(Re )framing Testimonio on YouTube: Multimodal performances of dispossession in digital narratives of undocumented Youth
Pointing crucially mediate[s] between spaces and places" "saturating with lived experience what would otherwise remain an abstract spatial network of objects, sites, zones, and regions" according to Herman (Word Image/Utterance Gesture 88) Abstract pointing, I argue, metaphorically translates into performative naming that constitutes Butler's performative dimension of the speech act. For the speaker, this creates a way to perform non verbal naming while being able express additional information in the act of storytelling. Mohammad Abdollahi (2) Through abstract pointing, Mohammad translates the virtual space of the YouTube video the "imaginary space" (Hubler 46) into an abstract space in which he interacts with his audience. Through his slightly elevated position, he establishes a clear hierarchy between himself and his 'wider' audience, as the second screenshot shows. From left to right: Figure 24: "M.A. (2)_Me." YouTube. 2010. Author's screenshot. 18 July 2015. Figure 25: "M.A. (2)_You." YouTube. 2010. Author's screenshot. 18 July 2015. Introducing the DREAM Act that again was up for a vote shortly after his experience of dispossession in 2007 (having been around for at least six years at that time) Mohammad directly addresses his imagined audience (see Figure 25) by gesturing towards the camera and saying: "And I'm sure that all of you guys are familiar with the 'DREAM Act' or else you wouldn't be looking at this video right now" (00:03:1100:03:15) This statement not only saves him time to explain the meaning of the DREAM Act once more, the viewer also feels directly 'pointed at' and, literally, 'put on the spot' if he/she does not know about the political implications of the DREAM Act. Chapter 5: Visual Dispossession(s) and the Dynamics of the Performative 167 By pointing at himself, Mohammad victimizes his body; a process for which those politicians rejecting the DREAM Act could be accountable. By pointing at himself, he connects his personal story of dispossession to the DREAM Act, personalizing this political decision by accusing the "44 senators [who] decided that [he] didn't deserve a chance to go to college" of personally rejecting him (00:03:1700:03:22) While saying this, his fingers repeatedly point to himself (see Figure 24) Through this motion, Mohammed stresses the active and repeated denial of his apparently only chance to receive college education (the DREAM Act) which had been debated since 2001 and repeatedly failed. Carlos Roa (3) Speaking for the All Returning to the myth of the American Dream that Carlos refers to in the last episode, he argues that the United States "has prided itself on" the possibility to "change this country for the better" and that "at the turn of this century we saw how immigrants..em..you know, changed this nation for the better of Irish, of Polish, of Italian descent" then providing the connecting link to himself and his family, arguing that "we are no different than the immigrants from the past" (00:02:35 00:03:01) It is the human 'merit' which immigrants have 'contributed' to the nation that Carlos underlines heavily with this statement. While the verbal content of this episode is dominant, Carlos actively names 'undocumented immigrants' as 'those like him' with abstract pointing to himself. Figure 26: "C.R. (3)_We." YouTube. 2010. Author's screenshot. 21 July 2015. Since the viewer has been introduced to Carlos' ideals and dreams, he/she associates his story with that of 'all other immigrants' Through Carlos' performance of 'the' undocumented immigrant identity which, as he stresses, has been the same for centuries, he proposes a homogenized idea of immigrants undocumented and legal alike. This way, Carlos' testimonio assumes a 'voice for all' one could argue. However, the audiovisual format complicates the understanding of the 'voice for all' draChapter 5: Visual Dispossession(s) and the Dynamics of the Performative 168 matically: Carlos' digital testimonio on YouTube personalizes his 'voice for all' by not only 'speaking' for other immigrants but also by performing visual associations with identity categories. Most prominent is Carlos' performance of gender in the combination of the verbal and the visual. While Judith Butler strictly disconnects corporeality and cultural frameworks (cf. Jagger 78; Butler, Gender Trouble 140) "denaturalizing gender" and avoiding "biological determinism" (Jagger 2) Carlos' verbal performances of masculinity appear quite gendered: As seen above, Carlos performs a version of masculinity that is based on the understanding of the desire of the patriotic male American to go to the army and serve his country; contributing to society. His verbal performance of strength and devotion is confirmed by his outer looks. Further, the shortly trimmed hair in particular visualizes this image of masculinity. Abstract pointing, thus, not only speaks for all other immigrants but also visualizes them, laying the grounds for stereotypes and generalizations. Mitzy Calderon (6) Racial Exclusion and Abstract Pointing Mitzy Calderon performs her story of dispossession by performing to us, the viewer, what the counselor said to her. She raises her left hand and displays her whole palm to illustrate that the latter could offer only 'limited help' with applying to colleges which do not require for students to provide social security numbers in order to be accepted. 