A Geek History of Time - Episode 320 - Gabriel Cruz Wrote a Book Part I

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

We were saying that we were going to get into the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them because there were way too goddamn many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story arc. Where should I be? Oh, there's Beast. I should step over here.

At some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look. And are swiftly and brutally put down by the Minutemen who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good, Damian, and I'm also glad that I got your name right this time. I apologize for that one TikTok video. Men of this generation.

Wound up serving the whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff. Oh, yeah. And actually, in his case, it was pre-war, but, but you know, I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. I'm going to go to the bathroom. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher at the middle school level here in Northern California. And I think I've mentioned in this forum in

an earlier episode recently that, you know, I've been working on trying to rehabilitate my hip, trying to get back into fencing, you know, doing my HEMA stuff. And I've been making progress and it's been great. And I was just thinking yesterday about how, oh, hey, you know I'm having having a real good and having a real good day with my leg I haven't had any pain and I'm I'm about a couple of weeks at this point away from my 50th birthday And I have now learned not to tempt fate even in my own head because as soon as I thought oh Hey, I'm having a real good day with my hip I got up out of my fucking desk chair in my right knee went pop no No, you're not like your hip is fine, but fuck you And and I and I mentioned to my wife when you know

We we talk on the phone as as you know, we're leaving work and I was like, yeah I had this now happen with my niece and now my knee is fucked. She's like, well, you know, welcome to your 50s I'm like god damn it. I'm not even there yet. Don't say that to me And so we continued our conversation in a few minutes later. She was like, well, you know, welcome to your four. He's does that make you happier? Like I can't like I know it doesn't like So anyway, that's that's that's how I've been how about you well, I'm Damien Harmony I am a high school history teacher up here in Northern, California Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I am a high school history teacher up here in Northern, California

And last night I had a show as people probably know we record on Saturdays. So last night I had a show And somebody came up to me and we have a merch table set up or selling merch all kinds of stuff We have a merch person now. It's all good. We're just growing our empire. It's great I know right but so last, somebody came up to me and was like, hey, cool merch. I'm like, yeah, please buy some. He's like, you know what? I love your podcast.

And I was like, somebody put you up to this? Am I getting filmed? Then he's like, no, I love it, oh my God. And he starts naming episodes and just all the shit that he loves. And then his I getting films like Then he's like no, I love it. Oh my god He starts naming episodes and just all the shit that he loves and then his buddy next to him He's like, oh dude, this is the guy and they start fanboying and they're like, oh, yeah, we told all our friends It's like everybody listens. I'm like You're the 12. Okay

Yeah, and then he was like yeah and I figured like you you've been advertising this show on your podcast So and I was like there we go there we go So that was that was a cool feeling man like people are digging our podcast. They loved your samurai shit. Oh Alright, yeah, they really did and they were asking me like how'd you keep all the names straight? I'm like I didn't half the funny part like I was and I had trouble so but no it was pretty cool now we heard a a Paul Robeson like baritone laughing at something you said a second ago and we are going to be much nicer than Congress was to him to our guest but a friend of the podcast,

one of the most educated men we've ever had on the show, certainly the most tonight, Dr. Gabriel Cruz, all the way from the East Coast, welcome back, sir. I just like the idea of, you know, Ed, you're sitting at your desk and you think to yourself, man, I'm having a good day, and your kneecap's going, I'll be goddamned Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how I pissed my patella off like the fuck you are

Damn it For what it's worth I have a brother who's 22 who has like no cartilage in his knees Because he's been kicking carpet with my dad for a few years. So like he's already hitting those milestones of like aches and pains. Oh boy, I ain't hit 25 yet. So yeah, I'm Gabriel Cruz. I got me one of them PhDs that they hand out off of a Cracker Jack's box.

that they hand out off the bottom of a Cracker Jack's box. I'm a professor of media studies in a Department of Mass Communication at North Carolina Central University in the illustrious Durham, North Carolina. And as we become evident, I'm a big old nerd. I study pop culture, I study race. I wish we lived in a less data-rich environments, but we do. So I have plenty of stuff to study. And yeah, and I wrote a fucking book. Despite myself. I wrote a book. And to spite yourself. Yeah.

So I'm happy to talk to you all about it. Yeah, so for our listeners who don't know Dr. Cruz wrote a book called Latini dad identity formation and met the mass media landscape And yeah, I got that Um, and I went looking for reviews and they're not in yet Apparently, so it's like yes, it's a it's a brand new broadway show Apparently so it's like and yes, it's a it's a brand new Broadway show I Did go to lived pace places publishing though to see what their blurb on it was and they started with How can mass media be used to help construct a personal sense of the tinny Dodd whilst navigating predominantly white spaces?

As the son of a Mexican immigrant man and a white American woman living in a predominantly white areas author Gabriel A. Cruz Shares how his identity was shaped by the socio-cultural forces of whiteness and Latinidad Grappling with the challenges of internalized racism and separation from his Latinidad Gabriel documents how he turned to mass media to help construct his Latino identity but to need odd identity formation and the mass media landscape details the complexities and Benefits of the mass media landscape and how it can ultimately contribute to identity formation a journey of identity evolution from youth to adulthood This book is ideal reading for students of Latinx studies Chicanex studies mass media studies popular culture cultural anthropology and sociology

so that mass media studies, popular culture, cultural anthropology, and sociology. So that Amazon mostly copied that. So to be clear, I don't know anything about cultural anthropology. That is something that the editor threw in. It's like, oh, if you say so, all right. There is one note actually. So there is a subtitle. So it is in congratulations saying Latina Latinidad correctly because not everyone does. Latinidad.information and the mass-media landscape colon constructing porcho via and it's funny that you left

that out because porcho via is a pun. Mother okay take two. God damn it. I feel cheated. I feel cheated. Oddly, I don't. So, for those who are not familiar, I'll just walk through a couple things about the title that are important for understanding. So if folks are not familiar with Latinidad, that is Latin-ness. That is the idea of being Latino

or of Latin American descent or something along those lines. And same way that we refer to blackness or whiteness, that kind of thing, Latino Dada is the equivalent to that. It's also a term used to encompass roughly 33 different countries. And so is a whole bag of yarn. The other parts of the information, mass media, landscape, all that stuff is kind of self-evident,

but the Portiavilla part. So most Americans, I think, who passed a North American history class at some point, probably have heard of Pancho Villa, right? I think my first non-educational exposure to him was the movie and starring Pancho Villa as himself by where Antonio Banderas who is not Mexican who is not Latin American He is Spanish, right? Broke my heart when I found that out

Mexican so often Right. Oh, that's Brotto. Oh my yeah. Yeah Ricardo multibon played a Sikh man. So I mean, yeah, you know It's and then Benedict's cover patch came back Well, like you talk about you talk about that near Sharif played Hispanic role John Resdavis was an Arab, right? Right? Yeah Yeah, so but but so Pancho Villa is is was one of the first Mexican historical figures that I learned about in school. And for context, and we'll get more into this in the episode,

but I grew up in a Mexican immigrant community until I was eight and then we left and after that it was mostly white environments up until currently. Although I do work in an HBCU now. But pocho is a derogatory term for people of Mexican descent in the United States. It is the equivalent of saying inauthentic, right? We are not Mexican enough. Interestingly enough, it's a little bit of a bit apocryphal, but the one of the dominant understandings is that the term Chicano

was also started off as a slur for Mexicans on this side of the river. Okay. Right? So, which is kind of interesting given that like when the border was negotiated between the United States and Mexico after the Mexican-American war and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, like none of the Mexicans on this side got a say, right?

Right, yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah, we were left behind, effectively, to be hunted by the Texas Rangers. Anyway, so that's why I went with Pocho Villas, because there's a cartoonist named Lalo Alcaraz, who is a LA Mexican, and he has a website called pocho.com, and he's been writing La Cucaracha

and other like sort of comic strip. Okay, I knew I recognized the name from. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, he's been writing stuff for years, right? And it actually has a has an interesting book. It's basically a graphic novel, Mexican history book. I think it's a Latino guy to the United States or something all those lines anyway

So he insists on like using the term pochot as like if they're gonna call us that then you know what? We're not gonna play their game of being either or we're gonna be both right? We're gonna be both Mexicans and Americans We're not gonna buy into that whole thing about like the the are you enough kind of perspective? Which is the term which is why I use that here And what I talk about in the last chapter of the book is actually like the idea of the tension between being biracial and bicultural. And how like, if you pursue that, if you play that game of meeting a standard,

it's always like, they're always gonna move the goalposts out, then like, you're just gonna end up stressed out and not really belong to anybody now, right if I if I may interrupt to ask Um, who is the they who is saying one is not enough? In the case of our crash he's talking about in terms of Mexicans and my experience it's both Okay, it is it is the My Spanish is terrible. I know the Spanish phrases that parents yell at kids. Okay Like get the DK. What did I tell you? I had to get down from there. Keep the Lamar. I'll take your hand off that

Right those things, right? Right, right But like I get asked like by you know, family or sometimes friends were like, oh, you know, how's your Spanish come along? I got one one fella who was a patrino, who was a, for those who don't know, it's not really, Godfather's kind of the right word, but basically this is someone who took part in my wedding, right, because patrino is a title that can be applied to a few different things,

including Godfather's or baptism, whatever else. This guy contributed to my wedding, close friends of the family, absolutely. But he says, he has says to me from time to time He's the well Gabriel how is your Spanish? Right and it's from a perspective of like you need to be learning Spanish and right I do I should be learning Spanish the fact that I haven't is a whole big thing But also like my reaction is is when I hear that I kind of want to say how's your Nawa? Right like now was the largest spoken indigenous language

in Mexico, right? Something like 8 million speakers. So like all of us at some point spoke a different language than our immediate ancestors, right? And so that's a part of the thing. It's like, well, if I'm not enough by the standards of the moment, were my ancestors not enough

when they no longer spoke their native languages, right? Like, because it's a game that I don't think anybody wins. Now we can talk about like the degree to which that language adds to your cultural identity. I think that's entirely fair. That's why my daughter's in a Spanish language immersion program, right? So that she can learn to speak the language.

