Xicanosmosis

Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America features a final chapter with the nickname neologism XicanOsmosis--basically a fusion of the terms Xicana/o or Chicana/o and the biological process of "osmosis"



XicanOsmosis, in short, refers to the push and pull, the ebb and flow, the surreptitious and obvious exchange of cultural material between and amidst the United States and Mexico, amidst and between the Americas and "America." An Austin American-Statesman blogger and reporter in Mexico City recently issued a dispatch that documents this process with a particular focus on the gangster culture of east LA and its curious transmogrification in Ciudad Mexico. His name is Jeremy Schwartz and his posting is located here.

If Tex[t]-Mex alludes to the negative forces at work perpetuating familiar (and hence well-known) and well-known (and hence familiar--tautology city!) hallucinations of "Mexicans" and "Latinas/os" in the U.S., then XicanOsmosis can be thought of as Tex[t]-Mex's Jekyll/Hyde doppelgänger of a brother/sister (can concepts be hermaphrodite?), gesturing at an-other way of figuring the Latina/o subjects.