(Per)forming the Chicana Identity in Joséfina López’s Simply María, or The

American Dream (1991)

‫ جوزيفينا‬/‫ دراسة في مسرحيات‬:‫تشكيل الهوية المكسيكية األمريكية في إطار نظريات العرض المسرحي‬

)1991("‫ أو الحلم األمريكي‬،‫ ماريا فحسب‬:‫لوبيز‬.

Submitted by: Sarah Sayed Elgazzar.

Under the supervision of: Associate Prof. Samar Abd Elsalam.

Dr. Wasseem Abd Elhaleem.

 This proposed research is an attempt to examine both the performance and

the formation of the Chicana identity in Joséfina López’s Simply María (1991). It

surveys the various definitions, styles, techniques, and strategies employed both in

performance and identity formation theories. The following paragraphs discuss one

of the plays written by Joséfina López and blends the thematic and technical

approaches by using performance studies to highlight the distinct identities of

Chicanas in the USA.

The theoretical part is generally concerned with the formation of an identity,

including its definition and its types, and in particular the reasons of forming

Chicano/a identity. Accordingly, Chicano and Chicana movement is going to be

displayed together with its reasons, history and consequences. First Chicano/as

face some oppressions after their immigration to the USA, exemplified in racial,

gender, and class oppression. Therefore these oppressions are tackled from a

theoretical perspective together with some subcategories, such as the role of

language in forming the Chicano/a identity, the macho culture or the patriarchal

society, myth and religion and their effects on the Chicana woman. Finally, how

performance is related to forming an identity, or how performance can picture

these oppressions is the main idea that sums this chapter up.
 One of the greatest minority in the United States is the Latinos, who are still

perceived as an illegal aliens. Due to this, they try to form a powerful Mexican

identity. They don’t dream of motor cars and high wages only, they need to be

recognized and appreciated for who they are and be respected as well. However,

they face some barriers and oppressions in their way.

Those Mexicans – also known as Chicano/as – discover that their “American

Dream” is a fake dream; an unfulfilled one. They were not greeted by the

Americans as the treaty of Guadalupe states. They find that they are going to lose

their identity in their search for a better life. Consequently, restoring and redefining

their identity become a must. It is a challenge for those Mexicans living in multiple

identities to gain a special identity for themselves.

On a broader shape, Identity can be divided into Negative and Positive

identity as well as Personal and Collective identity: Positive identities are those

that empower themselves. They are able to gain features that help them change

their destiny. Negative identity – on the other hand – is the one that creates hatred.

It is always static. It never changes, thus creating hatred and grudge:

Identity formation is never straightforward. There is always a tension

between positive and negative identities. The risk of composing

 negative identities is always present. Everyone is shadowed by

negative identities that threaten and confuse daily life but the key is

to have the means of coping with, or mastering the urge to give in to

the negative typing of oneself or others (Müller, 5).

This person of negative identity is always dominated by a superior group. An

individual identity includes social categories as age, occupation, gender, ethnicity,

and race in order for an individual to categorize himself or herself as a member in a

social community. According to that, Mexican identity is a positive identity,

because they try to find a way to cross the borders and redefine their identity.

Hence, this identity has to pass by certain experiences until it becomes a collective

identity. The Chicano/a identity has actually passed by some oppressions until it

reaches to this collective voice which calls for its rights. (Garcia 134)

The term “Chicano” or “Chicana” (deriving from the political movement of

the 1960s that began with the Voting Rights Act) refers to Mexican American men

or women who live within the United States (Christie 3), which demanded that

Mexican American citizens enjoy the rights they were granted in the U.S.

Constitution under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed after the war

between Mexico and the United States. Thus, to identify as Chicano or Chicana

means being both Mexican and American. In an attempt to restore their rights in

the American society, Mexicans called for what is known as the “Chicano
Movement,” which formally began in the 1970s. Sarcastically, as Chicanas were

fighting alongside Chicanos in their struggle, they began to realize gender

inequalities among themselves, and found a cooperative voice through the Feminist

movement:

Gloria Anzaldứa, a Chicana feminist, in her essay “La Conciencia de

la Mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness,” offers an alternative by

which to realize the hopes and expectations of Chicana feminism. She

offers to set up a new consciousness of Chicana by reinterpreting

history, shaping new myths and changing the perspective of Chicana

self-identity. (Rosiandani 1)

They call for a reassessment of the role of the family in a way to resist the

oppressive social conditions and redefining the concept of Chicana feminine

identity constructed by Chicano men and American men and its subsequent

mythical feminine figures, known as Le virgin de Guadalupe, La Malinche and La

Llorona.

In their fight, Chicanas mainly face three main oppressions that hinder them

from forming their identity; namely: gender oppression, class oppression and racial

oppression (Gonzales 1). In terms of gender oppression in which a female is

looked at as being passive, weak, docile, unintelligent, and dependent, whereas the
Mexican husband is often portrayed as an authoritarian, patriarchal figure who

enjoys the highest status in the family. Chicana women are thus subjugated to

many oppressive tools: macho culture, religious doctrines and mythical believes.

Another idea in gender oppression is related to the Mexican submissive

mothers who teach their daughters how to be a submissive and helpless wife in

order to live safely and satisfy their husbands. Mexican mothers want their

daughters to remain virgins only to please their future husbands: “Men continued

to expect their women to be submissive and their daughters to remain cloistered in

the home.” (Carr 256). They never tell them that they should remain virgins for

themselves, for their principles and morals, but rather they tend to assure to them

that the Mexican woman’s life relies mainly on man.

