One of our authors Alex sat down with Bryan Q to discuss masculinity, especially in what it means in his Latino and Latino-American culture.
Could we get a pronoun that you use?
I use he/him pronouns.
What does masculinity mean? Masculinity means you personally.
I’m not sure. I wanted to say that it’s the macho aspect of it. If you are, man enough, and all that. I also want to say it’s a mindset that I think of as being too old and too out of date to use properly.
So, you said you feel like it’s an out-of-date term.
I feel like it’s an out-of-date term. Like, I don’t think that we should incorporate masculinity into raising children, specifically, like the old toxicity aspects of it. Actually, because I’ve got a firsthand experience of what being raised cathartically by these mindsets and I know what they do to you. So I just don’t agree with them, and I want to move past that to something like, newer, more. More accepting of everyone involved whenever you’re raising a child.
Have you ever had a specific experience where you tried to live up to somebody else’s standard of masculinity and felt bad about yourself?
Oh, yes. Let me think. So, college is an important thing in my specific community, because us immigrants from Mexico, some people that I’ve met have papers others don’t have papers and it’s kind of like a big deal to us. So, one of the most common things that I have learned how to deal with is getting my parents to accept what I want to do with my life, as opposed to their vision, which is what they only envisioned for me. In a sense they want everything they’ve done for me to be like “worth it”. They want me to be in a worthwhile position in life, like they want me to be a doctor, something that makes six figures a year. Which I understand. I understand it’s because of the whole Mexican aspect of it, how things are in Latin America, and whatnot. So, to summarize it, I want to say that it’s that a high paying job does lead to someone being deemed more masculine.
What is the dichotomy between their expectations and what you want to do? And what is it that you want to do?
I actually wanted to be a musician for most of my life right now. Because of tinkering with electric guitars, and electric basses, synthesizer, and all that I want to actually work on electronics now. I still want to be a part of the medical field, because that’s all I’ve known for most of my life. But I don’t think that I personally want to go through all the biology classes and all those all those other classes like paying through college, just to get a degree in something that I don’t personally think I’ll be super ecstatic with. So, I changed my mindset on wanting to go into the medical field and be firsthand with dealing patients instead, going towards fixing things around like hospitals, areas like hospital beds, maybe even like X ray machines and being a technician.
Sounds kind of ironic, because it sounds to me like you’re still working towards a stable, high paying job, not the route that they expected.
Actually, yes, I thought about being a blue-collar worker for a long time. Like, I’ve always had like a mindset of wanting to fix things personally and I’ve also known that blue-collar workers don’t have to put in like, those insane like eight year college, eight years of college, get a masters or 12, 14, 16 years to get a doctorate in whatever field and then so just go to a tech school or a trade school and get their degrees that way and their certification. So, yeah, I still want to prove that aspect to work towards my parents, as well as kind of towards myself that I can do something like this.
At the beginning you were talking about masculinity in Latino culture. Could you tell us the differences between a classic American version of masculinity and the Latino version? if any?
Alright, so my understanding of American masculinity is what I’ve gotten from Hollywood movies, and then having experiences like high school, middle school. Whether it was in the locker rooms, classrooms or at lunch, American masculinity has always been like the Hollywood definitions. Actually, as I said before, I’ve always thought that American masculinity comes from these stereotypes that a man has to be the primary breadwinner as well the head of the family and all that and I want to say like, the biggest difference between that and Latino masculinity is in Latino masculinity it is so much more important that men need to be the primary breadwinners
I’ll explain this aspect of family life in America compared to other countries. Hispanics often live with their families into their 20s or their 30s. But here in America, I’ve noticed that people move out at around 18 20. I want to say that a big part of this is due to money constraints, like I believe everyone would want to move out of their parents’ homes at 20. But I don’t think they can, because most jobs like in Mexico, in particular pay maybe not even like $5 an hour. So, I want to say this is another big aspect of Mexican toxic masculinity, being enforced with them is just being around their families for way too long. Like there’s no real way that they can think of their own
You were telling that earlier about being like raised Catholic on how you think that was conceptions of masculinity are influenced by Catholic conquests
I don’t think it stems from conquering Latin American countries. But I do want to say that it is based around the impact of the Catholic Church and communities. It wasn’t till a little while ago that I actually learned how important the church is towards the communities because I stopped attending church at an earlier age than most due to not having enough time with my family to go. However, one of my friends from here actually explained to me that churches are a way to get the whole family together as well as having a place for kids to go. Now, I want to say that it may be the same thing over in Mexico.
My viewpoints on the Catholic Church changed in the short span that I texted you that and this video call. It shifted more towards blaming the Bible for toxic masculinity. The Bible itself plays a huge role in raising a family the Christian way, right? Some of the Bible verses have a little undertone on how a man should be if you take them out of context. I don’t have any on me right away. But I know that I’ve seen someone on Instagram post a picture of them drinking a beer or being with their family and the caption will be a really off-topic Bible verse. Like, what were you getting out with this man?
We’ve talked about how masculinity is a huge part of Latino culture and how you broke away from that a bit by not really going to church and pursuing music over something like medicine. Has anyone ever made you feel like you’re insulting your heritage by not following it?
Apart from like, family members, immediate family members, like my father and my mother? Not really. Everyone else understands what it is like after a certain age. They understand that you’re trying to do your hardest, and they will respect you for it.
Could you just tell us a little bit about your dad, like what he does?
He’s a great man. He’s doing his hardest to help out with our family, my mother’s family, and his family. From a young age he’s always been working because we needed money or family needed money. He’s a great person, a great role model because he’s so accepting and willing to change. Things have gotten better and we have money now to be more comfortable. With more money comes more room for personal expression. But it wasn’t that way, it was kind of hard sometimes.
Is there anything else you want to add?
I want to say change. I want to say that changing your mindset usually is a very hard thing to do, right? Especially whenever it’s like a whole culture thing. But the easiest way to change these things is starting from the children. If the children have a good father figure telling them, hey, you need to chill out with some of the things that they are doing or some of their mindsets about toxic masculinity, it’ll give us more hope for the future. But, change starts with the children. Start with kids.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity
