The Chisme Symposium: What We Don't Talk About

TRANSCRIPT

Neomi De Anda: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Chisme Symposium. This is a great opportunity that we're coming together to talk about nothing other than Chisme and maybe share a little bit of Chisme.

My name is Neomi De Anda. I'm an Associate Professor at the University of Dayton. I am in the religious studies department, as well as teach in the race and ethnic studies program, particularly in the Latinx/Latin American studies minor, hopefully soon to be major.

And today we are here. Again, to talk about Chisme in one of two conversations we'll be having on this topic. Today's conversation is focused on a little song that we don't talk about. And I checked about the copyright infringement, so we can't play any portion of the song. We can name it, we can reference it, [00:01:00] we can, we can talk about it, but I was hoping we could play a tiny clip, but that's not the case.

So, if you have not heard about Bruno, then I recommend going to find it in Disney's Encanto, We Don't Talk About Bruno, and we definitely don't play it. So today, we're looking a little bit at what is it about We Don't Talk About Bruno that makes it such a smash hit. It's written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

It's a fascinating song because it made the top of the Billboard Global 200, and is in its 19th week on the chart, it made the Billboard Hot 100. Number one, both of those number one, and it was on number one together. And then on the hot 100, it was on for five weeks. It's the first Disney song in 29 years to hit number one. A quick Google search for the song yielded about [00:02:00] 13 million, almost 14 million results in 0.52 seconds. Thank you for that search engine and giving us such precise timing.

And so, why is it that We Don't Talk About Bruno is so often heard, so often discussed? There's so many articles. Actually, this conversation came from an article that Patrick Reyes posted on social media and began a small discussion there.

So is it the suave salsa cha cha beat? Is it the characters voices? Is it that children seem to love Encanto? My theory is that it is Chisme. So, in a February 3rd, 2022, Atlantic article titled The Biggest Reason We Don't Talk About Bruno is a hit, Spencer Kornhaber writes a message. At [00:03:00] first, listen, the meaning of We Don't Talk About Bruno is pretty unclear.

The song advances a larger, complex plot by expressing an extremely particularly, particular concept, the estranged uncle of a supernaturally powerful family used to tell gloomy prophecies that turned out to be true and said family doesn't like to talk about all of that anymore. But within the context of Encanto, or with repeated plays of the song, the overarching narrative starts to feel simpler.

The members of a clan are gossiping about an outcast who is disliked for reasons that the listener begins to suspect are not entirely fair. Some commentators have written about how this concept triggered a strong emotional reaction in them. Bruno could be thought of as a stand in for someone with misunderstood mental health conditions, or as someone who just doesn't belong.

Many people have experienced group dynamics in which [00:04:00] rumor, shaming, and silence beat out dialogue and empathy as much of the clockwork catchiness of the song is creating the fascination with it. Relatable themes about the marginalization and family dynamics may be pulling listeners back to the song too. End quote.

So what is Chisme? I've been talking about Chisme since 2008. I happened to actually stumble upon it because I was writing a paper actually on telenovelas. And in that paper,  where I watched a couple of different telenovelas, La Chocolate and Betty La Fea, I realized that the primary conduits for moving the plot was Chisme.

That was ultimately what created not just the plot twists and turns, but how the main characters move pieces along. So, what is it? If we look at the historical roots of Chisme, some [00:05:00] people would translate this in English to gossip. We find an interesting array,  the root, the actual root for the word Chisme is unknown.

There's some speculation that things that might come from chinche, which is a parasitic bug, could include bug beds. Some people say it may come from schism, or schismar, to enter into discordance, or, excuse me, divisions. Definitions for Chisme include, quote, noticia falsa or mal comprobada, que sea rumorea, trasto insignificante.

So, it could be false or bad, rumors, insignificant. It always seems to carry a negative connotation, yet the history of the word gossip comes from a very different place. The 14th to 18th century texts that include the word gossip use it to mean godparent. From the 14th to late 19th century, a gossip [00:06:00] could also be one of a number of women invited to be president, present, not president, or present, at the birth of a child.

Gossip, as one, mostly a woman, who engages in idle talk can be found in documents from the 16th to 19th century. And, quotes,  gossip can also be a primary means of building and sustaining communities. Community cannot emerge without intimacy and gossip enables people to explore the lives of others.

Shared intimacy leads to bonding, not only by linking us to the life of the one who is being gossiped about, end quote. There are just many, many things going on with gossip. However, I like the word Chisme. I was raised with that word, and like a recent Latino USA podcast mentioned that they also preferred Chisme over gossip.

It just [00:07:00] seems, it seems, familiar and familial and,  close to our hearts, it seems,  for many latino, latinos, latinas, latine, latinx, whatever your word choice is,  or whatever is vogue today,  seems to be something that brings us all together. I, there is merchandise, I'm not selling this t-shirt behind me, but a friend of mine actually sent me this when she read something I wrote, and so, it's just something that seems to have some sort of cultural coming togetherness.

It brings us all together. So, what do I think about Chisme? First, I think Chisme shows human finitude. It often includes how one person has fallen short or what we believe is necessary to live one's best life. [00:08:00] It allows us to understand ourselves better because it compels us to be self-reflective.