But when it's weaponized that way, I find it to be not even productive, quite honestly. Right. And it's the same thing from the English side. Like I've spent, as we'll talk about in this book, I've spent a lot of my time pursuing white American media. And to some level, it was a matter of interest. And to some level, it was a matter of trying to fit in to white American spaces. But there's always the reminder that you're not and this is an audio-only format so people don't know what I look like necessarily but I am

I'm olive-skinned I'm brownish and I looked I'm the same color in the in the winter as I am in the summer right so like in the summer when I get pulled over by a cop I just hope they think I'm a white dude with the tan and I lean right into the southern accent but like you know I've also got brown hair I've got brown eyes and black hair so it's usually one of those things it's like we don't know what he is but he's something. Is it kind of who you're next to helps determine? Oh absolutely. Like we're a swath of colors for you? When I'm around my dad's side of the family I look like them. When I'm around my mom's side of the

family I look like them right? Right. around my mom's side of the family, I look like them, right? Right, yeah. Both in terms of body type and pre-diabetes, like it fits. They have that in common. It's good to have that common ground across cultures. Right, right, right. Look, if you've ever been, look, I come from Rednecks and Rancheros, and if you've ever been too drunk to operate farm equipment,

but have anyway, you could be either right? The overlap is pretty significant. Yeah Oh, yeah, there's that been diagrams got some thickness to it. Yeah But no, so like that's just it is it's always the reminder of like well You're not not really one was and actually on because I'm on tik-tok I asked people because I kept getting people people were constantly asking what I am Right, which is not unusual for me, right? Sure.

And I get questions from time to time, it happens. And I take them in stride, because I know people are curious, and also we don't really have a good best practice for those kinds of inquiries, right? Right, right. And I'm willing to give some grace for people who like genuinely wanna know

and aren't being assholes about it. Sure. Even if it is a bit weird to ask. So I asked, I said like, hey, just, you know, tell me what I look like. And it was about 70, 30, 70% thinking that I was a person of color, 30% thinking I was white. But I got across the board things like Mediterranean,

Polynesian, Pacific Islander, Native American. You could be an anchor on any news station. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah Ethnic I was on a cruise And talking to ha ha ha I was talking to a guy who was spouting some Some right-wing nonsense that sound like it was off of Fox News quite honestly about the sounds like somebody who'd be on a cruise Yeah, and and he said he was from Australia And I mentioned oh, you know, I'm from the United States. He goes, oh, I thought you were Māori. And I was like, no, wow. That's, it's interesting. I am,

I am a racial Rorschach test. Just tell me what you see. Really? Yeah. Do you have a map where you've got pins? Like I should, you should. Oh my God. That's the background for your, for your tech talks. Now. Yeah. I remember one time I was um That should be that would be good. Uh, I I was 20 I want to say like 23. Maybe uh, I was clean shaven. I had was 45. Yeah Just oh I was clean shaven. I had long hair Uh, like, you know pass shoulder length all that stuff and um, I remember I was walking across campus at like had long hair, like, you know, past shoulder length, all that stuff.

And I remember I was walking across campus at like two o'clock in the afternoon or whatever, where I was going to undergrad. And this woman who I'm gonna guess was in like her late 30s, early 40s, black American woman, like walked up beside me as I'm walking. And it's like, whatever, okay. And there's the sky's turning gray, right?

There's storms coming in and she goes boy that weather looks ugly I said, yeah looks like it's gonna be kind of rough. She goes, but our people know how to survive this sore stuff And I was like and I just I didn't know what the hell is like that Yeah, no, absolutely. And here's the and she's like, yeah when you know, and you know, you know We know how to get by in hard weather whatnot and you will be okay. But it is, uh, you know, it's a little scary looking and I'm, I'm just agreeing. Cause I don't, I don't know what else to say. I got no, no, it's contribute. I don't know who the, our people are here because according to tick tock, I, I could appear to be a light skinned by racial black. Like I have gotten more times than I like more than I would have thought. It's like at least two, uh, two hands worth. Like more than I would have thought it's like at least two two hands worth Or she might have been Native American. There are a lot of

Native black folk that's in my neck of the woods right particularly like the Lumbees So I don't know but whatever it was she identified some degree of kinship with me. So Yeah, that was a all-ash tangent anyway, it's kind of our Signature it's our stock and trade really it's what we do here. So the this book this book came about because Folks from live places publishing who put out the book Reached out to me through tick-tock actually They found me on tick-tock and they asked me if I'd be interested in writing a book because I saw some of my stuff About Latinx identity and what's funny about it is and I had to tell them this I

I am NOT a Latinx scholar. I'm a mass media scholar. I'm a pop culture scholar I am a critical race scholar in the context of whiteness, right? But all of my Latinx studies have been self-taught. I did design a, cause there was a point where you have to like design your own exam basically in your PhD. And like, I was like, okay, well I want one of these, I want one of my four questions I have to answer, right? Cause you get like a week to answer four questions.

I think I ended up writing like 60 pages and I wanted one of those questions to be about Latinx identity. Because it was things I had read snatches of here and there, but not actually not taking a dedicated class on. And so like from that kind of came my own self-education about this stuff. Some of which, like I said, I knew a little bit already in other parts that I didn't. So like I had times like, well, I can talk about my own experience, I can't paint with a broad brush here. And so what we ended up doing was a synthesis text, which is to say I am taking sort of a survey

of the scholarship and reporting that in the context of identity, some mass media theories, and a handful of different formats. So I talk about news. I talk about fictional television and film. I talk about video games and superheroes. Yeah, and... And so is that like you use those different lenses

to look at those type of media? Basically, I look at what the scholarship has been so far about that kind of stuff. And I connect it to other things. So like, yeah, so chat, so. That sounds like, forgive me for interrupting, that sounds like the equivalent to what Ed and I do when it's a historiography.

We look at the study of how people have studied it and report that. That's like, that's the intro to the book. And then, you know, like we do the historiography. So here's the state of scholarship on this topic. Now here's how I'm adding something new to it. Is that what you're talking or? Sort of in that vein, it's a bit like a lit review,

if you will. So like I'm taking, like, so here's like I'm taking like so here's what this person is Saying here's what this person is saying so for example one of them is Charles Ramirez Berg is like the name for understanding Mexican stereotypes or Latino stereotypes, I should say okay, and he wrote, you know a foundational book, you know in the early 2000s that I think was like 2002 I want to say and foundational book, you know, in the early 2000s that I think was like 2002, I want to say. And I was like, I said, okay, well,

here's what Berg wrote and here's kind of the state of play for these stereotypes now. Here's what they look like now. Right. Um, similarly with things like, uh, news media, what, how, how has news historically talked about Mexican immigration, particularly since like the, you know, like the nineties when, like the 90s when we got the 24 hour news cycle. And then how does that like connect to the modern moment and I connect some theories

to it. So I'm not adding new scholarship onto it. What I'm doing is taking pieces and fragments and putting them into a whole for people who want to understand these things, if that makes sense. So this is designed as an undergraduate textbook, in a cultural studies class. And also, I start each chapter with a discussion, with a story from my own life that pertains directly to it, to the given chapter, if that makes sense.

So sort of like give a micro-level framing of this macro-level phenomenon that we talk about. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, that sounds actually really effective as a way of getting that stuff across. Yeah, yeah, especially when somebody goes, well, what's authorial intent? It's like, well, not a goddamn thing.

It's kinda right here. Yeah. Meaningless is what it is. Both things can be true. It's right here in front of us and it's meaningless. Yes. So, okay, so, well, you already answered It's right here in front of us and it's meaningless. So. Yes. So. So, okay.

So, well, you already answered the first question I had regarding your book. Did you mean for it to land on this? Like, did they ask you in such a way that it shaped, I'm gonna write this book and it's going to answer to these needs. So they gave me free reign to write what I wanted to write. And so I worked with the editor Manolo Callahan,

which is a hell of a name and a very interesting fellow. And he's from down Texas and Irish Mexican. And he- There's actually a lot of those. Yeah, yeah there are. He's from down Texas and Irish Mexican. And he- There's actually a lot of those. Yeah, yeah, there are. That's a whole thing. The St. Patrick's Brigade and all that fun. Yep, yep.

Yeah, so- Have you ever, sorry to jump in, have you ever heard of the great Arizona orphan abduction? Diane Gordon wrote about it. Is that related to Georgia Tam? He's like, she would steal a bunch of babies. Yeah, she would and then sell them to be wrestlers And there are plenty of Irish and from the darkest times come our greatest icons No, so Dan I think it was dying Gordon last last name Gordon, I know for sure, but she wrote

about these Irish orphans in New York, not white, Irish, and they were adopting them out to good Catholic families. And they found a bunch of good Catholic families in the Arizona territory, because it's pre-1912, so it's not a state yet. And, yeah. And they put them on the train, cool, they're gonna be raised by good Catholics, boom, get on the train, chugga chugga. I don't know where on the tracks they went from that they got to turn white, but they did because when they arrived in Arizona, the white Protestant women were like, oh hell no, we are not letting these Mexican women adopt these white babies. And they stole the babies, and they stole the children.

And it was like, Siri, show me an example of white feminism at its worst. And so they did, and it was exactly that. Like, yeah, well, because these are white children, because again, you got that color swath, right? And so they were Mexican Catholic families that were adopting Irish Catholic babies and know the hell they're not Wasps are taking them now and one of their arguments was that because they saw a Mexican grandfather getting ready

to hand one of the kids a tortilla. Like, it's like, you're not even grasping at straws here. Like, but it was, but it was this whole thing. And she dug into the community and how it had existed for all this time. And, you know, there had not been such open hatred from the whites in that group toward the Mexicans in that group because there was enough land to go around and all.

But then these babies show up, these kids show up who obviously are white all of a sudden. So I assume it's somewhere in Missouri. They turned white because that's usually what happens. Yeah, I mean, yeah, once once once you leave the the the boundaries at that point of the actual states then yeah You know, it's a butt-wrack grabs what year was that did you say that was oh nine that that happened or oh six It was 1909. Yeah, 1909 or 1906

I think it was oh six because it was before Oklahoma was a state too because that's also an interesting example of how so after the I think was 1848 agreement between Mexico and the United States over the new boundary, right, the part of the arrangement was that the Mexicans on that side of the border were supposed to be given full citizenship as though they were white. Right. So, and they were in the same way that black men were given the right to vote after the Civil War.

Which is to say on paper and not a damn place else. Yeah, so. So yeah, the blend of, specifically in Texas, Irish and Mexican, which is kind of interesting that a couple states over. Yeah. So, but he, so, but, Alan and I worked out this project to, you know,

what it was gonna be like. And so, and he was a little bit resistant to, cause I use auto-ethnography a little bit in this. And for those who are not familiar, that's a fancy way of saying you connect your life stories, your life experiences and stories to scholarship. And, and it can be very navel gazily, like a gazey, right? So like it becomes at some point like self-indulgent

if it's not careful. And even good examples can lean that way. Actually, for anyone who's interested, I strongly recommend checking out Bud Goodall, who was a organizational communication consultant, which is as boring as you can imagine, right, like just that string of words. But he wrote like a detective noir, right? So like he would write his chat,

when he was talking about his experiences in the workplace, he would write them as though it was like some sort of 1940s crime novel, right? And what it does is it adds a degree of humanization to these otherwise dry academic subjects, but it also like, it's fun, it's more interesting. And it adds, like I said, some degree of dimensionality. So like in my first chapter,

the first chapter is a carpenter's son in academic toolbox. And I start with a story of working with my dad. My dad's a carpenter and he is, it's funny and I talk about this in the chapter. So I have my birth father and I have my dad, right? My birth father was, my birth father was also from Mexico, actually from the same state as my dad.

And that's a large part because both of them came to the United States because of human trafficking. Which is not the Hallmark movie premise that one expects. But they were both brought in as a result. In the case, my birth father was directly, but my dad indirectly because of the chicken processing industry that was booming in North Carolina in the 1980s, where they were just carting in Mexicans to do these jobs.

But anyway, so my birth father, he exited the picture. He and my mom split, I think, a couple months after I was born. He left my life pretty much entirely by the time I was five. I have two memories of him, one after I was born, he left my life pretty much entirely by the time I was five. I have like two memories of him, one when I was 18, right? And I joked with my mom that like,

she just waited a couple of years, I could have been better looking. Um, but you know, so, yeah, they got married when they were young and divorced, you know, pretty soon after anyway, my dad, and my dad comes along when I was um Geez I was 11. I want to say yeah, okay They met in 2000. Yeah, January of 2000. And so he's been my dad. You're pretty much time out time out. All right Eleven years old in 2000. Okay

Yeah, all right, I mean it makes you feel better I was 12 that April Looking down the barrel of five. Oh, I was heading toward my first divorce at that point. Okay. Ed was heading toward an annulment shortly thereafter. Shortly, shortly, yes. Anyway, so. I thought you were gonna make another joke about Ed being old and here you are just now grasping at your own gray hairs.

Yeah, both, yeah. Yeah, so. Okay okay so this is really hard because you're talking about like serious important things to you and I'm the amount of jokes that like I'm just taking a fork to my leg under the table. Please, please make them because I'll tell you why. I think they're funny as shit. Okay good.. We were, we were at the- I am isolating that. I'm here making jokes. I think they're funny as shit. That is going in the next trailer.

Ha! You heard it here first. We were at the National Science, not National, we were at the, excuse me, not the National, it was the region, like a local science center, right? Sure. In my hometown. And I'm there, I've got four younger siblings right and my sister who was like 16 at the time who knew that I have a

different father right and we were we were looking around like a different exhibits or whatnot and my dad I think I think he might have been harassing a Komodo dragon it was weird literally that's gonna go in an intro that yeah he may have been harassing a Komodo dragon. It was weird. Literally that thing. That's gotta go in an intro. He may have been harassing a Komodo dragon. Yeah, literally that thing, that lizard was not moving as people walked up to it and when my dad approached,

it just glared at him and like, hiked up a little bit. Like, wow. And not an unusual response, if I'm being honest. He has that effect on animals. Well, you said your dad was a carpenter, and it's a dragon which is another word for the devil so I'm just saying there's... My dad's name is Baltazar which is one of the three wives. There you go. But my sister says, oh god how did she put it? I've been I lost dad

Have you have you seen my father? That's what she says is I have you seen have you seen our father? And I said not in like 30 years. Yeah and she Like punch She's about to cry. Oh, see, I get to do that same shit. Like, cause I, I also have a father and a dad and a stepdad, right? I got five parents and I always tell people took a village, you know, cause everybody's like, people have heard of people having four parents,

but five, but yeah, that's something that's, you know, that, that's, you, you got a flush there. Yeah. That's not just an inside straight. And, uh, so I, I, uh, I, I say, yeah, I took a village to make this idiot. But no, we have the same kind of thing. I had a vasectomy, I think a couple of years ago now, and I told my kids so that they would know, hey, if I'm having trouble getting up and down, that's what's going on.

Turns out, everybody who told me all about it, they had a very different experience than I had. Mine was perfectly fine. I was fine like the next day. I hate you. I know. And also for that. But she, you know, at one point she said something,

I'm like, you know, you can be replaced. And she's like, you know, you can be replaced and she's like not by you And you know, they've actually they've never met my father Although there was a chance that they might have and I had never told them about him until I was heading down to San Diego To meet my grandma for the first and last time Because you know, she was on her way out. But she also had a tendency to ambush me with my father. She wouldn't tell me she'd invite him around, but then she'd invite him around.

And I don't care that much one way or the other. He is like, he spent the first 50 years of his life doing all the drugs. And then since then, he's been working his way clean He spent the first 50 years of his life doing all the drugs. And then since then he's been working his way clean and sober and doing all the good counseling, and that's great. I wish him well just down there.

I don't need him. But she does tend to ambush me with him. And they say that when you start doing drugs, you kind of get stuck at that age on some levels. I don't need to talk to a fucking 12 year old in adult body, like that's, you know? And so, and to have my kids around that and shit like that, I was like,

so I had to tell my kids as we were driving down, by the way, your grandpa Bill is my dad. He adopted me though. My father is this other fellow. So the reason you guys have red hair and the reason all these things are true is because of my father. And so we had this nice long talk

and so my kids ask very good questions and things like that and I told them why my parents split and all this kind of stuff but what a dad is and what a father is. And the distinction between those things is very, very clear to us, but it has led to some really good jokes as well.

