El Que Diran

Ish Ruiz Chisme Symposium Transcript

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Intro: The chisme Symposium.

Neomi De Anda: Now hello and welcome to the Chisme Symposium. Today I am here with Dr. Ish Ruiz. I am so excited to be here with Ish because he and I have multiple overlapping areas of scholarship and concern and life. Not only are we both theologians, we are also both Lay Marianists. We are also both Marianist [00:01:00] University educated.

The fun thing for Ish though is that he is an alumni of the University of Dayton, and I think he has some fun stories, at least one coming to us about UD itself, and some UD Chisme. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and maybe start with telling us a little about your day. 

Ish Ruiz: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

It's an honor to be here on the symposium, and especially back at my Alma Mater. So, it's great to be here. Yeah, it's, it's been a great day. We had a, uh, well, I had a, a day of travel, which was a little hectic, but once I got here, it was great to have a conversation with fellow lgbt/ queer educators throughout the University of Dayton.

We had a luncheon, which was great. And yeah, we had a great conversation about the role of queer persons in Catholic institutions, which is a central part of my research. The conversation was really beautiful, really powerful , and really inspiring. So I'm glad to be here now and talk about Chisme.

Neomi De Anda: Thank you so much for joining us, and I'm so excited to be able to talk more about Chisme. We actually started a mini conversation. Back in Atlanta during the Q & A of one of my talks. So it's gonna be fun to talk more about your work with chisme and your thinking about [00:02:00] it. So today we're talking about the importance of chisme in the Latinx coming out process and seeing it as a double edged sword.

You wanna tell us a little bit more of your thoughts around this? 

Ish Ruiz: Yeah, absolutely. So as we know. Latinx communities can be quite tight-knit, especially someone like myself who grew up in Puerto Rico. And so we're no longer a small community within a broader white culture, but rather it permeates everywhere.

And there is this, this culture of el que diran, of "What will people say?". [

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And so chisme for me was always the double-edged sword growing up. On the one hand it was a valuable source as you discussed in your research. And, amply in your research; it is a resource for these subversive themes and discourses to be able to be talked about.

And that was true. It allowed me to get in crucial information about certain things that I needed to sometimes navigate my world, my society. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: My relationships even on, on the other hand, I was [00:03:00] keenly aware of that. Anything I do will be talked about. My parents sometimes use that to do often get us to do certain things, so be careful.

Clean up your room because they're gonna see it and then they're gonna think you're messy. 

Neomi De Anda: The way you say it, it's almost like it's a monster, like some nebulous monster, el que diran. 

Ish Ruiz: It is, yeah, exactly. It's a very pervasive worry that many Hispanic families have. Mm-hmm. I'm thinking of this really famous and popular show on Netflix, La Casa del Flores, the House of Flowers.

Oh, yeah. And the main character so obsessed with just keeping everything picturesque. Mm-hmm. And beautiful. And, and, and I thought that, that was really important for me when, when I, when I found out, when I started coming into terms with my queerness, specifically my identity as a gay man.

I. You know, this, this childhood idea of el que diran came first. 

Neomi De Anda: Oh wow. 

Ish Ruiz: What will they think of me? 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Also, what will they think of our [00:04:00] family? What will they think of us? What about the church? And so it became that double-edged sword in a sense, because I well, that, that's one edge of the sword, right? Is that the idea that this culture that has chisme as a part of it can be harmful to me or to my family. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. Can, can I stop you for just a minute? Yeah. And we'll come back to the other side of the sword, but what does el que diran have to do with your Catholicism and your understanding of Catholicism, your own Catholic practices or your families? 

Ish Ruiz: Absolutely.

That's a great question. Our communities were incredibly embedded in the Catholic church, so my entire neighborhood. I lived in this small gated community off of, right off of San Juan. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And our neighbors were our best friends. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm. 

Ish Ruiz: And we all went to the same church. 

Neomi De Anda: Okay. 

Ish Ruiz: And. We all went to Catholic schools.

Neomi De Anda: Did you all go to the same schools too? 