Chisme sets the daily rhythms of life. It's usually based upon questionable behavior. It can be an interpretive tool that forces us to re-examine ourselves within our normative contexts. Some say we are always discerning what God asks of our lives and Chisme makes us engage and interpret our moral behavior.

That was actually an insight that came from Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzalez into my work and conversations about him. But when talking about this in other contexts, I use the example of. Third, Chisme provides a way for us to express in daily life that we are humans filled with contradictions. Chisme allows us to check our experience against those of others and functions as a language of the people.

And finally, Chisme involves both intimacy and vulnerability. We share Chisme [00:09:00] with people we trust and with whom we wish to build closer relationships. End quote. So, because, as I said, this conversation started on social media because of an article that was posted by Patrick Reyes, we are here to have this great conversation as a follow up to that, and hopefully as a beginning to many other ongoing conversations.

So, today we have with us again, Edwin David Aponte, who is currently the Executive Director of the Louisville Institute and, starting June 1, 2022, he will be Dean of the Theological School of Drew University. Aponte holds degrees from Gordon College, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and Temple University where he received both an MA and PhD.

As a cultural historian, Aponte explores faith, spirituality, and culture, especially the intersections of race, [00:10:00] ethnicity, and religion, congregational studies, and religion and politics. His writings include Santo, Varieties of Latino Spirituality by Orbis Books, 2012, and he is coeditor of the Latina/o Theologies Handbook. It's actually a Handbook of Latino Theologies by Chalice Press, and coauthor of Introducing Latinx Theologies with Miguel A. de la Torre, also from Orbis Books.

Patrick Reyes is the author of the award-winning books, The Purpose Gap, Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive, and Nobody Cries When We Die, God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood. He is the host of The Sound of the Genuine Podcast, a Chicano educator, administrator, and institutional strategist.

He is the senior [00:11:00] director of learning design at the Forum for Theological Exploration. He's the president elect of the Religious Education Association. He serves on several boards in higher education and in the nonprofit sector, supporting the next generation of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Chicano leaders.

So, I will let them each speak for about seven to ten ish minutes and then we will continue with a conversation.

Edwin Aponte: Thank you, Dr. De Anda. It's great to be here with you and Dr. Reyes and to talk about Bruno. I want to reinforce the invitation from Dr. De Anda that separate from this podcast, you must view this song and performance of We Don't Talk About Bruno separately and then bring it together with our conversation here because that certainly is in my mind as I reflect about this.

One of the reasons why I resonated with this song when I first [00:12:00] heard it and saw it was it got me thinking about the lived experience that I have as a religious studies scholar, as an ordained clergy person, the work that I do with grantees in the world of philanthropy, work I do in graduate theological education, the work I do in local congregations about what is really going on in everyday life.

And this song in its few minutes, captures one dimension of this, and the Chisme that's there, and the irony that's there in the performance. Alright, the songs, we don't talk about Bruno and the entire song are the characters talking about Bruno. And the talking of Bruno in the song takes elements of their own experience of Bruno, either directly or indirectly.

And they tie it to their own life [00:13:00] experience and ascribe Things that happen in their own lives, and I think rightly, unfairly, on Bruno. So, Bruno becomes a foil to explain something that has happened in their lives that has nothing to do actually with Bruno. And so that's part of lived experience, right?

Lived religion, lived everyday reality. People taking what they are experiencing and making connections with the wider world. I'm also fascinated with Bruno, the song Bruno and the performance there, as I learned more about how it was created. As was mentioned,  the great Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the song.

And in a New York Times article from January 13th, 2022, there's some description about that the two directors, Jared Bush and Byron Hall, and co-director,  Charisse Castro Smith and Anton [00:14:00] McDonagall, they talked with Miranda in a brainstorming session and they were doing it, of course in a remote digital way like we all were doing during the height of the pandemic.

And let me just quote for a minute here is that we could see Lynn thinking and he looked at us and said It feels like a spooky ghost story, like a spooky montuno, tuño. And then they saw Miranda compose, drawing on this Cuban musical pattern, and created the song. And so, the other dimension about We Don't Talk About Bruno is how it draws on this montuno, which is a syncopated piano rhythm that draws on traditional Cuban music, which is actually, of [00:15:00] course, Cuban music is Afro Cuban music, right?

And that brings the African rhythms and themes to forward. And it also, because the film, the story is set in Colombia, that draws on Cumbia, and then also there are elements of Salsa and Rumba, and I mention all this because in We Don't Talk About Bruno, we see the kind of mixing that is also characteristic of the Latinx, Latinx, Latina, however we describe it, realities here in the United States.

So, the Chisme that we that we live into is also a mix of all these different things. The other reason that got me thinking using this We Don't Talk About Bruno as a springboard is something I had been thinking about for a long time in my work as a religious studies scholar.

And [00:16:00] my colleague, Miguel de la Torre, occasional writing partner regularly says to me, we will be at a professional gathering. Something happens.  Often the two of us are sitting in the back of the room so we could whisper to each other and exchange looks. We're doing the Chisme to each other and then when we leave the meeting, reflecting on what had just happened, Miguel will say to me, Dr. De La Torre will say to me, you will have to write the book because you know all the backstories.

