Queering the Homeland: Chicanidad, Racialized Homophobia, and the Political Economy of Homopatriarchy

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which queer second- and third-generation Chicano men negotiate home in relation to a discursive circulation of Mexico as homophobic and a mainstream US gay and lesbian orientation toward public visibility as the uncontested embodiment of pride. Through a "queer materialist paradigm" that centers political economy in exchange for culture, this article delves into the relationship between queer Chicano men and Mexican immigrant fathers to better understand the role of neoliberal capital in conditioning racialized homophobia and homopatriarchy. Via extensive life interviews with queer Chicano men in Chicago, this article presents the strategies undertaken by queer Chicano men to assert their position within their families of origin. It reveals that queer Chicano men make sense of their fathers' homophobia as a lack of educational attainment and as an investment in Catholic dogma. Through the symbolic infantilization of their fathers, these queer Chicano men are able to maintain affective and economic relationships with their families of origin, thus becoming the newly supplanted patriarchs of the family.

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