Ish Ruiz: My, there, there were, there were several rival schools in Puerto Rico, so we all went to different ones. Mm-hmm. But my immediate [00:05:00] family mostly went to the same Catholic school, which was the Marianist all boys high school in Puerto Rico, Colegio San Jose. So the, the boys in my family all went there.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Or at least, uh, that some of the boys in my family, the other ones went to C o l e g i o San Antonio, which was two blocks away from Colegio San Jose. So we were all in the Catholic schools within the same vicinity. And that the, the culture is really, really subscribed to this Catholic you know, this Catholic way of being, which, and this is what's interesting, it's like.

They largely misinterpreted Catholic teaching, right? Mm-hmm. So, but, but it was clear to me growing up that being queer was not a good thing. 

Even though the Catholic church officially teaches that a sexual orient-, a homosexual orientation in and of itself is not sinful. 

That's not how the majority of the society perceives

church teaching. So they immediately equate being gay with being in sin in the state of sin. Now those, so those nuances are lost 

Neomi De Anda: mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: In the culture, but but yeah, so we, we grew up with this, uh, incredibly immersive Catholic faith. Incredibly immersed in the Catholic faith, but also at the same [00:06:00] time, uh, with this culture that has this idea of like, you are on a magnifying glass 

Neomi De Anda: mm-hmm.

Ish Ruiz: The entire time. 

Neomi De Anda: And that had something to do with, being queer, not being part of that larger Catholic fabric and to the point that it was understood as sinful. So, that then allowed both for the magnifying glass, but also to be able to use that magnifying glass as a way against people to police, basically.

Right. Or 

Ish Ruiz: yeah, to police. 

Neomi De Anda: And or to even horrify. I mean, I, I described it as sounding like a monster, but I guess a, a sense of creating some sense of surveillance. 

Ish Ruiz: Yeah. There was, there was this sense of surveillance and it's all tied to what I would call right, this machisma culture where in Puerto Rico you are expected to be a man.

Mm-hmm. And the man looks in a certain way and heterosexuality is folded into that. So you, I have to be able to conquer, I would say, even dominate a woman. 

And that is a part [00:07:00] of some of the, some of those parts of a, of my own Puerto Rican culture that I tend to address.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And, and try to transform.

Right. But yeah, it, it, it all came together. And of course, Catholic theology informs that the Catholic Church teaches that the family is the building block of society. And so there's this connection between this world we're building 

In Puerto Rico and our faith. And oftentimes this e l q u e d i r a n became.

A tool to keep people in line. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And I thought, I, and I, you know, as a, as a queer theorist, I also believe that there's a weakness there and that they are a, there's a, there's a little bit of, they're a little threatened. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Right. I think a lot of, these, these machisma expressions of heteronormativity 

Neomi De Anda: mm-hmm.

Ish Ruiz: are merely threatened by the idea that someone can live a different. Sexual life and lifestyle. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And still be completely human, completely loved by God, completely all of those [00:08:00] pieces. And 

Puerto Rican 

Neomi De Anda: and look up Bad 

Bunny. 

Oh, that's a whole different discussion. I'm not sure we're ready for that one.

Ish Ruiz: We're not ready. We're not ready. What happens when a, when a when one of the most popular artists in the world does a video in drag? 

Neomi De Anda: Yeah. 

Ish Ruiz: You know, it's a challenge and. You know, but, but you know, and, and I don't, I don't discuss much of Bad Bunny's actual sexual identity. But even in Puerto Rican culture, there is, in popular culture, there's certain emergence of a queer voice.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And so hopefully this el que diran is losing a little bit of its power. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And hopefully the queerness is becoming more normalized. So we shall see. 

Neomi De Anda: They might be becoming friends. Okay. So coming back and thank you for letting me distract you and pull you back. Coming back, you were talking about the one side of the sort of chisme being kind of a discourse and ability to gain some strength and power, a way to communicate things that may not other times we communicated. And then you said there's another side to that sort? 

Ish Ruiz: Absolutely. Yeah. Chisme uh, also provided me some safety. And here, here I have two coming out stories in my family that I wanna share. One of it was is, you know, my family, my [00:09:00] family found out I'm gay. I, it's hard for me to explain my coming out as a coming out.