And when I heard, We don't Talk About Bruno, that got me thinking about the development of what we often call Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, theologies in the United States. And there's one dimension of it that gets published, that gets printed in our books, our journal articles. But then there are other things, there are the backstories, [00:17:00] some of it that is great and.

Really gives us a better understanding of what's published. And then there are the stories that we don't tell, that still had a role in the production of that scholarship and what Dr. de la Torre wants me to do is to tell those stories that we don't tell.

And I know those stories, and I for myself, I've been noting them over the years, so I don't forget. But I'm not sure I want to tell those stories out in the open. And that, I think, is a dimension of Chisme for us to also explore. What are the things that we intentionally share not just with a small group or one or two but with larger audiences, but also what are the things that we very intentionally are never going to bring out in the open?

And yet, they still exist and [00:18:00] they still have influence in what we say and do. So there are many dimensions of Chisme, I think for us, just in terms of, everyday interpersonal relations in terms of communal relations, and also the impact that it has in the development of religious and theological scholarship.

So, I'll just stop right there and look forward to our conversation with each other.

Patrick Reyes: I appreciate that so much. I mean, I got little kids at home. So, this has been playing on repeat. My kids are nine and five, and, you know, we can't go through about singing it and replacing Bruno with just about everyone's name and the family, which I think is pretty much the point of Chisme, and of this song, you know, I'm thinking of the first time we watched the movie through.

And there's a beautiful moment where, you know, things are happening like facts. It rained, but when the, when the priest takes, you know, takes off his hair, said he was going to go bald. You know, my kids both yelled, like you, you know, like you went bald. [00:19:00] It's you on the, on the movie, you know, the gut thing, same thing.

I mean, it was just, it was so wonderful. And so joyful at the same time, it hides a lot of trauma, which I think is kind of How I grew up, like this is us talking about family members, someone we all love very dearly. And it's not really a question of what happened in the family. It's really a question of what the impact of these various things were happening.

And someone who just in Bruno's case in the movie was just naming. These things are happening. It's not like, it's not like, you know, the chances are good that they'll happen either way. You know, my family all the men in my family are bald. So it's like, that would have happened to all of us. Bruno could have said that about everyone.

So there's just, there's a piece of this, to me, that was so joyful, even in the way that it's trauma, just to see this represented, because I remember sitting at my grandmother's table and us, when aunties come through, my tití, or my cousins come through and we'd start talking about the person who wasn't in the room.

And it was [00:20:00] always, it was never really a question of like a specific event, a what, of course that happened. But it was also the how, you know, what was the impact, you know, what was going on in their psychology, which none of us actually know why they do the things they do or why they say the things they do, but we would start making up reasons.

I think that's really where Chisme kind of, I love the word where it's kind of, it's beyond gossip because gossip to me just feels like something that doesn't really fit the love and care that comes from the questions or the concern or the community member. We're not trying to push someone out. And again, what I love about Bruno's in this song, you don't really hear from the grandmother in the song, but you do see her at the end with Bruno.

And all they wanted was Bruno to be a part of the family. Like now at the end of the day, like you've been hiding in the walls. We wanted to see you and you actually, you can stop apologizing. Cause we just, we're glad you're here. So good to see music, Afro-Latino beat dropped in a song. It was not even the one [00:21:00] that the, that Disney had put up as their main hit.

This is a sleeper hit. They wanted, you know, the song that really appeared at the end that was performed at all the award shows that they really want that to be their primary song. The one about the two butterflies, I mean, it's very beautiful. It's a gorgeous song, but this took over, this is a sleeper hit.

And you've put it in contrast to what my kids have to watch in the white storytelling world. Let it go, man. That song has not died in a decade. I really wish it like, these are songs that are just not empowering to our people, not reflective of what, how our families operate. It's, it really is a communal story.

She's going to try to learn about this person who she's never known and has never understood. That's what my kids are going to do with that my brothers and sister, like they're going to ask other people about who is this person? Who is this Bruno? In my case, you know, [00:22:00] tell me about Uncle Kevin, tell me about Uncle Jason, you know, Cain and Katya, like we want to know who these people are.

My kids are going to ask those questions. They're going to go to other people, ask them, and they're going to try to have to piece together this. That's such a better version of, Hey, you're part of this family. FTE, the work that I do is really about vocation, about people's life's journey, about meaning and purpose.

That's how we construct our stories is in community with our people. It's not about creating the eye structure where you're singing, let it go. And, you know, it's all about you and you're in the center and doing all those cool moves that she does. This is what I loved about Bruno's. It really put the emphasis back, at least for me, in my Chicano upbringing, which is on the family for those who are in the room and who are not in the room that we really want to be in the room.

And I think that's, you know, there's an upside, a shiny side to Chisme. It's really about that. It's about singing people back into the room and everyone's sharing their connections with them. Good. And mostly bad. [00:23:00]

Neomi De Anda: Usually, but, yeah, in better cases, I think it's also a way that people then laugh at, at ourselves and learn more about ourselves and how our family sees us or how others who love us see us.

With theological education, I think it's really also interesting to think about how we educate in our communities. So in our Latinx, Latine, Latinos, Latino communities, we do educate in these communal models and try to connect each other. But it is funny to me now being, I guess a middle aged scholar.