It's like, may your father rot. He might, I don't fucking know, but leave my dad out of this. So yeah, and to your point about the whole ambushing thing, I have two memories of my dad, one when I was eight and I've, to your point about like, the whole ambushing thing, like I've seen, I have two memories of my dad, one when I was eight and I saw him in Mexico, and another time when I was 18,

when I went out to New Mexico to see my grandmother as she was passing, right, it was the only time in my adult life that I remember seeing her. And that was also the story where, that was also an event where I almost attacked a preacher. That's its own thing. So, you know we're gonna have you back on anyway but you keep baiting us like this I've never thought about

punching a holy man until that visit anyway but so it's inevitable you know anybody who does practice any kind of religion at some point they say something and you're like I'm gonna knock your fucking teeth out like man of God or not. Yeah. I'm gonna talk about Roman Calderbysantene. This is the only crowd where that joke works. But anyway so I. You hit him with the southpaw orthodox.

So I talk about in the first chapter like like, you know, this, this thing where, um, my dad and I look similar, such that people have thought we were brothers. Cause my dad's also pretty on my dad is, um, I'm 36 moms, 56. That's 53. Okay. Don't feel bad. Don't feel bad. That's look, I just, I love that actually people on TikTok

have called Gabriel daddy, but Ed is actually old enough to be. When the people who hired me at my current job found out how young my parents are, they, I could see them visit, the blood just drained from their face. Sure, sure. Shit, you're a child.

My parents were babies having babies, right? Yeah. So, but anyway, shit, you're a child. My parents were babies having babies, right? So, but anyway, so I talk about how like, it's funny that like my dad and I are not biologically related, although we come from the same broad ethnic group of people. And he has very dark colored skin. I'm the only son who is brown. My other brothers are as white as Damien is.

Poor things. Damn, you're translucent. But on the other hand, they're also taller and have cheekbones, so I mean, you win some, you lose some, right? Like my middle brother is like 6'2", 6'3", right? So like I have to pick on him, so he doesn't get any thoughts about.

So they're lighter and they're closer To the Sun like they're yeah, those cheekbones are just gonna give them shadows eventually. That's it like yeah So but my sisters are darker than I am right so they tend to be browner It's kind of funny how it's put that way, but you know I talk about kind of I'll tell this story I will get to this point however long we it takes I Start with being 16 years old on top of a roof. We're building an addition onto a house

that we're living in at the time. And it's gonna be my mom's office because they own their own businesses. And so, my dad, we're up there and we're hammering away and it's like, I'm gonna say it's the summer, right? Sometime warm, early in the morning because it's on the roof and so you won't get that done before it gets hot.

And so, like I'm 16 and for context, at 14 I was pissing vinegar, right? At 15 I had like mellowed out a little bit, but like I didn't know what I wanted to do for school and I certainly wasn't good at it. And so by 16 rolls around, like I'm still just kind of in a malaise about like, I guess this is school, school is the thing that you do, right? Right, you good at it. And so by 16 rolls around, I'm still just kind of in a malaise about, I guess this is school, school is a thing that you do, right?

Right, you get through it. Right, because I have any particular interest in it. Right. And so he says, my dad graduated high school, graduated, excuse me, sixth grade, right? And then went to work full-time, right? Okay. In Mexico. And he says,

you're old enough now, I remember he stops working, he looks up at me and says, you're 16, you're old enough now, I remember he stops working, he looks up at me and says, you're 16, you're old enough now to drop out of school if you want to. But if you do, you're coming to work with me. And then he goes back to work, right? My mom didn't know that story until I told her about it for this book.

Do you think he was trying to warn you off or do you think he was trying to get Get another set of hands. I think so It was both. Okay. I was I would work with him from 14 until about 26 full time and part-time at different points and he But he my dad Has always encouraged his children to get an education to learn as much as you can Learning for him isn't just sir. I mean it is survival. It's part of how he survived

it's also a thing to be enjoyed my dad's favorite thing to do is to watch like nature documentaries and things like that like He loves learning and yeah To huh, especially Komodo dragons. Yes that he didn't get the chance to. Especially Komodo dragons. Yes. Literally at that same science center, we went outside to the petting area

and he started harassing the chickens. My dad's a farmer who knows how to slaughter animals and he just picked up this chicken and was showing it to the kids and then waved around a little bit to just kind of mess with it and then sent it down. That thing followed us until we went inside.

It followed him around. And I told my mom and she goes, well well that's kind of how it happened with me like all right that's weird um like it's it is I I have been told I've been told on the least one occasion I can remember is a friend of mine who was gay in high school saying why can't you be handsome like? A lot of women the most women some men and the occasional horse like find themselves attracted to my dad It's interesting because like when you Do explain the thing with animals sure You know how like when you get near an animal and it's upset you kind of get like a little shaky on the inside Sure, yeah, a little like, you know flutter or whatever dad doesn't experience that that is not a physical sensation that he has

Okay, and they know that and it bothers them Right. So yeah, like he offered he offered to help with my mom's c-section Like first wins those two sets of twins Wow And the what it was two doctors who were delivering one of whom was Spanish and talking to dad in Spanish and he said and And that's like what can I can I watch like oh, I'll help right and and the doctor's like paying his toll that way right in order to watch I'll hold the stapler that's fine yeah you know I did roofing I could put the shingles back in it's fine for those who don't know like for a c-section you're awake right they just like from from like the abdomen down

and and so my mom was like, what the hell are you doing? And he goes, no, I wanna see. And the doctor said, no, sir, please, you can't look at this, right? Which at a couple points, as the surgery is ongoing, he's like trying to peek around the sheet a little bit because he's fascinated, he wants to know.

When they said, sir, you can't be here, he said, well, I've slaughtered a pig before, I know like what to Which was not great for morale with my mouth He's like honey if you can see what I can see yeah The most interesting thing about me is the people around me. And so I have I have tons of these stories You're the sacramento of human beings The best thing about living in sacramento. Yeah is your proximity to all the other good stuff. Yeah

I've thought about making uh, ticktock stories about some of the people in my family But I can't because I don't know what the statute of limitations in egypt is um fair fair Although my godfather's dead, so I guess they're not going to dig him up and arrest him for like I don't know what the statute of limitations in Egypt is. Fair, fair. Although my godfather's dead, so I guess they're not going to dig him up and arrest him for drinking on the pyramids. But I mean, you know. They're not British. So yeah, but I talk about that story

and about working with him and this idea of it. Because I revisited that moment of like, am I going to go to work with that? I don't wanna work with dad. Like my dad, I love my dad. My dad is hard to work with. Okay. He speaks English as a second language.

He learned a lot of it from soap operas and he talked, he gives you instructions as he's walking away. Okay. Okay. And he always says, if you don't understand, why don't you like ask a question? It's like, cause you're scary looking. That's why.

You do not invite inquiry. My dad is a prettier version of Danny Trail. Okay? He's got a scar running from the middle of his brow, over I think it's his right side. Okay. So it looks like a permanent scowl. So it looks like he's angry all the time.

And that's fair, cause he is. Right? You know how he got that scar? He was driving to Smithfield, North Carolina to see one of his brothers I have my uncle Tetto my uncle Hector and he was driving he was in like his like he was probably a timeout How is your Tetto short for Hector? Because it is I don't know. Okay, cool. His son Hector is called mono, which is monkey, but that's right unfortunate reasons Not racial he's just ugly like that's right people call me bonobo for the reasons you expect so

Just to relieve tension you want to fight I'm gonna dry hump your leg until we're friends Dad is driving dad is in this is, he is like late teens, early twenties. He's already been almost killed once in a bar fight. Like dad has kissed death once already, right? So he's driving to my uncle's house, to this mobile home park in Smithfield, North Carolina, where like basically his entire, like half his village has migrated for work, right?

And I say village because it's like less than 2000 people. Right? And so he's going there, it's like three o'clock in the morning. He's tired. He ain't got a license. He ain't got papers to be in the country. He falls asleep at the wheel, drives off a bridge into a lake. Okay. Okay. And wakes up as the car is going under. Wow. He manages to break one of the back windows and climb his way out. But in the process, the glass just shreds his face. Sure. Right? The lasting scar of which is the one on the forehead.

So he gets out and he's walking down the road from this bridge and a cop pulls up because the cop heard about like, there's been a bridge accident, right? And he goes to investigate it. They find my dad who again, has like long past shoulder length black hair. This Mexican who does not speak good English,

he's got his forehead hanging over one of his eyes and is just bleeding profusely. And the cop says, son, you need to get in the car. And my dad's like, no, I'm fine, my brother's house is just down here, right? And he just turns around and keeps on walking, right? And the cop says, no, son, get in the car, right? I need you to go, we're taking you to a hospital.

Right, and my dad doesn't wanna go, and so the cop keeps trying until eventually my dad's like, all right, fine, I guess, if you won't leave me alone, I'll go see a doctor. Right. Right? That is, yeah. Wow.