The Catholic Church also contributes a lot to the way society perceives

women and the place that is given to women in Mexican society. The Church

requires that women should be subservient to men, that women renounce

themselves in favor of men:

When not oppressively represented as spiritually superior to men (that

is, the belief that women should emulate the Virgin Mary as the

sacrificing, pious, and asexual mother), women's spiritual, sexual, and

healing conocimientos have often been negatively coded as heretical,

 superstitious, diabolic, and/or primitive. Such ideologies are related to

the construction of women as either hyper spiritual and asexual (or

sexual within the confines of heterosexuality and marriage) or Bruja-

like (anti-spiritual) and hypersexual. As such, they reaffirm the

gendered spiritual/sexual binary. (Lara 13)

Obedience and self-denial define the “good” women. Consequently, the Mexican

women tend to redefine their identity and reinterpret the three mythical figures that

were attributed to them. Women came to be mythically represented by two

opposing characters: the good-mother-virgin, represented by the Virgin Mary, or

Virgin de Guadalupe and the bad one, represented by La Malinche. The mythical

figure of La Llorona is about the Weeping Woman or the weeping mother who has

lost her children and is condemned to wander eternally in search of her children.

She regrets her transgression. The message here is directed from the church to all

women: Conform in your role, or suffer the consequences.

La Malinche was widely known among Mexicans as a king’s (Cortés’)

mistress; she bore his child, and is thus regarded by some as the mother of the

mixed-race, mestizo Mexican. The Lady of Guadalupe is then the opposite of the

two mythical figures namely La Malinche and La Llorona. Chicanas attempt to

reinterpret the existence of La Malinche and La Llorona who have been regarded

as negative images. Instead of viewing these figures as betrayers, as evil, or even

as whores, Chicanas want to give them a new perspective. Chicanas interpret their

roles as symbols of the power as well as of the strength of Chicanas. (Roth 720)

Class oppression is the second type of oppression that the Mexicans face.

The war that existed between America and Mexico and its consequences was the

main reason for the triple oppressions Mexicans are facing now. To end this war,

Treaty of Guadalupe was held. It guaranteed Mexicans with all the rights to live

peacefully and preserve one’s language, culture, customs and habits. However the

government breached its agreement. Mexicans who choose to remain in the U.S.

were subjected to the power and domination of the Americans. Most Mexicans

living in the U.S. during the nineteenth century were considered a class apart

separate from the Anglo – Saxons:

The first large wave of Mexican immigration came between 1900 and

1930 at a time when the demand for cheap agricultural workers

coincided with the population growth and increased agricultural

production in the American southwest. . . . During the Great

Depression, Mexican immigrants were seen no longer as cheap labour

but as drains on the United States' struggling economy. As such,

hundreds of thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants were repatriated

back to Mexico. . . . Despite the 20,000 immigrants per year cap put

on Mexico in the 1970s, illegal Mexican immigration continued to

 grow while during this time the U.S. had adopted a "look other way"

policy to deal with unauthorized Mexican immigration. (Light, 282,

283)

This domination leads the Mexicans to be used as peasants or servants. The

Americans called them “Cheap Mexican Labour”. Hence, they were getting low

wages in return to a great effort done. Hence, the class oppression appears.

Proposition 187 was one of the other causes that threats the future of the

Mexicans. It sees all Mexican-origin persons as those who try to deprive White

persons of their economic opportunities. It also portrays Mexican persons as

foreigners that were out of control in California society. Hence, Mexican’s identity

becomes attached with a smirch that will never go away. Consequently, this

proposition has contributed in forcing Mexicans to accept low wages in return to a

long hours of working hard.

In this way, it is easy to claim that Mexicans are illegal aliens who cannot

contribute to the society, who cannot understand well, and who cannot have a good

education: Hence there are two major outcomes of lower educational attainment

for the Mexican origin population: (1) Mexicans are placed in a lower-skilled

position, and are given low-wage jobs; and (2) reinforcement of the image of
Chicano culture as placing a low perquisite on education. Lower wages of a

minority group reflect their low levels of education.

Racial oppression defines Mexicans as “suspect aliens”. Americans depend

on Mexicans race to justify their discrimination. Mexican children were being

excluded from education because of their looks, their names and may be their

languages as well, to an extent that the Anglos excluded girls from education

claiming that they are socialized for marriage and child-bearing jobs only:

[Mexicans are] an ignorant and immoral race . . . [in] constant

intercourse with aborigines, who were and still are degraded to the

very lowest class of human beings” (quoted in Schoultz 1998,

p.19). . . . In this ideological structure, Latin Americans are depicted

as racially and culturally inferior, ignorant, degraded, filthy, childlike,

and essentially unable to govern themselves. (Suárez-Orozco, 22)

The fact that Latinos are frequently positioned as foreigners, and that they do not

enjoy the same rights as citizens, has fatal consequences for Latinos’ economic,

social, and political opportunities. For Mexican specifically, race has been more a

question of skin colour, nose shape, and height than of human dignity. Race

therefore can keep Mexicans out of social economic political power.

 The Spanish language in all its varieties plays a central role in the

construction and transformation of the Mexican tribute in the United States. That’s

why Americans tend to punish those who speak Spanish. Consequently, deleting

the Mexican identity. In order to fight these oppressions, there are two ways: 1-

Mexicans have to conform to the norms of the American society while keeping

their heritage. 2- Mexicans should revolute and call for their rights, and this can be

done through performing their problems on stage. Here comes the role of

performance.

A performance is about something that helps us understanding the past and

staging it in the present. It thus mixes the past and the present together. The act of

performing mixes the experience and the story told together. Performances are

found in language. The presentation of self in everyday life is performance. Self is

presented through the performance of roles, through acting, or through announcing

that this person has undergone some severe transformations.