Mm-hmm. Because it was more of a found out or a being taken out. 

Neomi De Anda: Right. Which is. Which is often the case.

Ish Ruiz: That is true. And in, in my case, it happened when my parents overheard a conversation that I was having on the phone.

Neomi De Anda: Mm. 

Ish Ruiz: With my at the time time partner. 

Neomi De Anda: Okay. 

Ish Ruiz: Okay. And, chaos ensued. My parents and I have a great relationship right now.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, and they love my partner more than they like me. I jokingly say no, they, they really, they, he, they're my best friends. And, and we got along really well, but it was not always the case. And at, at first it was really hard for them to accept my queerness. But chisme kind of became an interesting avenue for me to, uh, especially connect with someone like my mom.

Where. You know, my, my queerness on, on the, that first edge of the sword was, oh el que diran. This is going to hurt our family. On the second edge of the sword, though, my queerness was almost a source of information as well, [00:10:00] and a source of conversation. And so I remember distinctly this one, this one time, I went to a gay bar.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Behind my parents' back. I obviously was hiding it. And my mom was like, where were you? Like, oh, we went out with some friends and we had food at Burger King and there was a Burger King right next to the gay bar. So my mom was like, did you go to that one place, you know, to that gay place?

And I thought, "oh my gosh." And so I had this idea and I thought. " Let me try to get into, let me try to get my mom onto a, onto a discourse level that I think she'll be more comfortable discussing this with." 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: So I went like this, I'm gonna say in Spanish first, I said.

So I said, and I'm gonna say it in Spanish first. "Si. Fui a la barra y adivina a quien vi. Yes. I went to the bar and guess who was there?" And she went "WHO?!?".

Neomi De Anda: So you 

even kind of used el que diran. 

Ish Ruiz: Oh, absolutely. 

Neomi De Anda: You invoked it. Wow. Okay. 

Ish Ruiz: What, what was interesting was that as soon as my parents were able to see that [00:11:00] I also have this ability to gather information and to have these conversations.

Neomi De Anda: Mm. 

Ish Ruiz: In this. In this playing field, see? 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: The first playing field was, did you go to a gay bar? 

The second one almost activated a second dimension of the conversation, which was, let me tell you something that you do not know 

Neomi De Anda: because you now had new intel. 

Ish Ruiz: Absolutely. And suddenly this became safe for her.

Heck, even beneficial. On hindsight, I would feel bad outing someone. Right. Without their, their consent or I, we don't want to tell people's stories. However, thankfully this person that was at the gay bar was someone who everyone already knew was gay.

Neomi De Anda: Okay. 

Ish Ruiz: But my mom was like I thought I knew it. You know, like, so it was almost like a confirmation. But 

Neomi De Anda: she appreciated the 

Ish Ruiz: confirmation, but she appreciated the confirmation. That was kind of interesting.

Neomi De Anda: And you handed it to her like a bouquet of flowers. 

Ish Ruiz: Oh, absolutely. And here's the second way I, I use chisme with my cousins.

I have a lot of cousins. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: They're all incredible human beings. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: I love them. They're also very overbearing and they want to know every single detail of your life. And then tell you how to live it if there is something that they find, [00:12:00] you know, needs to change. I was kind of scared. Uh, my cousin used to bully me when I was younger.

Neomi De Anda: Aw. 

Ish Ruiz: Uh, about being gay. Every time I would do something that would be deemed as gay, they would say "pa'la lista like, put it on the list."

So they kept this list of gay things. I did. 

Neomi De Anda: Aw. 

Ish Ruiz: So I was actually a little scared. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: I said, I thought, you know, if they find out I'm gay, I don't know who they're gonna what, how they're gonna react.

But again, I had this idea, oh my gosh, chisme the way. So I grabbed the one cousin on each side of the family who I knew was gonna be okay with it, and I gave them homework. And the homework was chisme. I said, "I have to tell you something. I am gay. It is true." And like, "oh. Oh, okay." And I was like.