I just, again, if, I asked mom one time, I said, why do you think dad ain't dead? And she goes, cause God don't, like you think dad ain't dead and she goes cuz God don't like cuz God ain't ready and the devil don't want him. That's right Your father's mean, but he's not mean enough to go to hell right? And God's still working out a lesson plan for when he gets up there. Yeah Yeah, and so I like telling those stories and then about how like I get winded doing like Spartan runs and 5k's and stuff cuz like generational decline is a real thing. Oh, yeah

But but yeah, so I the reason I tell that story at the beginning is not just to tell that story about my dad Although that's a part of it, but it's also because like I Grew up when I was 14. He started taking me to work. I started working with him and I hated it I was I was like, he started taking me to work. I started working with him and I hated it. I was I Was like a older fat lap dog right that like when you start to inconvenience it it gets real mouthy Yeah, that was my pug. Yeah. Yeah, right. You have remembers her. Yeah. Yeah. I was an entitled Chihuahua, right? Like an old lady. That's what I was and so but like Frankie Bassett, you know, right so I By the end of my time working with him though. I

Don't hate about working with him though. What did you because you reference this a few times? Obviously, he's mean So hard to work with but but it was also one. I didn't like to work. Okay. I did not like doing that kind of work It's hard. It's hard. We were framers. We did a roofing. We did everything from like framing a house to the finished work. Right? And so it's just hard.

And like, I also like, I have dealt with a lot of anxiety and self-esteem problems and like nothing helps your self-esteem. Like your dad yelling in English and Spanish to like hold up the drywall better because if he has to cut another piece, it's coming out of your pay, right? That's, you know.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I say that. So it's not the monotony of it that was getting to you. No. It was, okay, it was the difficulty. I like monotony. I could like, I could listen to music and do this

and paint out walls, you know, all day long. That was fine. It was literally like the anxiety of messing up. It was not being sure of my own actions. Also, man, you get hurt. Like I have busted fingers so many times. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The worst is like putting on hurricane ties on a house when you frame it. So like the hurricane ties are these pieces of metal that are kind of awkwardly shaped, but they connect the top beam on a wall of a house to the roof, right? to connect the top beam on a wall of a house to the roof, usually like the rafters. Yeah, and they're there so that when the winds blow, it gives enough that it won't snap,

but it holds it in place. The trouble is though, the nails are really small and they're very durable and they work really well, but they're small and I've got huge fucking hands. I am, I am, if anyone's played the Legend of Zelda series, I am a Goron, for lack of a better term, right? Love that reference. Yes. Love that reference.

I just, I like, my hands are like, my hands are like one eighth of my body, right? Like they're huge. Yeah. And so, and so and so, you know, I have busted my fingers so many times doing that kind of stuff and it sucks. And also like I, I get anxiety, uh, with, um, you know, ripping plow board for whatever reason, I can do other stuff.

I can cut all kinds of things. You ask me to rip plow board. And for some reason my head just goes sideways, but so that's a part of it. And also like I said, it's hot and it sucks and right and whatever else um well you were doing it in an environment where like like you said like the heat is a real yeah humanity has not been mentioned but we Californians we don't understand we don't we don't know I mean we don't live it no every one time I was on top of a, we were framing a house. It was, I'm in the Southeast, I'm in North Carolina. It's like July, it's like 102.

And I am probably like 20, 21 years old. And like, and I tell dad, as we're on top of the framing, on top of the frame of the house, before we put the roof on, and I was like, dad, I'm getting, I like, I'm getting a little dizzy. Right? and this is a house that has a basement and we can still see the basement the flooring hasn't been finished yet Right and I'm getting a little dizzy and he goes You can rest in the air conditioning when we get home. We're here to work and I remember thinking shit I hope I fucking fall and you have to explain this to me, right?

Now did you guys get daily thunderstorms? Yeah. Okay, because down in Florida we got daily thunderstorms. Yeah. Especially in August. Oh yeah, the roll in. Yeah. Like just three in the morning.

Or three in the afternoon. Like 20 minutes. And then I remember one time, we were working on a house, and actually we were working on a building, external to a house, and it was, dad was finishing the last bundle of shingles,

the last couple of bundles of shingles, because my job was to put bundles on the roof. And he would, and so he was finishing it up, and it was raining. I said, okay, well, dad will slow down, right? Nope, he's still going, which by the way, my dad uses a nail gun, the safety doesn't work on it. He's still using it.

I asked my brother about it, I said, is dad still using that nail gun that has the safety that doesn't work on it. He's still using it. I asked my brother about it. I said, is dad still using that nail gun that has the safety that doesn't work right? So like, it doesn't wait for you to push up against the wood before like it discharges because usually they have to. He goes, oh no, dad still uses it. I said, that thing's been around for like 10 years now.

And he goes, yeah, it's concerning. But my dad refuses to use any other because he says the lack of safety The lack of the safety mechanism makes it helps him move faster, right? Okay. Okay that tracks with what you've said so far Yeah, so it starts raining I thought well dad will get down soon and then it starts to thunder and I thought okay Surely dad is gonna get down soon then it starts the lightning and no dad is finishing this roof He's gonna finish out this bundle of shingles

I'm just thinking like, ah. He's a croc. Shit. Yeah, I mean, you know. He once had his head glued back together because someone popped it open with the, they were, we were putting the, I wasn't there. They were putting the A-frame rafters on a roof

and someone fucked up and hit him in the head. And one of his coworkers was a former Mexican medic from the military Okay, from the Mexican military and just like would have glued his scout back together and he kept working Tell me he had a he had like a clamp on for the rest of the day though just to keep it Is that that's a good visual? No, it was a Lowe's hardware sawdust covered hat That was almost surely infecting whatever wound was there right? Does he know he's in this book? Yeah, he does okay. Is he happy like is he jazzed about that told him I'm told him

But yeah, so when the free copies come in obviously I'll give my family one But yeah, so but the the reason I bring this up is because like not only was this important stuff, not only was that important moment in my life where I had to think about what am I gonna do, but also because like I find I have a hard time fitting into academia, not just because of being a first generation college student, not just because of being Latino

in predominantly white environments, those are obviously parts of it, but also because like I am not loyal to a particular theory or methodology. I treat, I use an academic toolbox. There are some that I favor more than others, but honestly, I have people who are like,

I know folks who are like, this is the one theory that they use, this is the one method that they use, and everything's gonna be about that. And I'm like, I have questions I want to answer, which one of my tools will help me there. Right? Yeah. Am I going to apply a Marxist lens or a, you know, psychosocial, you know, analysis or whatever? Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes sense. So while you're bringing that up, what occurred to me, and I want to ask the question before it flits away from me,

but do you think also just the nature of your life experience as a young man is something that like your basic kind of paradigm and your view of the world based on your experiences is something that separates you from your colleagues. Like I guess I'm kind of getting at the blue collar kind of class issue kind of part of your background.

That's a part of it. So I used to joke that in grad school we had the low rent caucus, which was those of us who came from work class backgrounds. And it's funny, I do want in your interest of transparency, there's tax brackets in between where I grew up and where my brothers and sisters grew up. My parents are doing well now, they are in the middle class. They're at the bottom of the middle class, but they're there.

Whereas I remember having to go to food pantries, right? For groceries. And I absolutely, that's all for the good, absolutely. I say that because though, like most of my life has been like working class, working poor kind of stuff. And so that's a part of it. Like we, the people that I made my community with

in grad school and after grad school, most of them, maybe not all of them, but most of them are people from working class backgrounds. We kind of find each other that way. You know, I have friends whose dads were carpenters. I have friends whose dads like worked, you know, nine to five factory jobs. One of my good friends, Lindsey Kramer, her family,

like she and I write all the time on stuff and like she grew up in what was almost like a prepper kind of situation. Like her parents were, she knew how to like slaughter and you know, deal with a chicken, right, from the time she was five, right? Right, right. And so what I find about that is that like,

we, part of it is a gratitude for it, right? Like we are at this stage and it's a good gig, right? Is there a don't rock the boat aspect to that or? I mean a little bit, but also a little bit of like audacity. There is some some temerity there, I think if I'm using that word right. Because like if I get fired, word, right? Yeah, because

Like if I if I get fired, I'll go back to work with dad It'll suck ass. Right drop 50 pounds, but I can do it Right. Yeah Like that's that's the thing like part of it is like man. I I've come I've made it so very far Right, like yeah, you want to tell me about you know, how I'm supposed to be but also you're not afraid of the floor if you have to fall yeah I remember I remember my wife one time when we got not long after we got married so I owned a mobile home park and not a park excuse me not a park I own a mobile home okay my family had acquired the park as a part of their ascent towards Towards middle class and so literally someone was getting rid of an old trailer

That sat in the middle of in the field for two years, right? I feel like those were the price of a towing that we were able to get it, right? And so that became that was my home after I started grad school And I had to work on it. I had to fix it up all that kind of stuff Obviously, my dad helped out a lot, but you know on it. I had to fix it up all that kind of stuff Obviously my dad helped out a lot, but you know, it was it was a fixer-upper When my wife and I moved into it after we got married We were driving an hour each way to work. We worked at the same place. We were

Dramatically underpaid I'm saying by like tens of thousands of dollars. Our job security was non-existent I was on a term limited contract, so they were not gonna renew me after three years. And I kept asking as opportunities popped up and they were like, no, we don't, we actually don't need to fill up that position because we have other people who can do it because everyone's a scab here like that guy.

