “I hear her soft whisper”, they become one and the woman buried
inside emerges, “I emerge covered with mud.” The finishing lines, “In my own hands / my life.”,
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clearly suggests unifying the divided and dichotomized femininity by embracing the subdued
and subjugated side is a way (or the way) of reclaiming autonomy. Anzaldua intentionally picks
“Kali”, a significant Hindu goddess, to describe the “strong woman within”. This association
between female divinities and suppressed femininity becomes more prominent in time, forming
one of the structural aspect of Bruja Feminism.

“La Bruja” means “witch” in Spanish and it is used for women, men counterpart is “el
brujo” which is “wizard.” Although the meanings are similar, the construction of la bruja and
el brujo is severely embedded with sexism and thus they are treated and used differently. In
Collins Dictionary, Spanish-English translation of bruja is “witch, old hag, woman, spook,
ghost, whore” 3 and of brujo is “enchanting, wizard, sorcerer, shaman, medicine man” 4 . In
SpanishDict, “witch, hag, bitch, broke, skint”5 is used for bruja and “wizard, sorcerer, shaman,
enchanting, bewitching”6 for brujo. Although witches and wizards have become a part of pop
culture and being used as material for various entertainment branches, they stand in different
points. Famous wizards, such as Merlin and Harry Potter, are loved and respected; considered
as wise counselors, brave heroes, defenders of the lights, warriors against darkness and evil, etc.
Witches on the other hand are divided by race as well and even though they are not necessarily
villains, their powers are depicted paganic, satanic, un-Christian in every sense (not that being
paganic, satanic, and un-Christian is a bad thing; but it is important to recognize it as a
continuation of the demonizing process of the past), most famous example is Chilling
Adventures of Sabrina (2018-…) by Netflix. I have not watched the TV series, but even in the
trailer lots of murdering and sacrificing-humans-to-Satan was going on. Third season of
American Horror Story is named Coven, and it takes place in an academy for witches. Everyone
in the academy is white and blonde except for one black girl named Queenie whose power is
being a real life voodoo doll. Queenie escaped from her ghetto black witch community because
she was disgusted by their “black magic”, “blood magic”, etc. Overall, the witches of the coven
are good and powerful, but they are at the same time murderous and power hungry. (Spoilers:
They are going to help defeat Anti-Christ in season 8 though. Cannot decide if that is something

3
“English Translation of ‘Bruja’: Collins Spanish-English Dictionary.” English Translation of "Bruja" | Collins
Spanish-English Dictionary, www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/spanish-english/bruja.
4
“English Translation of ‘Brujo’: Collins Spanish-English Dictionary.” English Translation of "Brujo" | Collins
Spanish-English Dictionary, www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/spanish-english/brujo.
5
“La Bruja.” SpanishDict, www.spanishdict.com/translate/la%20bruja.
6
“El Brujo.” SpanishDict, www.spanishdict.com/translate/el%20brujo.
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progressive or just a new way to associate witches with evil). Witches on TV and Hollywood
(Sabrina, Morgana, Fiona Goode, Melisandre, Marnie Stonebrook, Bonnie Bennet…) are
inherently different from wizards because their power either comes from an evil source or
results in destruction if not with great caution. Similar to or precursor to this divide, “a brujo is
someone to fear and revere while a bruja is someone to hate to the point of killing” in Mexican
culture. (Lara, 18)

Due to the dichotomous nature of western ideologies, practitioners of indigenous

phenomena were polarized simultaneously with the colonizing process. Brujas were/are the evil
seductresses who use their demonic powers to dominate the wills of others (especially men)
and destined to bring upon desolation. Curanderas were benevolent and old-fashioned healers
who help the well-being of society, still pagan though. In a nutshell, a curandera is a good witch
who refuses to use her evil powers. Brujas are located in the puta side (they are sexual beings
who are not afraid of it, and feared for the power they hold within their sexualities, and at the
same time oversexualized by the ones who demonizes them), and curanderas are closer to
virgen side (spiritual although superstitious, sexual within the defined limits) In reality the
practices of brujas and curanderas are very close to each other, and Irene Lara coins a new term
“brujandera” (Lara, 38) in order unify them again.

Rise of medicine as an urban, modern, male profession led to the defamation of rural,
antiquated female healers. In order to discredit them, healers were redefined as witches. Later
on, anyone who was considered as a threat to the dominant order of the society was prosecuted
as witches. Witch hunts of Europe, Colonial Americas, and Cold War are very well known.
Western medicine opposed to indigenous practices resulted in invalidation of the latter, as it
was deemed superstition in the face science. A science that claimed and imposed women were
inferior to men by biology. Ergo, “la Bruja symbolizes power outside of patriarchy’s control
that potentially challenges a sexist status quo.” (Lara, 12) And to protect the status quo, la bruja
is vilified and libeled throughout the centuries. Although the connotation of la bruja is changing,
vilification still persists.

