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Abstract
This essay draws on original qualitative research about feminicides in Ciudad Juárez to examine a transcribed and translated testimonio. Delivered by a sister of a victim of the feminicides, this testimonio bears witness by orally narrating instances of individual and collective violence committed against Mexicanas. The sister's testimonio stages violence in order for listeners to identify with (and take up a position against) acts of violence. Achieving such a goal relies on transforming listeners-to-witnesses through an embodied positionality rhetorically crafted prior to and during a feminicidio testimonio. Contextual antecedents prime listeners for a feminicidio testimonio by representing violence and kinship and also functioning as scenes for addressing listeners. Both the form and content of a feminicidio testimonio enable the transformation of listeners-to-witnesses: The form creates structural and latent relational dimensions of a testimonio whereas the content contains violent themes that indicate the types and levels of violence, as well as the actors behind it. Ultimately, a feminicidio testimonio is a means not only to respond to violence but also to produce new witnesses.
Acknowledgments
The author dedicates this essay to compañeras affiliated with the Mexico Solidarity Network for facilitating the trip and compañera/os living in Ciudad Juárez for the work they do and what they taught me. The author also appreciates Wayne A. Neu, Vincent Pham, and Cindy Griffin for their engagement with versions of this essay and, thanks the editor and anonymous reviewers for their feedback and support. An early version of this essay was delivered at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference in 2012. Transcription and translation of the testimonio was made possible by a grant supported by the Office of Graduate Studies and Research at CSUSM.
Notes
“One little-known fact is that not all of the slain were Mexican citizens,” writes Gaspar de Alba (“Poor Brown” 65). Eight were from the United States, the Netherlands, and Honduras (with six of the eight being U.S. citizens).
Women and girls have been beaten, raped (vaginally and anally), assaulted with different objects, mutilated, burned, strangled, stabbed (often multiple times), and shot. In some cases, more than one form of violence was used. This information is from a report conducted by the Eighth of March Group of Ciudad Juárez and obtained online from Casa Amiga.
Theories implicate serial killers, satanic cults, snuff films, organ trafficking, Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif (a.k.a. “the Egyptian mastermind”), a gang named Los Rebeldes, a band of bus drivers called Los Choferes, and corrupt Mexican police, among others. For a detailed discussion of such theories, consult Gaspar de Alba, “Poor Brown”; “The Maquiladora”; and Lourdes Portillo's groundbreaking documentary Señorita Extraviada.
Sexual surveillance refers to practices conducted by maquiladora employers of female employees to monitor their reproduction. Practices include enforced birth control, monitoring of menstrual cycles, and/or pregnancy tests upon hire (Gaspar de Alba, “Poor Brown” 64–65).
A rastreo is an act of resistance, a “form of political action,” carried out by family members who organize and conduct searches in the desert looking for evidence of crimes against women (Schmidt Camacho 43).
Access to the groups and individuals mentioned in this article was organized by a U.S.-based organization that works in solidarity with community-based and nongovernmental organizations in Mexico.
The staff member was the director of women's studies; the students were mainly undergraduates (nine) along with graduate students (two).
All names cited in this article are pseudonyms for individuals and/or organizations in accordance with approval for human research.
To honor those represented in and through the contents of this article, the pseudonyms selected are not random; instead, they symbolically speak to the soul (i.e., “Alma”) and heart (i.e., “Corazón”) of a feminicidio testimonio that seeks sisters in struggle (i.e., “Hermanas”).
A few authors—such as Anguiano and Sandoval; Briceño; Chew and Prieto; and Upton— have presented textual analyses related to the femicides at conferences, yet they do not suggest possibilities for scholarly inquiry, nor do they encourage continued work on the feminicides. An exception is Ono and Jackson, who call on scholars to address the femicides, among other global and social issues referenced in an introduction to a journal issue.
Throughout this article, the two terms feminicide and feminicidio are used interchangeably.
When teaching a course on feminist rhetoric, I ask students to write brief responses to the following question: “Are testimonios a form of rhetorical violence?” They do so after listening to me read aloud excerpts from Alma's testimonio. Year after year, students consistently write in affirmation to the question due to the impressions instilled, feelings generated, and violence they imagine.
I have in mind Scholz's (Rhetorical) dissertation work wherein she examines four testimonios, all of which are authored by female subaltern subjects. The published testimonios about the feminicides are also by women.
The founders settled in an area referred to as Anapra. It is a neighborhood with a high percentage of residents who work in maquiladoras and it is also where bodies of women and girls related to the femicides have been found.
For a recent discussion about the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of maquiladoras, consult Miller.
Esther Chávez Cano founded and directed the shelter until her death in 2009; she was also a leader of Ocho de Marzo (Eighth of March), an organization that protested feminicides.
Hermanas is a civil organization in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, comprised primarily of mothers (but also including family members and friends) who have sought and continue to seek justice on behalf of women who have disappeared or been killed. Hermanas work to resolve cases, engage in prevention and advocacy work, and help secure social services for families affected by feminicides.
For additional readings on the use of gendered items by mothers to protest los desaparecidos in Latin American countries, consult Bejarano and/or Fabj.
Of the fourteen of us who traveled to Juárez, nine identify as Latina and five identify as White, and all of us are U.S. citizens, which enables us to move freely into and out of Mexico.
Conceptions of listening within rhetorical studies include, for example, listening as “an auditory rhetorical act” (Hesford Spectacular 100), “rhetorical listening” (Ratcliffe), and “listening receptively” (Makau and Marty). The latter two views of listening overlap in their emphasis on understanding, awareness of one's own and others' positionality, and implied desire for dialogue.
When quoting excerpts, only the English translation of Alma's feminicidio testimonio is provided.
Based on what Alma expresses during her testimonio, I use the term trauma in the conventional sense, that is, “to refer to the state of mind that ensues from an injury” (Hesford, “Rape Stories” 16).
I refer to the nameless victims numerically based on the order in which they appear in the feminicidio testimonio.
Bystanders' responses that I recorded ranged from no response to blank stares to replies of “Sorry, I don't have time right now”; “Ah-ooh, aahh, I have class”; and “Yes, but we don't have time right now.”
The visuality of absence/presence in rape warfare is further explored by Hesford (Spectacular).
I photographed other framed photos and posters hanging on the walls of the room in which we sat; however, I decided against photographing the framed photo of Corazón. Doing so felt disrespectful toward Alma given what she had already freely shared with us.
A quinceañera occurs on the fifteenth birthday of a Mexican or Mexican American girl. The celebration marks her transition into womanhood and encompasses ethnic, religious, and secular dimensions. For additional elaboration, consult Davalos.
For an in-depth analysis on this point, consult Fregoso (MeXicana Encounters; “The Complexities”).
El Campo Algodonero is now “an official memorial funded by the [Mexican] government after an international court found Mexico guilty of negligence in the Ciudad Juárez feminicides” (Fregoso, “For the Women”).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/UWSC.