"Is that okay with you?" And they, as soon as they said, "yeah, yeah, I love you still.-

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: -I kind already knew this. 'cause I had already heard them talk about other queer people." So I was like, "okay, cool. I need your help. I need you to spread the word. I need you to gossip with everybody about this. I need you to tell them that I am gay and I need you to report back on their reaction.

'cause I wanna know who has a problem with it." And. Yeah, of course. They took this [00:13:00] homework assignment with incredible ex enthusiasm. They were like, 

Neomi De Anda: they gave 'em a full mission. 

Ish Ruiz: Oh yeah. But it's like the missions they wanted, don't worry, I got you. I will. I will find this out for you. And there was almost this excitement about them, about it for them.

And so yeah, little by little they started sharing with everybody and then they kept reporting back. Okay. I told these two. They said they're okay with it. I told these other ones, he feels bad for bullying you. I told these other, and that some of the folks that, that did bully me, 

Neomi De Anda: mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Even wrote me a message on Facebook and said, "Hey, I just want to apologize if I made it uncomfortable for you to share this with me."

And so now again, they also love my partner more than they like me. They literally FaceTime me. And they go, where's Dan? And I'm like, uh, he's at work. And they go, oh, okay. Disappointed immediately. Oh my God. 

Neomi De Anda: Like, okay, I guess we'll talk to you now. 

Ish Ruiz: I guess we'll talk to you. So, but, but it was chisme that kind of almost made it it was bearable for me.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: To, you know, to, to [00:14:00] come out to my cousins.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And that's how, that's how it all happened. 

Neomi De Anda: Wow. That's really, that's something else. It's a really smart way to do it too, that you, you activated chisme as a way of getting intel. Well, and I guess really, I think that's. One of the things I haven't talked a lot about or thought, I think I've thought about it, but we haven't talked about chisme as intel as ways of making sure people, where people are checking in with them.

I've definitely used it like things that I want to know. I think there's a leak in someone, you know, some community and so I have definitely used it and put it out there. Now people, anybody listening to this who knows me. Dear listener there would be like, is Neomi telling me this because she trusts me or because it's a test?

Ish Ruiz: Right. You 

should know. 

And it's funny because like, this protected both me, of course. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: But it also protected them to have a reaction. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: In that second dimension of chisme, that activation of this second mode of discourse, they were a little freer. To explore, you know, being accepting. 

Neomi De Anda: And it created an alternate [00:15:00] space too, so they weren't looking straight at you.

And so many times we think communication needs to be straightforward between one person and another, 

Ish Ruiz: right? Versus if this was discussed publicly, if it was found out more publicly, something online, for example. el que diran becomes the main concern. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm. 

Ish Ruiz: The other version of chisme was like, well, what would they say about our family?

Versus this way of chisme allowed me to actually even control. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: A little bit of like who was being told what and how and, and invite in a certain reaction. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Which was like, you know, uh. I, I, I kind of trusted these emissaries of these chisme emissaries to carry the, the, the word in a particular way, in a particular tone.

The message was more controlled. 

Versus if, you know, if a neighbor found me out and said, oh my god. And, you know, and shared it with my cousin in a negative light than perhaps my cousins would have reaffirmed, at least momentarily. 

Neomi De Anda: Right. 

Ish Ruiz: Who knows. 

Neomi De Anda: Yeah. And it might have. I now I wanna create a, like a comic strip series of el-, I don't know why I can't say that today.

El Que Diran and the chisme emissaries.

Ish Ruiz: The chisme emissaries. 

Neomi De Anda: Yeah. I can see them [00:16:00] going against each other or sometimes even becoming friends. It could be interesting. 

Ish Ruiz: That's right. 

Neomi De Anda: Alright, so you said you had a third story for us. 

Ish Ruiz: I do, and it's a, it's a similar story and it's a UD chisme story, so I was a frosh.

