Vergüenza (social concept)

Part of a series on
Chicanos and Mexican Americans
Terms Identity Chicana/o Mexican American Chola/o La Raza Pachuca Pachuco Pinta/o Xicanx Concepts Anti-Mexican sentiment
History Early-American Period Josefa Segovia Las Gorras Blancas Mexican–American War Mutualista San Elizario Salt War Sonoratown Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Pre-Chicano Movement 1917 Bath riots Bisbee Deportation Bloody Christmas Bracero program Cantaloupe strike of 1928 California agricultural strikes La Matanza Mexican Repatriation Operation Wetback Plan de San Diego Porvenir Massacre Sleepy Lagoon trial Zoot Suit Riots Chicano Movement Aztlán Black-brown unity Brown Berets Católicos por La Raza Chicanismo Chicano Moratorium Colegio César Chávez CFMN Conferencia de Mujeres CRP East L.A. walkouts Hijas de Cuauhtémoc Huelga schools United Farm Workers Land grant struggle Las Adelitas de Aztlán Los Siete de la Raza Los Seis de Boulder MANA MAYO MEChA PCUN Plan Espiritual de Aztlán Plan de Santa Bárbara Quinto Sol Raza Unida Party Post-Chicano Period 1985–1987 cannery strike 1992 Drywall Strike 2019 El Paso shooting Abolish ICE Arizona SB 1070 Castro 2020 DACA Great American Boycott IRCA Justice for Janitors Murder of Selena Proposition 187 Xicanx
Culture Language Caló Chicano English Food New Mexican cuisine Tex-Mex cuisine Mexican-American cuisine Music Chicano rap Chicano rock Chicano soul Tejano music Symbols Centro Cultural de la Raza Lowrider Lowrider bicycle Mexican-American folklore Zoot suit
Literature Literature Chicana literature Chicano literature Chicano poetry Autobiographical Always Running Living Up the Street Who Would Have Thought It? Novels Bless Me, Ultima Caballero Desert Blood From This Wicked Patch of Dust Mexican WhiteBoy The Dirty Girls Social Club The House on Mango Street The Rain God The Revolt of the Cockroach People So Far from God Under the Feet of Jesus ...y no se lo tragó la tierra Poetry and Short Stories Emplumada I Am Joaquin Moment of Silence Pensamiento Serpentino The Moths
Chicana/o studies Fields Chicana feminism Chicanafuturism Chicano critical race theory Organizations MAS Programs, Tucson NACCS UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Texts Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Brown, Not White The Church in the Barrio This Bridge Called My Back Theory Barrioization Coyolxauhqui imperative Gringo justice Nahui Ollin Nepantla New tribalism Rasquachismo Spiritual activism Vergüenza Youth control complex
Visual art Visual Art Chicana art Chicano art Chicano films Paño Tortilla art Art Collectives Asco Culture Clash East Los Streetscapers Los Four Mujeres Muralistas Teatro Campesino Royal Chicano Air Force Locations Balmy Alley Chicano Park Estrada Courts Galería de la Raza Great Wall of Los Angeles Precita Eyes Self Help Graphics & Art
Law Supreme Court cases Botiller v. Dominguez Hernandez v. Texas San Antonio I.S.D. v. Rodriguez Espinoza v. Farah Manufacturing Co. U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce Plyler v. Doe Medellín v. Texas Flores-Figueroa v. U.S. Leal Garcia v. Texas Mendez v. Westminster Bernal v. Fainter Perez v. Brownell DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. Federal Court cases Madrigal v. Quilligan
Population Population by City Arizona (Tucson) California (Los Angeles) Illinois (Chicago) Michigan (Detroit) Nebraska (Omaha) Texas Dallas–Fort Worth Houston Multiethnic Blaxicans Hispanos Californios Nuevomexicanos Tejanos Indigenous Mexican Americans Punjabi Mexican Americans
Lists Chicano poets Chicano rappers Mexican Americans Writers Bibliography
United States portal Category Index
v t