An example of defamation and tabooing of Hispanic spirituality (which is brujeria) is

the banning of Bless Me, Ultima by Rodolfo Anaya for the contents of “obscene language and
paganistic practices” of “Ultima, who uses herbs and magic to heal” (Lara, 30)
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La Bruja – Francisco Gorrindo

“La Bruja” by Gorrindo is recorded by Orquesta Juan D’Arienzo (1938 and 1959), one
of the most important artists of Golden Age of Argentine tango, and thus is one of the signature
tango tracks. As the title of the song is pretty much self-explanatory, I would like to chew on
Argentine tango a bit before passing on the lyrics as the dance is more or less the embodiment
of machismo culture.

The history of tango is unclear since there is no official document that recorded the
emergence and evolution of the genre in great detail. What is for certain is that the music came
first, then people started dancing to it. There are three types of tango: milonga, tango, and waltz;
all of them differ in music and dancing style. Milonga is a fast paced and is a combination of
Candombe of Africa and Habanera of Europe. These two genres met and merged in Montevideo
and Buenos Aires, mostly performed by Black settlers. People started calling places where
milonga music is performed as milonga as well, but later on milongas were banned by the local
authorities because they probably thought fast-paced rhythm of milonga was un-Christian
(Oxford Languages define milonga as “angry or repetitive words, witchcraft”). When the ban
was annulled, people started going to milongas again (milonga is also used as the name of a
tango dance night) and tango started to form as a dance and music. (Some sources claim that
tango was founded by men waiting on a brothel line as an act of boredom and unexpectedly
became something cultural)

Argentine tango is a partner dance that takes place within the formation of ronda in
which tangueros dance forward in a counter-clockwise circle. Since tango requires walking and
embracing (romantically described as “walking together with the music”), one of the partners
must walk backwards. That is where the patriarchy and machismo come to play. The one who
walks backwards is called “the follower” and the other one is “the leader”. Traditionally,
followers are women and leaders are men. While men are swaying the ronda, interpreting the
music, and leading the dance; women are in a constant receptive state where they try to sense
every miniscule lead about what to do next. Their eyes does not really function since they cannot
see where they are going, they are completely dependent on men. What they must do is to
follow the leads perfectly and to look good while doing it.

Obviously, this is a symbolic reading of traditional tango and it is not as horrible as I

unintentionally described earlier. In today’s society the distinction between follower and leader
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is not so rigid due to the emergence of non-traditional approaches to tango such as Nuevo or
queer tango.

But the preference in Argentina is widely traditional since they take great pride in it as
a part of their culture. Unfortunately, sexism is also a part of their culture -which is embedded
in tango- and Argentinian feminists are describing tango as “a caricature of the patriarchy”7 and
are aiming to make it “less patriarchal”. Wish to remove the toxic ideologies within tango lead
to the formation of Movimiento Feminista del Tango8.

“The lyrics of many tango classics are as dramatic as the genre, telling stories of
passionate love, desperate longing and betrayal. But several are explicit odes to the
subjugation of women, and physical violence against them, and are jarring to listen to
today. The song ‘Amablemente,’ or ‘Kindly,’ tells the story of a man who walks in on
his partner in the arms of another man. (…) The betrayed lover then demands that the
woman prepare him a beverage, leans over to kiss her forehead and ‘kindly stabbed her
34 times.’”9

“La Bruja”, fortunately, is not song about the murder of a woman. Instead, it is a musical
name-calling by a bitter man whose heart was broken by a woman because apparently once a
woman does not match the ideas in a man’s head, he sees her true, evil, bruja face.

“I conquered my heart / and today more than ever / taking a closer look at you / I can
see you for who you truly are: / La Bruja / who yesterday was queen / of my whole being
/ now that the spell is broken / is nothing more than a woman. / La Bruja / a pile of crazy
whims / that enslaved me / is today a landscape covered with horror.”

In the next verses he talks about how he is going to commit himself to a “simple, moral life”
with a “noble, loyal love” and he is going to build himself a home with a “manly strength.” And
in the closing lines, he hopes that she will die as a poor, sick woman in the streets. It seems like
machismo failed to create men who defend and provide for his family. Rather it created entitled
abusers and murderers.