Yeah, it was a freshman year. This was back in, uh, 2006, 2007. That was my, no, 2000, yeah, 2007, 2008 was my freshman year. And, uh, I came to the University of Dayton pretending to be straight. I had, when my parents found out, found me out in, as a senior in high school. Part of their explosion and chaos was a period of conversion therapy, which I um. You know, and I drank the Kool-Aid. I tried, I genuinely tried, you know, to modify, alter my sexual orientation. And my coming to the University of Dayton was a fresh start. So I thought, new environment, 

I can really try this. You know, to put, to put into practice what I had, quote unquote learned.

And so [00:17:00] I attempted that for the first semester and the second semester, however, there was a cute guy sitting behind me in my education class. I was an education major. And I decided to try the gay thing again. Um, just to put it that way. Uh, so this person and I started, you know, informally seeing each other and I would tell my floor mates at, uh, the Marycrest dorm, uh, you know, I was, Hey guys, what are you up to?

Oh, I'm going over to the other, to the other dorm founder's dorm and I'm gonna hang out with someone. And they're like. Are you seeing someone? And so I thought, I said, yeah, I am seeing someone, but I pretended it was a girl. 

And, oh, who is she? It's like, oh, is this girl from Founders? When are we going getting to meet her?

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: I was like, oh, no, no. I don't want her to get too attached yet. I'm not too sure about her. You know? So I just played that off. Um, this one time I went, uh, on a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio with some, uh, Latino friends. And I left my computer on my desk. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And a downstairs, a girl who lived downstairs, her computer broke, so she needed a computer to do her homework.

And my roommate let her, 

Uh, use mine. And I'm, I, [00:18:00] I, I, I already dated myself. But back then, it was AOL instant messenger aim.

Neomi De Anda: That's 

how I met my husband. 

Ish Ruiz: Wow. 

Neomi De Anda: I know. That's, a story 

Ish Ruiz: well, that's how I was outed at UD 

Neomi De Anda: for a different day. Oh, no. 

Ish Ruiz: So she opened it, popped. She opened the computer, the aim popped, and she read my conversation with this person, with this guy, and then she was like, oh my God.

Whole history and I was like, "what's going on?" 

Neomi De Anda: Whole history 

would come up, right? 

Ish Ruiz: Oh yeah. 

Neomi De Anda: Like now they I think too many people got outed with that kind of stuff because now the histories disappear. 

Ish Ruiz: Okay. Yeah. So she, they definitely scrolled and read some conversations that were clearly, uh, indicative.

And so they basically. Told each other and they were like, "oh my God, Ish is gay. Oh my God, Ish is gay." Mind you, I am in Columbus, Ohio. I am an hour away at a meeting with Latinos. Oh. And then I come back and the next day, this person I was dating. Uh, breaks up with me because he didn't want 

Neomi De Anda: Oh, no. 

Ish Ruiz: To be no, he didn't want to be in a closeted relationship.

Neomi De Anda: Oh, 

Ish Ruiz: okay. He didn't think that it was working out. 

Neomi De Anda: I thought the chisme had gotten to him. 

Ish Ruiz: No, no, no. On the contrary, he, he wanted to be, and I was trying to hold everything back. I was trying to hide everything. So it took me a week to build up the [00:19:00] courage and be like, okay, I don't want this to happen again, so I'm going to actually tell one of my friends.

So I pulled one of my closest friends into the room and I'm pacing in front of him. I'm like, I have to tell you something, but I don't know how to tell you. And he eventually stops my pacing and goes, "Well, do you want me to tell you what I think it is?" And I look at him and I'm like, "do you know?" And he says, "uh, "Yeah, everyone knows."

And I'm like "how does everyone know?" And he goes, "well, this girl was on your computer last weekend and she saw your aim conversation." I put my hands to my face and I thought, and I sat on the bed and I was like, "what? This entire time I've been trying to build up the courage to come out to y'all, and y'all already have found me out." 

Neomi De Anda: For a week.

They were going around. 

Ish Ruiz: Yep. And I said, what is, uh, so obviously I was like. Oh, he says, "uh, so your roommate is waiting outside the door 'cause he wants to talk to you next. And after that he's gonna walk you over to the end of the hall [00:20:00] where we are in this other person's room and they're waiting for you there and they have a bunch of questions for you."

Neomi De Anda: Oh my goodness. 

