Visual slippage: Gouging the colonial eye con Los Punks

Abstract

ABSTRACT I analyze Los Punks: We Are All We Have (2016) for three themes that characterize the (im)migrant family, the savage Latinx adolescent, and the colonial hero constructed in represented urban environments. The recorded space in the documentary denotes cultural authenticity while attempting to transform Latinx performances into assimilationist archetypes of Othered (im)migrant subjects. I argue that visual slippage in (im)migrant representation forms an associative relationship composing assimilation narratives created under cultural legitimacy for colonizing eyes gazing at captured (im)migrant life. I add that (im)migrants reciprocate the colonial gaze by confronting it with embodied, visual, and environmental performances affirming lived experiences with non-White viewers—effectively gouging the colonial eye from the reception codes meant to naturalize neocolonial logics.