I don't even want, I don't want to say older scholar, but I think I'm starting to get there very quickly. Scholar, that the young scholars go from person to person to see what [00:24:00] they can learn about each person, but also what they can learn about the other people in the community and to test the waters and create various narratives.

So, I don't think it's just about children actual biological children, but kind of communal generational creation and that we do that as scholars as well in our community here in the USA and come together through a very, through various organizations and through kind of informal settings as well. So, I think that's great reactions. Thoughts?

Edwin Aponte: Well, certainly I want to follow up on what you said about this,  communal scholarship as I've come to the end of my time of service at Louisville Institute and reflecting on that part of what I've brought very intentionally was to try to have Louisville Institute [00:25:00] adopt a en conjunto, de conjunto approach in everything, a communal approach, and for a historically dominant approaches to scholarship and theological education, it is so individualized.

And what we have found that this emphasis on communal engagement and communal production. And communal and collaborative journeying through as scholars and as teachers, there is a hunger for it. So, this is a gift coming out of the Latinx community that others have really resonated with and adopted. And that is something that is countercultural.

And so the communal aspect, and I think Chisme in the best sense, contributes to this communal development and this [00:26:00] ongoing communal identity is something that is helpful. To have this desire to be attentive to everyone and to take a risk to be in relationship. At the stage that we at the Louisville Institute meet many early career scholars, there is a overwhelming kind of a negative Chisme, right? That everyone is out to steal my research.

And how can we encourage people to go on in life with a not denying the realities and the challenges that one has to face, but one could choose a better way to go forward. That we don't always have to be looking out for someone to steal something from us. So, the cultural dimension I think is very important.[00:27:00]

And the reality of Chiseme is that there's a naturalness to it when there is that community, that people feel at ease and trusting enough to be able to talk with each other that way whether it be standing next to the cooler or the barbecue, or having certain types of beverages at a professional conference, wherever it may take place, but to be able to trust into relationships with each other and talk with each other.

Patrick Reyes: Yeah. I would add to, I mean, some of the work that we do at FT, it's really about scholars of color. How do we gather scholars of color? And I would say make space for Chisme. Like, how do we create the container for us to have the conversations we need to have about everything that's happening out to Edwin's point, what's happening out in the world and to flag, hey, you don't want to work with that person.

It [00:28:00] may have just been my experience. They could be awful. They could be, but hey, just watch out. Like some of that stuff, which I think in other contexts could be considered gossip, but for me, it's survival. Like I need to know that insight as a first generation into the academy. Like this is, and for a lot of our folks of color who this academy was not built for, this is making space for Chisme to actually be like, sharing those strategy tips around how to survive, whether they're true or not, are helpful just to have the container that makes a space for that.

I think it's really important to be able to have spaces, to have those conversations. And also to say, making the distinction between Chisme and like, let's say libel. And I'm like, hey, you know, if you're in the circle, we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about things, you know, I don't care if you agree with me or not.

And then, you're going to be invited back next week. And we're going to keep talking about things because the circle has been created. This is who our community is. This is who our people are. You know, you don't share Chisme with everybody. You share it with [00:29:00] your people.

So, you know, I think that there's something there that's really particular to the academy that's necessary for survival to us to have pockets where we can have those, pull those conversations aside and say, I got to talk to you about so and so. Like this is not cool. How do we navigate this? Or how do we kind of negotiate these things and share those little stories that shouldn't have happened?

You know, like the rain did fall, person did go bald, and they did grow a gut, you know, like, and, and really try to help and think about that as a community. And, you know, on the flip side, how do we do, as Edwin say, also kind of correct what Chisme does kind of cultivate, which are some of the more negative things about people and correct some narratives.

The Academy is such an anxious place. People are trying to perform. Peer review is a thing. You know, success, we got jealousy. I mean, it's just, it's the perfect individualistic, capitalistic thing that we got going on in the Academy. It's just, it's just messed up. And one of the things too, people do tend to do is to project, you know, that person shouldn't have [00:30:00] gotten it.

They shouldn't have been working with that mentor. They shouldn't have got that publication, whatever it might be, or they're not supporting me and just correcting that in those circles to say like, hey, I actually know that person. They're really cool. You should hit them up. You should call them.

Like that, they're not saying anything about you behind your back. So I think that making spaces or zones for Chisme, not gossip, but Chisme, like for us to share the chips, and strategies to survive this world, I think is really important.

Neomi De Anda: I think there's two really great points. One about bringing together what you said, Dr. Aponte with en conjunto. And the whole phrase is pastoral y teología en conjunto. So that pastoral life, how we care for one another, is what feeds how we grow our logics, our theories, our wisdom ways, and that we do that with one another and for the broader church world [00:31:00] society. I think that's a major gift.

Pastorale y teología de y el conjunto is something just to keep thinking about when we think about particularly around theological education and the future of what religion and religion scholarship and religion scholars look like and how is it that we create futures. So, I think those are all just exciting things, also exciting things to talk about with the two of you because you two are serious future creators.