Ish Ruiz: It was great. It was, uh oh. So my roommate came in. It was great. My roommate come in, he was like asking me all these questions and then we walked over. He's like, "so when did you know? And so you are dating this person?" And, and I had to tell him about the breakup. He's like, "oh, I'm sorry about that."

Well, then we walk you down the hall. And so there's literally a hot seat in this other room and everyone's just sitting, me sitting, uh, sorry, standing around it and asking me all these questions. Like, "so when did you know and wait, so does this mean you don't like girls at all?"

Neomi De Anda: Oh my gosh. 

Ish Ruiz: There were a few toxic ones like, "Wait, so we all shower in the same bathroom, but do you like check us out?"

To which I obviously lied and I said no.

Neomi De Anda: Just like everyone else lies. 

Ish Ruiz: Yeah, right. No, I'm not checking any of you out at all. You're all like my brothers. So it was a great, but, you know, then I started learning all these stories, like what happened this whole week that y'all already knew?

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Like were you just like pretending not to know? No, actually they were having chisme conversations among each other [00:21:00] to make sure that they were all on the same page on how they were going to. Accept me. Oh. Oh. Some of them struggled more with it and had to be convinced, like, hey, "Ish still the same person."

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Some of them obviously some of them were already like, oh, cool, that means nothing. 

And some were asking all these questions, wait, what does this mean? This means you're going to start, gonna start dressing up like a girl now.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Not at all. So all these things and, but chisme was that safe space for them to you know, kind of contend with my queerness.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And so when I started hearing all those stories later, I thought, oh wow, this is, I'm really grateful that's how that went down. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Because they really had time to, to rehearse. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And to practice and to prepare for this moment. 

Yeah, chisme.

And, and they're all white, so I think white people can understand chisme as well. 

Neomi De Anda: Oh this semester when I was first introducing the concept, I actually just started asking, instead of saying like, do you think everybody engages in chisme or asking any of that? I just said, think of a time you were told the story and someone told you not to tell it and then, but it was pressuring you somehow and you felt like you really needed to tell it. And then you told the story and so [00:22:00] everybody wrote it down and then everybody wrote things. I didn't ask them to write the story, but to write about the story. Like, what were the reasons that you shared it with someone else, or what were your concerns?

What led, so they wrote all of that on the front whiteboard, and then after that I said, we all engage in chisme, you know, it's just I believe it's something that. We all do. And we do it as you've said, largely because our own human curiosity gets us to the point that we're not so sure that what we're doing is what we should be doing or not.

And we all have our own kind of, ethical spaces or moral compasses. And then we also have el que diran, I'm totally adding that now. I'll cite you and all of those pieces that come together. And so in in using, having the ability to use Chisme I think, just allows people to be a little bit freer, even though many people are like, no, it's still evil, or it's still sinful.

And I still, I, I still am called out on that when I [00:23:00] give 

Ish Ruiz: yeah. 

Neomi De Anda: Talks. 

Ish Ruiz: And when you did the co the talk of the uh, the Candler School of Theology at Emory University where I was at the time working and we had this conversation where, you know, there is a way of really thinking. I mean, chisme can be used for harm.

Mm-hmm. And so intent really is a huge part of that. And consequence, reasonable consequences can be a huge part of that. I would, I would certainly consider using chisme to out someone sinful. 

Neomi De Anda: Right. 

Ish Ruiz: Except some people outed me and it actually improved my life. So it's a little more nuanced than that.

And so I, I, I, for example, like if I were to look back at this exam, at this story at UD. That girl who saw my computer actually don't know what was going through her mind. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm. 

Ish Ruiz: I think that if she went over and told my friends 

With the intent to mock, to bully, to harm 

Neomi De Anda: mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: I would consider that chisme as sin.

Neomi De Anda: Right. 

Ish Ruiz: Maybe there is something that we don't know. Maybe, maybe that was her way of coping. Mm-hmm. So maybe there is some, you know, something that can exculpate, you know, like, fine, but. If there is like that harmful intent, then like, yeah, I would consider chisme a sin. I would also consider truth telling a sin even if I, you [00:24:00] know, like, so even if it's not Chisme it's direct, 

Neomi De Anda: right?

