International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities
Hombre means ‘man’ in Spanish. Depending on social class, generation and local cultures, the concept has nuanced meanings in an increasingly urban and globalised Mexican society. For men who migrate to the United States, migration and settlement experiences alter meanings of manhood. For some, ser hombre means surviving a harsh migration journey as an undocumented person. It may also mean being tough enough to put up with long hours of underpaid work in the midst of rhetoric celebrating ethnic diversity and xenophobic immigration laws.
In the United States, un hombre de verdad—a real man—works hard to survive in a decent and honest way. He is responsible, aware and sensitive to the financia l nee ds of th os loves in Mexico, deciphering the world of inequality while sending money to the family he left behind, and also subsidising the Mexican economy.
The concept of ‘macho’ has promoted the misrepresentation of US Latino and Latin American men in academic and popular publications. However, Mexican women and men may use this concept to identify a sexist man. Some immigrant men use the expression un buen padre es hombre pero no macho (a good father is a man but not macho) to describe the good father who is promoting equal rights in the sex education and academic opportunities he provides for both daughters and sons. Paradoxically, some of these men may resent women who use US laws to challenge gender inequality (i.e.
domestic violence).
In the United States and Mexico, los hombres are incessantly and creatively redefining their gender identities. Men’s groups organised by the Colectivo de Hombres por Relaciones Igualitarias in Mexico City (CORIAC), Los Forkados in Monterrey, Mexico, and the men’s circles in the western United States (Mena 2000) illustrate what men are doing to disrupt violent expressions of masculinity. They nurture gender egalitarian expressions of manhood that are transforming their relationships and families.
References and further reading
González-López, G. (2004) ‘Fathering Latina sexualities’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 66: 1118–30.
——(2005) Erotic Journeys, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
González-López, G. and Gutmann, M.C. (2005) ‘Machismo’, in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Vol. 4, New York: Scribner’s, pp. 1328–30.
Gutmann, M.C. (1996) The Meanings of Macho, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Mena, J. (2000) ‘Creating the new macho man’, Los Angeles Times, 12 December, Section E: 1, 3.
See also: cultural formations, Latin America
GLORIA GONZÁLEZ-LÓPEZ
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