Right, right, right. We're exploiting everybody, it's not your turn. Yes, yeah. Two pop culture professors retired from that department and I was like, put your boy in yeah I'm here. I can do this and they were like actually we have other people who can like pick up a class here and there So we don't really need to fill those lines Anyway, so we're sitting at the kitchen table at this very, you know cheap kitchen table that came from my uncle Frank

You know, he's passed on some years ago and and my wife who is from a middle class, like a white American, you know, Ohio family, daddy's got a union job, mama works for the local university kind of gig, right? And she says like, how are you not miserable? Right, because we, you know, because we're exhausted every day.

I was falling asleep in front of my computer, like teaching four classes and trying to do work and whatnot, usually around midnight, she'd come wake me up and I'd go to bed, right? Only to be up at five o'clock in the morning. And I said, well, I'm not having to go to a food pantry anymore, and I don't have to sleep on somebody's couch to have a roof over my head.

So I'm good. And so to your point, like, yeah, that's a part of it. But also in the same vein, I have appreciated, especially since becoming a father, and the prospect of becoming a father, that like gratitude is great, but it isn't enough to build the life that you wanna have. Right.

And so I have always been willing to do jobs that I did not want to do, that I had no interest in doing, because I grew up with a paradigm of like, you wanna find a job you want to do? Like that's cool, that's great. That's not what we're doing. Right, right.

Yeah, like you know, you just, my parents have always encouraged me to seek bigger and better things and to, as my mom put it, you shouldn't seek a career, you should seek a lifestyle. That was always part of her thing and I absolutely take that to heart. But also like, man, somebody's gotta like,

someone's gotta hammer the nails out of this plow, out of these baseboards so we can reuse them, right? Those kind of gigs. So yeah, and I always tell people who are in grad school who are learning things that they don't wanna learn because they have no interest because it's not gonna pertain to them. It's like, no, no, no, you're learning a skill.

At some point might help you like make rent, right? Yeah. So yeah, that's kind of thing is I call it an academic toolbox that throughout the book, I use different theories and concepts to discuss different phenomena within the media and then connect that to Latinidad

and some other things from Latinx studies. So it's like Jeet Kune Do for academics. I know. Maybe, I don't know that style. I know Taekwondo, I know Kenpo, but I don't know that one. Jeet Kune Do is Bruce Lee's style without style. It is. Be like water, my friend. Yeah. And he said that Jeet Kune Do of, is Bruce Lee's style without style.

It is. Be like water, my friend. Yeah. And he said that Jeet Kune Do of, I forget, I think he died in 73, so. Yeah, that sounds right. Jeet Kune Do of 1970 will look very different from Jeet Kune Do of 1971, because he took all different styles.

He learned from wrestlers, he learned from Wing Chung, he learned from Tae Kwon Do, he learned from karate. He was like, no, these are all martial arts. They all have essentially the same goal, and why wouldn't you borrow from all of these? So he's cobbling it together. Yeah, you know, and so it sounds kinda, you know, you're the Bruce.

So Gabriel Cruz is famously the Bruce Lee of Academia I just I just pick up it's like okay Well this tool looks like halfway decent I'll throw in the back of the car and I'll probably use it later, right? But yeah, yeah, that's I'm more the Jackie Chan Just the outreels Okay, so you I mean, that's a great metaphor use, obviously. And I do think it's interesting that you, by not marrying yourself to a specific school of thought, a specific lens, a specific modality to look at things like others do, you know, like there's this school of thought.

And I'm coming at this from an historian perspective, but I think that's a great metaphor use, obviously. And I think that's a great metaphor use, obviously. to a specific lens, a specific modality to look at things like others do. You know, like there's this school of thought. And I'm coming at this from an historian perspective. There are different schools of thought for history, right? By not marrying yourself to that, you are in some ways the academic equivalent of what people see you as ethnically.

Yeah, yeah, no, a bit of a, yeah, absolutely. 100%. I am, I am methodologically fluid, right? As much as I am racially ambiguous. No, 100%. I will say that my, my staple orientation is I'm a critical scholar, which means I look at systems of power, right? And, and, and dynamics of inequality and that kind of thing. But otherwise, yeah, like I use narrative, rhetorical criticism. I use racial rhetorical critique. I have, I'll also like be your Johnny on the spot for doing other things.

I've used critical discourse analysis, which is looking at how language within, from official forms of communication shape our understanding of the world around us. I will, you know, I'll be your huckleberry, right? Like if you need a thing done. I've worked on a project actually that I feel really great about,

even though it was completely outside of my wheelhouse and that is, it was one on intimate partner violence. A friend of mine was a health communication scholar, worked on a project looking at like, so whenever a person goes into be treated for suspected domestic violence or intimate partner violence because that extends it beyond just the romantic dynamic and not just within the home Right. This is anyone who's of a purse, you know emotional connection They have these these forms that they're asked to fill out, right?

And so we did a critical discourse analysis looking at how the language in those forms reproduces inequality that can be traumatizing for someone who has been victimized by inequality, right? So, and so these questions were things like, how many times were you struck? How many times were you kicked or punched or thrown? Right, specific language used.

And things that could be re-traumatizing, especially when you consider that the people who are administering these are clinicians of some sort. Which means that you're in a very artificial environment, you're in a vulnerable state, you're talking to someone who is in authority position. And unfortunately, an authority position. Right. And unfortunately, like that authority position is not entirely dissimilar from a intimate partner situation

where there is a power imbalance. Right, right. So they are doing institutionally what their partner had done physically on some level. Yeah, on some level, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, and especially if there's a dispassion there, right, if there's not good bedside manner,

that can be, you know, difficult. And so the point, and there's a dispassion there, if there's not good bedside manner, that can be difficult. And so the point, and there's a segment of the population who would hear that and say, oh, so you're trying to like, be soft at the expense of getting better answers or whatever, you're not prioritizing the right thing. And our perspective was no, actually, we're identifying problems

that clinicians can help to resolve and maybe find better ways of asking these questions in ways They're not gonna be alienating for the patient and also like will get better information, right? That's that's the goal and so so that's entirely outside of my wheelhouse But I'm happy to do it because one I think that's important work and two like I know the method That's why I was asked to be part of it because I know critical discourse analysis So yeah, like I'm you know Whatever tool is gonna do the job, right?

A hammer ain't going to do the job of a screwdriver. Academic utility, man. Yeah. The downside is that you do run the risk of like being perceived as a dilettante, right? That is a part of the hazard. It's also, you can be roped into doing things that like you don't actually have expertise in

because people assume you do right? Yeah Oh, and I just conversations. Yeah, I gotta cut in and say after after The stories that you've already shared with us about your background thinking of anybody using a word like dilettante to describe you broken ass fingers banana hands Like you know dilettante, you know, great babe was not a dilettante, you know grape ape was not a dilettante, you know, yeah You know, yeah, no, but but dilettante summons images of you know, upper-class twit of the year, which by the way Hi, how you doing? Unless you unless you're in a bathtub theorizing about people you've never met. I think you're probably fine. Yeah

That is the proud academic tradition for the upper class twits. True. But yeah, so yeah, and like I said, throughout the book, I talk about different, there are some theories that pass from one chapter to the other, but each one has something different in it. So that I'm trying to give the reader language

for making sense of the things that they experience and things that they observe. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. I like that approach because, like you said, what works for a hammer doesn't work for a screwdriver, you know. And I just, there are, because I teach history, right? And so when we are looking at the Spanish-American war, I'm looking very specifically at the

debate that was had in Congress because it is a lot of meat on that bone. There were people who were 100% against it. There were people who were 100% for it. Both said God said so, so it's fun that way. And there's just so many things that you can do there. And the kids can really line them up and you know flowcharted out and make a Make an argument as to you know, what was the underlying features to both etc, etc Theoretically they can anyway. Um, and then when I get to the the Great Depression, I

Absolutely switch over to okay guys. I'm gonna teach you structuralism now Because there's no need there's no good way to use great man theory, which I don't like anyway, but there's no reason, if we do Hitler's rise to power or FDR's rise to power or Stalin's, yes, I can great man theory our way through that, because there's such dynamic personalities. Kicking and screaming, but you can do it.

Yeah, no, and I do find it useful for the kids because if they can attach personalities to it, et cetera, et cetera, right? But when we get to the Great Depression, it's all about structuralism because that's the best way to explain that. And then when we get to the Double V campaign, we need to look at power dynamics and things like that.