107 Figure 27: "M.C. (6)_Performing Counselor." YouTube. 2012. Author's screenshot. 28 July 2015. Through this performance, the viewer experiences Mitzy's dispossession through her eyes, enabling viewers to understand her political statements. Realizing that she would have to pay out of state tuition in order to attend college at all, Mitzy shakes her head, folds her arms in protest, and explains that it "was definitely not an option for [her]" Without explaining to whom she actually exactly refers, she then gives the 107 Other types of gestures are included in this discussion of abstract pointing in order to correctly grasp the context in which Mitzy uses the latter. Chapter 5: Visual Dispossession(s) and the Dynamics of the Performative 169 following reason for her rejection of paying that tuition: "We are treated as international students" (00:02:46 00:02:49) From left to right: Figure 28: "M.C. (6)_International Students." YouTube. 2012. Author's screenshot. 28 July 2015. Figure 29: "M.C. (6)_We." YouTube. 2012. Author's screenshot. 28 July 2015. As one can see in the Figure 28, Mitzy frames the words 'international students' with two slow, strong beats. Like typographical tools for written language, these beats underline the verbal utterance and give it emphasis; even while transmitting her disapproval. Secondly, Mitzy marks herself with abstract pointing as she talks about herself and undocumented students as 'we' This gesture illustrates to the viewer that the ways she looks, acts, behaves, thinks and talks resemble ways of all other undocumented students. The visuals therefore draw a representative picture for the viewer of what an undocumented student really is, instead of leaving it up to the viewer's imagination. This performance is automatically transferred to that of all other immigrants in her situation. This might eliminate, on the one hand, prejudices and stereotypes that unaffiliated viewers could have, but it also might create new ones. At the same time, her performance establishes a binary between herself (as representative of undocumented students) and 'internationals' As Mitzy rebuffs the 'option' of attending university as an 'international' she distances herself from her immigrant background and does this not only for herself, but for all other undocumented students. In a second step, Mitzy connects this visual performance of 'the undocumented immigrant' signified through abstract pointing, to racial discrimination. She exclaims angrily that she should be allowed to attend an American university, as she considers herself no different from any other American, except for the fact that she is "not white" does not have "blue eyes" and does not have "a damn social" (00:03:1900:03:23) Here, as Paul Gilroy stresses, race is "an analytical category" that "refers investigation to the power that collective identities acquire by means of their roots in tradition" (418) Accordingly, Mitzy connects racial discrimination (as a woman of Chapter 5: Visual Dispossession(s) and the Dynamics of the Performative 170 Mexican origin) with her dispossession (in Butler and Athanasiou's second, literal sense) as an undocumented immigrant who does not possess a social security number and is hence excluded from citizenship rights, highlighting the intersectional character inherent in her performance and hence protest of dispossession. As Elam and Elam point out, race "must always be considered as a shifting variable among many" (191) highlighting its intersectional character. Therefore, "race is salient at different moments in relation to class privilege, social position, gender, sexual orientation, nation, and so on" (ibid) Athanasiou, too, argues that "we have to turn to the structure of dispossession that organizes contemporaneous forms of colonialism, slavery, racial and gender violence" (26) To Mitzy, the exclusion from Georgia universities connects to racial discrimination, equating it with in Athanasious' words "subjectifying and simultaneously desubjectifying and dispossessing violence" (27) Mitzy's equation makes sense since quite literally, "the logic of dispossession is interminably mapped onto our bodies, onto particular bodies inplace, through normative matrices but also through situated practices of raciality, gender, sexuality, intimacy, able bodiedness, economy, and citizenship" (18) Within this understanding of the performance of racial dispossession through the use of verbal utterances and gestures such as abstract pointing in Mitzy