Definitions of performance are very significant in this context. In Webster’s

Dictionary, performance is defined as: “1- the execution of an action. 2- Something

accomplished. 3- The fulfilment of a claim, promise, or request. 4-the action of

representing a character in a play b: a public presentation or exhibition. 5- The

ability to perform. 6-the manner in which a mechanism performs. 7- The manner of

reacting to stimuli. 8- The linguistic behaviour of an individual and also: the ability

to speak a certain language.” They are all synonymous to each others:

Performances are found in language. That is, certain words do

accomplish things. “In the performance of a dramatic text . . . the

power of representation is rooted in the many conventions of

language, scene, meta-discursive figuration, character, and semiotics”.

(Arrizon 100)

They are all related to representation, acting, performing or pronunciation and

announcement. These words are all referring to defining someone’s behaviour or

experience in life through acting it. Thus performance is very much related to our

experience:

Performance studies, like many contemporary discourses, has

engaged with a range of theoretical approaches, including semiotics,

anthropology, sociology, cultural materialism, critical theory, gender

studies and post colonialism. And performance research takes as its

object a variety of practices from events, such as festivals, sporting

contests or political rallies, to spectacles and speech acts, such as

performance art, dramatic theatre or courtroom behaviour. In this

field, feminist performance studies has provided important

 theorizations of gender representation in performance, as well as

affirming the contribution to cultural production of women as writers,

directors or performers . . . The female body has figured critically as

both an imaginary and physical body, always shifting attention from

its meaning within an aesthetic system to its social subjectification

and back again. (Fen sham 287)

Latina subjectivity deals with the experience of marginality as well as the desire to

become powerful. As a performative signifier, the construction of the Latina body

requires the support of cultural institutions such as theatre and performance art.

Thus, the construction of the Latina subject and the performative mediation are

linked.

Latina Performance “is about the spatial alliance of bodies, identity,

commodities, and other fundamentals of culture that are at once the object of

performance and the field in which it takes place”. (Arrizon 100)

Butler develops her theory of performativity through an analysis of sex and

gender. In Butler’s view, the repeated acts that produce a man or a woman are

dependent on cultural habits. Hence, in performative utterances the speaking

subject is already spoken for and in language. As fluid on-going events,

performances “mark and bend identities, re-make time, tell stories. The way a

performance is enacted describes performative behaviour.

Clearly performativity and performance exist in a tension with one another, in a

tension between doing, or performing, and the done, the text, the performance.

Performativity is “what happens when history/textuality sees itself in the mirror—

and suddenly sees double; it is the disorienting, [the] disruptive” (Pollock

1998b:43). Performativity derives its power in the remaking of the very textual

frameworks that give it meaning in the rest place.

In mixing the text with the theory, it is important to display the text that is

based on this theory. The play is Joséfina López’s play, Simply María.

Simply María is an autobiographical play about a young girl trying to

reconcile traditional Mexican values with those of the United States. The play

emphasizes feminism in the context of a patriarchal family structure, as well as the

Mexican–American experience in the United States. This comedy follows the

character María, a bright child born to Mexican immigrants, and her dream of

obtaining a college degree and living a life far different from that of her parents.

Tracing María's life allows for a discovery of the ideas that prevail in most of

López’s plays, such as gender oppression (body consciousness), racial oppression

and class oppression. The following lines are dedicated to the analysis of these

themes together with their technical manifestations prevalent in the play.

On the thematic level, Simply María raises complex issues of female

sexuality. It discusses the conflict between the traditional Mexican male

perspective of femininity (angelic, virginal, submissive baby machines) and the

actual desires of women living in the modern world (power and equality). It also

raises the issues of class-consciousness and how the American Dream represents a

high level of education. For Mexicans, to reach the American dream is to reach

power and improve one’s identity. Finally, the play concludes by revealing that

this dream turns out to be fake and unreal, with all its powers and visions.

Body consciousness is a prevailing theme in most of López's plays. In

Simply María, López clarifies how the Mexican society perceives and judges

women. In this play, machismo is embodied in male characters —the husband, the

father and the Priest. It is also portrayed in the form of marriage or the male

dominant. This form indicates the superiority of men over women in terms of

restricting women from being more independent economically so that men may

have more control over them. In Simply María, López highlights this idea in

Carmen’s words. In a dialogue between Carmen and her daughter María, Carmen

convinces María that any woman cannot live without a man. The male is the

dominant of the family. The male is superior to woman in every case, a thing that
María refuses: “CARMEN: María ... You are a Mexican woman and you cannot

change that. You are different from other women. Try to accept that. Women need

to get married, they are no good without men.” (130) Carmen here represents the

submissive negative mothers whom López hates. In this play, López denies the

idea that submissive mothers can give right judgments. When Carmen asks María

to get married because she is of no use without men, the audience feels that this

mother is not supportive and at the end her opinion turns out to be wrong. Thus

López calls for a change for those kinds of mothers, a transformation of those

submissive mothers to a more challenging and daring characters:

What is more, for the new Chicana woman, the capacity to bear children and

raise them symbolizes the complete liberation of her body from the moral and

social restrictions it had been subjected to since time immemorial. The stereotype

of the woman as a passive mother is altered and develops into a more active, self-

conscious one. (Bigalondo 54)

López calls for the change, the creation of the new Chicana and the

alteration of the passive mother to a positive and supportive one.

According to Mexican men, a woman is created just to serve, reproduce and be an

object of desire. She has to be submissive and accept this role. Judith Green sums

up this idea in one of her articles, saying that Hispanic-American women "come
from a patriarchal culture in which 'as María is repeatedly told' a woman lives for

three men: her father, her husband and her son.”

María is repeatedly ordered by her parents to be submissive and to accept

this degrading status. Carmen, her mother, emphasizes her point of view: "María,

I'm telling you for your own good. Women should be pure. Men do not marry

women who are not unless they have to. Quieren virgenes (they want virgins) …

Be submissive" (126). According to Carmen, women should be pure, not for

themselves, but just to get married, and to be liked by men. Hence, women are

objects of desire, created just to please men. In addition, she tells María to accept

her being a woman, thus being submissive. However, María’s dreams are to be an

independent character, and to get a high level of education that can help her be a

prominent figure in society. Thus, she sees getting married and being a submissive

mothers is an obstacle in her way. Consequently, she refuses this opinion, and tries

to prove that women can be independent from men.