And so I often will introduce them to a whole bunch of these tools, these lenses is what I call them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't know, you couldn't use President Hoover to sort of great man your way through the depression? It wasn't just him is the problem like yeah I mean you could you could try but part of it is it wasn't just him and part of it is it's fucking Hoover And I have a soft spot my heart for him, so I

Have a soft spot in my heart for him because like you have like get that checked out. Yeah But I mean here's a guy who ran food relief Sure, and was really good at it. And then it comes home to Roost and he's like, we should cut the budget. And it's like, but you were, when you were, you know, and there's some interesting stuff there, but even he alone cannot explain what happened.

And that's why I get into kind of structuralism because it becomes a globalized issue and on and on and on. So how much did the book differ from your original vision for it? I didn't have a vision so that made it easy. Okay. No, actually. Okay, tell me this process.

Did you sit down and be like oh shit They really want me to deliver and now I need to come up with an outline. Did you just start going? like so in like in January of 2023 Okay, approached me right and they were like, hey, let's have you know, would you be open down in conversation? I said, yeah sure I'll have a conversation. I'm like like, okay, either A, these guys are sorely mistaken about who I am, right? Or B.

Or who they are. Or B, these are some con men, right? And I've known enough con men to know. Right. Oh, I've heard the Amway pitch, yeah. Well, also my Uncle Frank, bit of a landlocked pirate, but that's again He was a minister who also did not have a great deal of respect for the law but

See in certain context that's fine. Yeah, no like you know his taxes, but he would help people so I mean What is Caesar's fuck off? Yeah So anyway So I had a couple conversations with them and I was like, okay So this is what they're looking for and I said well, I got to tell you like I'm not I'm not a Latino studies scholar Right. I said I am familiar with Latino studies. My jam is mass media I said I know identity because that's also been a part of my training as well and I'm happy to talk about that. But like, I got to tap the brakes a little bit

on the Latinx stuff. Cause they said they had a Latinx series they were writing. And they said, well, what would you write about if it were up to you? And still under this umbrella. I said, well, okay. What I would probably write about is like mass media as it intersects with Latinidad.

So like, I can't discuss history that knowledgeably, not enough to write a book. is like mass media as it intersects with Latinidad. So like I can't discuss history that knowledgeably, not enough to write a book. I can't talk about like the important historical moments and like our movements and stuff beyond what is functionally, you know, what I could, you're talking about in the context of like a lesson or a class, right? But I know media, right?

And my master's degree was on my capstone project for my master's degree, which was later turned into an article, was a critical discourse analysis of ABC, CBS, and NBC's online articles about Mexican immigrants, right? Looking at how they discuss Mexican immigrants, how they frame them, that kind of thing. And so I said it would probably be something along those lines, I said using, like, so it would be media first, and then,

like, paint it up. And I said it'd probably sound like that. And I said, I might would use, like, some personal stories to try to, like, I don't know, connect some of these ideas. And that was kind of the pitch. And they were like, okay, cool, no problem. So I met with Callahan, with Dr. Callahan,

and we worked it out. I signed the contract in February of 2023. I finished the book, it hit print in December of 2024. Right? Wow, okay. Yeah, so just under two years. And it was evolving and changing over time. And I was kind of reticent on one subject matter in particular that made it into the book,

and that was video games. Because I love video games, but I don't know the scholarship that well. And like comic studies, it's kind of a relatively new form. It doesn't have the history in terms of the longevity of comic studies, it's kind of a relatively new form. It doesn't have the history in terms of the longevity of comic studies, but it has that similar like, stigmatization of like, not a thing that's really worth studying.

Yeah. So I'm not sure. Ed, what do you call that? The literary ghetto? Well, usually I refer to it when I'm talking about animation, but I talk about the animation ghetto or the kids media ghetto but yeah it's the same same context yeah yeah it's been less than 10 years that the

National Communication Association has had a video game studies division right for an institution that's been around for over a hundred right so like yeah it's it's not it's one of those things that like you know for whatever reason people either haven't respected it enough to study it or just haven't had the interest. And so there wasn't a whole lot out there anyway. Right. And what there was, I wasn't familiar with.

So I, you know, I got a bunch of stuff. I had to do a bunch of reading. Some things I knew pretty easily, like, so, chapter one is the academic toolbox carpenter son thing. Chapter two is actually about like why we left North Carolina, which actually had to do with a variety of things, including the time that the Klan tried to kill my mom and I. We can come back to that if you're interested.

We are. Yeah. Talk about. Yeah. So. Talk about burying a lead. Okay. So chapter three is called Dirty Digital Mexicans and that's about the news, right? Okay. That's about how we've been framed in the news. Things like we're often discussed as contaminants.

Right. We're often discussed as natural disasters or infestations, like things that are extremely dehumanizing. It's weird that invading army as a metaphor is somehow humanizing by comparison, right? Yeah, I was gonna say, it's graduated. You've achieved personhood. Yeah, so like Proposition 187 out in California, which I'm sure y'all are familiar with, right?

Oh, Jesus. No? No, yeah, that and 228, I wanna say. Those were the two big ones coming up in the late 90s, early 2000s. Yeah, so Prop 187 talked about Latinos as infestations. A lot of the discourse around that. Chapter four is called stereotypes and threats, and that's a bit of a play on words

because there's a phenomenon called stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is the fear of fulfilling a stereotype in the perceptions of other people. So when you think about like double consciousness and the idea of like from Du Bois, right? The idea of having, you know, for black Americans and identity as they, who they are and who they understand the people see them as, right?

Similarly with other groups, including with Latinos, there's that meta perception of like, I know who I am and I know how other people see me or how they perceive me, right? And so, in that chapter, I talk about the different stereotypes that have characterized Latinos within, within mass media, particularly within fictional television and film.

So those, if I can remember off the top of my head, they are the bandito, which is the oldest one. It's been around since the Western, which is basically like a perverse cowboy, right? Which is, which not for nothing is kind of ironic because like- It's a twist. It's a twist.

Because like the first cowboys were native Mexicans who were put on plantations, the vaqueros. So you have like the bandito, you have the harlot. So harlots. Actually, let me back up for a second because I don't wanna make an important point before I get to the harlot, which is an uncomfortable thing to say out loud.

And that is that like, because that chapter is actually all about updating things. So when we talk about the bandit, they start off as like these sort of greasy haired, very much dark skinned Mexicans, right? Speaking a pigeon typically too. Right, who are speaking, and not even an effective pigeon, right?

It's something that's a caricature, right? And so then over time, that has evolved into like the law enforcement that we see on CSI, where the banditos are either the drug dealers or they're the cops, but they're cops that have a particular disregard for like human rights and dignity, right? They're the ones who operate in ways that are unethical

and at times illegal, right? For the sake of getting the bad guy they flip the axis, but they're still involved in law enforcement So that's so the bandito has shifted or in the case of like Star Wars Poe Dameron was a smite was a spice smuggler right so is Han Solo but But yeah, yeah And that's the thing is also it's important thing about like when you think about these these tropes these characters people say well You know so was on or that's the thing is also it's important to think about like when you think about these these tropes these characters people say well You know so was hon or that kind of thing But also like there's a pre-existing pattern here that's been there for decades, right?

Yeah, so you can afford to have hon solo be a rogue Right. Yeah, but with you know, someone like po dameron. They're a they're a they're a criminal, right? Yeah, and it gets it's it's an interesting dynamic and we did an episode on how Sci-fi smuggling was inspired by cocaine culture and a pop culture in America Yeah, but um at that time but like Han Solo He ran spice. It's one line and nobody looks at him a scant after that. Oh, yeah Whereas Poe it becomes a mechanism by which Finn starts to separate himself from Poe on some level morally, which is interesting because Finn basically did a office shooting

two episodes earlier, which I was down for. I'm not against office shootings. It was a bad per se back up for a minute Like what? Your office is full of Nazis. Exactly. That's fair. That's fair Headquarters is is, you know populated by the SS then you know Fun fun thing about the drug smuggling thing. I was almost the son of a cartel but again, that's a story for another day so Drugs something thing I was almost the son of a cartel a but again, that's a story for another day so The adopted son at that anyway, so Again the most interesting interesting thing about me is the people around me sure

So so then you have every every story that you've got I have a blander version of in my life which is as Like I am the Mayo to your Tabasco like It just And and listing the two of you talk about this. I have to be like well, I'm frying below you right now Like well, I'm frying below you right now To I gotta I gotta go back to you know, my grandparents and great-grandparents who were you know, Okies Anyone here

Anyone who goes up in the Oklahoma territory Certainly like that you don't you don't come out of that without any shortage of like human crimes associated with it like right? One way or the other, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, like I am not a tough guy, but God help me if I haven't been surrounded by them. Again, I'm funny so I don't have to be tough. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

I take up space so that others may have it. Again, it's the blander version of the speech that Luthen gives in Rogue One. Like. I take up space on a turbo lift so that others may ride up. You know? I pop my knees for stairs that I will never see or some shit like that.