Vergüenza directly translates to shame in English, refers to the cultural and social phenomena that shapes, and often constricts Chicana/o and Latina/o lives to a more conservative, traditional mold. The role of vergüenza not only helps mold lives to a traditional mold, but serves primarily to maintain traditional gender roles, and reinforcing familial relations and expectations.^[1] Chicana/o scholars were important to theorizing and documenting verguenza, which has contributed to the fields of mental health and sociology.^[2]

Verguenza acts as both an external and internal regulator, based on what people think, and living up to those expectations, as well as on an “internalized set of beliefs about what constitutes proper behavior and norms.” A primary factor in vergüenza is the opinion and expectations of others, this comes from different communities one identifies themselves in, including family, friends, neighborhood, as well as their religious affiliations.^[1]

Women and Vergüenza[]

Typically, discussions surrounding vergüenza only focus and interpret vergüenza through a male perspective, but although often ignored, women are just as, and arguably even more so, affected by vergüenza and rigid expectations that follow them. Women are placed under unnatural man made scrutinized dilemmas placed dab in the middle of their minds from birth. To strut their hips in a manner that is opposite of carrying vergüenza is to disapprove and dismantle traditions built years in the making which Chicano and Chicana cultures push away. Women of all races face battles of oppressive constant slaps of the wrist for being considered a whore—puta. Forgetting to carry humility—vergüenza, can and has led to men hitting women and even men. Extreme cases and causes define vergüenza as a natural trait women need to and should carry around.^[1]

For women vergüenza, and their general standing in their community, is almost entirely dependent on their being controlled or protected by the men in their lives, be it husbands, fathers or other patriarchal figures, as well as the man's social status rather than her own. When a woman's reputation is not dependent on their patriarch's social status, it is dependent on how well an individual can adhere to the social expectations from their family, friends, and their community. Thus, stripping women of their autonomy and pushing women to be more reserved and passive, as is expected of traditional cultural mold. Andando con vergüenza then becomes a priority. These images of passivity are further reinforced not only by the community around them, but also through literature and religious beliefs.^[1]

Expectations From the Community[]

'Chismes', or gossip, typically holds a negative connotation, but across transnational communities it can be seen as something positive; gossip is often used, as direct communication between families and communities is scarce, as a means to bring a community together and share information with one another.^[3] Gossip is also a negative and oppressive force within communities; it can be used to target, criticize and ostracize those who do not follow a community's standards or expectations. Gossip not only serves as a way to bring people together, but also as a reference to teach oneself how to act appropriately in a given community in order to save face from criticism—hearing how others are ostracized for differing from a community sets an example of what is not acceptable and should be avoided.^[3]

Accusations of Women's Fidelity[]

Women in transnational communities—whether they are the ones staying behind as their husband migrates or they themselves are migrating to the United States—are also often targeted by the larger community through gossip and local criticism. When men migrate to the U.S., their wives not only have to worry about their partners potentially abandoning them, but also be careful that they are not accused of cheating while their husbands are away; some women going as far as avoiding going to social events or town festivities to avoid accusations.^[3] These accusations not only come from the woman's community out of criticism for joining social events rather than mourning the absence of their husbands, but also from the husband himself. Migrant husbands—out of paranoia and stress while they are away—can be the root of an accusation against his wife's fidelity. This can lead to her being isolated or expelled from her community, as well as losing the remittance he sends her, which is often her only source of income.^[4]

Even women in the United States will be under the watchful eye of the community around her, as well as back home, in regards to her fidelity to her husband, as their reputation also crosses borders. If a couple migrates together, separates, and forms a new relationship the man will often be unquestioned, but the woman, and her new relationship, will be targeted by her community and questioned whether her new relationship will interfere with her family obligations.^[3] Men can often, but not always, escape any criticism or gossip regarding their infidelity, because of their social status, their continued financial support to a family, or because they are men and it is expected of them to act on physical urges.^[5] More often than not, when a husband abroad is unfaithful, women are still to blame—be it the wife for staying behind and not being there to satisfy his urges, or the other woman whom he had an affair with. The other woman are often blamed because they “should [have known] who they are getting involved with and not believe everything he says.”^[3]