The other thing that I think is really interesting to connect back with you Dr. Reyes is the notion of cultural gaslighting. So that many times we're thinking, okay, did I just misstep? Like the, did I spill the tea as in the Chisme, or did I spill the tea as an I made the misstep and I actually went to, you know, or was it that people expected me to serve the tea because I'm the Latina [00:32:00] and instead I gave the keynote and then they didn't know what to do, you know, so the actual, what is going on within our cultures and with the broader Academy and being able to have that community where we can check things and say, well, okay, no, there they were mistreating you or there X, Y, or Z.

And then the other piece about blaming the person themselves. So, I was recently talking with a new mom who said, I feel so isolated because, who's also a scholar. I feel so isolated because I don't want to share anything with anyone anymore because everybody seems to blame me for everything, everything that goes wrong with the child, everything that goes wrong with my career, everything that goes wrong anywhere. I'm getting the blame.

So, we actually created a side foil. This person had someone else who did not [00:33:00] live up to what they were supposed to be doing in this person and this child's life, their child. I don't mean, and sometimes, for people being either the first of, or one of a very few, or feeling very isolated, or feeling temporary, and so I think those are all great points.

Edwin Aponte: I want to follow up on this idea about these themes of Chisme and survival, and gaslighting, and processing what's happening. It's something I'm still trying to process, is the Chisme that I've been part of, as we've talked about someone who did not check in with the wider community and has experienced difficulty in life.

But if they had connected with the Chisme, the community could have told them, you know what, be careful over there. [00:34:00] So it's a kind of a communal processing after the fact over someone's, what, misfortune, difficulty in life and how to fold that back in and not to assign or delegate someone to living between the walls of the home, but to bring them back in, right?

So, all right, we all make mistakes in life and we go to some places where they were not helpful or positive, so how can we talk about that? With them and help them process it, you get what I'm saying here? That there's a communal process because in one sense we were observers through that and said oh no, that's bad, and if he or she, they had asked us, we would have told them, but it was too late, right? So what do we do on the other side?

Patrick Reyes: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, there's a, there's a communal process to this and sharing stories. I think what [00:35:00] I love about Chisme as a thing is it's accessible to everybody, you know, in the Academy, there's barriers of access, you know, and then we put them all in there for, to try to, you know, imagine that we're in some sort of meritocracy, which is just not true.

It's a, you know, messed up system and the way it is. And Chisme allows us, I think, to kind of democratize that and say, hey, we want to give you some of this, the skills, tips, strategies to make it through. And I think Edwin, you're absolutely right. There is also this sort of post event moment, like We Don't Talk About Bruno song is all, all of them are reflecting on post events, things that have happened and that they've assigned to this person that they would have.

If, if he wouldn't have said it, it probably wouldn't have happened. It probably still would have happened. But you know, this is one of those things like, hey, if we can pay attention to what's happening in the weather, you would have seen the storm clouds are coming, you would have seen everyone else in your family's ball, you would have seen everyone else grew a gut.

[00:36:00] Like these are facts of that you shouldn't be fighting with. But if you're a part of this community, you would have known. And I just, I think about the role of Bruno as well, that this, as I think about that, that line I gave at the beginning around we've, we've put every single family member's name in the place of Bruno at some point, and we, there's always all those narratives that come behind when I put it as, you know, one of my brothers, I put his name in there, our cats, one of the favorite thing, like we all know what we're talking about when we're singing, we don't talk about that person.

There's these stories behind them and to kind of connected to something you said, at the very beginning, Edwin, is they're about the stories that you know, and potentially publishing. The other thing I really like about Chisme I wouldn't want to lose is that it's not for everybody. It's not for the public.

It's maybe not for a book or a documentary or for our research. It's the stories of our community that we know that kind of actually shepherd our lives and [00:37:00] tell the narratives of our lives. Like those stories are like, you know, talking about a marriage, their wedding day, like, these are things that we have stories that maybe aren't for the public knowledge, they are just for us.

And, I just love that about Chisme is a thing like this is for us, like this is, and we don't take it now into what you said, we don't take it that serious. I mean, we do. But it's for humor and we laugh and we cry about it. And, but it's for us. And I think there's something that, especially in the Academy, the scholars I work with trying to navigate, what are the things for the Academy?

Chisme for us. What are the things you publish about? You wouldn't publish about everything we talk about in the circle. You wouldn't document it. This is really for us. This is conversation over the cooler, over a meal in the kitchen, and to build community. I really, I wouldn't want to lose that. I think it's a wonderful thing. And I'm good at it too. No, I'm just playing.

Neomi De Anda:  So, I think [00:38:00] one of the other things I wanted to bring up about Bruno is the notion of prophecy. So Patrick, you talked about, that people should not be surprised that Bruno sees these things or says these things, but they even in the song, see it as a prophecy.

They name it that in the word is used in the song and so it made me think about what does that mean? We're scholars of religion. When we think about prophecy and looking ahead and being able to tell something, is it about reading, what's going on culturally? And because we're trained to be readers of culture, we seem to be able to do that differently.

I mean, sometimes people will say to me, how do you see some of these things?  But is it because we seem to have, we need to develop some sort of way [00:39:00] of reading dominant cultures or dominating cultures around us to be able to survive and thrive? So, I wanted to spend some time talking about prophecy.