The theme of religion is prevalent too. However, religion in this context is

very much related to the patriarchal society; as religion in this play is exemplified

by the patriarchal figure – the father, the husband and the Priest. The father teaches

María morals about how to be a good woman. In his view, a good woman is the

woman who gets married, obeys her husband and serves him even if he

misbehaves or treats her badly. The Priest as well asks María to marry José (her
future husband) and obey him even if he hits or rapes her or drinks or commits any

other successive abusive acts. Church in Simply María is portrayed through the

Priest in the wedding scene:

PRIEST: (. . .) María, do you accept José Juan Gonzalez García López

as your lawfully wedded husband to love cherish, serve, cook for,

clean for, sacrifice for, have his children, keep house, love him, even if

he beats you, commits adultery, gets drunk, rapes you, lawfully, denies

your identity, money, and in return ask for nothing? (MARÍA thinks

about it and then turns to her parents who mouth to her “I do.”)

MARÍA: I do.

PRIEST:. Very good. Now, José. Do you accept María García

Gonzalez López as your lawfully wedded wife to support?

JOSÉ: Simón, que yes. (132)

The Priest here is asking María to do many roles including to deny her identity and

not to ask for anything in return. This is so oppressive and tyrant. Any married

woman can obey her husband and serve him, only if he treats her in a good way.

However, in this case, the Priest is asking María – in a very tyrannous and unfair

way – to serve her husband and obey him even if he gets drunk, hits her, takes her

money or even rapes her; which is against all the religious doctrines and beliefs.
The Priest is also a male character who is related to the patriarchal society. Hence,

the church is also a symbol for gender oppression.

Whenever the word “church” is mentioned, the verb “serve” must be

mentioned too. López also uses the word “serve” a lot in this play as addressed to

María. In the dictionary, serve is defined as follows:

To be a servant; to be favorable, opportune or convenient; to prove

adequate or satisfactory; to help persons to food: as to wait at table; to

give the service and respect due to (a superior); to gratify; to answer

the needs of. (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary)

All these definitions are very relevant to María, who has been treated this way all

over the play. She is expected to serve her husband who is supposed to be her

superior or her master, answer his needs with a satisfied and contented self, and

never ask for her needs or rights but just to gratify and support as the Priest told

her.

The Priest’s presence here is very symbolic. He appears twice. The first

appearance of the Priest is at the beginning of the play when he sprinkles holy

water on the baby and names her María. He is the one who starts María’s single

life and also is the one who starts María’s married life. In both situations he leaves

her alone to face her dark future. When he appears for the second time, he asks
María to marry José but in a way that he takes away from her all her rights and

deprives her of her identity. This is the typical religious woman who must be

submissive, obedient and mute. Anzaldúa is one of the critics who illustrates the

way the Church and patriarchal Chicano culture views Chicana femininity and how

the church judges women in general:

The Church and the culture require that women to be subservient to men,

that women renounce themselves in favor of men. Selflessness and humility define

the “good” women; “bad” women, in contrast, are selfish and value their own

selves, to which they give expression (. . .) The Church emphasizes the spirit and

preaches denial of the body, of the carnal flesh, yet the family emphasizes

motherhood and the importance of maternal body. It is because of the identification

of femininity with the carnal that in patriarchal Chicano culture women must be

protected from their own sexuality, protected from themselves. (Madsen, 2000: 25)

The church, then, is a symbol for the macho culture and the patriarchal

society. The church sees that a good woman is the one who is submissive, who

obeys her macho figures, whether a father or a husband. The good woman is the

one who does not ask for her rights and demands nothing:

Feminine sexuality deals with stereotypes or images of women created by male

power which is represented by church and family institutions. Feminine sexuality

is presented through the characteristics of good and bad women. A good woman is

marked by strict self-control over her sexuality, whereas a bad one is indicated by

her expressive sexuality. (Rosiandani 5, 6)

A good woman is the thus the one who obeys the male figure, never

questions anything, and never asks for her rights, while the bad woman is the one

who calls for her rights, who tells her opinions and who is never submissive.

Related to the gender oppression theme, theme of reproduction comes along

this context. López creates an assimilation between María in her pregnancy and a

reproduction machine the salesman is promoting: “STAGE DIRECTION: On the

screen the following title is displayed: the reproducing machine or be fruitful”

(135). María in that scene has felt a lot of pain in trying as hard as she can to please

her husband even when she is pregnant in her last months. Even in pregnancy,

María is discriminated against. She has given birth to six babies in pain, while her

husband is just complaining about the gender of the babies and names them

Sacrifice, Abnegation, Obligation, Frustration, Regret, and Disappointment. These

names reflect his contradictory feelings at that time. The first baby is a girl, and he

feels very sad and at the same time ready to sacrifice his happiness in order to live

peacefully with María. The second baby is also a girl. He feels very depressed that

he abnegates his self and his name for the sake of his marriage. The third baby is

also a girl, for whom he has no hope that he may have a baby boy and is obliged to
accept his fate of having baby girls. The fourth baby girl leaves him with

frustration and anger feelings – as for how long he may wait till he gets his baby

boy. The fifth baby girl lets him think about his whole marriage and regrets being

married to María who only gives birth to girls. These feelings end up when he sees

his last baby who also turns out to be a girl, leaving him with a feeling of

disappointment and despair.