Ish Ruiz: Like it can be sinful if it, if it has a, an intention, it comes with an intention to harm. Like I could go over to a student and be like. "Hey, you are, you know, you are an awful student." 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: And even though I might believe that, that, that to be true, and it might be a direct form of communication, that's not good speech either.

Especially if I am hoping to make that student feel shame. Right. Or feel bad. So yeah. That, that, that comes a long way. And also I do think, like reasonably responsibly thinking about our consequences also matters. 

Neomi De Anda: Hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: So if, if I, if, if. I'm going to engage in chisme, I think I do have the responsibility to think about, okay, what might be the consequences of my sharing this?

Mm-hmm. And so, for example, I know that if I share this with this person, this awful thing might happen. 

I think we might have a responsibility to, think twice. Like can you imagine me going up to someone and being, "Oh my god, I just [00:25:00] found out that so and so is undocumented." 

Neomi De Anda: Right. 

Ish Ruiz: And that person, and that could, 

Neomi De Anda: putting that on social media.

Ish Ruiz: Ooh. You know, so I think that there, that, as since you gave that talk, I've been trying to think about like, huh, I, I abide the main argument, which is like, chisme is a crucial form of discourse. 

And also, how do, how can we start thinking about responsibly using our speech, so that we do not really harm.

And those were the two things that came to mind. The intent and the, and the reasonable consequences. 

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: There are some things that, you know, like this girl that outed me, you know, maybe, maybe she did think about the consequences and maybe she thought, you know, like, this is.

This is something I think maybe she had the best intention, like you guys should really support Ish. He clearly is hiding something from you guys.

Neomi De Anda: Right. Or that there's 

Ish Ruiz: how wonderful 

Neomi De Anda: That there can simultaneously be both intent to care and intent to harm. Or 

Ish Ruiz: right 

Neomi De Anda: meaning, or the other side, just caring for [00:26:00] someone may actually harm someone else and 

Ish Ruiz: mm-hmm.

Neomi De Anda: Um, in the sharing of information, so whoever the person was who shared, who read the I Am and then shared it may have been thinking about. Your roommates or your friends and, and saying, this is important in the relationship, not so much thinking about you. You know? 

Ish Ruiz: Right. 

Neomi De Anda: It, that's an interesting way too, of thinking about sometimes people talk about the preferential option for the poor, the marginalized, and the young, and I think about that in like what happens when we're looking at different categories and different levels of being poor, marginalized, oppressed, silenced.

Ish Ruiz: Mm-hmm. 

Neomi De Anda: Young. And we don't want competing categories, but we want something that has people, who are able to care for each other while also knowing that doing X, Y or Z may actually cause harm. I was just at the National Museum of Mexican Art this weekend, and they activated the [00:27:00] baseball field behind the museum too.

I think it's a baseball, it doesn't matter. It's a large field. For families to bring their altares/ofrendas de muertos, and they had an ID family sign up, but that's a public space. And with the ICE raids in Chicago, then there was an extra danger to having these people come out and place themselves in this space who may have mixed document status in their family or documents not recognized by the USA and the ICE helicopter was flying overhead.

And so in this way of bringing together community and activating the space and having people, celebrate their tradition and doing all of these things, it, there was also an extra level of danger that even the museum, while they put some other things in place to try to care for people that said, we can ultimately not provide complete care for everyone.

And just there, there's something to me so difficult about being in those situations and especially finding myself in more and more of those situations. 

Ish Ruiz: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. [00:28:00] I feel like chisme you know, becomes, it's almost a neutral tool. Mm-hmm. And it depends on how it's wielded, right?

Mm-hmm. It's kind of like power. It's a form of doing that, 

Neomi De Anda: right? 

Ish Ruiz: It's a form of wielding power, which can be used to oppress or to liberate. And you know, think about like the, the networks of information that we have. Right now, even in the face of these ICE raids, right? Mm-hmm. And the networks of, of hidden dialogue that are happening with the intent to protect and to, it's, yeah, I am, I am grateful that as a Latinx culture and community, we have these networks and I, I, I know friends who, are constantly checking in on their undocumented parents.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Or, you know, they are. They know who's undocumented, so they, because they've chismed they've gossiped about it. 