Edwin Aponte: Yeah, let me start with talking about Bruno as prophet in the film. And one of the characteristics of Bruno as prophet is that often he does not understand what he sees and is communicating, right?  And what does that mean for the prophet to have that certain type of insight, but it really is calling on others to understand.

And also the dimension of the prophecy, am I remembering the character correctly, Mirabel, right? How it's going to turn out depends that she has agency in what's, how it's going to happen, and how collectively the [00:40:00] family is going to, not just be saved, but enter a new dimension of their life together as family and then life with the larger community. 

So the prophecy is real, but doesn't necessarily mean that from the get go, we understand what it's about, right? It's a leaning into what the prophet has shared.  And certainly many of us have learned how to be cultural observers, to be cultural interpreters, to see what is happening.

And so part of the work that we do sometimes is as astut describers of what's going on, right? And if the people in the village were astute, they would have known that if the rest of the men in your family were bald, you were going to be bald too, right? That at some day, all the goldfish are going to die, right?

So that's part of it, right? But then there are other dimensions of it that  [00:41:00] we need to be challenged when the prophecy comes not to default to one particular interpretation. And in the story of Encanto, I think that's part of what happened with the family, right? That they saw only one very negative kind of possible outcome of what the prophecy meant.

And then that became the dominating narrative. And so there has to be, and maybe this is something that we do with each other is to challenge each other to say, what are the other possible interpretations and maybe those of us who've had the ability experience, the education to learn, to be observers and interpreters of different cultures and what's happening in society and within different communities, religious and non-religious, that we can bring, well, it could be that, but I have a hunch, maybe it's this as well. So that prophecy is not [00:42:00] necessarily one meaning that there could be multiple meanings.

Patrick Reyes: To something about just naming the reality, like being able to as everyone said the keen observer of what's happening and just saying it out loud, can be disruptive. Like this is what these are the social dynamics I'm seeing happening in the room.

You just said this and because I called it out as what the impact of that thing happening, it becomes I'm somehow the problem. I'm like, look, this just went down. We were all here. We all experienced the same thing, but the kind of the social expectations that we would not talk about that. We all saw it. It all happened. We want to move on with our lives. Why are you calling attention to it?

And I think that's the role, I mean, biblical scholars and religious scholars, I mean, this is the role of the prophet is to name what the reality is in the light of God's context. You know, like what's happening in the larger story of the community and just naming it like y'all are not being faithful.

That's the call. I mean, there's all the details that come after that, but that's traditionally in the prophetic [00:43:00] literature, that's what it is. And so for me, you know, really thinking about this, the role of a prophet is to name the world as it is. And I think about even the not to predict what will come.

I think even those predictions, let's say, you know, the weather in the song, you got the weather, you got things that are happening in people's bodies. Like we could have predict that everyone's going to die. Like, this is a thing, the goldfish flipping over, like, of course, you know, like these are obvious things that happen to everyone, it's going to happen.

But you think about the, the image that they give with Mirabel and the reflection and seeing the house split. Now a keen observer, a prophet, who's watching this movie would see, at the very beginning of that movie, she's singing with the house. She knows everybody's gifts. And when I see that, I'm thinking of my own family.

When my grandmother, who was the stitch of our whole family, all of us could feel it. When she dies, we're going to be a mess because she held it all [00:44:00] together. The house will split in our thing. My tití, my aunt, has kind of stepped into her role. We're having that same conversation now. When she goes away, who's going to hold this family together?

It's going to break. And so when I was watching this film, I'm here, I'm seeing Mirabel, even though she doesn't have a gift of her own, her gift is she knows the house. She knows everyone's ins and outs. She can introduce you to, she knows everything. So a prophet would say when something happens with Mirabel, and there's going to be a disconnection, the house is going to fall apart because she's, she's the glue of this.

I know it's a story about the grandmother, how she's built this whole thing, but she's that next generation. She's my titί, you know, like she's holding this, the cousins, her aunts and uncles and her grandmother, all she's the, what she's really her, her superpowers holding this family together.

And kind of casting out how we're going to do this again within the larger community, not just in their family, but in the larger community. And so, I think about that role of the prophet is really to name the world as is and be an observer of what's happening in [00:45:00] the community, the social dynamics.

And it's less about predicting this is what's going to happen as much as being able to say, wow, like, hey, you know, you, you both are community builders. I'm talking two great community builders. If you weren't in your roles and in your places, the students say uDayton, you know, Louisville Institute, or, you know, in the future in Drew, like, they're going to be missing something.

They're going to miss some of that constituent glue. That's not me projecting that like the world's going to end. It's just saying that you are such powerful relationship builders and holders and the beauty of that. And naming that reality, that that's going to be a huge void, should you ever leave your positions?

And I think that's hard. People are not used to having the world narrated for them to see it as it is. Cause the world's busy. We want to just move along on our way. We don't want to be told this is how we're shown up. We don't want to be told because it would force a change of behavior, how we might want to show up for our family members and our community [00:46:00] members.

So I think the role of prophet, as you ask this question is really just to name the world as it is and to see it for what it is to name that truth. And the beautiful thing about, we don't talk about Bruno's, like the whole family's wrestling, like, yeah, that did happen. We would rather blame Bruno than say, hey, we should add a backup plan for our wedding if it rained.