All what José feels creates in us – as audience – a feeling of hatred to his

character. María endures him, endures his bad treatment, and endures her pains in

labour and all what she gets is feelings of dissatisfaction from him, and names of

negative feelings to her babies. He does not try to feel her pain as a woman

delivering babies. He does not try to stand by her side, and show some support. It

is as if a woman should be like a machine – doing everything without any feelings

or complaints. She is just a reproduction machine, and when she complains, her

husband can just hit her to work again, as the salesman clarifies to his customer:

“it’s at your disposal. Hours of pleasure. And if it even does go out of control, a

kick and a few punches will do the job and it will be back to normal” (136).

As a result to this kind of treatment, it is no wonder that José can treat María

the same way in their sexual intercourse. He never asks her opinion, or seeks to

know if she is suffering or not. She is just a machine or a sex object and she has to

endure it: “STAGE DIRECTION. JOSÉ leaves the table and stares at the bed. THE
FOLLOWING TITLE IS DISPLAYING (THE SEX OBJECT)” (135). One of the

definitions of “serve” is to be satisfying; to make him satisfied. In this way, María

– as most Chicanas – is suffering from gender oppression. This oppression is

exemplified in such ideas as body oppression, María as a production machine and

María as being submissive without any rights.

Racial oppression is one of the oppressions most Chicanas face in the United

States. Simply María clearly anticipates many issues surrounding Chicana identity

formation in the United States, such as those on immigration, language, gender

roles, and the role of Chicanas in American communities. Of all the Chicana

characters in the play, the one who makes the greatest effort to redefine feminine

role is María. Initially María is shaped into a person who regards America as her

dream to get high degrees in school, to attain a scholarship, go to college and raise

her class to become something in the future. However, the complicated and tough

reality she experiences, destroys her established perspective. María shows her

refusal to this reality in the form of disobedience, in her demand to be treated

equally in this patriarchal society, and in seeking a future where she can attain a

higher education and independence by working outside her Mexican home.

 From the beginning of the play, María refuses to do the housework only. She

wants to study as well. She tells her father: “I want to be educated …I want to be

something” (129). When her father tells her not to forget her roots, she says that

she just wants to be something in the future to be proud of:

RICARDO: I do not want you to forget you are Mexican. There are so

many people where I work who deny they are Mexican. When their

life gets better they stop being Mexican! To deny one’s country is to

deny one’s past, one’s parents. How ungrateful!

MARÍA: But you said that with an education I could be just as good

as anybody. And that’s why you brought me to los Estados Unidos.

(129)

María believes that doing the housework only will not improve her as a woman.

She wants to feel independent, a woman who can attain a higher place in the

community: “María: I hate doing the dishes! I hate doing the laundry! I hate

cooking and cleaning! And I hate all housework because it offends me as a

woman!!!” (137). She thinks that the redefinition of feminine role is exemplified in

attaining education, reading a lot, and becoming a high member in society, and not

just restricting a Chicana’s self to doing the dishes.

 By the end of the play, María hears her mother Carmen speaking to Ricardo

telling him that she has always known all about his affairs, but she will no longer

endure that sort of living only because she loved him, and that she has to live. In a

shock, María concludes that she has been right in all her opinions about being

independent as a woman and not just being dependent on a husband. Hence, she

writes to her parents admitting that she has to build up her future and be

independent but she will not forget her roots as well. She will try to mix the two

worlds together by taking what suits her to make her perfect in everything.

MARÍA: “Dear Mamá and Papá. Last night I heard everything. Now I

know that your idea of life is not for me—so I’m leaving. I want to

create a world of my own. One that combines the best of me. I will not

forget the values of my roots, but I want to get the best of this land of

opportunities. I am going to college—and I will struggle to do

something with my life.. (140)

Through these words, María tells us that she will combine the two worlds – the

Mexican and the American – together and chooses the best of them. Joséfina

López also assures that María will combine the two worlds that any woman – not

just a Mexican – must face; which is the housework world and the educational and

the practical world in her stage direction; (The THREE GIRLS enter. GIRL 3

hands MARÍA a piece of paper and a pen. GIRL 1 gets MARÍA’s jacket. GIRL 2
gets MARÍA’s suitcase. MARÍA sits at the kitchen table and begins to write). The

stage direction gathers the three girls together – girl1, girl2, girl3 – who represent

the Mexican’s self, the writer’s self or María and the American self. They all agree

on one opinion which is to leave the house and build a future where she combines

the Mexican world – with all its roots of marriage and obedience – with the

American world – with all its liberal ideas to being independent – in the hope of

attaining what she needs. López’s choice of the locale from which María is going

to leave, which is the kitchen, is also very significant. María sits on the kitchen

table and writes her letter of leave, which is a symbol that she will leave this kind

of life in which she has been humiliated and goes to the bright future she is looking

forward to. This opinion of mixing the two worlds together is always her opinion

but her parents have never seen it: “RICARDO: No. Get married! MARÍA: I will.

But I want a career as well. Women can now do both.” (129)

Finally, the last words of the three girls again assert the idea that María will

not forget her roots and in her education and independent moves, she will be

careful to stick to her Mexican roots and moral values:

GIRL 1: Los quiero mucho, nunca los olvidare.

GIRL 2: Mexico is in my blood…

GIRL 3: (. . .) and America is in my heart.

 MARÍA: “Adiós.” (MARÍA finishes the letter. She gets up and picks

up her suitcase. The THREE GIRLS stand behind her and she puts on

the jacket. The THREE GIRLS create the image of wings in flight.

The THREE GIRLS leave through the door. MARÍA follows them

and before she leaves she stops and looks back, then exits). (129)

López uses a symbolic gesture to end the play. The three girls create an image of

wings in flight which asserts the previous meaning, that the three different opinions

are gathered together and ready to fly to the new world created by María in

agreement and harmony.