Neomi De Anda: Right. 

Ish Ruiz: So they now have the intelligence, the intel, right. The info to know who they have to look out for. And so, so as a community, I am grateful that, that we have [00:29:00] almost like those networks built in.

Neomi De Anda: Yeah. Well, and, and that there's. It's also interesting though because I don't think that all of us as Latinas all fall in that same place of being trusted or being able to be trusted. So it. I think chisme is a way to be able to check that out as you did with your family of creating that third space and saying who can be trusted and who cannot, you know, with this information.

Like mm-hmm. Maybe I can trust you to make me a key lime pie. I don't know why the all that. Right, 

Ish Ruiz: exactly. 

Neomi De Anda: But can I, this information, can I trust you with this information over this part of me or with this part of this community or, uh, 

Ish Ruiz: yeah. And there are these chisme emissaries where. Yeah, we know that some people will engage in this chisme to find that out.

With us though, they'll, they'll almost be like complicit with us in, in making something in finding something out or in testing out some information. And, and I can think of [00:30:00] that. I can think of like, one of my, one of my best friends is actually my hairstylist and it's a prime chisme location.

Right. So I think beauty salons are, you probably heard that song from In the Heights, right? 

Neomi De Anda: Yeah. 

Ish Ruiz: Tell me something. I don't know. Yeah, so it's, come on. So it's interesting because he and I know most of the same people and. Yeah. We share information with each other and a lot of times we share information with each other, with the aim to, you know, support a friend.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Hey, this person yeah. Was doing this, this happened to this person, or this happened to that person, and it it, but what's interesting between him and I is that we almost have this agreement that nothing that you share will, come back to you or will be used to harm.

Neomi De Anda: Mm-hmm. 

Ish Ruiz: Or will be used to, you know, for me to gain power or to gain notoriety or something.

It's almost like, 

Neomi De Anda: or they even leave the space. It's almost like we, we can use this space to get this out. But 

Ish Ruiz: yeah, and also, but also to support and to help you know, how many times, you know, a friend is struggling and, and I find out from him that he is. And I'm not gonna be like, Hey, so and so told me you're struggling.

No, but I will be. Hey, what are you up to? What are you up to? I haven't seen you in a while. Wanna grab a 

coffee? 

Neomi De Anda: Now you outed your source though 

Ish Ruiz: huh? 

Neomi De Anda: You've [00:31:00] now outed your source on this podcast. 

Ish Ruiz: Well, I actually have like three hairstylist, so I'm gonna let them figure out which one it is. 

Neomi De Anda: Oh, that's good.

That was good. That's hilarious. I know you've had a long night and a really long travel day, so thank you for doing this. 

Ish Ruiz: Yeah, thank you. No, thank you. I appreciate this ongoing conversation and the way you do research that is both, academic but also ongoing, and publicly accessible. So thank you for the invite to be here and participate in your incredible work. 

Neomi De Anda: Well, I love that I was able to do this with you in person and not just on Zoom because there's something different. So you all who cannot see us, it's really a great time to be able to talk with someone in studio rather than just straight on Zoom.

Although on Zoom you'd be seeing the faces we're making at each other that you won't see otherwise. But thank you listeners for listening to us. And chisme is the way, is going to be the next t-shirt that I buy, I have made and buy and I'll cite you for that too. It might say chisme emissary on the backside.

So 

Ish Ruiz: that's love. That's lovely. That's awesome. 

Neomi De Anda: Thank you so much Dr. Ish Ruiz for joining us today on the Chisme Symposium. 

Ish Ruiz: Thank you very much for having me.

Outro: The Cheese Symposium is [00:32:00] produced by Naomi DeAnda, PhD, executive Director of the International Marian Research Institute and professor in the Department of Religious Studies. And in the Race and Ethnic Studies, Latinx, Latin American studies program at the University of [00:33:00] Dayton.