Neomi De Anda: I also thought you're getting married in the church, it's right behind you. Why is this such a big deal? But, yeah, that's a whole different thing. I also wonder about, they're talking, they're saying we don't talk about Bruno, they're talking about Bruno, yet they don't notice that Bruno has lived in the walls of the house for years.

And it makes me think about what is it that we may actually use as a tool, a scapegoat to blame, [00:47:00] and then pretend we don't notice it's there simultaneously, you know, or is that something to talk about, that which goes unnoticed. It was just fascinating to me. And probably that he is hearing them tell these Chismes over and over and over throughout all the years because he's having dinner with them every night, too.

So, at the dinner table, what they're not talking about, but they're whispering to each other, he's probably hearing. So, it's just it's also very interesting dynamic on that sense.

Edwin Aponte: Right. And one dimension from their perspective of the majority of family Bruno's not there. But as we know, once we, through Mirabel, get behind the walls, we learn that he was always there and he set up his space so that he could be with them at dinner, right?

And the other thing we learn, that the family doesn't know yet, is that the issues with the [00:48:00] house have been going on for a long time. And unknown to them, Bruno has been patching things together behind the walls. Right, so you ask about a scapegoat, why is it that we need a scapegoat, right? I realize it's there in the Hebrew Bible, right?

And we probably don't have time to talk about that. But what does that do? Is that trying to lift any kind of responsibility we have of seeing the world as it is and responding, having to deal with it, by putting it on someone else? And that's not fair. That doesn't seem fair. And it doesn't resolve it.

All right, so we, from our side, the house looks fine and the walls look fine, but it's precarious. It's being held together. And even the [00:49:00] one that has been banished, who is no longer visibly there is still having a role in the life of the community. So I think this challenges us, if we're talking about Bruno, it challenges us, what our conceptions of the need and the identity and the reality of who are the scapegoats? Why the practice of scapegoating? Why do we do that?

Patrick Reyes: They put Bruno in the background of basically everything. So Bruno's been there the whole time. We haven't seen Bruno. I mean you go online, you can see all the different YouTube videos and all that stuff, where in the song they're singing about him he's literally dancing in the background.

Which is hilarious to me like to your point at the beginning Naomi like when you start talking about someone they're typically there and they'll show up like he's back there celebrating the fact that everyone's talking crap about him while he's in the background, like he's like, I'm in the room, you know, like, okay, I'll do a little shimmy while y'all talking about me.

It's [00:50:00] fantastic for all the listeners, you know, go back, check out YouTubes and all the great blogs about this, where they point out that, you know, these folks like Bruno are in the background and sometimes they enjoy it.

Neomi De Anda: I wanted to return back to the patching things together piece. And from two different points, one in the shift that we've seen globally of  people who lived in the backgrounds who we now call frontline workers.

And who many times no longer want to do these positions. So, we're finding people who don't want to do these jobs. And we relegated them. Society has relegated them, or societies, it's a global phenomenon, I don't want to say it's just of the U.S. and I don't want to say it just happens to Latinx peoples.

But, to the background to be able to say our world is beautiful it's [00:51:00] perfect it looks so nice and clean and there are no, there's no cracks in my house, the, so that's one piece about how the COVID 19 pandemic has made us look at who are those people who hold our societies together. And that it's also seemed to be empowering and adding some agency for people are saying, I will no longer do this the way that you have been expecting or have been enjoying for me to do. So that's one piece.

And then I wanted to come back to something you mentioned with me, Edwin and Patrick, about trauma. A lot of people that I saw talking about this movie and even about Bruno were talking about trauma and familial trauma. And so, I don't know that's a topic we wanted to revisit or if that's just too traumatic and we want to keep it light. So, we can do that in another way in another day. [00:52:00]

Edwin Aponte:  Your questions, particularly related to the reality of what we experienced through this pandemic, made me think of my elder sister. So, Neida is a nurse, she's an RN. And so, nurses already are frontline, but if there's a way to describe it, they became even more frontline and just the horrific stories, particularly in the early months of what she experienced.

And the triple masking and the plastic mask and everything and what she needed to do each night after a 12-hour shift and then wash everything. Cause in a few hours, she was going to be back in the hospital. And what happened to her once she was eligible to be to retire, that was it.

Before the pandemic, she had been talking about, [00:53:00] you know, I enjoy my work as being a nurse and everything. And then, but because of the, the overwhelming burden of it, So Neida as one of the frontline workers and for many people, nurses are in the background, right? Until you need them, right? She was just overwhelmed and exhausted. And when she could tap out, she was out.

Even though we talked about essential workers, as a larger society, I don't know if we have sustained memory about what those people have done for us and the risk they took for larger society. And as different states get rid of mask mandates and other things all the things that we said we would do and we would never forget our frontline workers and we would applaud the medical professionals every night at 7 p.m., right? [00:54:00] All that's gone, right?

And what about the talk about providing our essential workers with a living wage if that ever got any traction that also has seemed to dissipate it as well, right? So, there's a situational aspect to this, that those who are on the front lines that help hold things together for the larger community, we have amnesia about them, so what does it do for us to try to remember?