Class oppression is the third type of oppression a Chicana can suffer. María

faces this kind of oppression when her father deceives her by telling her that in

America she can be whatever she wants through education and she can achieve the

American dream. She studies hard but after that he refuses to let her continue her

education and asks her to marry instead because these are the Mexican machismo

rules any girl must follow. He eliminates her identity just to get married. By

education, María could reach a higher class level of living and education and could

be respected by others who despise her just because she is a lower class Mexican.

Through education, María can prove that Mexican children are not stupid, and they
can be educated and can reach higher positions in society. In this way, María has a

future vision. She sees herself representing all her Chicana type.

Ricardo himself admits that Chicano/as are considered the lowest class in

America and that it is only through education that a wo/man can raise their class:

RICARDO: María, I brought you here so that you can have a better

life. It wasn’t easy for me to get here. One time I was hiding in a truck

with a lot of other people for hours. The coyote had left us there until

someone came with money to claim us. It was so hot and humid that

we were sure we were going to die. But I told myself I was going to

make it because I knew I had a daughter to live for. I did it for you. In

los Estados Unidos I hear the education is great. You can take

advantage of all the opportunities offered to you. You can work hard

to be just as good as anybody. You can be anything you want to be!

(124)

María sees that her father is right and she decides that she must raise her class and

prove to everyone that a Mexican woman can become something: “I’ll work hard. I

can be anything I want to be! ( . . . ) Estados Unidos, I’m ready to play the game”

(124). Joséfina López herself states in her production notes that she knows quite

well that education can raise her class and her living:
 I wanted to go to college because I knew that would be the only way I

could become economically independent and self-sufficient. However,

because I was undocumented at that time, I couldn’t get financial aid

and my parents didn’t have any money to give me or lend me. They

would just tell me it was going to be a waste of time anyway and I

should just get married. It is painful to think about this period in my

life because I was hurting, I was confused, and I was mad as hell.

(1996)

Only through education, and going to college, can one be independent, self –

sufficient and respected by others. Consequently, López tries to prove through her

play that both the education world and the marriage life can get any woman to her

goal and destination.

On the technical level, Joséfina López uses in Simply María some technical

issues that are very functional to her themes. She uses three main themes; gender

oppression, racial oppression and class oppression. The Gender oppression theme

is divided into three subcategories. Submissiveness, sex object or production

machine and religion are the other themes that go under the main theme. Since the

beginning of the play López creates three fictional characters: Girl 1, Girl2, and

Girl3 who represent María's struggling selves. Girl 1 is an externalization of

María's Mexican self who wants her to be submissive and accept her condition.
Girl 2 is a crystallization of María's confused mind. Girl 3 represents María's

revolutionary American self. López follows a characterization technique whereby

"María's unconscious, acted out by the three girls, connects her to all the potential

selves she could be, and enacts the various possibilities her life could experience."

(Abd El Salam 29). The three girls are egging on María – in an ordering tone – to

be submissive:

ALL: María

GIRL 1: As a girl you are to be:

GIRL 2: Nice,

GIRL 3: Forgiving,

GIRL 1: Considerate,

GIRL 2: Obedient,

GIRL 3: Gentle,

GIRL 1: Hard-working,

GIRL 2: Gracious.

GIRL 3: You are to like:

GIRL 1: Dolls,
 GIRL 2: Kitchens,

GIRL 3: Houses,

GIRL 1: Cleaning,

GIRL 2: Caring for children,

GIRL 3: Cooking,

GIRL 1: Laundry,

GIRL 2: Dishes.

GIRL 3: You are not to:

GIRL 1: Be independent,

GIRL 2: Enjoy sex. (119)

In this quotation, López uses commentary by others before the first appearance of

María in order to introduce her to the audience. The writer uses the dialogue

between the girls who will later represent María’s conflicting selves. Then López

crystallizes the conflict María faces between being independent, revolutionary and

free and between her Mexican roots which tell her to get married and stay at home

just to serve and reproduce:

GIRL 3: But must endure it as your duty to your husband,

 GIRL 1: And bearing his children.

GIRL 2: Do not shame your society!

GIRL 3: Never,

GIRL 1: Never,

GIRL 2: Never,

ALL: Never!!!

GIRL 1: Your goal is to reproduce.

GIRL 2: And your only purpose in life is to serve three men:

GIRL 3: Your father,

GIRL 1: Your husband,

GIRL 2: And your son. (119)

She must not commit any faults. She has to be a servant with no identity. Serving

must be her main goal in life. Submissiveness is her second motto. She must be a

lifeless machine with no identity or rights and just accept the orders and never

complain. López uses an explicit authorial technique in which she tells names

directly to depict her ideas. She names the second girl as Myth. Later on, it is

discovered that girl 2 represents the writer’s self, which is a direct hint that all what
López asks for as a kind of change to the Chicana’s self and identity may be

looked upon as mythical ideas that are narrated only in fairy tales. However, at the

end María is able to achieve the writer’s dreams, which shows that these dreams

can be possibly attainable.

In order to redefine the Chicana identity, it has to be changed first. This is

what María does. She tries to discover herself in order to change her identity to the

better:

When Simon de Beauvoir claims, “one is not born, but rather becomes a

woman”, she is appropriating and reinterpreting … gender (as) … an identity

tenuously constituted in time – an identity, instituted through a stylized repetition

of acts. Further, gender is instituted through the stylization of the body and hence,

must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and

enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self.

(Butler 519)

Identity is thus constituted through bodily gestures, movements or a

repetition of some acts like what María does:

Stage direction: (Spotlight on MARÍA. MARÍA goes to the mirror,

GIRL 3 appears in the mirror. MARÍA brushes her hair and so does

GIRL 3. Then GIRL 3 begins to touch herself in intimate ways,

 discovering the changes through puberty, while MARÍA remains still,

not daring to touch herself. Finally, when MARÍA does dare to touch

herself, CARMEN comes into the room and catches her. Lights

quickly come back on.)