7
Londoño, Ernesto. “'A Caricature of the Patriarchy': Argentine Feminists Remake Tango.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/americas/argentina-tango-
gender.html.
8
“Argentina's Feminist Tango.” The World from PRX, www.pri.org/file/2020-05-11/argentinas-feminist-tango.
9
Londoño, Ernesto. “'A Caricature of the Patriarchy': Argentine Feminists Remake Tango.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/americas/argentina-tango-
gender.html.
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Livin’ la Vida Loca – Ricky Martin

30’s and 50’s Argentina may sound like a suitable time and place for machismo, sexism,
and rigid gender roles, but as Irene Lara discussed in her essay Bruja Positionalities: Toward a
Chicana/Latina Spiritual Activism, times have not changed much. Lara chose Ricky Martin’s
Livin’ la Vida Loca as her example piece, and I would like to comment on it together by
summarizing her points. The opening lines of the song are quite encapsulating: “She’s into
superstitions / Black cats and voodoo dolls / I feel a premonition / That girl’s gonna make me
fall”. The bruja imagery is combined with the original sin; the fall of a man by the hands of a
woman is that very famous story from Bible with Adam and Eve.

“She’ll make you take your clothes off / and go dancing in the rain / She’ll make you
live her crazy life / but she'll take away your pain / Like a bullet to your brain”: she is in total
control of him, making him live her crazy life, annulling all of his will and reason like a bullet
to his brain which takes away the burden of intellect and gives him the bliss of ignorance. By
witchcraft, as implied.

“Once you’ve had a taste of her / you’ll never be the same / she’ll make you go insane”:
“having a taste of her” is an open sexual innuendo which may mean having sex or performing
cunnilingus to a woman -it is rather vulgar. It also refers to sexual witchcraft that is usually
done for controlling and fixing the unwanted behavior of a male partner. And while performing
sexual witchcraft the bodily fluids and wastes of the performer (such as saliva, hair, nails, the
water she bathed in, and menstrual blood) is generally used for binding qualities (and menstrual
blood is considered sacred in brujeria, wicca, and other means of lifestyle). That way he literally
has a taste of her. Or at least that was one of the main reasons of fear and hostility towards
brujas during the colonial times.

Spanish version of the song is even worse, the lyrics start and go as:

“Queen of the night/ Goddess of Voodoo/ I cannot save myself / Can you save yourself?”
“Her web of the spider / Her claw of the dragon / Leads you to hell / She is your addiction”

Patriarchy does not hold men responsible for their actions, and rather encourages them
to find scapegoats to blame on. There is always a devil that tempts them, a whore who seduces
them, a bad friend who corrupts them, a system that fails them… But the blame is never on
them.
 Acar 13

Conclusion

“…US women of colors have used spirituality to develop new forms of resistance, ‘Our
spirituality does not come from outside ourselves. It emerges when we listen to the
‘small still voice’ within us which can empower us to create actual change in the world.”
(Keating, 12)

Non-Christian spiritual approaches have become an alternative lifestyle and source of identity
for people of color, but especially for women whose place were deemed inferior for thousands
of year through androcentric worldviews. Decolonizing and embracing the bruja within is one
of them, and its significance is essential to Xicanisma.

“…[Anzaldua] posits a metaphysics of interconnectedness and on the interrelatedness

of all life forms. Drawing on indigenous philosophies, eastern thought, and her own
experiences, she describes a fluid, cosmic spirit/energy/force that embodies itself
throughout -and as- all existence.” (Keating, 13)

As described in the passage, Anzalduan perspective seems overly spiritual, irrational, almost
paganic and similar to witchcraft from western modern gaze. And that is the exact thing Bruja
feminism aims to embody. What seems irrational and spiritual to western gaze is actually what
the colonizers destroyed in the first place, so it is a reclaiming and decolonizing mestiza and
pre-colonial self. And for feminists all around the world, it is an alternative to patriarchal
religions that is built on binary opposition where every aspect related to femininity is subtly or
overtly demonized.
 Acar 14

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Chicana Feminist Movement.” Lunds Universitet, 2019.

Anzaldua, Gloria. “A Woman Lies Buried Under Me” Sinister Wisdom. 2.

Anzaldua, Gloria. “La Prieta” Bridge Call My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color.
220-233.

Cofer, Judith. “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” Perceptions of
Culture: Discovering through Examples. 220-227.

Keating, AnaLouise. “From Borderlands and New Mestizas to Nepantlas and Nepantleras:
Anzaldúan Theories for Social Change.” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology
of Self-Knowledge, vol. 4, no. 3, 2006, pp. 5–16.

Lara, Irene. “Bruja Positionalites: Toward a Chicana/Latina Spiritual

Activism.” Chicana/Latina Studies, vol. 4, 2005, pp. 10–45.

Little, Becky. “Why Mexican Americans Say 'The Border Crossed Us'.” History.com, A&E
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www.letras.mus.br/ricky-martin/1259018/.

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The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2019,
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Pilar, Derrick Del. “La Bruja (1938).” Poesía De Gotán: The Poetry of the Tango, 13 June
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la-vida-loca-lyrics.

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