In a positive way, and is, it makes me wonder if not talking about Bruno is a deliberate decision not to talk about things that we ought to talk about, not just about individuals, but larger systemic injustices that we [00:55:00] ought to give attention to. And of course there is trauma in a nurse, including a nurse in ICU and with the dying that the pandemic had an impact on her that nothing else before had.

And other than occasional talking with us in the family, who is she talking with to process all that? Who are the other persons who've been essential workers in the front lines? How are they processing that?

Patrick Reyes: I mean, if you pick up on that, I think these questions are related, at least they're related for me and my work. One of the pushbacks I got in the pandemic, especially, since we all went virtual was, in my organization is the one, the only woman, the PhD who's doing the scholarship thing, making it a lot of questions.

Why? Why would you research this? Why would you talk about it? Why do you want to make, to publish this? As Latinos, you know, across the [00:56:00] spectrum all of us, you know, less than, you know, 4 percent have PhDs in my community, less than a percent of a percent have a master's degree in anything, and that includes healthcare and legal services and all that stuff.

And I get super pissed when these questions come up, because I'm trying to call to account these things that are happening. And I'm from think about frontline workers, like being able to name and take up space in these, in the academy, or even in my own institution to say, like, y'all are trying to talk about things in a really abstract way in 2020, when the fires were raging in California.

Less than a mile from the packing plant that my dad was working at where he's trying to put food because my entire team and myself included, we're ordering food delivered to our houses. He's going in to check in with his people to make sure in a global pandemic, when there's fires going around, he's going to work 10 to 12 hours a day to make sure I can order food [00:57:00] from an app.

You know, been so marginalized, so ignored. If the central Valley in California became its own state, be the poorest in the nation, like we have been erased from the record. And this is a tough conversation to have across races that were also being affected by deep trauma. Across genders, people who are feeling like there's a legitimate concern of the glass ceiling.

Yeah, I'm here. I'm here for that. I'm here for this. And let me tell you about my dad and my family are still going to work. There's a fire right now and you know, we're all dying. Can, I'm not trying to take up too much space. I'm trying to say all of these things are important. We need to be able to coalesce around these issues. Frontline workers, like Edwin said, where did that go? Where did the, where did, you know, raising the minimum wage go? Like, these are things that we need to be talking about and not see them as competing or a race to the bottom.

And so for me, this, now this question around what, what, what we don't talk about is we don't talk about those people who we have literally tried to invisiblize, those folks who are working in the fields, which is my first community, [00:58:00] Latinos, Chicanos, Mexican Americans who are in the fields in the Central Valley in California, who are going to work to make sure we got food on our table.

We do everything we can to not know their lives. Like this society has done everything across all spectrums, all people to erase them. So that way I can get my food and not have to think about how or where it came from. It blows my mind, as people who have to eat three meals a day at least. You know, like it's just, this is, it's violence.

And I think about the connection to trauma. Those folks who are in the fields are deeply traumatized by what's happening in the world. Deeply traumatized by the work. Can we not think about, the oppression the folks who are working in Watsonville, California, are experiencing when they go and pick the strawberries.

It's that we don't talk about Bruno. We want to have our good wedding. We want to, we want to have a goldfish that lives forever. Let's just replace the goldfish and throw the other one away and not actually think about what's happening in the world. And like this is, this is how we function. This is how I get out of bed. I don't want to have to think about where my food came from. [00:59:00]

Neomi De Anda: Yeah, and we focus on my wedding was ruined because of the rain, not that I could have pitched my own tent or made different plans or, so yeah, so again, thank you both though for those incredibly rich stories that are very, both very personal, but I do think that the telling of the stories that are concrete are among the most important pieces of what we need to be doing to,  humanize all of these pieces we don't talk about.

Dr. Reyes and Dr. Aponte also, do either of you have some last thoughts?

Edwin Aponte: I think that with Chisme, to just remind ourselves to be open to the broadness of the definition, and it's all right in when we connected with the [01:00:00] English gossip, but to remember the history of gossip and the connection of Godparenting. So in what sense do we have a Godparenting role as we engage in Chisme in a positive sense?

I get, particularly in fairy tales, there's the image, right, of the evil godparents. So, I'm not thinking about that, but I'm thinking of the godparent who really is loving, and who is thinking of their godchildren, and wants the best for them. And so to give ourselves permission to not be ashamed of Chisme, but also to be open to the possibilities of the good that can come out of our engagement with it.

Patrick Reyes: Yeah, for me, it's just the recognition that life is messy. I don't know why we try to clean it up so much [01:01:00] and that Chisme is just, for me, a part of it. And I think if people are participating in it, if you're going to get into it, get into it, but get into it in a loving way. Like, and if they're talking about you, if you're Bruno, you know, take a little advice from Bruno, like, hey, watch what they did with him in the background.

He is literally dancing and hanging out and he's having a good time. I know he was pretty sad when he was in the walls, but there is something about this, like hold it with the lightness. This is a, Chisme is about community. It's about the people who are actually involved in that and wanting to keep people in the community and remember them.

Neomi De Anda: That’s definitely it. Well, thank you both for participating in our Chisme Symposium. We're so excited to be able to do this out of the University of Dayton and hope this is just the beginning of a conversation and we can continue to move forward.