María’s touching of herself this way shows that she wants to know herself better.

She needs to understand her body. She is ready to challenge her traditions and do

something against what she is used to learn from her mother.

In another example, López creates a dialogue between María and her mother

Carmen, in which the latter uses an explicit figural technique when she comments

on María’s future:

CARMEN: That’s the way it is. I know it’s not fair, but women will

always be different from men. (130)

(. . .)

You are worth a lot to me. I cannot wait for the day when I will see

you in a beautiful white wedding dress walking down the aisle with a

church full of people. That is the most important event in a woman’s

life. (130)
Throughout the whole play Carmen uses a certain register of words like “be

submissive – be obedient- never talk- never shame your society- serve”. These

words are very symbolic. They symbolize how María’s living in a patriarchal

society where her life must be centered on men only. However, María sees herself

in a much better place. That is why she is confused:

GIRL 1: María, stop questioning and just accept.

GIRL 3: No, María! God gave you a brain so you can think and

question. USE IT!

GIRL 1: But it is not up to us to decide what is right and wrong. Your

parents know best. (126)

She is confused. She does not accept the fact that she must live only to serve men.

She wants to attain a higher degree of education. However, she has certain

Mexican rules that she must obey.

María is living in a patriarchal society which sees women as servants only:

RICARDO: How about if I give you a trophy for washing the dishes

when you are supposed to, and for doing the laundry right? (. . .)

RICARDO: (. . .) It’s such a waste to educate women … What’s that

smell?! The tortillas are burning!!! (. . .)

 CARMEN: When you get married what is your husband going to say?

(. . .)

RICARDO: No Mexican man is going to marry a woman who cannot

Cook. (. . .)

MARÍA: Mamá, Papá, there are more important things (. . .) (MARÍA

holds the letter, but decides not to say anything.) I just do not care for

housework. (127)

Ricardo expresses his opinion about educating women in an explicit figural

technique. He comments on María’s behavior in his dialogue with Carmen.

Ricardo represents the patriarchal society or the machismo. He believes that it is

just a waste of time to educate a woman. All his stylistic texture is limited to food

and criticism of María.

Moreover, in the stage directions, Joséfina López uses props to strengthen

the idea. The “letter” that María holds symbolizes the educated status she wants to

be in. she does not want to be listed under the so-called submissive women.

In another context, the writer attaches María to some fixed register to

highlight María’s intellectual self, like (letter – reads – scholar-ship – typewriter).

This choice of words attaches María to a certain intellectual class. The props (the
letter and the typewriter) are inseparable from her throughout the whole play which

shows that she is created to be an intellectual and a great woman:

GIRL 3: “Congratulations! You are eligible for a four-year

scholarship…Please respond as soon as possible…” (MARÍA jumps

up in excitement. She then gets her typewriter and begins to type her

response. (127).

This is what María is created for, to be an educated woman.

In another example, again Ricardo sees that the future of a woman must be

focused on man, marriage, machismo and how to satisfy the male figures in her

community, like her father and her future husband:

RICARDO: Why do not you just get married like most decent women

and be a housewife? (129) (. . .)

MARÍA:. And that’s all a woman is for? To have children? Clean a

house? Tend to her husband like a slave and heat his tortillas?! (129)

(. . .)

RICARDO: ¡Que atrevida! Why do you make it seem like it’s some

sort of a nightmare? (Sarcastically.) Women have always gotten

married and they have survived.

 MARÍA: But surviving is not living. (129)

Ricardo uses an explicit figural technique in which he comments on María’s life.

In his opinion, María’s education makes her a crazy woman, but getting married is

the only reasonable decision she must take. However, María does not talk much

about this opinion and she goes to her typewriter, finding it not working, which is a

symbol used by López to say that the time has not come yet for María to achieve

her dreams.

In another example López puts her opinion in the stage directions. In

María’s dream, Mary 2 who symbolizes the Mexican self, wins:

STAGE DIRECTION: MARY is dragged out. MARÍA 2, having won

the fight, acknowledges the cheers of the crowd, then gestures for

MARÍA to kneel and pray. MARÍA 2 puts a wedding veil on

MARÍA.)

MARÍA 2: A woman’s only purpose in life is to serve three men. Her

father, her husband, and her son. (132)

The verb “kneel” here is a certain register used by López to crystalize

submissiveness which belongs to the Mexican self. María 2 uses a certain idiolect

as an implicit figural technique to prove that woman should be submissive and

should accept her role which is to have no rights but serving men. This idiolect is

exemplified in words like serve and kneel.

In María's dream, she is about to get married, and the stage directions

specify that the "couple kneels and a wedding lasso is put around them" (132).

Later on, José – María's husband – "takes out a golden dog collar" (132), instead of

the ring, to put it around María's neck, symbolizing the marriage bond. At the end

of the scene, López describes the holy event of marriage as follows: “They place

the dog collar around MARÍA’s neck. Then they get the wedding lasso and tie it

around her to make the collar seem and work like a leash. (PRIEST speaks to

JOSÉ.) You may pet the bride. The lasso is given to JOSÉ. He pulls MARÍA, who

gets on her hands and knees. They walk down the aisle like dog and master” (133).

López uses props to symbolize the way María will be treated by her husband after

marriage; consequently shedding light on the humiliating status of Mexican

women.

Moreover, López employs non-verbal, implicit figural techniques of

characterization to shed light on María’s life. In the stage directions, López

describes María’s domestic life as it turns into a nightmare: "MARÍA gets the

laundry and begins to fold it quickly, but nicely and carefully. Suddenly, the

clothes begin to take on a life of their own. There is a giant coat, and a pair of pants

surrounding MARÍA. They start pushing her around, and then her wedding dress
appears and heads for MARÍA’s neck. They wrestle on the ground" (137).