Some shit like that, yeah. I save receipts for returns I will never make. The scars guard family reunions are like, are they all just dramatic the entire damn time? Oh, I think there is. As boring as can be. I bet they're just like, when they get together, they are just so fucking chill. Yeah. Like you want another beer? Maybe later. Yeah. You know. So, okay, so then after the bandito,

then we have like the harlot, sometimes referred to as the half-breed harlot stereotype. And this is, and it's also important to note that when we're talking about these characters, a lot of them are what's referred to as mestizos. Mestizos, that is a sensitive word, depending on who you use it around. But it means racially mixed.

Okay. And it is a, it was a caste in Latin America, and in particular Mexico, it became the dominant racial class, right? Okay. So they are indigenous and European in ancestry, right? That's kind of the thing here. And so when we talk about like the half-breed harlot, we're talking about someone who is more European appearing,

but still very much not like white and blonde, right? Lighter skinned, yes. Fair haired, maybe, but like not- Lower class. Lower class, not typically what we think of like Western European stereotypical depictions of, right? And this is a woman who historically hangs out in like saloons and cowboy movies.

She is almost always involved with a white man who is dangerous, right, or proximity to danger. Sometimes she gets him involved in danger because of her antics, that kind of thing. And we see a modern variation of that with the Spitfire in characters like Gloria in Modern Family, right? Like she's an example of this. And they kind of like play it up a little bit with like her accent and the

Fact that like she's really good with the gun, right? And it's and I'm not I don't want to suggest that like that's all the character is that's not all that the Gloria is a Modern family, but that is a that is a component of the character construction a coding that happens for us to be able to jump from so then we had so we go from the bandito to the harlot, to the male buffoon and the female clown, right? So the male buffoon, and you notice there's a binary here, right?

This is not a framework that operates with much concept for gender fluidity, right? And that's a part of the theoretical shortcomings of it, but also a part of how like gender queer identities are not typically represented within Latinidad, right? Okay. At least in mass media, I should say. Right, right.

We are 17% of the population give or take, just under 20%, but only about two and a half percent of the screen representation, right? So what does make it a screen is very conventional. Right. Okay, yeah. So for the men before- the very shorthand like Understandable tropy. Mm-hmm. Yeah stereotypes if you were not going to spend time on this character So we're gonna package them in a way that you already have a point of reference for right, right?

Yeah, so like the male buffoon is the is, you know the the sidekick He's you know there for the slapstick comedy or something all his lines or he's there to look dumb in an entertaining way think of Hank Azaria and the birdcage a little bit of a buffoon. Oh, I was gonna say Hank Azaria and the birdcage I Haven't seen the birdcage. I know the movie. I just haven't okay. All right, but where were you gonna say then? Ricky Ricardo was a bit of a buffoon. Oh, okay He was okay. He was clownish in comparison, right?

So he was- Just because he had broad gestures and reactions? He was over the top, his splash was a little rough. He was loud. It's not that he wasn't a character with serious components to it, but in comparison to his onscreen co-stars, he was flamboyant.

Okay, yeah. I think so, that heat that is a decision. More broadly played. Yeah, so the buffoon doesn't mean that they're dumb, it means that they are a point of comedic entertainment for the audience. So, okay, you know me, my point of reference here is always going to be professional wrestling. Eddie Guerrero.

Like his whole lie cheat and steal thing where he'd like pretend to get hit by the chair lay down Mm-hmm, and like then the ref would disqualify the other guy. That's buffoonish stuff that you're yeah It's actually with Guerrero. You would also probably see a little bit of the bandit as well. Oh, absolutely That's the lion cheating or though that's the stealing. Yeah, yeah the modern iteration would be like um, oh Geez I forget his name, but he's the he played Luis and Ant-Man in the AMA movies. Oh talk real fast guy Yeah, yeah Every time I watch those movies with him in it. I think that man played Cesar Chavez and Wow, see and I told you he could be a serious actor. Yeah.

There was a, I forget what it was, I was talking about something where I would like to see him cast as a much more serious role in a more recent podcast that we did. Yeah. Michael Pena. Michael Pena. Michael Pena, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. He can do dramatic acting. Yeah. And so like with the female clown we get like ugly Betty right characters like that right, so if you for those who are not familiar like ugly Betty's a story about a Young Mexican woman who goes to the fashion industry She is called ugly Betty because she's just not as attractive everybody as everybody else and she's also kind of like there's a degree of naivety There that kind of thing and she is again there for comedic purposes The last two stereotypes that you have

Because I think there's five is the Latin lover Right who is a man who is like I think like Pedro Pascal and Game of Thrones Okay, yeah, okay, right very effective because even though they are I'm gonna need a minute. Yeah, yeah. OK. All right. Very effective because even though they are, I'm going to need a minute. Yeah, even though the marks. Even though the Martells, I'm concerned he's going to play Reed Richards, because like, how do you make Reed Richards likeable? You shouldn't. You shouldn't. No, you really should. How do you not like Petra Pascal? Right.

But like, finally, Reed Richards, I want to fuck. Listen, said nobody ever I just it the one thing the only way they can do it that I would imagine it would work is if they actually have Pascal say the phrase that Richards did in the comics and that is I'm going to cure autism Yeah, that will turn me. Yeah, or there was another one where is stop being a wife and start being useful or something like that Like I have a screenshot of it on my talked about yeah You talked about that in our in our episode on a fantastic for you. Yeah, like holy crap Yeah

So so you have the Latin lover share type that kind of thing in the the opposite of that because the Latin lover is very Is is again we have a little bit of that Ricky Ricardo, right? The boisterous, the flamboyant, the bottle of wine. Yeah, I was gonna mention, I was gonna mention Ricky, we already talked about Ricky. Yeah, okay.

The passion. The opposite of that for the other stereotype, which is for women, is the dark lady. The dark lady is very typically speaking, typically like very pale, very European, very aristocratic old world money. Monika Baccarin in Firefly kind of fits that. Oh yeah, Miranda, I'm sorry.

Yeah, kinda, she does. And so the dark lady is reserved, she's poised, she is aristocratic, but she comes undone for the hero. Right? Okay. She becomes vulnerable. She becomes like, her passions become excited when she engages with the hero, right?

And so actually I think of Wednesday Addams in the newest Netflix series with her. Oh, okay. I've yet to see her. She's a kid. Right, yeah. But she's played by Jenna Ortega her father who's I think is a Louise Guzman, I think an actor's name

You know that he's very clearly coded as Latino and she is The dark lady could also be a reference to the aesthetic, right? Okay, a lot of black kind of gothic kind of thing So yeah, so that's um That's where we see those pop up. And like I said, there's modern iterations and variations of those. The Dark Lady, we don't see a whole lot of in more recent media.

It's not as popular as it was in a little circle like the 1950s. But it is a thing that pops up from time to time. It's because of- Would the Dark Lady, cause you mentioned the 50s, that sends me back to thinking about what we talked about about noir, was that one that would show up as like a femme fatale kind of archetype?

Would it interact with that? Yeah, so like the dark lady, there is an implication of danger. Whether or not she's actually the one with the knife like right right Associated with her is going to lead to some kind of problem or complication But through the heroes penile capabilities she is undone. It's true. Yes Yeah, I'm I'm hearing all of these like I am NOT qualified to to do this analysis Obviously, but Eddie Guerrero literally is all of these Yeah, yeah, I mean again like he is the bandito right? He is the buffoon

He is well, he's not the the the female clown obviously but But he ends up interacting with a female clown and he ends up interacting with a dark woman, being China. And there were scenes, and she was fluent in Spanish, and so there were scenes where the two of them talked about his Latino heat and all that, and she was undone to the point where he stole her belt and stuff like that. But like he... where he stole her belt and stuff like that, but like he like a euphemism sure But but oddly enough and wrestling is just a belt, yeah But but yeah, like each each one of these iterations that you're talking about like all of the male ones, especially

the male coded ones, especially he occupied which Just shows you Sh shows you the prejudices of the Booker. Sure. And that about there is where we need to cut this episode off. Confession time. We keep having on guests that we have so much fun with that we lose track of the time.

And then I have to do the awkward thing of cutting episodes in half. And I try to do it in such a way that thematically it works, you know, they finish a thought, that kind of thing. But sometimes you just have to cut for time. This time I think I did a good enough job, although it does actually end rather abruptly. And the next one will pick up somewhat abruptly. So apologies there, but it makes it no less worth listening to because Dr. Cruz wrote an excellent book.

And we really enjoy having him on the podcast. And anytime he can talk about a thing that he did, we get extra excited because we like to support our friends and their art and their pursuits. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that episode. And next week, we'll have the continuing story of Dr. Cruz wrote a book All right, remember go listen to

office hours with dr. C And also make sure you go see capital punishment at the comedy spot first Friday of every month. All right. Thanks a lot. Oh and as always Keep rolling 20s