ABSTRACT
A 2015 US government report on the status of Latinas in the United States says that, despite higher high school graduation rates than Latino males, and despite 60 percent of Latinx college degrees going to Latinas, the Latina population in the country is still more likely to be living in poverty and to have less access to healthcare than any other population in the United States (Fulfilling America’s Future: Latinas in the U.S., 2015). Latinas are marginalized, yet there is a small population of Latinas who have deliberately chosen to further marginalize themselves in subculture. If we look at the characters of Lola Cabral in Junot Diaz’s novel, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and April Ludgate in the sitcom Parks and Recreation, in addition to the actual life of Alicia Armendariz, in the memoir of her life as Alice Bag, Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story, we explore why marginalized Latinas make the decision—or are forced to make the decision—to place themselves outside their immediate circle of Latinidad. Ultimately, the reasoning lies in the strong desire to reject imposed stereotypes about what being Latinx means, and in the anger towards patriarchal abuses that are persistent within both the larger US culture and the Latinx community.