Aggressive costumes, culminating in the wedding dress's choking act, signify the

fact that María's marriage life is suffocating her. She no longer wants to be such a

submissive wife, only cooking food, washing and folding clothes.

At the end of the play, María’s last words are uttered in a soliloquy that

sums up her choices: “I want to create a world of my own. One that combines the

best of me. I will not forget the values of my roots, but I want to get the best of this

land of opportunities. I am going to college—and I will struggle to do something

with my life” (140). With these words, María seems to elevate her identity,

improving it when she keeps her past and connects to her future. María tries to tell

the whole world that Chicanas must be empowered and independent of men, while

keeping their legacy and their traditions.

The oppressive situation of women and how they suffer is rooted in the

demonstration of power of the machismo in all aspects of life. In the macho

culture, men is superior to women in terms of restricting women from being more

independent economically so that men have more control over women: “Ideal

wives and mothers are those who make themselves inferior to men. Such women

are considered passive, obedient, and silent—which means repressing their

freedom in ‘voicing’ their needs and desires (Rosiandani 7). Thus in adopting such

qualities, women have nothing to do but serving men. In this case, they are
positioned as inferior to men, and men become superior to women, the same as the

relation between a master and his slave.

In most of her interviews, Joséfina López admits that she is raised in an

environment where women are created to be servants: “I really had no sense of self

or of entitlement. And in my household the understanding was that women, we

were basically there to be servants. And that men were superior and that was the

way it was and ni modo.” (López, Interview). This is what Joséfina López refuses

and tries to prove that if a woman can improve her educational level, she will work

and be economically independent. In this way, women can work at home and

outside and can thus reveal their capabilities and powers.

Racial oppression is also prevalent in Simply María, as it is clear in many

examples. At the beginning of the play López displays the status of those

immigrants to the United States, and how they are suffering and she draws an

example of the Statue of Liberty which speaks to those immigrants:

I give you life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for the price of

your heritage, your roots, your history, your family, your language

(. . .) Conform, adapt, give up what is yours, and I will give you the

opportunity to have what is mine. (121)

This explicit figural technique is an example of the statue of Liberty in which it

comments in a symbolizing way on the immigrant’s status of living. They must

give up their identities, their Mexican roots in order to be able to live in America.

Mexicans and most immigrants – however – accept those conditions. They are

ready to live in such a condition in order to live. However, they are still treated in a

very humiliating way especially after proposition 187. “In 1994, nearly 60 percent

of the California electorate voted in favor of Proposition 187, a measure designed

to deny medical treatment and education to undocumented workers” (Lipsitz 48). It

is a new policy of insulting and abasing the immigrants by denying their identities,

their rights and naming them illegal aliens “Proposition 187 effectively

criminalized Latino and Asian American identity, creating a previously unheard of

legal category—the “suspected” illegal immigrant—and then subjecting these

“suspects” to vigilante surveillance, supervision, and invasion of privacy” (Lipsitz

49). This is the typical case for all Mexicans who live in the United States. They

have to dispense with their race, their names, and their identities in order to be

eligible to live there.

Another important example is stated in the middle of the play when Ricardo

is speaking with his daughter in a parental dialogue, in which he narrates in an

explicit figural technique his story when he reached America. In a self -

commentary type of narration, Ricardo says:

 RICARDO. One time I was hiding in a truck with a lot of other people

for hours. The coyote had left us there until someone came with

money to claim us. It was so hot and humid that we were sure we

were going to die. But I told myself I was going to make it because I

knew I had a daughter to live for. I did it for you. In los Estados

Unidos I hear the education is great. You can take advantage of all the

opportunities offered to you. You can work hard to be just as good as

anybody. You can be anything you want to be! (124)

This example shows both racial and class oppression. Mexicans are suffering in the

United States. They cannot live peacefully because they are not legitimate. They

are running to hide like rats. They are living in poor places because they do not

find work. Americans do not like them to be working in their places. As a result,

they do not find jobs, nor money to live on. Ricardo is an example of those

Mexican immigrants who travelled in pursuit of the American dream. However, he

lives with his family suffering from as a low class way of living. That is why he

believes that education alone can save his daughter from this poor living:

But I told myself I was going to make it because I knew I had a

daughter to live for. I did it for you. In los Estados Unidos I hear the

education is great. You can take advantage of all the opportunities

offered to you. (130)

In this example, López uses an explicit figural technique in Ricardo’s words, in

which the latter speaks about the low status of living Mexicans are having. In his

dialogue with María, he uses certain words like “opportunities, work hard, job”

which all refer to how hard their living is. Ricardo sees how hard men and women

work. He sees how Chicanas are suffering in work and getting nothing. Lipsitz

describes this status of hard unpaid work women do saying:

The low-wage women workers … actually do much of the hard work

on which middle-class prosperity relies. They clean offices, hotel

rooms, and homes. They plant, harvest, prepare, and serve food. They

sew clothes they cannot afford to wear. For all their hard and under-

rewarded work, they find themselves hated and defamed as lazy

dependents living off the largesse of the very people whose lives they

make easier and more remunerative. (Lipsitz 54 - 55)

Chicanas work hard. They do everything men can do and at the end they get very

low wages and are called as “lazy independents”. (Lipsitz 55) Ricardo does not

want to see his daughter in this humiliating position. He has a vision of teaching

her in order to improve her life.

Joséfina López is able to create a play that gathers all the ideas and

oppressions a Chicano/a can face. Chicanas face the triple oppressions exemplified
in gender, racial and class oppression, while Chicanos face racial and class

oppression. With her play Simply María, she sheds light on the lives of those

Mexicans who are suffering from a low living status, and an unequal treatment

from the Americans, and the patriarchal society most Chicanas are suffering from.

Finally, she criticizes her society in a sarcastic way using some characterization

technique in order to let her people or her raza awake and find a solution.

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