Women Targeted in the LGBT Community[]

The LGBT community is one community in particular that is often targeted by mainstream society, as being queer acts as “a mirror reflecting heterosexual tribe’s [primary] fear: being different” and defying the societal “norm.”^[1] As a result, lesbians in Latin America who fear exposing their closeted selves, learn to create and alternate between two identities: one in which they are “out” and another within the family, and neighboring community, where they are closeted.^[6] Each identity, and its accompanying community, holds different norms, expectations, and values that Latina lesbians must navigate through. Latina lesbians in the United States, on the other hand, must create these two identities, as well as a third, as they navigate between a gay community, their familial, Latinx community, and the dominant cis, white, heterosexual community in the United States.^[7] Lesbians often feel the need to sacrifice their “out” identity and relationships in order respect their family and maintain familial relationships.

However, Latina lesbians who do come out to their families are not always accepted with open arms. The obvious, inherently traumatizing, reaction from families is alienation and rejection from the family. Another common reaction from families is initial acceptance, but altogether avoidance and silencing their daughter and her sexuality. Parents who know their daughter's sexuality tend to avoid it or ask them not to share that information with anyone outside the family, out of shame of their daughter not complying to traditional norms and expectations—i.e. finding a husband, having children, starting a family, etc. -- or fear of how the surrounding community would react to her.^[6]

Families, rather than openly communicating with their daughters, will often repeat the phrase De eso no se habla, of that we do not speak, preferring to remain in denial about their daughter's sexuality and silencing her from speaking to them about it in the future.^[6] Daughters who do come out to their parents and are met with this response feel not only a denial of their identity as lesbians, but also their identity as daughter within the family.^[6]

Expectations From the Family[]

Women, both who migrate abroad and remain in their home country, are blamed not only for the failure of their marriage, but also questioned about their relationship with their children and family back home. Women accused of infidelity, abroad and at home, are then questioned of their commitment to their children and family, not only by their community, but by their children as well. While the community will feed into this accusation and let it fester among them, it will inevitably reach the women's children, through family members, neighbors, or even classmates, and the children will begin to resent their mother for choosing a romantic relationship over her family. Amongst social circles, it is expected of a woman to place her responsibility as a mother, and primary caretaker for her children, over her personal interests. Women are either expected to find an impossible balance between personal life and family life, or give up their personal lives altogether because motherhood is viewed traditionally as sacred.^[3]

Expectations From the Church[]

The traditional idea that motherhood is an inherently sacred and essential role of a woman traditionally Catholic beliefs, and the depiction of La Virgen. La Virgen has been represented as an ideal repressed passive womanhooda—suffering, pure, and patient female, all traits traditionally expected of woman, especially when they enter motherhood.^[1] In contrast to the depiction of La Virgen, there is la Puta, La Llorona, or Malinche. These women all serve to as examples of what positive and negative femininity, and motherhood, are made up of—La Virgen being positive and idealized and the others negative and should be avoided. The depiction and idealization of La Virgen is especially significant to Latinas through the idea of marianismo: "when women become mothers then, and only then, do they attain the status of Madonna." This not only encourages women to have children to achieve status in society, but also serves to punish those who do not fit this expectation or social mold.^[8]

Depictions of religious figures, and the expectations that follow them, are not the only religious elements in Latin culture that serve to control women's conduct in society; the Catholic church is directly responsible as well. The Catholic church is patriarchal by nature, and practices this power over women through its rigid structure and sense of morality, especially in regards to women's sexuality. Women under the Catholic church do no feel free in, or with, their bodies as they have been raised with ideas regarding sex, especially premarital sex, as sinful, and received little to no sexual education through the church. This leads to woman who stray from Church expectations of purity and celibacy to feel guilt, remorse, and shame for exploring their sexual identities.^[8]

References[]